Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

John Selden's works on Jewish topics are on Google Books

A few months ago I quoted an article about John Selden, pre-eminent 17th century English jurist and scholar, showing that he derived most of his ideas of natural law from the Talmudic formulations of the Seven Noahide Laws:

John Selden was in his day perhaps the most important political and legal theorist in England (“the law-book of the judges of England,” as the poet Ben Jonson called him). Yet Selden chose to publish most of his ideas in the form of a series of massive commentaries on the social and political ideas of the Talmud. Selden’s works sought to retrieve the political thought of the rabbis and apply them to pressing questions of early modern political theory such as the concept of a national tradition, the proper relationship between church and state, the theory of marriage contracts (especially pressing as Protestants broke with Catholic traditions on the subject), and much else. In particular, Selden’s The Law of Nature seeks to develop a political theory capable of undergirding the ongoing refusal of the English to abandon their national system of law, the Common Law, in favor of the putatively universal Roman Law being aggressively promoted on the Continent. Relying on the Jewish legal system as a prototype, and on rabbinic political theories as a crucial ally, Selden seeks to show that only a world constituted of independent nations, each with its own particular legal tradition, can be the basis for mankind’s search for that which is ultimately just and true. The rabbinic “Laws of the Sons of Noah,” which serve as the Talmudic version of a universal natural law, are taken by Selden to be the best approximation of a natural law available to mankind.

It turns out that his major works are available on Google Books, in their original printed forms - in Latin.

Here is the frontispiece for "The Law of Nature," or more accurately, "De jure naturali et gentium, juxta disciplinam Ebræorum," showing the Noahide laws being taught to the world (the lectern is labeled "Laws of the Sons of Noah" in Hebrew):

Indeed, the book liberally quotes from an astonishing array of Talmudic sources as well as later Jewish commentaries, lots of Maimonides, and even Kabbalistic sources.

Google Books has full copies of his works on the Sanhedrin, on Jewish laws of marriage and divorce, and many others.

I wish I knew Latin. I also wish I knew as much about Jewish law as Selden evidently did.

More comedy from Bashir Assad (ElderToons)

Yesterday we were treated to the humorous stylings of Wacky Bashir Assad, where he regaled us with hilarious tales of "occupation" being responsible for all Arab problems.

Today, his stand-up comedy act continues in the pages of Germany's Bild. Among today's jokes are that there are still Jews in Syria (sure, about 25 of them.)

In fact, here's the poster for his upcoming comedy tour:

(h/t Silke)

Morning links

Egypt continues to bar Hamas members from crossing through Rafah to Egypt.

Ashamed to be an Arab - Why is the Arab media silent on horrific abuses of human rights?

JCPA analysis on the competition between Iran and Turkey to win the hearts and minds of the Arab world.

Another JCPA article about the fallacy of the "1967 borders."

Richard the The Augean Stables fisks a Ha'aretz piece supporting BDS.

And if you want to read today's edition of full-throated nutty conspiracy theories, check out the wacky Veterans Today site. It starts off calling Obama a "Zionist warmonger." Ha'aretz, meanwhile, interviewed the nutcase behind that site here, giving it legitimacy for Arabic websites to start quoting it.

Egypt claims to have busted Israeli spy ring

From Al Masry al-Youm:

Egyptian security forces have arrested several people suspected of belonging to an Israeli spy network operating in Egypt. The alleged network reportedly consists of two fugitive Israeli officers and four Egyptian nationals.

The State Security apparatus is currently conducting a highly secretive investigation of the suspects.

Investigations have so far revealed that network members had succeeded in establishing two communications offices, one in Cairo and one in the UK, through which they recorded telephone calls made by prominent Egyptian government officials. The calls were then allegedly transferred to a communications office in Israel.

Investigations have further revealed that one of the Israeli officers had managed to recruit a female Egyptian public relations director working at a tourism company to supply him with information, in return for money, about places frequented by certain groups of tourists--including those from China and Japan--near the border region of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

After being provided with the information, the Israeli officer was then able to kidnap a number of tourists who were allegedly taken to Israel. After several days, kidnapped tourists were then reportedly returned to the place from which they had been abducted. The operation's apparent objective was to destabilize security in the Sinai Peninsula.

Confessions by the defendants have revealed that the two officers had recruited a former female basketball player and her friend to rent a communications office in Cairo, which was run by a third person who has also been arrested. This office was reportedly linked to a communications office in the UK.

The defendants were thus able to monitor and record telephone calls made from certain landlines in Egypt--as specified by the two officers--which were then transferred to the UK office before being re-transmitted to a communications office in Israel.

Egyptian security forces have arrested and detained the Egyptian suspects pending investigation, while public prosecutors have charged them with conducting espionage for a foreign country, recording telephone calls without permission, and forming a "terrorist cell" aimed at disrupting public order.

Interpol, meanwhile, has been asked to issue arrest warrants for the Israeli suspects.

Al-Masry Al-Youm has learned that the case file contains more than 15 telephone calls involving high-ranking government officials that were successfully recorded by the suspected spies.

New details via RTT:

Egyptian authorities claimed Monday that the country's state security service has busted a 'spy-ring' engaged in espionage activities. It is said to have been attempting to recruit employees working for telecommunications companies in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon as Israeli operatives.

State prosecutor Hisham Badawi revealed Monday that local businessman Tareq Abdel Razeq Hussein Hassan, 37-year-old owner of an import-export business, was arrested in August for his alleged involvement in the Israeli spy-ring.

The idea that Israeli spies infiltrate telecommunications networks in the Arab world is not only believable but most probable, though it is an open question as to whether this was really one of those cases.

But the supposed plot to kidnap tourists for a few days and then return them, quietly, to "destabilize security in the Sinai" makes no sense at all.

By the way, whenever Palestine Today illustrates a story about Israeli intelligence, it uses this image:

Somehow, I don't think the fedora is meant to evoke Dick Tracy.

Wikileaks: Syria avoided accusing Israel of Suleiman assassination

From The Guardian:

It was late in the evening of 1 August 2008 in the Syrian coastal city of Tartous when the sniper fired the fatal shot. The target was General Muhammad Suleiman, President Bashar al-Assad's top security aide. Israelis, the US embassy in Damascus reported, were "the most obvious suspects" in the assassination.

US state department cables released by WikiLeaks trace the panicked response of the authorities. "Syrian security services quickly cordoned and searched the entire beach neighbourhood where the shooting had occurred," the embassy was informed. Syrian-based journalists were instructed not to report the story. It was a sensational event, akin to another mysterious assassination in Damascus earlier that year, when a car bomb killed Imad Mughniyeh, military chief of Hezbollah.

Initial reports were vague about Suleiman's identity and position, and the news blackout lasted for four days. But the US government knew exactly who he was. A secret document several months earlier gave his precise job description: "Syrian special presidential adviser for arms procurement and strategic weapons."

Eleven months earlier, Israeli planes had attacked and destroyed a suspected nuclear site at al-Kibar on the Euphrates river, apparently one of the special projects Suleiman managed "which may have have been unknown to the broader Syrian military leadership", as the embassy put it. Israeli media reported that he had also served as Assad's liaison to Hezbollah.

Israel was the obvious suspect in Suleiman's murder, US officials reported. "Syrian security services are well aware that the coastal city of Tartous would offer easier access to Israeli operatives than would more inland locations such as Damascus. Suleiman was not a highly visible government official, and the use of a sniper suggests the assassin could visually identify Suleiman from a distance."

In the capital, the government remained silent, probably, the embassy speculated, because "(1) they may not know who did it; (2) such accusations could impair or end Syria's nascent peace negotiations with Israel; and (3) publicising the event would reveal yet another lapse in Syria's vaunted security apparatus."

In August, a book was published about Israel's destruction of Syria's secret nuclear reactor, and it discussed details of this assassination - as Suleiman was not only Syria's liaison to Hezbollah but he was also in charge of their nuclear program and possibly other weapons programs.

Wikileaks: Libyan anti-semitic campaign against Marks and Spencer

From The Guardian:

A Marks & Spencer store in Tripoli was subjected to a "repugnant anti-semitic" smear campaign by the Libyan government in an attempt to force its closure, according to US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks.

The row became so violent that US officials were warned by Libyan government contacts that at least one high-ranking businessman backing the franchise could be murdered in a faked car crash.

Attacks on the British retailer by Libyan officials "at the highest levels" risked causing irretrievable damage to bilateral ties with the UK, the US embassy in Tripoli warned Washington in 2008.

The memo described the "ongoing drama surrounding efforts by the UK government and investors to keep open the Marks & Spencer retail store in Tripoli, and a campaign by some Libyan government officials to close it."

M&S opened the Tripoli store – its first in Africa – in April 2008 and the franchise is still operating today. But after its launch the store was subjected to what the cable described as "persistent anti-Semitic rhetoric" by the Libyan government. There were accusations that M&S was a "Zionist entity" with Jewish origins, that supported Israel and "the killing of Palestinians".

The store was temporarily closed by Libyan authorities at least twice, and employees were repeatedly taken in for official questioning and put under "close scrutiny" by security officials who, the ambassador warned, were used as a "strongarm adjunct in this political play".

...Marks & Spencer told the Guardian: "M&S is a secular organisation embracing all cultures, nationalities, races and religions. We do not support or align ourselves to any countries, nations, states, governments, political parties or religious bodies."

And history repeats itself. From Al Masry al-Youm, last week:

This international BDS movement has campaigned against multinational corporations that do business with Israel and/or have close ties to the Zionist movement, including Starbucks, Marks & Spencer, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Nestle, amongst others. Marks & Spencer in particular has been the target of a burgeoning BDS campaign in the UK and Ireland since 2006.

In Egypt, the boycott campaign against Marks & Spencer commenced in November. The campaign's website, dubbed "Stop Marks & Spencer in Egypt," lists 15 reasons why Egyptians should boycott the soon-to-open department store.

"We’re calling on Egyptians to boycott because we know that it is easier and less risky to abstain from purchasing products than it is to engage in activism and street protests,” campaign organizer Salma Shukrallah told Al-Masry Al-Youm. "We are specifically targeting Marks & Spencer because it is one of the primary corporations that support the Zionist movement.”

Shukrallah went on to say that the Jewish owners of the store chain had been involved with Zionism since the early 20th century, "decades before the establishment of the Zionist Entity [Israel]."

"We are not campaigning against Marks & Spencer because its owners are Jewish, but rather Zionists,” she stressed. “Nonetheless, accusations of anti-Semitism are typically leveled against the BDS movement by supporters of Zionism."

Marks & Spencer failed to reply to Al-Masry Al-Youm's questions by email regarding the corporation's historical links to Zionism and its position on BDS campaigns targeting the store’s new Egypt operations. The company’s customer-service section did, however, send a standard reply to activists’ enquiries, which read as follows:

“At M&S we do not support or align ourselves to governments, political parties or religious bodies. Despite this, we are sometimes asked to boycott products from various countries for a number of political, moral and social reasons.”

“Israel is one of over 70 countries we source our products from. It is important that we visit each factory or supplier location to check that our quality and ethical standards are maintained. As we are not able to do this in the West Bank or Golan Heights areas, we are not sourcing goods from there.”

“We do not feel that we should impose any specific views on our customers. All our products are clearly labeled with the country of origin or production to enable customers to make their own informed choice about what they wish to buy.”

The first Marks & Spencer store is to scheduled to launch operations in early 2011 in Dandy Mall, located on the Cairo-Alexandria desert highway. A larger branch is also scheduled to open in the Cairo Festival City shopping mall by spring 2012.

Hasbara case study

In my Hasbara 2.0 lecture I stressed that Israel needs to use the language of human rights to argue its case, especially to a liberal audience.

I was just pointed to a post at The Camel's Nose that makes the same point beautifully:

Today, Maen Rashid Areikat, Chief Representative of the PLO to the United States, penned a response to Moshe Yaalon’s articleon the Middle East Channel of Foreign Policy.com. While faulty policies are at the core of Israel’s public relations woes, the two articles are an excellent case study in the failures of Israeli rhetoric and public relations. The Foreign Policy readership is highly mobilized, educated, and invested in world affairs. A side by side comparison of three components of the articles illustrates the extent to which Areikat understands this, and Yaalon does not.

Read the whole thing, and hope that Israeli leaders read it as well.

(h/t Zach)

Wikileaks: Netanyahu's reverse "linkage"

I found this vignette from Wikileaks interesting:

Netanyahu said he had told President Obama that while he would not condition negotiations with the Palestinians on halting Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon, if Iran obtained such a weapon it would destroy any progress made toward peace. He added that Egyptian President Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah were in complete agreement with him on that point.

How's that for linkage? If you want peace, then keeping Iran out of the nuclear club is an absolute prerequisite!

And it has the advantage of being completely true.

Wikileaks: Israeli pessimism for peace

One of the remarkable things about Wikileaks, at least as far as Israel is concerned, is that they show that the State Department has been surprisingly accurate in describing the Israeli mood. While most news media, university professors (I mean you, Walt and Mearsheimer), NGOs (HRW and Amnesty) and pundits all too often layer their own biases or wishful thinking on their analyses, the State Department cables - at least in the case of Israel - "get it." This surprised me because there is a history of pro-Arab thinking at State, which may indicate that the decision makers are discounting what Israeli leaders are saying. But at least the lower-level diplomats who are writing these memos are not coloring the reports for an agenda, which is a refreshing change after years of reading inaccurate stories about Israel in places like the New York Times or Reuters.

Here is an example:

Polls show that close to seventy percent of Israeli Jews support a two-state solution, but a similar percentage do not believe that a final status agreement can be reached with the Palestinian leadership. Expressed another way, Israelis of varying political views tell us that after Abu Mazen spurned Ehud Olmert's peace offer one year ago, it became clearer than ever that there is too wide a gap between the maximum offer any Israeli prime minister could make and the minimum terms any Palestinian leader could accept and survive. Sixteen years after Oslo and the Declaration of Principles, there is a widespread conviction here that neither final status negotiations nor unilateral disengagements have worked. While some on the left conclude that the only hope is a U.S.-imposed settlement, a more widely held narrative holds that the Oslo arrangements collapsed in the violence of the Second Intifada after Arafat rejected Barak's offer at Camp David, while Sharon's unilateral disengagement from Gaza resulted in the Hamas takeover and a rain of rockets on southern Israel. Netanyahu effectively captured the public mood with his Bar Ilan University speech last June, in which he expressed support for a two-state solution, but only if the Palestinian leadership would accept Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and the Palestiian state would be demilitarized (and subject toa number of other security-related restrictions o its sovereignty that he did not spell out in deail in the speech but which are well known in Wahington). Palestinian PM Fayyad has recently termed Netanyahu's goal a "Mickey Mouse state" due to all the limitations on Palestinian sovereignty that it would appear to entail.

Wikileaks: No one guarding Yemen's nuclear material

From Wikileaks, January 2010:

The lone security guard standing watch at Yemen’s main radioactive materials storage facility was removed from his post on December 30, 2009, according to XXXXXXXXXXXX. XXXXXXXXXXXX. The only closed-circuit television security camera monitoring the facility broke six months ago and was never fixed, according to XXXXXXXXXXXX. The facility XXXXXXXXXXXX holds various radioactive materials, small amounts of which are used by local universities for agricultural research, by a Sana’a hospital, and by international oilfield services companies for well-logging equipment spread out across the country. “Very little now stands between the bad guys and Yemen’s nuclear material,” a worried XXXXXXXXXXXX told EconOff.

¶2. (S) Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi told the Ambassador on January 7 that no radioactive material was currently stored in Sana’a and that all “radioactive waste” was shipped to Syria. XXXXXXXXXXXX

¶3. (S) The NAEC nuclear material storage facility normally contains IAEA Category I and II amounts of iridium and cobalt-60, including a lead-encased package of 13,500 curies (Ci) of cobalt-60 that was allegedly shipped to Yemen from India six months ago. XXXXXXXXXXXX told EconOff that XXXXXXXXXXXX the cobalt-60 was moved late on January 7 from the largely unsecured NAEC facility XXXXXXXXXXXX implored the U.S. to help convince the ROYG to remove all materials from the country until they can be better secured, or immediately improve security measures at the NAEC facility. XXXXXXXXXXXX

Dirty bombs, anyone?

Wikileaks: Israel's premonitions about Turkey, November 2009

From a new Wikileaks cable, November 11, 2009 (before the Mavi Marmara and the diplomatic row in early 2010):

The GOI [Government of Israel] raised the current direction the Government of Turkey has taken toward Syria and Iran -- and away from Israel. Israeli participants argued that Turkey has been supportive of Hamas in Gaza while pursuing a more "Islamic" direction with the goal of becoming a regional superpower. The GOI argued that the Turkish military is losing its ability to influence government decisions and strategic direction. After this past year, GOI participants said they have a "bad feeling" about Turkey. The GOI noted that the Israel Air Force (IAF) Commander in the past wanted to speak to the Turkish Air Force Commander, but his Turkish counterpart declined.

And in another cable that same month:

Israeli officials also expressed growing anxiety over the Turkey-Israel relationship after the Turkish cancellation of Israel's participation in the ANATOLIAN EAGLE joint exercise. They expressed their belief that the strategic relationship with Turkey is critical, but that PM Erdogan's views have increasingly penetrated into the military and have been part of the reason for the deterioration in relations as Turkey looks East rather than West. Gilad believes this is understandable as Turkey's EU accession prospects look increasingly doubtful, and they must balance their relations with both regions to succeed.

And another:
Israelis are deeply alarmed by the direction of Turkish foreign policy, and see Erdogan and Davutoglu as punishing Israel for the EU's rejection of Turkey while driving Israel's erstwhile strategic ally into an alternative strategic partnership with Syria and Iran.

Assad blames everything on "occupation"

An interview in Bild.de (German) with Syrian president Bashir Assad:

Q: Mr. President, in a few days people all over the world - including Christians in Syria - will be celebrating Christmas, the celebration of love and peace. Here in Damascus, we are in the heartland of the Bible. Why has this region had no peace for hundreds of years?

A: In a word: occupation. For centuries, we are living under extremely difficult conditions. But if you look at the social fabric of the region then you will see that it is very peaceful here. Apart from Lebanon during the last three decades there has been no civil war. Look, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine and the entire region of Syria - there have been no internal conflicts. The cause of all conflicts is occupation: first by the British, then by the French, now by the Israelis. This leads to despair which leads to extremism. This is the reason why we can not find peace.

How many lies can one find in this simple paragraph?

No internal conflicts in the area? What about Hamas/Fatah? What about Syria destroying the town of Hama and killing tens of thousands of people in 1982? And not long before that we see Jordan violently suppressing Palestinian Arabs from their coup attempt, killing thousands more. Syria was involved in that as well, and seized territory that Jordan still claims. His claims are ludicrous.

It's funny that he doesn't consider the Arabs to have been "occupied" by the Ottoman Turks for hundreds of years.

Even funnier is the fact that Israel's most peaceful border for the past few decades has been, arguably, the Syrian border after the capture of the Golan Heights. That "occupation" - where a state with no violent intention holds onto strategically vital land to stop the opponent from having a staging ground for war - has led to the closest thing to real peace that the region has seen. (Israel even allows thousands of tons of apples that are harvested in the Golan to be exported to Syria.)

So from all evidence, "occupation" does not lead to war any more than Arabs living amongst each other leads to war. In fact, the bogeyman of "occupation" has led to more Arab unity than they have ever had on their own!

(h/t Silke)

The History Channel's false history

The History Channel has a brief, but very misleading and sometimes false, description of the Arab-Israeli conflict on its page concerning the 1947 UN Partition Plan.

A thorough fisking from J-Wire:

“Despite strong Arab opposition, the United Nations votes for the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish state.”

No mention is made of the fact that the UN also voted for the creation of an independent Arab State.

Again the inclusion of just nine words “and an independent Arab state which the Arabs rejected” would have clearly indicated that the UN had not only offered the Jews a state but also offered the Arabs one as well – which the Arabs rejected.

The failure to insert those missing words carries the innuendo that only the Jews were offered a state in 1947 but the Arabs missed out and begs the question – isn’t it time the UN now rectified that injustice in 2010?

“The modern conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine dates back to the 1910s, when both groups laid claim to the British-controlled territory.”

Actually the conflict had started about thirty years earlier – so that chunk of history is either unknown to the History Channel’s researchers or was deliberately overlooked.

The territory was not “British-controlled” until the conclusion of World War 1. It was part of the Ottoman Empire until then.

Pity the poor students who use this material in their projects – and their teachers – who rely on this material as being accurate and reliable.

“The native Palestinian Arabs sought to stem Jewish immigration and set up a secular Palestinian state”

Really? Are the history buffs at the History Channel unaware of the following facts?

“The three main political organizations in Palestine-the Arab Club, the Literary Club, and the Muslim-Christian Association (the lack of mention of Palestine in their names is revealing) — all worked for union with Syria. The first two went farthest, calling outright for rule by Prince Faysal. Amin al-Husayni was president of the Arab Club; the extremism which later made him notorious as the leader of Palestinian separatism (and an ally of Hitler) already showed itself in 1920, when he instigated riots for union with Syria. A member of the Arab Club, Kamil al-Budayri, co-edited from September 1919 the newspaper Suriya al-Janubiya (“Southern Syria”) which advocated Palestine’s incorporation into Greater Syria.

Even the Muslim-Christian Association, an organization of traditional leaders-men who expected to rule if Palestine became independent-demanded incorporation in Greater Syria. Its president insisted that “Palestine or Southern Syria-an integral part of the one and indivisible Syria-must not in any case or for any pretext be detached.” The Muslim-Christian Association held a Congress in early 1919 to draw up demands for the Paris Peace Conference. It declared that Palestine, a “part of Arab Syria,” is permanently connected to Syria through “national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic, and geographical bonds,” and resolved that “Southern Syria or Palestine should not be separated from the independent Arab Syrian government.” Musa Kazim al-Husayni, Head of the Jerusalem Town Council (in effect, mayor) told a Zionist interlocutor in October 1919: “We demand no separation from Syria.” The slogan heard everywhere in 1918-19 was “Unity, Unity, From the Taurus [Mountains in Turkey] to Rafah [in Gaza], Unity, Unity.”

“Beginning in 1929, Arabs and Jews openly fought in Palestine”

Staggeringly the History Channel seems to be unaware of the 1920 riots which saw four Arabs and five Jews killed, while 216 Jews were wounded – 18 critically – and 23 Arabs wounded – one critically.

“Radical Jewish groups employed terrorism against British forces in Palestine,”

Since when is fighting the armed forces of your adversary – not its civilians – described as “terrorism”? The History Channel’s biased slip is surely on display for all to see.

“At the end of World War II, in 1945, the United States took up the Zionist cause,”

The United States had taken up the Zionist cause on 30 June 1922 when both Houses of Congress unanimously endorsed the Mandate for Palestine.

On 21 September 1922 President Warren Harding signed the joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine

“The Jews were to possess more than half of Palestine…,

It is a pity the History Channel could not have added: “more than 70% of which was the arid and sparsely populated Negev Desert”

“The Palestinian Arabs, aided by volunteers from other countries, fought the Zionist forces”

Strange that the History Channel should be unaware that these “volunteers” comprised the “Arab Liberation Army” set up in Damascus under the command of Fawzi Kaukji. Seven of these detachments with a strength of about 5000 had made their way into Palestine by March 1948. They were divided into four commands.

“The next day, forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded.”

Oops – the History Channel forgot to include Saudi Arabia – a small oversight.

The History Channel then has the gall to state at the end of this outrageous release:

“Fact Check. We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us! “

Creating myth instead of stating fact is one of the greatest impediments to securing a resolution of the conflict between the Arabs and Jews.

The next time you watch the History Channel (if you ever do so again) – don’t take what you hear and see as the truth. There are apparently a lot of dunderheads employed there or – perhaps more insidiously – persons deliberately bent on misleading the public.

Fame and fortune follow those who make wild accusations against settlers

From Ma'an on Saturday:

A farmer said he watched a group of settlers in the northern West Bank gather his sheep and set them on fire Saturday afternoon.

When he returned to the area, he told officials, he found 12 sheep burned alive, five with severe burns and two others that were only lightly burned. "I've lost at least $12,000," he said, calling the act abominable.

Mayor of Aqraba, the village near where the attack took place, Jawdat Bani Jabir, identified the farmer as 40-year-old Samir Muhammad Bani Fadl.

Fadil said he was out pasturing his sheep in the eastern part of the village when a group of armed settlers approached him in a white car and asked him to come and speak with them. Feeling threatened, in an area where rights organizations recorded a ballooning number of settler attacks and vandalism during the month of October, Fadil fled and watched the group from an adjacent hill.

According to the farmer's testimony, the settlers gathered all the sheep into an area thick with brush, and set fire to the bushes.

The idea of "settlers" taking the time and effort to gather sheep together specifically to burn them is too absurd for words. (Wouldn't it be easier to simply steal them? How do a few people stop 19 sheep from running away?) Beyond that, to think that these presumably religious Jews are driving around and setting fires on the Sabbath proves the story to be a fake.

But that doesn't stop the anti-Israel crowd from believing this insane story uncritically, and gives the accusers worldwide fame.

The story was reported by Uruknet, Islamic News Daily, PressTV, Ikhwanweb - and, of course, Mondoweiss.

Palestinian Arabs have long ago learned that they can make up any story about Jews and they will be uncritically believed by not only the Arab world but often by credulous NGOs like the UN and HRW. Fact checking simply doesn't exist when the bad guys are evil Zionists.