Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 24, 2007

Fatah's war against Bethlehem pilgrims, 1967

An interesting tidbit in a Time magazine article about Israel and the "occupation" in December 1967: ...Incidents of terrorism still occur. Arab "commandos" last month infiltrated close enough to Tel Aviv to lob nine mortar shells into the suburb of Petah Tiqva, and two weeks ago another guerrilla band shot it out with police near the city's international airport. Terrorists also blew up the water reservoir of a kibbutz in Upper Galilee, almost...

"Collaborators"

From Marty Peretz at TNR:I've just finished a truly intriguing book. It is called Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948 and is the product of what is clearly a daring mind, that is the mind of Hillel Cohen of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The book bears two blurbs: one from Zachary Lockman, director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies at N.Y.U., who last appeared in the news as a signatory to the international...

The end of the Christian community in Gaza

From AP:Gaza's tiny Christian community is keeping a low profile during Christmas this year, traumatized by the killing of a prominent activist after the Islamic Hamas group's takeover of the coastal territory. Few Christmas trees are on display, churches are holding austere services and hundreds of Christians hope to travel to the West Bank to celebrate the holiday in Bethlehem. Many say they don't plan on returning to Gaza. "We have a very sad...

HH CXLVI

The latest, and slightly late, edition of Haveil Havalim is now up at Soccer Dad. This 146th edition includes two of my postings, Rocking the Casbah and Good News from Israel21c.Check it ou...

Egyptian columnist explains rationale for PalArab "right of return"

While perusing the Al-Ahram al-Arabi magazine (see previous post), I came upon this article written by Abdulrazzaq Aldahish (autotranslated, cleaned up a bit):What would happen if about ten million Palestinians demanded Israeli citizenship with the abolition of the [Zionist] racist laws?The Israelis themselves constantly claim that they oasis of democracy among Arab dictatorships.Voters choose the president and the government and members of Knesset.The...

Ripping off the Elder?

On Saturday night, I did what I often do - I looked through the auto-translated Arabic press to see if there was anything interesting to blog. An article in Ma'an about an Arafat aide admitting that Yasir Arafat had headed the Black September Organization fit the bill, and as I've done dozens of times before I posted my "scoop."Unlike most times, though, this was noticed by a very popular blog, Little Green Footballs, and as a result I received some...

David Raab's Salt Shaker (Barbara Sofer)

From JPost:You never know when you'll need a salt shaker, David Raab thought as he slipped into his pocket the little dispenser that came with the packaged meal. His family was returning from a glorious summer in Israel on TWA flight 741. His dad, a rabbi in Trenton, New Jersey, had already returned home to perform a wedding, but his mom and the five kids stayed until the last moment before the 1970 school year began. ...

Adventures in Arabic auto-translation: "Resistance Missiles"

The Palestine Today Arabic webpage has a story about how Israel is putting 100 million shekels to protect hospitals from "resistance missiles."The main emotion that shows through about the ability of Palestinian Arabs to terrorize Israeli citizens, and threaten hospitals, is pride:Minister announced strategic threats, Israel, Our Home Party leader Avigdor Lieberman, today, Sunday, that his party approved the submission of 100 million shekels view...

Finally, after a week of anticipation, the 600th Palestinian Arab to die from internal violence in 2007 (by my count) has been identified. Fittingly, it was from a "work accident":The General Commander of the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed group affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP, Mu'in Al-Masri aged 40 died on Saturday night of his wounds...

The Israel lobby and Western shared values

Egypt's Al Ahram recently published an op-ed, republished in Al-Arabiya, about the challenges the Arab world has in trying to come up with its own version of the "Zionist lobby." The author, Ayman El-Amir, starts off with "what everybody knows":Ask any Arab politician, diplomat, foreign policy guru, media practitioner, political activist or Arab-American of any vocation about the secret of Israel's iron grip hold on the formulation and direction...

Former aide admits Arafat founded Black September

Ma'an (Arabic) reports that a series of articles being authored by longtime Arafat aide Marwan Kanafani in Egypt's Al Ahram will say that it was Yasir Arafat himself who created the Black September organization in 1970.Black September was behind many of the highest-profile terror attacks in the early 1970s, including the murder of Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi Tel, the Munich Olympic massacre, the May 1972 hijacking of a Belgian airliner from Vienna,...

Eric Alterman - another liberal who doesn't get it

In the most recent issue of The Nation, as well as the International Herald Tribune, Eric Alterman laments the fact that while Jews are overwhelmingly liberal, American Zionist organizations tend toward the right:Today's topic is the paradox - or one of them, anyway - of American Jewish political behavior. No, it's not that hoary old cliché that they "earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans." Rather, it's that they think like enlightened...

I have no problem with eating meat, but I do have a problem with hypocrisy. PETA, which goes out of its way to find offense when people hurt animals, is completely silent this week when tens of millions of sheep, camels, and cows are being slaughtered - often in the street, in front of happy crowds of people - in honor of the Eid al-Adha celebration.Here are some wire-service...

Arab News agrees that terrorists are "martyrs"

The Saudi-based Arab News is as moderate a voice as exists in that Islamic country. It has been very critical of the sharia-law excesses in Saudi courts and is equally scornful of the Muttawa, the Saudi religious police.But even the "moderate" Arabs all agree that Palestinian Arab terrorists are worthy of praise:Every One of Them Has Martyrs in FamilyInside the walls of the Palestinian camp at Mina [in Saudi Arabia, performing Hajj] there were many...

Rocking the Casbah

From JTA:An Israeli army rabbi is under investigation for putting a mezuzah up in an off-limits area of Hebron. The rabbi of the military's Judea Brigade was photographed this week putting up a mezuzah in the casbah, or old city of Hebron, accompanied by Chabad supporters. The Hebron casbah, from where many Palestinian residents have fled during the past six years of violence, is off-limits to Israeli civilians out of concern that settlers might...