Golden Oldie: "Don't trust any kaffirs"

As I am unavailable to post, check out this post from August 2005.

---

I was surfing tonight and saw a rabidly anti-Israel article concerning another thinly-disguised anti-Jewish campaign for the town of Somerville, MA to divest from Israel. Among the hysterical, bigoted and demostrably false comments in this article were:

* Zionism is a "violent genocidal racist ideology";
* " Israel’s crimes are ongoing, and have included bombing the Church of the Nativity."
* "Are we safe with them living among us? What if they want to murder our family and steal our house? What if they get a Caterpillar bulldozer to root out non-Jews from Somerville? These are the kind of racists we are dealing with here."

The author of the article was "Karin Friedemann", a prolific author of anti-Israel diatribes who is also editor of the "World View News Service", and who is evidently also known as "Umm Yakoub" and "Maria Hussain."

As she lobbies Somerville about human rights and liberal ideals, perhaps someone should point out exactly how liberal she really is:

For example, she is quoted as having said

"Muslims ... are not seeking peace. We get peace from Allah. In Palestine, we will stop only at victory, which will be, inshaAllah, in the end, a just implementation of Islamic religion. We have to guard against the Palestine movement being represented primarily by homosexuals and feminists."



A little further research finds that she wrote this lovely liberal statement about Jews in the anti-semitic Jewish Tribal Review:

"Clearly, there are no moral guidelines in Jewish Law, other than genocide and enslavement, for the treatment of conquered peoples, as one would find in Islamic Law. While Islam views humans as stewards of the earth, and Muslims consider themselves God’s appointed defenders of religious freedom for people of all religions, Judaism neither proclaims respect for other people’s prophets nor guarantees any respect of other people, nor even of the environment, except in so far as they are useful to the Jewish community. "

Not surprisingly, she supports US Muslims murdering their fellow soldiers:

This is written in response to Stan Goff’s article "The Case of Hasan Akbar" in which he repeatedly asserted that he did not condone Hasan Akbar’s killing of two US soldiers. I was put off by his obscene moralizing and wrote to him that were I in Akbar’s shoes I would have done the same thing, and when I am president I will put Hasan Akbar on a postage stamp.


And lest the Massachusetts liberals still feel that Karin/Maria/Umm is still a kindred spirit, perhaps these words that she wrote in 2002 to fellow Muslims in a posting called "How Quickly Liberals Become Fascists" will make them think twice about what she thinks about them:


Salam alaikum

I am forwarding this to you all just so you can see how even liberals who seem to be on our side will quickly turn on you and attack you. [following is a story about a liberal who she feels attacked her in a letter....]

Live and learn. Don't trust any kaffirs, because if they knew what you really think they will turn on you at the drop of a hat. They only feel sorry for Muslims as long as we are being victimized. But if we ever were to gain domination they would cringe in horror.



Ms. Hussain's own rants, as disgusting and bigoted as they are, do not even hold a candle to the absurd filth she happily reprints in her "newsletter" from other anti-semites. Check out, for example, "Do Sinister Jews Rule the World?" (Guess what the answer is!) and "Nuclear Attack in United States `Imminent' As Jews Continuing Fleeing From North America" - just in recent weeks.

It is bitterly ironic that someone who is so strongly a Muslim supremacist, who openly despises "kaffirs", who viciously attacks the most liberal writers when they give even a mild rebuke to any Muslims worldwide, who clearly hates all Jews with a passion - that such a person can represent herself as someone who seeks "justice" and "equal rights."

UPDATE: Ms. Friedemann/Yakoub/Hussain married Joachim Martillo in 2004. Martillo is one of the most bizarre people in cyberspace history. Back in the early days of Usenet, around 1985, he represented himself as a Sephardic Jew who was rabidly anti-Arab and anti-Ashkenazic Jew. For example:

> In article <5...@jjmhome.uucp> marti...@jjmhome.UUCP (Joachim Martillo) writes:
> >In practically every way, Palestinians are a thoroughly dispicable
> >community whose bigotry and fanaticism prevents them from joining
> >the modern world and who deserve much worse punishment than they
> >are receiving (apparently mostly at their own hands -- poetic
> >justice or the cunning of history, if I have ever seen it).

He changed in the mid-90s, claimed he was never Jewish, and now he is one of the most pro-Arab and anti-Jewish voices on the Web. As I recall, he was always beyond weird and in some ways quite intellectual, in other ways just off the wall.

A match made in heaven for the strange, psychopathic Ms. Yakoub.

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Jews "storming" Temple Mount during Ramadan

Palestine Press Agency has another article about those wicked Jews desecrating the holy Al Aqsa Mosque by walking around and - horrors! - possibly praying!

Of course, to do this during Ramadan is an extra insult.

Jewish religious groups on Sunday morning broke into Al-Aqsa Mosque from the gate, and then toured around the mosque, while performing religious rites according to Talmudic Judaism.

The Al-Aqsa Foundation said in a statement received by the Palestine Press News Agency that today's break-in today is an unprecedented move, as Jewish groups are not allowed to enter the area during the month of Ramadan.

The article goes on to detail other crimes: tour groups that describe the "alleged" Holy Temple, Jews calling the Mughrabi Gate the "Rambam Gate," and plans to do even more egregious acts of prayer during Sukkot.

Keep in mind that streams of tourists simply walk inside the Al Aqsa Mosque constantly. Only religious Jews "storm" the area.

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Ma'ariv vs. HRW

HRW has responded defensively - but not convincingly - against Ma'ariv's accusations of bias by the main author of its report that claims to have "proof" that IDF soldiers fired on Gaza civilians holding white flags.

The "white flag" accusation is the core of the report. In fact, it is called "White Flag Deaths." But look at how HRW defends itself from Ma'ariv's and the IDF's responses:

• "Human Rights Watch is relying on the testimony from people who are not free to speak out against the Hamas regime." Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, in an interview with the BBC, August 13, 2009.

• "The Human Rights Watch report which claims that IDF soldiers killed 11 Palestinian civilians holding ‘white flags' is based on unreliable witness reports." Israel Defense Forces (IDF) statement, August 13, 2009.

Both claims are false. Human Rights Watch methodology does not rely only on the accounts of victims and eyewitnesses. We examine medical records such as hospital and autopsy reports; forensic evidence left over from attacks, such as bullet casings, tank tracks or ammunition boxes; the attack sites themselves; and we conduct interviews with multiple witnesses, including medical staff and law enforcement, military and other officials and, where possible, the alleged perpetrators. Our interviews are conducted in private (unless otherwise stated) and confidentially. We carefully cross-check individual interviews with the interviews of other witnesses to assess reliability and consistency, and assess information we receive against accounts of the fighting made available by the IDF, Hamas combatant lists, and in the media.

Well, since medical records and bullet casings and tank tracks and ammunition boxes do not say anything one way or the other about white flags, all that is left are "witnesses."

And Palestinian "eyewitnesses," to put it simply, lie. They lie consistently, they lie to a known playbook, and the evidence of their previous provable lies is overwhelming. To rely on "witnesses" to prove the white flag allegations is exactly the same as to rely on "witnesses" to prove that Israel steals organs - which is what the Swedish newspaper did last week.

Moreover, HRW ignored the inconsistencies from these very supposed eyewitnesses that had been published and noted in numerous sources in the days after these attacks. If the very witnesses they rely on cannot keep their own stories straight within days of the incidents, how reliable can their testimony be to HRW months later?

The author of the original Ma'ariv article, Ben Dror Yemini, responds to the latest HRW attempts to deflect their bias and shoddy research, and the article is translated here. It is important enough to reproduce in full:

CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

Ben-Dror Yemini, Maariv, 21.8.09

HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS BECAME THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN RIGHTS

On Sunday (16.8.09), I wrote an article entitled "Author of Report Against Israel Supported Munich Massacre" which dealt with Joe Stork, the man who presented the severe Human Rights Watch (HRW) report last week (13.8.09) which said that 12 Palestinian civilians, including children, were shot to death by IDF soldiers even though they were waving white flags.

The article received widespread coverage and many references, and apparently struck a very sensitive chord with the organization. Up until now, the organization did not respond to claims of anti-Israel bias; on occasion, it arrogantly belittled the claims. This time the organization deviated from its habit. Two days later (18.8.09), Stork sent a letter to Maariv in which he tried to deal with the claims that were made against him. The letter is presented in full below, both for reasons regarding the right of response and in order to make it clear that the letter, in effect, only strengthens the claims against the organization in general and against Stork in particular. Following is Stork's letter in full, with remarks added in order to set the record straight.

***

"The Israeli government and Ben-Dror Yemini ['Author of Report against Israel Supported Munich Massacre'] seem to share a “shoot the messenger” approach when it comes to addressing painstakingly researched criticisms of the Israel Defense Forces’ actions in Gaza. Instead of addressing these detailed findings, they spread malicious misinformation about me and my organization, Human Rights Watch."

Stork is right. One must deal with the message, not the messenger. But sometimes, in extreme cases, there are grounds for focusing on the messenger. Let us assume that a former Ku Klux Klan activist would issue a report against Afro-Americans. Would the report be important or the messenger? The comparison is not far off the mark in the current case. Stork opposed the recognition of Israel and was even one of the founders (!) of a group that admired the murder of the Israeli athletes in Munich. Stork also recommended that the left-wing body should withdraw if the PLO decided to negotiate with Israel. May we not doubt the objectivity of such a man?

"On August 13, Human Rights Watch released a report detailing instances in January in which Israeli soldiers killed Palestinian civilians who were waving white flags to convey their civilian status. Government spokespersons sought to dismiss the report by calling Human Rights Watch biased. But to date no critic has disputed the facts about the seven incidents in the report, in which soldiers shot and killed 11 unarmed civilians, including four children and five women."

One of the main stories in the HRW's report relates to Abd Rabbo family, that three of her daughters were shot in cold blood, despite the fact that they raised a white flag, and despite the fact that fighting was not in the area. The case was published extensively on many newspapers around the world. A special report of Tamar Sternhal from CAMERA found out significant contradictions in the testimonies of the family members and the neighbors. Sternhal test was much more meticulous than the HRW report, and was posted on 4.2.09 - long before the publication of the report of HRW. It was ignored by the HRW team. Even the “Times Magazine” published a contradicting testimony about the Abed Rabbo affair, but again, it was ignored by HRW.

And indeed, it is becoming clear that HRW carried out negligent and non-serious work. All of the incidents appearing in the report were known to the IDF. The report itself did not add anything. Moreover, the claim that, "no critic has disputed the facts about the seven incidents," is a total lie. On the contrary, regarding five of the seven incidents, it was decided to open Military Police investigations, meaning that the IDF is carrying out a serious inquiry. If there are discrepancies – they are being thoroughly examined.

HRW adopts the opposite method. Videos have been published of Hamas personnel exploiting civilians and hiding behind white flags. These were even published on YouTube. Is there even one word – one! – about this in the HRW report? Of course not.

In the same video, it should be pointed out, the terrorist hides in a house from which civilians are waving white flags. The terrorist was apprehended. The civilians were not hurt. It is no coincidence that the film's findings were not refuted in the HRW report because when the target is painted in advance – the delegitimization of Israel – the facts will not confuse Stork and his people. While photographic testimony that refutes the findings of the report receives no comment, the testimony of Palestinians living in the shadow of Hamas's reign of terror receives top billing. Is this testimony serious? NGO Monitor responded to this and refuted HRW's claims. But Stork, as is his custom, takes no notice.

Many claims have been made against Israel. Israel did not ignore them. On the contrary, many of these claims were refuted in detail, in a 163-page Foreign Ministry report that was issued on 29.7.09. The HRW report, which was issued two weeks later (13.8.09), ignores most of them, just as the video was ignored because this is what HRW does. Stork is not even interested in checking; he wants delegitimization.

"Now, again instead of addressing our research, Mr. Yemini has launched a personal attack on me, which the Israeli government has dutifully translated and distributed. The quotes he attributes to me are more than 30 years old. Most of them I do not recognize, and they are contrary to the views I have expounded for decades now. For instance, selective excerpts about the Munich massacre come from an unsigned editorial that appeared 37 years ago where at the time I was one of seven volunteers that produced the publication. All my work since then shows that I would never support such an attack. For nearly 40 years, I have been documenting, writing, and speaking out on injustices by virtually all of the governments and many non-state armed groups in the Middle East. This work is readily available – including at Middle East Report magazine, which I edited through 1995, and at Human Rights Watch since then – but Mr. Yemini did not include these many statements, undoubtedly because they did not support his claims. Had he looked at the hundreds of statements, articles and reports I’ve written since the 1970s, he would have found exposés of Saddam Hussein’s murderous regime and my report for Human Rights Watch on war crimes by Palestinian suicide bombers. I have dedicated much of my adult life to the protection of human rights for all and to fighting the idea that civilians can be attacked for political reasons. Ma'ariv and Mr. Yemini owe me an apology."

Indeed, it is clear that Stork does not deny even one of the claims that I raised. He simply claims that there are his remarks from many years ago. Has Stork disavowed his very problematic past with the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP)? Indeed, in an article he wrote in 1993 on US-Israel relations, Stork expresses very similar positions to those he expressed in his MERIP days. Moreover, many footnotes in the same article direct the reader to remarks written in MERIP years before. This means that not only has there been no turning point but a reiteration and continuation of the past. And it should be clear that Stork was for the Israelis just as the KKK activist would be for the Afro-Americans.

Let us continue. Stork claims that HRW published condemnations of Saddam Hussein and Palestinian suicide terrorists. This is the case, there indeed were additional reports. But these reports do not pass the proportionality test. Among countless human rights violations around the world in which Israel has a marginal and small place, HRW sees fit to issue countless reports precisely on Israel, a disproportionality that indicates a pre-selected goal and Stork's special logic. Even when HRW issues a condemnation of a Palestinian action, Stork adds clarifications of his own [in a 2001 BBC report]: "Most of the [Palestinian] security officers have been in Israeli jails." Yes, the Stork of the past is no different from the Stork of today.

Stork's headline-grabber has to do with the equivocal support issued by MERIP in the wake of the Munich massacre: I was "one of seven volunteers," he tries to claim. Not exactly. Stork was one of MERIP's founders and the chief editor of the journal which published a statement in support of the massacre. It is a pity that Stork does not read his own CV as it appears on HRW's official website. The determination that the action was "an important boost in morale" for the Palestinians is part of the sequence of other remarks, including opposition to recognizing Israel, encouraging Arab countries to struggle against Israel, etc.

I believe that today, Stork would not issue a statement in support of massacring athletes. But Stork has merely gone from the highest rung on the anti-Zionist ladder to the next one lower down. But he is still on the same scale. He was and remains in the ranks of the anti-Israel Left. NGO Monitor and Prof. Gerald Steinberg will soon publish a book that analyzes a decade's worth of HRW publications and the people behind them, including Stork himself. But Stork is above criticism. It is possible to assume that he did not bother to study NGO Monitor's detailed response to the HRW report. This allows Stork to claim that there were no responses. This is what he does. When Steinberg previously issued a biting and substantive criticism, Stork arrogantly responded that he is not at all interested in criticism against him.

Israel, in contrast to Stork, takes notice of the criticism against it. It checks itself. Not all criticism of Israel deserves to be dismissed. Israel also makes mistakes. But Stork is a special personality. He is both radically anti-Israeli and unwilling to be criticized. Is it possible to accept the "criticism" of such a man?

Stork is not alone. When he began to work at HRW, he had no special expertise in the field. His only talent was a series of articles that were exceptionally hostile to Israel. That is not surprising. The Director of the Middle East Department, Sarah Leah Whitson, arrived at HRW after having been in a pro-Arab body. This is legitimate. Is there a chance that someone from the Anti-Defamation League would be accepted to HRW?

Global human rights are in a predicament. The UN Human Rights Council has turned into the Dark Regimes Rights Council. Saudi Arabia, Iran and Libya have an automatic majority. Non-governmental organizations, such as HRW, were supposed to stand against such bodies. But in reality a sad thing happened, Whitson flew to Saudi Arabia recently to raise funds for HRW. And they don't even understand that they have a problem. This is how non-governmental bodies have transformed antagonism towards Israel to the main issue. They are biased to the extreme. They place Israel in the same category as Sudan, and publish weak protests on the suicide and rocket industries, just to discharge a perfunctory obligation.

Israel is contending with the Hamas regime, the official covenant of which is the closest thing to Nazi ideology. This is a group that calls for the elimination of the State of Israel, the malicious murder of Israeli citizens, gratuitous Jew-hatred, and many of its speakers talk candidly about taking over the West. How exactly is a democratic country supposed to confront such an entity, indoctrinated in the ideology of hatred, murder and incitement? Why is Europe permitted to fight the Taliban – which threatens Germany or Spain much less – with much harsher measures, but Israel is prohibited from fighting a body like Hamas?

It is permitted to criticize Israel. But HRW has lost the moral right to do so. He who in the past has called for the elimination of Israel; he who supports, directly or indirectly, the boycott of Israel, cannot become an objective critic. There is a need for an international struggle for human rights. But bodies such as HRW hurt this important struggle. They become the prop of the world's darkest regimes. Instead of saying unequivocally that such a regime, such an ideology, such an element – has no right to exist, the HRW is waging a struggle that is not a criticism of Israel, but rather wild slander against Israel. True, there is marginal criticism against Hamas. But criticism of Israel is the main point. And therefore, for the sake of returning human rights to its proper standing, it is time for HRW to cleanse its ranks.

The very existence of a group like Hamas is a crime against humanity. Stork and HRW find it difficult to understand this. On the contrary, in their crude attack, in their delegitimization of Israel, they are parties to this crime.

h/t SfA

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Sunday/Monday open thread

I will be traveling and unavailable most of the day Sunday and Monday and blogging will be light to nonexistent.

Feel free to comment on anything cool you come across.

If I have a chance, I'll try to queue up some postings while I am unavailable.

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Report: Hamas executed opponents inside ambulances

Palestine Press Agency quotes an Italian news agency as saying that Hamas executed several injured Jund Ansar Allah members who were being evacuated in ambulances.

A number of commenters to the article claim to have witnessed those very events. One said that he saw Hamas stop an ambulance with 17-year old Jihad Duhan, who had a bullet wound in his foot, and shoot him in the head.

Another commenter said that he saw 22-year old Abdullah Awadallah murdered in the hospital he was being treated in.

PalPress is very anti-Hamas, but in general a high percentage of their anti-Hamas reports end up being corroborated. It is hard to know how accurate the comments are but the names mentioned were indeed of people killed during the mini-war.

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Peres says Shebaa Farms not the issue; Hezbollah agrees

YNet reports:

In an interview set to be published Sunday, Peres said that Shiite group Hezbollah serves nothing but its own narrow interests, and that he believes it will continue to fight Israel even if the latter withdraws from the disputed Shebaa Farms and the border village of Ghajar.

This is not just a guess. Hezbollah has said the same thing. As I quoted a Lebanese newspaper last year (original no longer available):

The Shiite movement Hezbollah said on Thursday that Lebanon would still need its armed presence even if Israel finally quit the disputed Shebaa Farms district in the south.

"Any Zionist retreat from the Shebaa Farms would be a big achievement for the 'resistance' for this would be the result of its role and its pressure," Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah was quoted as saying by the state-run National News Agency.

But any retreat "will not change the fact that Lebanon needs the resistance," he said.

Remember, Hezbollah is not composed of Palestinian Arabs. They have no valid territorial claims against Israel. A full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon has not made them go away or become any less threatening, despite the wishful thinking of Western diplomats.

Hezbollah's insistence to maintain its own terrorist army proves that it is still an Arab-Israeli conflict, not a Palestinian conflict.

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Photo of evil Jews

Palestine Today marks today as the 40th anniversary of the arson attack against the Al Aqsa Mosque by a deranged Australian Christian named Michael Dennis Rohan. Palestine Today has an article about it, calling Rohan "Jewish" (as Arabs have done for 40 years.)

Perhaps more interesting is how PalToday chose to illustrate the article:
They've used this exact image at least twice before. (It was originally part of a series of pictures showing the placement of a model of the Second Temple.)

Clearly this family is part of a plot to destroy Al Aqsa and replace it with a Joooish Temple. The father is photographing the Holy Sanctuary to figure out where to place the bombs, and the kids are holding extra sensitive Mossad-built lasers to pinpoint the weak points.

By the way, exactly six years ago Hamas attacked a bus leaving the Western Wall. The suicide bomber killed 18 people including 5 children.

In other words, a far more heinous attack occurred on this same date in history, but no one talks about that one.

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Starving Gazans (2009 edition)

Heartbreaking pictures from Palestine Today.





Many more can be seen here.

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Clan clash!

From Ma'an:

A clan clash in Tubas caused the death of a young man and incineration of five houses Thursday night.

Palestinian Authority police arrested five in connection with the death of the 23-year-old Husny Ziad Abed Sawafta. An additional 38 were injured. Sawafta was shot point blank with a 9mm.

The police said Sawafta’s family set fire to the homes to avenge the death of their son, and the fires lead to street-side brawls.

There was another clan clash in Bethlehem this week. More than 30 were hospitalized.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is at 168.

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How bad are things in Gaza?

The Free Gaza movement just released a Ramadan message begging for funds.

Dear Friends of Palestine,

Inshallah, this appeal finds you and your families in the very best of circumstances. Sadly, not all of our brothers and sisters in the world share this good fortune. The Palestinian people continue to live under a cruel occupation regime, subjected to merciless Israeli policies designed to ethnically cleanse Palestine of her people. The situation is especially dire in Gaza, where Israel has imposed a brutal siege that is denying 1.5 million Palestinians basic food, medicine, and the freedoms that we take for granted.

So how has Gaza been doing while under this brutal siege designed to mercilessly ethnically cleanse all of Palestine?

The current blockade began in June 2007, although the military blockade started at the outset of the intifada. One would expect that things must have gotten progressively worse for Gazans over the years from reading propaganda from Free Gaza as well as the media.

The data show differently.

The most obvious metric is life expectancy. After two years of supposedly restricting food and medicine into Gaza, one would think that it must be effecting the demographics of Gaza by now.

The truth may surprise you (all figures from CIA World Factbook, historical data from IndexMundi)

Year	Life expectancy at birth	Rank	Percent Change	Date of Information
2003	71.4	106		2003 est.
2004	71.79	111	0.55 %	2004 est.
2005	71.79	113	0.00 %	2005 est.
2006	71.97	116	0.25 %	2006 est.
2007	72.16	114	0.26 %	2007 est.
2008	73.16	105	1.39 %	2008 est.
2009	73.42	107	0.36 %	2009 est.

During the blockade, the life expectancy increased at a faster rate than beforehand!

Not only that, but Gaza's life expectancy ranks solidly in the middle compared to all world countries and areas, higher than many Arab countries like Egypt and Morocco (as well as Syria), and nearly seven years above the world average.

How about infant mortality? With the lack of medicines, Gaza must have been doing very badly in that area under this horrendous siege, right?

Wrong:

Year	Infant mortality rate	Rank	Percent Change	Date of Information
2003	24.15	109		2003 est.
2004	22.93	107	-5.05 %	2004 est.
2005	22.93	107	0.00 %	2005 est.
2006	22.4	107	-2.31 %	2006 est.
2007	21.88	105	-2.32 %	2007 est.
2008	19	113	-13.16 %	2008 est.
2009	18.35	114	-3.54 %	2009 est.

Those numbers have also gotten much better since the "siege." And the world average is 40.85, more than double Gaza's rate. Gaza has better numbers than Mexico and the Philippines, not to mention Egypt and Turkey.

Comparing Gaza with sub-Saharan nations is even more striking. The infant mortality rates in Angola are nearly ten times worse than in Gaza, and the life expectancy in most African nations ranges from 31 to 60.

Zakat money would be better spent in other parts of the world.

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Egypt restoring historic synagogue to appear tolerant

From the Daily News Egypt:

The Supreme Council of Antiquities is working on renovating the Moses Bin Maimon’s Synagogue in El-Gamaliya, Zahi Hawass, head of the SCA announced in a press conference Thursday.

The restoration of the synagogue is part of a key plan by the SCA to restore all the major religious sites in Egypt including 10 Jewish temples.

The council is expected to spend LE 700 million every year on the renovations.

Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue’s expenses alone amounted to approximately LE 8.5 million, restoring about 60 percent so far.

Renovations started in June 15, 2008 and are expected to be completed by March 30, 2010, coinciding with the birthday of its founder.

“The Jewish temples belong to the Egyptian people,” said Hawass, “that’s why the Supreme Council of Antiquities strives to reestablish this Egyptian heritage. There are 10 other Jewish temples across Egypt in the restoration plan.”

The synagogue, which was declared an antiquity in 1986, dates back to the 19th century.

It is good to hear, even if the synagogue itself will hardly be used. Egypt has less than a hundred Jews left, down from 75,000 in 1948. Many were forcibly expelled (or what would be called "ethnically cleansed" nowadays.)

Somehow, I imagine that Muslims would find it very upsetting if they heard someone say "Israel's mosques belong to the Zionist people."

To paraphrase something I wrote last year, about the news that Kuwait was going to build a synagogue that would be unusable by any Jews: It is easy to show respect for a religion after you make sure that most of its adherents aren't polluting your country.

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The pro-terror Arab European League

The Arab European League is a group that says it wants to work for the rights of Arabs in Europe. But when you look at their website, you see that they go a bit beyond that.

Their front page has a photo of a pro-Hamas poster.

Their English section has a rotating banner that includes this quote from Nasser: "What was taken by force will be liberated by force."

They support Nasserite Arab nationalism, along with members of the Arab National Congress Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Above all, they hate Israel and advocate for it to be destroyed.

In their Dutch section, you can see this cartoon implying that Jews exaggerated the number killed in the Holocaust:They published this cartoon, as well as a much more offensive one showing Anne Frank in bed with Adolf Hitler (with Hitler saying "you can put this in your diary") as a protest to the Danish cartoons of Mohammed a couple of years ago.

On Tuesday the public prosecutor’s office ruled that AEL was liable to prosecution for publishing the cartoon, but no charges would be brought if the campaign group permanently removed the image from its website. Initially AEL appeared to have complied with this demand.

However, at the same time the public prosecutor’s office also ruled that there was nothing illegal about the publication of the controversial Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad on the website of anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders in 2006. Likewise, it decided that the TV programme Nova, which also showed the cartoons, had not broken the law.

The public prosecutor’s office concluded that the Danish drawings were not offensive to Muslims as a group and were not an incitement to discrimination or violence against them. However, it said the cartoon on the AEL website was indeed offensive to Jews as a group.

In response to this ruling, AEL decided to republish the cartoon.

There was a debate about the cartoons on Dutch TV, where a representative of the Arab European League and a Dutch Zionist leader argued about it.

At the end of the debate, the AEL representative refused to shake the hand of the Zionist, shocking the hosts. On his website he justified his insult, saying that he would refuse to shake hands with Arabs who support the existence of Israel as well.

This is the mainstream of Arab opinion in Europe.
(h/t Suzanne)

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Today's "peace" dividend

From Ma'an:

The Israeli mayor of Jerusalem drew criticism on Thursday with an announcement that he will personally fire the traditional Ramadan cannon early in the Muslim holy month.

Ramadan, a month of dawn-to-dusk fasting and prayer, is expected to begin at sundown on Friday, pending a declaration from Islamic officials. The firing of the cannon on Sunday will mark the end of the day's fast.

Ekrima Sabri, the orator of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the chief of the Islamic Supreme Committee, said Mayor Nir Barkat is attempting to provide political cover for his administration’s evictions of Palestinian residents and destruction of Palestinian houses.

Mayor Barkat heads the Jerusalem Municipality, an institution not recognized by Palestinians as legitimate because it administers areas east of the Green Line, which were occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. The international community also does not recognize Israeli sovereignty in East Jerusalem.

Then at the end of the article....

Past Israeli mayors have also fired the cannon. Former Mayor Uri Lupolianski fired the cannon in 2007 and 2008.

So why the stink this year?

One answer is because this year the US administration has changed the status of Jerusalem from a final status issue to a presumed Palestinian Arab capital. Palestinian Arabs, instead of doing what all good liberals expect them to do (thankfully accepting this gift and reciprocating with confidence building measures,) instead act as any sane observer of them knew they would - by becoming more intransigent.

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"Siege" includes giving Gazans swimming pools

Israel's Foreign Ministry website continues to document how much aid Israel sends to Gazans. Here are some of the goods shipped at the beginning of the summer:

Weekly summary of the Gaza crossings: 7-13 June 2009
- 431 truckloads (10,756 tons) of food, medicines, hygiene products, tools and raw materials for essential infrastructures, blankets and mattresses, and grains - wheat, barley, corn, chickpeas, soy beans, carob, sesame seeds, and animal feed - were transferred to the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom cargo terminal and the Karni conveyor belt.

- The Kerem Shalom terminal was closed June 9-11 for construction work on the new fuel pipeline from Israel to the Gaza Strip.
- 1.699 million liters of heavy-duty diesel for the Gaza power station and 475 tons of gas for domestic use were delivered via Nahal Oz fuel depot.
- 305 Gaza residents entered Israel for medical and humanitarian reasons via Erez Crossing.

Weekly summary of the Gaza crossings: 14-19 June 2009
- 674 truckloads (16,323 tons) of humanitarian aid were transferred to the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom cargo terminal and the Karni conveyor belt. In addition to food, medicine and hygiene products, the following were delivered under the auspices of international organizations such as UNRWA: games, basketballs and balloons, trampolines and swimming pools, generators, air-conditioning accessories, clothing, shoes and hats, chairs, mattresses and styrofoam cups; and raw materials for paper production.

- 1.780 million liters of heavy-duty diesel for the Gaza power station and 680 tons of gas for domestic use were delivered via Nahal Oz fuel depot.
- 226 Gaza residents entered Israel for medical and humanitarian reasons via Erez Crossing.

Meanwhile, it looks like Gazans have figured out how to construct buildings without cement that goes towards weapons bunkers: they are making bricks out of clay. The results are admirable.

Of course, this is a Hamas police station being built, which means that Hamas is also using these bricks to build their bunkers. It is unclear whether regular people who lost their homes have easy access to these materials.

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Blood libel accusation spreads to Lebanon

Now that a Swedish newspaper has made naked Jew-hatred respectable, the Arabs are gleefully coming out of the woodwork, even in English.

As I mentioned, today's Arab News headlined an article reporting the lie that Israel steals Palestinian Arabs' organs as fact, although it mentioned far down in the article that people were upset at the accusation. Now Lebanon's Tayyar.org reports the story as entirely factual, along with self-righteous indignation like this:

A Horrible, revolting crime done by the Zionist against the Palestinians... I call upon the entire word and specifically the Arabs organizations that work to preserve "human rights", to read the article and call for an inquiry...
Maybe will they be able to save those young Palestinians who deserve to live... As if it is not bad enough for them to be living in their own land, humiliated by the occupation, no it is not enough… They should also die and get their organs ripped away from their bodies for the Zionist to make money and live..what a bad irony!!

This is "news" according to Google News.

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