Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 03, 2006

Clueless breach of netiquette

I noticed tonight, thanks to a nudge from Smooth Stone, that my blogroll was horrifically incomplete. Blogs that I visit often were missing while blogs that haven't had any postings in months were listed.

So I apologize to those I had overlooked. By way of weak excuse, I generally do my own surfing from either Technorati favorites or from one of the JBlog aggregators, hardly ever from my own blogroll. What I didn't realize is that my not keeping it up-to-date had the potential of giving the wrong impression to people.

I have now updated my blogroll, and I apologize to those I had inadvertently snubbed. Iam probably still missing some but I'll try to be more aware in the future.

Good news from Israel

Those expansionist, violent Zionists keep plotting nefarious ways of taking over the world. Every single life they save creates another potential Zionist!

Discovering ways that may stop the spread of cancer:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Scientists at an Israeli university have found a promising new way to stop the growth and spread of cancer cells while carrying out research to boost the size of peaches and nectarines, the university said on Sunday.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem scientists found that a protein similar to one researched in their project had the effect of blocking blood supply to tumors.

"By blocking the blood supply to the tumors, actibind halted the ability of malignant cells to move through the blood stream," the university said.

"Their approach has been shown to inhibit the malignant cells without affecting normal cells and without the severe side effects of traditional treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy," it said.

Potential solution for world hunger:

Imagine what it would mean for the world hunger problem if farmers could grow wheat and other crops on land considered unsuitable for agriculture.

That day may be coming soon, after Israeli researchers from the Institute of Evolution of the University of Haifa, have succeeded in isolating a gene that withstands salinity.

"The research will contribute to a significant increase in the amount of arable land available for agriculture," said the institute's director Professor Eviatar Nevo, who initiated and spearheaded the pioneering research.

Of the earth's 57 million square miles of land, approximately 12 million square miles are arable - meaning land that can be used for growing crops. However, arable land is being lost at the rate of over ten million hectares per year.

Nevo's research will make it possible to grow plants, including crops, in saline earth, a development that will contribute in the future to a true revolution in saline agriculture throughout the world.

Helping stroke victims:

Most people are only joking when they refer to "retail therapy" - as if shopping could truly cure what ails them.

But Israeli researchers have actually developed a virtual shopping center that helps stroke victims improve their cognitive functioning and recover strength in their upper bodies.

The "virtual mall", which was developed by University of Haifa Occupational Therapy student, Debbie Rand, who is studying for her doctorate, allows stroke patients to wander virtually through a range of stores, picking out and paying for purchases, just as they would on a real shopping trip.

The patient stands in front of a large TV screen, and a small camera set in front displays the person's image within the virtual environment. No other accessories are necessary.

"The patient operates the environment by moving his body," says 37-year-old Rand. "They move their arms and hands to take things from the shelves and put them in the basket. As they 'shop' they can watch themselves and receive feedback about their movements."

Humor helps conception rate using IVF:

A little levity can go a long way, especially if you're a woman trying to conceive via in-vitro fertilization (IVF). That's the lesson that's been gleaned from a first-of-its kind study conducted in Israel that showed that using humor to alleviate the stress of the patients almost doubles their chances of conceiving from the treatments.

A team led by fertility expert Dr. Shevah Friedler at the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center studied 186 women aged 25 to 40 over 10 months, all of whom were undergoing embryo transfer treatment. While half were simply given the treatment and nothing else, the other group was entertained by a clown for up to 15 minutes as they recuperated in bed after the treatment.

The results? 33 of the women who 'clowned' around became pregnant, compared to only 18 women in the control group. For the 60,000 American women who undergo IVF treamtent annually, the message is: don't worry, be happy.

And their expansionist aims include cyberspace!
Israel designs newest Intel chips:

Israel has again moved to the forefront of a new chip revolution as Intel Corp., the world's largest maker of semiconductors, launched its server-oriented next generation microprocessor series, which offers increased performance with lower power consumption and promises to be the fastest ramping product in the company's history.

"Simply put, the Core microarchitecture is a technical marvel that is driving a new era of power efficiency without compromising on what can only be described as eye-popping dual-core 64bit performance," said Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group.

Intel said it expected this server family to be the fastest-ramping product in the company's history. More than 200 server and workstation models are planned from more than 150 manufacturers with initial orders starting Monday.

Iranian press sometimes reveals truth

One reason I like to read Iranian news is to see angles of stories that the mainstream media miss or ignore. This article reveals two truths that are illuminating:

Representative of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon Abbas Zaki on Monday strongly criticized the silence of Arab communities and governments towards Israel's aggressions and the incidents in Palestine.
He told IRNA that the political systems of the Arab world do not show any reaction towards the latest developments in Palestine on account of their good relations with the US, adding that Washington is only concerned on protecting Israel's security in the Middle East.
Zaki underlined that the Palestinian people and combatants have the right to make use of all means to defend themselves against the aggressions of the Zionist regime in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of the Jordan River.
In the latest Zionist attack on Gaza and West Bank, three Palestinians were martyred and more than 12 others wounded.
"As long as the Palestinian soil remains under Israeli occupation , according to international laws, the Palestinian combatants are authorized to use any possible means, including weapons, against the Zionist regime."

The first interesting comment is that Arab governments themselves are sick of the Palestinian Arab whining. They see what the Palestinian Arabs cannot - that they have nothing to show for their years of terror. Even where they gained, in the case of Gaza, they wasted it to make it worse.

The only people still supporting the Palestinian Arabs in any real fashion are the fundamentalist Islamists - in other words, the same people who support Al Qaeda.

The other interesting part of this article is that the official PLO representative to Lebanon is saying explicitly that the Palestinian Arabs should terrorize Jews - and that all the agreements from Oslo through the roadmap are pieces of paper to be ignored. Despite how the press likes to characterize Fatah as moderate, we have an official from Fatah in an official capacity revealing how Fatah really thinks: that terror is the way to get a state.

Olmert doesn't inspire confidence

Although he has generally been saying the right things during the hostage situation, Olmert does not strike me as someone who believes a word he is saying. I am very uncomfortable with a PM who seems to be more a bullheaded technocrat than someone who is acting out of pure love of Israel.

I have never felt such a disconnect to an Israeli PM before. Even milquetoast Peres has occasionally staunchly defended Israel's position well in the international arena. But when I see something like this coming out of the Prime Minister's office, all I can think of is that he is full of it:

These are not easy days for the State of Israel but we have no intention of capitulating to blackmail. Everyone knows that capitulating to terrorism today means inviting the next act of terrorism. We will not do this.

Um, and isn't forcibly removing Jews from their homes capitulating to terrorism? Just as with previous releases of prisoners, the intent was never to capitulate to terror - but the effect is exactly that, leading it to become Hamas policy. Words that should be inspiring end up looking like hypocrisy.

Similarly, when he spoke at the 35th Zionist Congress to the residents of Sderot:

I want to take this opportunity, here and now, to tell the residents of the south, to the people of Sderot, to kibbutzim such as Yad-Mordechai and Nahal Oz and Kfar Aza and other communities: no one is more familiar with the level of the pain, anxiety and uncertainty which you are experiencing these days.

Coming from someone who couldn't be bothered to actually visit Sderot, it feels like just what some speechwriter wrote for him, and not something he truly believes.

And no matter whether he is from the left or the right, Israel needs a leader who believes what he says.

A new Arab diet

Two Palestinian women tear up an Israeli flag with their teeth during a protest against the Israeli military offensive in Gaza in the Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, July 2, 2006. About 2,000 Palestinians protesting the Israeli military offensive in Gaza set fire to an Israeli flag and shouted 'Death to Israel' Sunday as they marched in Lebanon's largest refugee camp.

Since there is no shortage of Israeli flags in "refugee" camps, this should solve all those problems of starvation.

Just once, I'd like to see a mainstream media organization question exactly why Palestinian arabs are still forced to live in "refugee" camps - in Lebanon and Syria. Not to mention Gaza.

Finally, I am reminded of an incident that happened almost thirty years ago. I remember seeing the video on a Christian TV broadcast many years ago, but inexplicably I have never been able to find footage on the Internet. Here's the best description I have found:

To grasp the nature of Syrian barbarism, let me take you back to a ceremony which that regime celebrated on the tenth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. I watched that ceremony on Israel television, clips of which should now be shown throughout Israel. In that ceremony - and now I turn to its description in the October 21, 1983 issue of the JERUSALEM POST MAGAZINE -
"Syrian militia trainees [male and female] put on a show for Syrian president Hafez Assad. Martial music reached a crescendo as Syrian teenage girls suddenly bit into live snakes [some four or five feet long], repeatedly tearing off flesh and spitting it out as blood ran down their chins. As Assad applauded, the girls then attached the snakes to sticks and grilled them over fire, eating them triumphantly. Others [militiamen] then proceeded to strangle puppies and drink their blood."

Perhaps someone can find this little gem.

HH 76

Irina at The IgNoble Experiment brings us this week's Haveil Havalim, appropriately enough #76 for the American holiday weekend.

She mentions 4 articles of mine, which is amazing:

My article on bias in the Washington Post,
Hostage taking in international law,
How most Palestinian Arabs support terror attacks,
and my list of female terrorists in Israeli jails that Hamas wants freed.

I shouldn't let it get to my head, though: she mentions Ezzie at least 8 times!

It is a huge effort, very well done, and you should check it out!

Hamas threatens to bomb Jewish schools and hospitals

As Israel's incursion with no civilian victims continues, Hamas is showing its true colors:

Hamas's armed wing, Izaddin al-Kassam, on Sunday threatened to attack infrastructure facilities inside Israel, including schools, hospitals and universities. The threat, the first of its kind since Hamas won the parliamentary election last January, was issued in response to continued Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip.

The MSM seems to have missed this small story.

Saudi refuses to play Israeli in computer game "world cup"

More tolerance from our friends the Saudis.

Hakeem Refuses to Play Against Israeli
Saleh Fareed, Arab News

“I cannot play against a guy from a country that occupies the holy land of Palestine,” said Badr Hakeem. (AN photo)

JEDDAH, 2 July 2006 — Twenty-one-year-old Saudi, Badr Hakeem, winner of last year’s Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC), has stepped down from participating in this year’s championship in protest against the Zionist state of Israel after he was drawn to play an Israeli gamer.
“Unfortunately, the draw put me against an Israeli player and due to our stand against the Israeli aggression and occupation of Palestine, I raised my voice and said there was no way I was going to play against this guy,” said Hakeem speaking to Arab News after making his decision at the end of the first round of the tournament.
The organizing committee accepted Hakeem’s decision.

One would think that they would dismiss the entire team for something like this, but - it's only "the Zionist state of Israel" he refuses to play.

We get results!

In our article on the virulently anti-semitic article by Curtis Maynard for Mathaba.net, we mentioned how Google indexed Mathaba as a legitimate news source. We complained to Google and evidently so did others, because the article was removed and a strange blurb replaced it:

Incorrect categorisation

The original opinion piece was incorrectly categorised by a junior assistant editor and passed the usual checks due to a temporary resource shortage, as such it was inadvertently approved for news aggregators. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

This is hardly a retraction of the disgusting views mentioned.

And of course, Mathaba has a huge catalog of other articles by the same author as well as different authors, which include such gems as:

Why I admire Ernst Zundel

Jews Must be Removed from 9-11 Investigation Says Talk Show Host

Many people will laugh at the very idea that a Jew would consider any black to be an equal – as a rule, Jews loathe blacks more than they do whites, but they find that exploiting blacks is advantageous to the advancement of their agenda, and it is for this reason, and no other, that they associate with blacks.

In the end the article is nothing more than a recap, it reiterates the same tired and predicable story we see time and again in the United States, Goyim states fact, Jews react with litigation, litigation fails, Goy is smeared in the media, etc… etc… ad nauseum.

In fact the word "Jew" is found on the Mathaba search engine nearly 200 times, a strange obsession at the least.

Mathaba was delisted by Google for reasons unknown in April but it got reinstated. Their freedom of speech isn't the issue; it is that Google consistently applies different standards to far left news and opinion outlets than those of the right.

Glorifying Hamas at The Australian

An outrageous display of lionizing terrorists and their supporters by Martin Chulov of "The Australian":

Chants and flags on streets, jets in sky Martin Chulov in Gaza
July 01, 2006

WAVING billowing green flags and with fists thrust skywards, Hamas's dedicated thousands took to the darkened streets of Gaza late on Thursday to show the world they remained defiant.
As an unmanned Israeli drone buzzed high overheard and attack helicopters and fighter jets rumbled through the distance, about 5000 people chanted in support of their jailed West Bank politicians and their Gaza leaders in hiding.
As the crowd made its way home through rubbish-strewn streets,[those littering Zionists again! - EoZ] past mosques and half-finished buildings, explosions sounded across the city. Hundreds surged towards the sound of the largest -- an air strike on the Interior Ministry that sent smoke billowing and masonry tumbling to the road.
These are testing times for the hundreds of thousands who elected Hamas in January, And more so for the many more who care not about the colour of the flag above the legislature.

All around is evidence of hardship: cars annihilated on bomb-lined roads, rotting fruit and vegetables swept into allies and rubbish piled high along main routes.

But defiance is a lifeblood. There is little hatred for the captured Israeli soldier, but little sympathy for him either.

"Perhaps he can see what it's like to live at the mercy of others and go back to his people and tell them," said Hanin al-Masri as she carried home her two five-year-old children, who she dressed with Hamas caps.

Sitting in the sand outside his home as a dog-eared Hamas flag flew from the balcony, Abu Hanifeh said: "We may have nothing left and I have two sons in Gaza and another one who has been martyred. But that's what makes resistance worthwhile.

"We have nothing to lose and everything to gain," he concluded.

DoD loyalty test for Jews?

InsightMag.com has a blurb for a subscriber-only article that is troubling, to put it mildly:

Defense Dept. imposes loyalty test on American Jews
The Pentagon has banned security clearance to Americans with relatives in Israel. Government sources and attorneys said the Pentagon has sought and succeeded in removing security clearance from dozens of Americans, mostly Jews, who either lived, worked or have relatives in Israel. Official documents report that American Jews were asked by Pentagon examiners whether they would join a U.S. attack on Israel if the Jewish state was threatened.

Over at Free Republic there is some skepticism about this, both about whether it is true and whether it is standard operating procedure for all employees with relatives in other countries.

I would love to know whether Americans with Canadian or British or Australian relatives have to answer the same question. The question isn't dual loyalty - it is whether Jews are being discriminated against by our own government.

H/T to Jameel at DovBear.