Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

HRW on Egyptian religious discrimination

CAIRO, EGYPT - Citing a long list of chilling testimonials, human rights groups Monday called on the Egyptian government to stop discriminating against converts from Islam and members of some religious minorities who want their faiths reflected on their national identity cards.
Egyptians must list their religion on their ID cards, which are required for enrolling in a university, starting a job, opening a bank account and most other aspects of public life. But authorities, drawing on Islamic law, essentially refuse to acknowledge Muslims who convert to other faiths and recognize only the three "revealed religions": Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Egyptians who belong to minority groups such as the Baha'i often find themselves stateless if they refuse to list "Muslim" or "Christian" on their IDs.
Two advocacy groups, Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, spent two years documenting such cases and released their joint report Monday in Cairo.
The report's authors stressed that they weren't seeking new laws or provoking a debate on Islamic doctrine. They say they merely want authorities to apply existing civil law, which permits Egyptians to change or correct information on their ID cards. As it stands, the activists said, many Egyptian officials take it upon themselves to refuse the changes. In several cases presented in the report, Egyptians faced harassment, job termination and detention for challenging the authorities.
The report is filled with examples such as elderly Baha'i retirees unable to receive their pensions, Baha'i parents unable to get their babies immunized, mixed-faith couples prevented from marrying, and the children of Christian converts being forced to study Islam in public schools. In some cases, families paid for bogus documents in order to conduct their lives and later were prosecuted for forgery.

Three years ago, Arab leaders didn't mourn Arafat

In the glare of the rallies and shootings celebrating Arafat's death, people tend to forget that even Arabs were sick of the old turd. From the November 18, 2004 Al-Ahram:

Relief is perhaps the best way to describe the private reaction of most Arab officials to the sudden and somewhat ambiguous death of Yasser Arafat, the icon of the Palestinian struggle for the past 40 years.

In public, before their own constituencies, these same officials laid on what they felt obliged to provide: a red carpet funeral. Most major Arab leaders and senior representatives were on hand in Cairo to pay their last, and somewhat belated respects to a man they had largely forgotten during his nearly three-year siege in Ramallah.

But beyond the honours of a brief state funeral, Arafat received very little recognition from his fellow Arab leaders. Official statements eulogising the Palestinian leader sounded more like a simple notification of another death, rather than any genuine outpouring of grief at the loss of a revolutionary hero.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, certain Arab diplomats, in particular those from countries with direct borders with the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, were explicit in expressing their relief at the death of Arafat. For them, his passing marks the end to the presumptuous obstacles that the Palestinian leader had thrown up on the road to a settlement with Israel, largely for the sake of his own glory. Some see his death as heralding an end to the oppressive control that he had exercised over the Palestinian resistance movements, including Hamas and Jihad. Other diplomats are breathing a sigh of relief at the demise of a leader they considered too self-centred to really care about the misfortunes of his own people.

In six interviews conducted by Al-Ahram Weekly since Arafat's death, there was not a single word of sorrow expressed by any Arab diplomatic source. Indeed, for many, Arafat's death would seem to mark not an end, but a new beginning. This sentiment was also expressed by some Palestinians, who were known for their opposition to Arafat's authoritarian style of rule.

Here is a rare time that the Arab nations were more pragmatic than the Palestinian Arabs themselves. Of course, Arafat's successors didn't seize the initiative to improve the situation and that's how we got to today, where any number of groups can effectively veto any "peace" agreement on the PalArab side.

Even so, it is instructive to look back and see past the nostalgia being shown by the Palestinian people who were so thoroughly screwed by the man they all claim was a hero.

Fatah spokesman: We want peace, but not that much

Palestine Press Agency reports (autotranslated):

Ahmed Abdel Rahman, advisor to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said today that the willingness of the Palestinians for peace does not mean relinquishing one inch of the West Bank and the city of Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

...He reiterated his assertion that Abu Ammar (Yasir Arafat) was killed because of his refusal to waive Jerusalem.

Israel should say the exact same thing: it wants peace but not at the expense of compromising. It would be fun to compare the world reactions to each statement.

The second paragraph quoted was just to emphasize the distance between Palestinian Arab beliefs and reality. The question is: Why does the world coddle their fantasies?

Detroit, the Islamic City (and more University of Michigan trivia)

Followups to the posting on the theft of Israeli flags at the University of Michigan/Dearborn have shown that the university doesn't even pretend to hide its biases.

Here is a lecture from last week(Google cache):

Detroit, The Islamic City

Description:
Middle Eastern Cities Colloquium Series lecture by Andrew Shryock. Detroit has been home to Muslim communities for over a hundred years. The city's first purpose-built mosque was established in Highland Park in 1921. Today, there are over 50 mosques in greater Detroit, and many areas (Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Hamtramck) have large, influential Muslim populations. Using materials drawn from the "Building Islam in Detroit" project, I will show how Muslim spaces have been created and transformed in Detroit over the last century. The mosque, as a physical object and a spiritual aspiration, is key to understanding larger processes of identity formation that make it possible to know Detroit (to inhabit, historicize, experience, and envision it) as an Islamic city.

The Center for Arab-American Studies at the university refers to Jerusalem as being in Palestine.

(h/t Anti-Racist Blog)

Shy Guy over at Israellycool comments about a few other facts about U of M:

- It employs the dishonest academic Juan Cole.
- It published a study finding no relation between Islam and terror.
- It is building Islamic footbaths in public university bathrooms.

Their Center for Middle Eastern and North Africa Studies has a program of extending their pro-Arab propaganda throughout Detroit's public schools. Typically, their idea of even-handedness is to give equal time to the claims of Syria, the PLO, UNIFIL, Lebanon, Hezbollah and Israel and then ask kids to decide who they think has the best claim.

Erekat = Hypocrite

The latest proof that Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the PA, remains a hypocrite and a liar:

Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Monday rejected Israel's demand that the Palestinians acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state.

"There is no country in the world where religious and national identities are intertwined," Erekat told Radio Palestine.

Besides the utter foolishness of such a statement (how about Saudi Arabia? How about Iran?), perhaps it would behoove Erekat to peruse the 2003 Palestinian Constitution, Article 4:

1. Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect and sanctity of all other heavenly religions shall be maintained.
2. The principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be the main source of legislation.
3. Arabic shall be the official language.

Previous examples of his lies can be found here and here.

3 killed in fresh Fatah/Hamas clashes

Palestine Today (Arabic), a pro-Hamas news site, says that three Fatah supporters were shot and killed during a pro-Fatah rally today commemorating Arafat's death.

Which brings our Palestinian Arab self-death count for the year to 577.

UPDATE: Palestine Press Agency quotes Palestine TV saying the number of dead is now 7. 581.

UPDATE 2: Up to 9. Plus more than a hundred wounded. 583. (UPDATE 2a: They've backed off again to 7. 581.)

UPDATE 3: I had missed this story from PCHR:

In another incident, at approximately 02:00 on Saturday, 10 November 2007, Ahmed Suleiman Abu Meghassib, 25, from Wadi al-Salqa village in the central Gaza Strip, died from a wound he had sustained on Wednesday, 7 November 2007. Abu Meghassib was wounded by a gunshot to the back fired by Palestinian militants when he attempted to prevent them from getting close to his house to fire at military posts of Israeli occupation forces.

582.

UPDATE 4: Wafa, the PA news agency, reports that Hamas is controlling access to hospitals to minimize the number of reported deaths. They give an example of a 14-year old boy who was officially listed as dying in a car accident who had three gunshot wounds. Palestine Today lists at least two minors killed. I'll wait to update the list when things clear up a bit.

UPDATE 5: I had in fact counted the death from Update 3. 581 again.

UPDATE 6: A 21-year old man, Marwan Alnono, died from Hamas gunshot wounds from the demonstration. 582.

The lack of an honest mediator

Batya from Shiloh Musings makes an important point:

There won't be any conflict mediation at that Annapolis Conference. There are no "third-party neutral" mediators. U.S.'s Rice and Europe's Blair have very well-defined and well-publicized agendas. Actually they have the same aim. It's not "conflict resolution." It's the establishment of another Arab State in the Land of Israel.

This is, in a nutshell, why Annapolis is a pre-ordained disaster - because the outlines for a "solution" have already been determined by the "third parties" and the entire point is how to prod Israel towards this "solution."

On Saturday, "moderate" Fatah terror leader Mahmoud Abbas pledged that mass-murdering terrorist Yasir Arafat will one day be re-buried in Jerusalem. Is there any possibility that Condi Rice made a phone call to him gently chiding him for saying something inflammatory? Is there anyone in the Bush administration or EU who would publicly condemn the idea of having Arafat's rotting, syphilitic corpse moved to be interred in the holiest ground on the planet?

It is hard to imagine a more disgusting idea to Jewish and Israeli sensibilities than the thought of burying the architect of modern terror near the Temple Mount. Just the mention is enough to evoke retching. From a purely political viewpoint is no less inflammatory - it prejudges that Jerusalem is "Palestinian" land that they can use as a burial ground with impunity.

If an Olmert would make a mildly parallel suggestion, that one day the Israeli flag would fly over the Temple Mount, he wouldn't even have to wait for the Arab world to react before he gets the phone call from Condi about how "unhelpful" such a position is.

The US has changed from an honest broker into an advocate of Arafat's original plan to destroy Israel in "stages." A good part of this is because the Israeli government itself has embraced that same philosophy, but it is not clear that this would have happened without Bush's declaration years ago that there should be another hostile Arab state on the west and south of Israel. American pressure since then has been overwhelmingly against Israel, helping make the idea of another terror state a fait accompli.

This is not mediation - it is nothing but pressuring one side to give up land vital to its security as well as culture, history and religion.

Israeli flag stolen from U. of Michigan twice

From the Michigan Journal (College newspaper, Dearborn):

During last week's Global Fest, the Israeli flag was stolen twice from the University Center.

Student Activities Office (SAO) hung between 55 and 60 different flags around the UC representing different nations.

These flags were hung earlier in the week before Global Fest. According to SAO, the Israeli flag was ripped down early Tuesday morning.

SAO then filled the missing space with another 3 x 5 ft. Israeli flag.

This second flag was then stolen again the next day on Wednesday.

None of the other flags were touched.

A mass e-mail from Vice Chancellor of Enrollment and Student Life Stanley E. Henderson went out to all registered students on Thursday.

The e-mail explained the "Expect Respect" program, informed students of what had happened and also encouraged students to attend today's Difficult Dialogues series.

The e-mail stated that the administration considers the stealing of the flag "more than just a theft," and "it is a violation of who we are as a university."

The administration rejects the notion that any nation could be singled out for such disrespect on our campus.

As for punishment, the e-mail states, "As a university we must condemn this action in the strongest tears and be clear that his cannot be tolerated."

Henderson confirmed that the Israel flag disappeared last year as well. "Last year the flag went missing went they were being taken down. It was up during Global Fest. This year the flag went missing before Global Fest even started," said Henderson.

Seems pretty clear-cut that this was a political act meant to intimidate any Zionist students, right? Three times over two years, only the Israeli flag, and Dearborn being the home to the largest Arab community in America -can anyone reasonably think this was other than a hate crime?

Well, the student editors managed to figure out a way to insult their own intelligence:

Reaction to flag theft overblown

...In this case, it seems that the administration is more concerned with punishing the motivation, not the crime itself.

If someone stole any country's flag from the UC, would the crime be treated similarly? Or if someone stole food from McKinley Café and said their motive was that they were starving due to a lack of money after purchasing this semester's books, would the school let them get away with it? Doubtful. Both would be treated as thefts and dealt with based on the values of the items stolen.

We don't condone the theft, but we think that the university should be consistent in its punishment and that the motive should play a less central role in deciding how to deal with the thief. The school has no proof that this was a hate crime, only an assumption. Without hard evidence, its presumptious [sic] to treat it as such.

Is it any wonder that these rocket scientists on the editorial board don't even know how to use spell-check?
(h/t Anti-Racist Blog)

November 11, 1947: State Dept. hedges on partition

As we continue to go through the Palestine Post archives from sixty years ago, there were four notable article on the front page that once again seem to come from today's headlines.

Firstly, the US State Department, even then tilting towards the Arab viewpoint, was showing more public resistance to the idea of partition:

I mentioned that at that time there was a terrible cholera epidemic in Egypt (and it was now starting to spread through the rest of the Middle East.) Even so, Egypt has refused to accept help from Hebrew University in the early stages of the epidemic. The Times of London noticed that Egypt instead waited to get vaccines from the Haffkine Institute in Bombay, and it mentioned a fact that the Egyptians probably didn't realize: Dr. Haffikine was a Jewish Zionist.

Meanwhile, the Post made fun of Egyptians and their Zion-phobia:

And yet another Muslim country pledged to help Arab Palestine by killing all the Jews - this time, Iraq:

The deja vu continues...

The miracle Allah-ear

Remember a couple of years ago a British ice-cream company had to replace its logo because some Muslims felt that it resembled the Arabic word "Allah"?

Then we heard about the "Allah-fish", where the same swirls were seen:

Well, there's a regular Allahpalooza going on, because now Muslims are seeing things in their babies' ears. In Ramallah, a baby was born a few weeks ago with an ear deformity that makes it appear like the word Allah.

From Palestine Today, in auto-translation:

Often heard about an oddity in the universe and anecdotal talked with the people in their lives, a child born Pracejn or Unsoder twin, or a child born with three legs ...

The city of Ramallah in the West Bank weeks ago saw the birth of a child wrote Majesty the word "God" in his ear, in Arabic, so that anyone can read easily, and without careful consideration.

The grandmother discovered the child Houcih ordered the Divine in dignity authorized her grandson after five weeks of birth.

Says the father of the child who is an officer in place to sell the clothing city of Ramallah that this label that has characterized the order, and leaves a message from God ", and expressed the hope that the best Fall him and his family.

In the view of the child's mother that this Mecca addressed by God created is a miracle requires reflection, and increasing closer to God, and from what anger.

15-year old killed by Hamas

Hamas got into an argument with the Ayad family east of Gaza City. Apparently, Hamas wanted to use their home to store explosives or fire rockets, and the Awads disagreed. This resulted in a gun-battle, killing the Ayad's 15-year old son, Mohammed Jawad.

This has only been reported in the Palestine Press Agency website. Other news sources are either pro-Hamas or cannot get press passes to report news from Gaza without harassment; PPA seems to rely more on underground pro-Fatah reporters and citizens, so it is somewhat less reliable. A number of readers in the comments section confirmed this incident.

My count of Palestinian Arabs violently killed by each other this year is now at 573, with 40 of them women and 42 of them children.

UPDATE: PCHR reports that two were killed and four wounded in those clashes. 574.