Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Who is Yarmulke.info?

I just noticed that a website has popped up called yarmulke.info which mirrors pretty much all of my postings, plus others. It does not give any credit to me for the articles, and only mentions me as a "contributor" on its sidebar.

It might just be a way to grab advertising revenue, as there is no contact info on the site.

While I do choose to remain anonymous, I do not want my postings to be placed on other sites without attribution and without context. It is also a little disconcerting to think that someone is making money from my content without even giving me credit for each posting. This is, to me, a gross violation of netiquette.

UPDATE: Indeed, this posting itself was mindlessly published on Yarmulke.info as well.

UPDATE 2: Commenter Cao mentioned that blogs like this are called "splogs" or "spam blogs" - this is close to it according to Wikipedia's entry but it doesn't have the distinguishing feature of nonsense postings.

At any rate, it appears that they noticed my complaint and removed all of my posts and the link to here.

Ignoring elephants

In the reckless chase for Middle East peace, the number of elephants in the room is increasing exponentially. But the ability of the "peacemakers" to ignore them rises to the occasion.

Elephant 1: Hamas controls Gaza

Every peace plan includes Gaza in a Palestinian Arab state, and none of them has any provision on how to handle the fact that Gaza is a terrorist haven, in much worse shape since Israel uprooted the settlements there, controlled by a terrorist group that has no interest in restraining the even-more extremist terror groups that thrive there. Peace is impossible with this elephant, so it is easier to pretend it isn't there.

Elephant 2: Palestinian Arabs elected a terror government

In the only fair, democratic elections in the territories, the Hamas terrorists were chosen by the people. Poll after poll shows that Palestinian Arabs support terror in Israel itself. The elections proved that the conventional wisdom was wrong - and the conventional wisdom proceeded to ignore it.

Elephant 3: The current PA government was not elected

This corollary to Elephant 2 means that the current people negotiating for the Palestinian Arabs do not represent the people. Even if they sound moderate or compromising, they have no mandate. Negotiating with them is, literally, meaningless.

Elephant 4: The current PA government has almost no power

Outside of Ramallah, the Fayyad/Abbas government has little popular support and little power. The Nablus "clean-up" was an orchestrated fiction, as was the recent high-profile "surrender" of nine Al-Aqsa terrorists - who are now due to become upstanding, paid members of the security forces in three months.

Elephant 5: The PA is being kept alive by artificial methods

The PA budget is bloated from "payroll" of non-working workers - but if they would slash the payroll, the people on intrnational welfare would revolt. So the very basis of the organized Palestinian Arab workforce is a fiction being kept barely alive by ever-increasing infusions of cash with no real plan to fix the problem.

Elephant 6: Fatah remains a terrorist group paid by the PA

Despite the recent claims that the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has dismantled, it is a joke meant to appease the wishful-thinkers. There has been no serious move by the PA against terror except for its tit-for-tat arrests of Hamas members in the West Bank, and its moves have been almost wholly cosmetic and aimed for Western consumption rather than real fighting against terror.

Elephant 7: The first - and second - stages of the roadmap were never implemented

The entire point of the road map was to slowly build confidence, starting with the end of terror and incitement on the Palestinian Arab side, afterwards building a "provisional" state and only then going to final-status negotiations. By skipping to Phase III as if the other two phases were already in place, the entire exercise is simply a joke. Incitement remains at full blast and the slight lull in terror is tactical, not a sea-change in Palestinian Arab attitudes.

Elephant 8: The PA's goal remains the destruction of Israel

Whether it is by "right of return" or not changing the Fatah charter or by printing map after map showing no Israel, even the most moderate Palestinian leader clings to the idea of destroying Israel, and looks upon a Palestinian Arab state as only one stage in the process.

Elephant 9: Jerusalem

Most Israelis want a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty. Most Palestinian Arabs refuse to accept anything less than all of Jerusalem as the capital of a Muslim state. The positions are not compatible and a compromise will not reduce the chances for violence - it will increase it.

Elephant 10: What happened to Gaza

Forgetting Hamas for now, the time period between Israel's dismantling settlements in Gaza and the Hamas takeover is instructive as to how Palestinian Arabs take advantage of territory they gain. They didn't build new houses or communities to reduce the "refugee camp" population, no schools or hospitals. They destroyed the greenhouses purchased for them by American Jews; they turned beautiful former settlements into training camps for terror - in other words, Israel's last major concession not only didn't help achieve peace, it ended up encouraging terror. Any claims that something similar wouldn't happen in the West Bank is the triumph of wishful thinking over experience.

These are off the top of my head - any others I should add?

Tel Aviv - United States President George W Bush, on landing in Tel Aviv Tuesday for his first visit to the area since he took office, said he saw a 'new opportunity' for peace in the Middle East.
'The US and Israel are strong allies. The sources of that strength is a shared belief in the power of human freedom. Our people built two great democracies under difficult circumstances,' Bush told dignitaries at Israel's Ben-Gurion International Airport.

'The alliance between our two nations helps guarantee Israel's security as a a Jewish state,' he said.

Bush also spoke out against extremism, saying that 'We most firmly oppose those who murder the innocent to achieve their poitical objectives.'

'We see a new opportunity for peace here in the holy land and for peace across the region.'

This is a pretty generic speech, but Ma'an Arabic, Palestine Press Agency and Palestine Today created headlines emphasizing Bush's description of Israel as a "Jewish state" and almost ignoring the rest.

On the other hand, YNet and the Jerusalem Post ignored the statement, Ha'aretz took note.

UNIFIL attacked by roadside bomb

Some strange, unidentified people tried to blow up a UNIFIL team in Lebanon:

RMEILEH, Lebanon: A roadside bomb exploded yesterday near a UN vehicle travelling along a coastal highway south of Beirut, lightly wounding two Irish peacekeepers.
It was the first attack on the expanded UN force in Lebanon since last summer, when six Spanish peacekeepers died after a bomb hit their armoured personnel carrier in June near the Israeli border in southern Lebanon.

In July, a roadside bomb struck a UN jeep near the southern port of Tyre, but there were no casualties.

Yesterday's explosion rocked the town of Rmeileh, near the southern coastal city of Sidon. Smoke was seen billowing from the scene.

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon's force commander adviser, Milos Strugar, said one vehicle was damaged in the explosion and two peacekeepers in the vehicle were "lightly wounded" and taken to a hospital.

Lebanese TV stations said the wounded peacekeepers were Irish.

Well, some people claim to know who did it:

Hezbollah said the purpose of the terrorist act is "crystal clear" and the Amal Movement of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri pointed fingers of accusation at Israel, saying the attack only served Zionist interests.

Meanwhile:

In another incident, the [Lebanese] army has denied Israeli reports that two rockets were fired yesterday into northern Israel from Lebanon.

Yet:

UN peacekeepers from Italy and France examined the remains of a rocket fired from Lebanon into the northern Israel town of Shlomit in one of two attacks reported yesterday. (EFI SHARIR/AFP/Getty Images)

Any chance that the UNIFIL was attacked for checking out the non-existent Katyushas?

Oxford U.'s idea of evenhandedness

From Oxford Union, quotes and links from Solomonia:

Event Name: Middle East Debate
Start Date: 24th Jan 2008 8:30pm

Description: This House Believes That The State of Israel has a Right to Exist

In Proposition -

* Norman Finkelstein ['Hezbollah represents the hope']
* Prof Ted Honderich ['...the Palestinians have had a moral right to their terrorism as certain as was the moral right, say, of the African people of South Africa against their white captors and the apartheid state']

In Opposition -

* Ghada Karmi [One State Solution]
* Ilan Pappe ['Indeed the struggle is about ideology, not about facts.']

Let's get 4 people who are rabidly anti-Israel and have them "debate" each other as to exactly how much the audience is supposed to loathe the Jewish state! This way, we ensure that everyone sees all sides (of one side) of the issue.

A similar "debate" between two sides of the same side occurred in print last year.

Interfaith dialogue, Islamic-style

An unintentionally funny article in the Arab News by "Islamic scholar" Zeinul Abideen Al-Rikabi:

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has urged Muslims to learn about Christian culture. This appeal, diplomatic as it is, is based on the assumption that Muslims are ignorant of Christianity, or at least know very little about it.

...Global human acquaintance and interaction is something endorsed by the Qur’an, and learning of the cultures of other nations is a primary asset among others.

So al-Rikabi goes on to prove the archbishop's point:

It is mentioned in the Qur’an: “And say we believe in God, the revelation given to us, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, as well as what was revealed to Moses and Jesus and all messengers of God. We draw no distinction between them and we submit to God.” As the verse states, belief in God and His Holy Books is contingent on belief in Jesus and his Bible. It is also mentioned in the Hadith that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: “Whoever believes in One Allah and that He has no partner, and that Muhammad is His servant and prophet, and that Jesus is His servant and prophet and His Word spoken unto Mary, and that God sent the Holy Ghost to him, and that Heaven is true and Hell is true; Allah will admit him into Heaven for whatever good deeds he has done.” As a result of this, Muslims possess broad and profound knowledge of Jesus and Christianity. This knowledge incorporates the belief that Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) preached a system of values, concepts, ethics, virtues, and teachings and tenaciously pursued its instillation in society and in human conscience.
The following are examples of these principles, concepts, and values that Muslims learn from the Qur’an:....

So this Islamic scholar is saying that, while Muslims do need to learn about other cultures according to the Koran, they already know everything they need to know about Christianity - from the Koran!

This is classic: a Muslim pretends to be interested in "interfaith dialogue" but he is only interested in proselytizing his religion as he pays lip service to another.

See also this posting about the Muslim concept of "dialogue."

Early nominees for next year's Dhimmi of the Year

From MehrNews (h/t Dhimmi Watch):

NEW YORK (MNA) – An academic delegation of Columbia University professors and deans of faculties plans to visit Tehran to officially apologize to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

The delegation plans to express regret for the insulting remarks Columbia University President Lee Bollinger directed at Ahmadinejad on September 24 in his introductory speech, the Mehr News Agency correspondent in New York reported.

Since the incident, the deans and professors from the faculties of history, anthropology, Middle Eastern studies, philosophy, and Islamic studies have criticized Bollinger’s behavior toward Ahmadinejad.

A member of the delegation, who requested anonymity, said the main goal of the visit is to meet the Iranian president and officially apologize to him.

UPDATE: They deny it.

Jihadist websurfing habits

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

But Rice on Monday clarified that the US believes that portions of east Jerusalem are considered to be "settlements" and that Israel must stop building there as part of its commitment to implement the first phase of the road map.

The land that Har Homa is on was legally purchased by Jews from Sheikh Shehade al-Faghuri, through an Arab middleman named Ibrahim al-Dajani, in 1944. (source: Army of Shadows)

"Accomplices to Terror" posters in Jerusalem

"Terrorists" poster in Gaza City

"How to Behead"

The IslamOnline website published a poem last week, without attribution and without comment, in its "Arts and Culture" section, called "How to Behead.":

Hold him
Tie the arms behind his back
And bandage his legs together
Just by the ankles
Blindfold the punk
So that he won't hesitate as much
For on seeing the sharp pointy knife
He'll begin to shake
And continuously scream like an eedyat
And jiggle like a jelly
Trust me–this will sure get you angry
It’s better to have at least two or three brothers by your side
Who can hold the fool
Because as soon as the warm sharp knife
Touches his naked flesh
He'll come to know what'll happen
It's not as messy or as hard as some may think,
It's all about the flow of the wrist.
No doubt that the punk will twitch and scream
But ignore the donkey's ass
And continue to slice back and forth
You'll feel the knife hit the wind and food pipe
But don't stop
Continue with all your might.
About now you should feel the knife vibrate,
You can feel the warm heat being given off,
But this is due to the friction being caused.

The reactions from Muslim readers on the site was mostly disgust and anger at Islam Online for publishing it. Some tried to say that the poem was intended to make Muslims think but the vast majority were clearly upset, just as much for the content as much as for the poor image it gives of Muslims altogether.

Now, IOL is asking readers to write their own poems in response. It still hasn't identified the author or why it decided to print it. IOL itself in the past has published fatwas that were unequivocally against beheading prisoners.

The "poem" itself was written by the self-described "Lyrical Terrorist," a woman who was convicted of a terrorism charge in the UK and received a suspended sentence. She loved downloading beheading videos as well.

Why would Islam Online publish such a poem anonymously, without comment, in its "Arts and Culture" section? If it wanted to editorialize about the justice or perceived injustice of the verdict it should have provided some context. From the furious reaction of readers, it does not appear to reflect IOL's own views at all (although it has published plenty of fatwas supporting suicide bombing in Israel.) As poetry, it is horrendous.

My guess is that this was just poor judgment on the part of the Arts and Culture editor, to try to stir up controversy or to prove that most mainstream Muslims are revolted by beheadings. So far, IOL hasn't explained itself even as it acknowledged the controversy.

The brilliant politics of the Gaza Strawberry Growers Association

Buried in the weekly UN report on Palestinian Arab civilians from December 25 comes this juicy tidbit:

Kerem Shalom crossing was open on six days this week for the entry of commercial and humanitarian goods. On 20, 23, 24 and 25 December, the crossing was open for the export of flowers. Since 18 December, and for the second time this month, the Palestinian strawberries association has blocked all exports of strawberries to protest against the limited amounts Israel has allowed them to export through the crossing (the first strike was between 7 and 11 December).

Israel allows the Gazans, supposedly under siege, to export flowers and strawberries to bring in much needed cash. The Gazan strawberry growers, however, are upset that they can't export as much as they want to.

So the net result is a lot of poorer Gaza farmers, a lot of rotting strawberries, and a lot more reasons to blame Israel rather than themselves for their own self-induced problems.

I wonder if the actual farmers whose incomes are affected by this decision had a vote in this matter or if it was another set of self-righteous and self-appointed "leaders" who pretend to speak on their behalf?