Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Hamas' goal: open the Rafah crossing

Israel Matzav reported yesterday on a Debka article (no longer available) that Hamas is trying to use this manufactured "crisis" in Gaza in order to pressure Egypt to open the Rafah crossing.

Today, there is some evidence that Debka is correct. Palestine Press reports that Hamas has sent hundreds of women to Rafah to provoke and embarrass the Egyptians at the border (autotranslated):

Clashes erupted this afternoon between anti-riot forces stationed on the Egyptian crossing point of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip and between women from Hamas demonstrating and picketing in front of the crossing and creating anarchy at the border in order to embarrass the Egyptian leadership and incite public opinion.

Eyewitnesses said at the border women were brought in buses belonging to the Hamas movement after appeals sent them yesterday in mosques.

Hamas used women as a way to reach the goals that mostly lead to the destruction and loss of the Palestinian people oppressed under this provision unjust in Gaza and to embarrass the Egyptian leadership to the public opinion and Arab public.

Eyewitnesses said, "Ambulances rushed to the area of the crossing after the injury of a number of female supporters of Hamas were injured and were transported to the congestion of Rafah hospital to receive treatment."

The Hamas movement called for a demonstration of supporters of women's wives and female relatives of troops and Islamic bloc in the universities and schools near the Rafah crossing this morning, after Jmathn in buses from different areas of the Gaza Strip and they went to the crossing to demonstrate against the Egyptian authorities and demand to open the crossing closed since the Hamas coup in the Gaza Strip seven months ago.

The Egyptian police announced yesterday on the strengthening of security presence on the border of the Gaza Strip to 300 anti-riot forces in preparation to deal with Hamas demonstrations in the light of threats to use non-peaceful means to open the crossing in the event of the Egyptian authorities refused to adhere to their demands.

Ma'an adds that the Egyptians used batons and water cannons against the women as they shouted "Allah Akbar."

Baking a crisis

I mentioned yesterday Palestinian Arab press reports that Hamas forced the bakeries of Gaza to be closed even though they had a month of supplies. I wrote on Sunday about similar reports that Hamas was stealing fuel meant for hospitals.

Today, a PA official confirmed these stories:

A top PA official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that Hamas was "holding more than 1.5 million Palestinians hostage" in an attempt to rally the Arab and Muslim masses against the PA and Israel.
"Of course, we strongly condemn the Israeli measures against the residents of the Gaza Strip, but Hamas is also responsible for what's happening there," he said. "Unfortunately, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are paying a heavy price for Hamas's irresponsible actions."
The official also accused Hamas of ordering owners of bakeries to keep their businesses closed for the second day running to create a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. "Hamas is preventing people from buying bread," he said. "They want to deepen the crisis so as to serve their own interests."
The official said that contrary to Hamas's claims, there is enough fuel and flour to keep the bakeries in the Gaza Strip operating for another two months. "Hamas members have stolen most of the fuel in the Gaza Strip to fill their vehicles," he said.

From Hamas' viewpoint, it is all worth it as long as they can get their stooges at AP and Reuters to file pictures such as these:

Palestinians queue to buy bread from a bakery in Gaza City, Monday, Jan. 21, 2008.

And credulous reporters from major newspapers shamelessly parrot Hamas propaganda as they look for that "human angle":

Four days into an Israeli blockade that has cut off food and fuel to the Gaza Strip, residents of the strip contemplated Monday how long it would be until disaster hit. One family of 13, shivering in the cold, counted its eight remaining candles. A bakery that normally feeds thousands had three days' worth of flour.

Hospital generators with enough fuel for three days and no spare parts powered incubators in which twin boys born 2 1/2 months prematurely were being kept alive, their thin chests heaving convulsively.

Because, after all, if reporters have a nice juicy story of cute babies in imminent danger that can be conveniently blamed on Israel, or they have to dig a little to find what is really going on, which story will they choose?

As the Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh reports, Hamas has convincingly won a PR victory with staged photos and stories such as these.

January Qassam calendar

As usual, this is far from complete, and it is more to show how ignored the Qassam issue is rather than to show how many are being fired. Many Qassams never make it in the news, and the rare times that the IDF publishes statistics shows that I am usually undercounting by about 50%. Also, these are Qassams that make it to Israel; many that are fired explode in Gaza itself.

This list does not include mortars being shot from Gaza, which are usually much more numerous on any given day. It also does not count the occasional rocket from Lebanon.

262 this month

Previous calendars:

December 2007
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February

MSM can't resist pictures of cute terrorists in training

In Beirut:

A Palestinian child carries a rifle as he joins a demonstration at Shatila refugee camp in Beirut January 21, 2008, to protest against the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Sstrip.
REUTERS/ Jamal Saidi (LEBANON)

In Syria, via AP:

A Palestinian boy holding the Muslims holy book the Quran in one hand and a replica rifle in the other, during a protest against Israeli tactics in the Gaza Strip in al-Yarmouk refugee camp a major refugee camp some 10 km (6 miles) south of Damascus Monday Jan. 21, 2008. Some 1,500 people headed by Hamas deputy leader Mousa Abou Marzouk and members of other Damascusbased Palestinian factions took part in the rally.
(AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi)

And because Reuters couldn't stand to see AP have an exclusive on that kid:

A Palestinian child holds the Koran and a toy gun during a rally against a fuel blockade which led to power cuts in Gazaat al-Yarmouk Camp near to Damascus January 21, 2008.
REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri (SYRIA)

You just have to wonder if any Muslims look at the last picture and get really upset over the imagery of a Koran in one hand and a rifle in the other. They spend so much time arguing that Islam means peace - what do they think when they see this picture? Is it a manifestation of Islamic justice or is it a mockery of Islamic beliefs?

And if they get upset, is it because they disagree with the symbolism or only with it being seen publicly?

Malaysian Muslims allow a corpse to be buried after 18 days

Today's Sharia news. from Compass Direct:

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, January 21 (Compass Direct News) – After 18 harrowing days of battling with Islamic religious authorities, Ngiam Tee Kong on Friday (January 18) finally won the right to bury his wife, who died last December 30, according to Christian rites.

High Court Judge Lau Bee Lan made the decision to allow the Christian burial of Wong Sau Lan after Islamic religious authorities from the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Council (MAIWP) dropped the claim to her body, saying that her alleged conversion to Islam was not in accordance with sharia (Islamic law).

Zulkifli Che Yong, who represented MAIWP, told the Sun newspaper that the Council decided to drop the claim after taking into account the views of the mufti (Muslim clergy) and testimony from traditional healer Siti Aishah Ismail, from whom Wong had sought treatment.

Ngiam’s tussle with Islamic religious authorities began when his wife died of kidney failure at the Malaysian National University Hospital (Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia).

Following her death, MAIWP directed the hospital through the police not to release her body to her husband unless he admitted that she had converted to Islam on December 24, 2007. The Islamic religious authority claimed that Wong had converted to Islam by reciting Arabic verses during a session with a traditional healer a week earlier.

Ngiam, who is a Buddhist, challenged the claim and decided to take the matter to court. Ngiam maintained that his wife was a Christian and was baptized in November 2007.

Following the court decision, Ngiam’s lawyer, Karpal Singh, told reporters outside the courtroom that the body would be cremated according to Christian rites after a two-day wake.
...
In the last few years, there have been at least two other cases in which families of the deceased have had to battle Islamic religious authorities in court over the right to bury their loved ones.

In December 2006, the widow of Rayappan Anthony was involved in a nine-day dispute with Islamic religious authorities over whether her husband was a Muslim at the point of death before she was granted the right to bury him as a Christian.

In 2005, the widow of Mount Everest climber Moorthy Maniam lost the legal battle to bury her husband as a Hindu when the civil court ruled that it had no jurisdiction over decisions made by the sharia court. Islamic religious authorities gave her husband a Muslim burial.

Testing new feature: ratings

Haloscan just added the ability to rate individual post ratings on a scale of one to five. It looks like it is worth trying out, as the only feedback I get is through comments and only a small percentage of my readers ever comment. It would be nice to know which of my postings resonate with people and which ones don't.

So if you get a chance, please rate any of the posts here you see with the star system on the bottom of each post.

It looks like it makes the site slower than it already was, so I don't know how long I'll keep this feature, but we'll give it a shot...and any feedback you can give is appreciated as well.

Strike - no spares

One would think that Palestinian Arabs would know by now that their oft-declared "general strikes" hurts no one but themselves.

I have referred a number of times to the strike of 1946-47 when an Arab boycott of Jewish goods ended up hurting many Arab shopkeepers - while the Jews increased their marketing to other countries, ending up making more money and being less dependent on the Arabs.

The 1936 strike, which Arab historians generally consider to be the high point of Palestinian Arab unity and resolve, resulted in the Jews building a port in Tel Aviv to work around the Jaffa port that was closed by the strike. The consequences for the Arab economy were severe.

A two-hour strike in 1947 to protest the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration resulted in Jewish shops and cafes being busier than ever, serving Arab customers.

And yet these strikes continue as a major rallying factor by the so-called Arab "leaders." Each strike throughout history was roundly ignored by many of the people whose lives were directly affected by these calls. And each time - in the 1936-39 "Great Revolt", in the 1946-47 strike, in the December 1947 strike in response to the partition plan - self-appointed, self-righteous Arabs would decide to "enforce" the strike, if necessary by murdering the people who choose not to participate.

Today, nothing much has changed:

Jerusalem police on Monday detained four Arab residents of the city suspected of threatening east Jerusalem shopkeepers to take part in a solidarity strike in support of the Palestinians in Gaza, police said.

I would venture that the reason that PalArabs continue to go down the same self-destructive path that has proven disastrous for decades is because they don't learn any sort of objective history. One would be hard-pressed to find any Palestinian Arab who considers the 1936-9 "Great Revolt" to be anything but an historic victory, when in fact its consequences directly translated to their "naqba" in 1948, not to mention infighting that killed hundreds of them at the time.

Some people never learn.

Clan clash!

From PCHR:

On Sunday evening, 20 January, Marwan Awad El-Gharabli from Sheja’eya Quarter in Gaza City was killed and two others were injured in an armed clan clash between members of El-Gharabli and Abu Amr clans.

I did not see this in any Palestinian Arabic news site, and since the Gaza takeover I'm sure I am missing many murders and Hamas torture-deaths (no word on the fate of some "collaborators" found a couple of weeks ago, for example.)

But from the ones I can check, the 2008 PalArab self-death count rises to 11.

I am also not counting a man who was killed on the Egyptian side of a Gaza tunnel yesterday.

Reports that Hamas closes Gaza bakeries

The anti-Hamas Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas is forcing bakeries in Gaza to close - even though they have enough supplies to stay open for a month (autotranslated, cleaned up):

Reliable local sources in the Gaza Strip said that the illegal Hamas militia's supreme political leadership ordered bakery owners in the towns and camps sector prevent the sale of bread for citizens and closing doors, in a continuation in its scheme aimed to deepen the humanitarian crisis it is going through the Gaza Strip in order to achieve narrow partisan gains.\

A number of bakery owners in the sector were quoted as saying, "they had received orders from Hamas militias to close immediately and prevent the sale of bread for citizens, and not presented themselves to brutality and vengeance of those militias in the absence of Anasiallm orders."

The bakery owners said "that the stocks of material sufficient to meet the precise needs of the population of the Gaza Strip of bread for one full month and more", who indicated that they are able to provide this basic commodity for the Palestinian citizen throughout this period of no orders militia Hamas, which prevented them from doing so.

I take much of what PalPress says about Hamas with a grain of salt but very often their claims are corroborated. In addition, since Hamas' takeover of Gaza it is clear that the campaign of intimidation against the press is working and other Palestinian Arab newspapers have become very reluctant to publish anti-Hamas stories.

This story in particular is consistent with how we have seen Hamas act in the past, as well as earlier reports that Hamas has confiscated fuel meant for hospitals for its own use.

Recent anti-semitism stories

Australians against Jews from South Africa

Threats against Jewish centers in Berlin

Israeli academic anti-semitism

Government attacks on Jewish institutions in Venezuela

Anti-semitic hate crime suspect found with pipe bombs and other weapons in Brooklyn

A Gazan child cries. Reuters is there to blame Israel!

Pity Reuters. They want so much to find pictures that illustrate that "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza that they will grasp at any straw they can find, even a child who apparently skins his knee:

A Palestinian boy cries outside his house in the Gaza Strip January 20, 2008. Gaza's main power plant began shutting down on Sunday due to a fuel shortage caused by Israel's closure of the Hamas-controlled territory's borders in response to Palestinian rocket attacks. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

I'm surprised that they didn't caption this photo "Palestinian children forced to draw their own crude Israeli and American flags for burning because of a severe flag shortage due to Israel's total, uncompromising blockade of Gaza's innocent citizens."

MSM lies, Israel still supplies Gaza with electricity

The headlines from around the web:

Israel cuts off Gaza's electricity
Gazans reel under power shutdown
Gaza City Goes Dark After Power Cut
Gaza in power cut as blockade bites
Gaza Residents Plunged Into Darkness

Sure sounds like Israel has cut all electricity to Gaza, doesn't it?

And, as happens too often, the MSM is lying, sometimes explicitly and sometimes by broad implication.

The truth?

The Israeli Electric Company (IEC) is supplying nearly 70% of electricity to the Gaza Strip despite Palestinians' claims of a power shortage in Gaza, said Miko Zarfati, the chairman of the workers' committee at the power company.

"This is Palestinian spin. No one has stopped the supply of electricity to the Strip," Zarfati told Ynet. He claimed that his employees worked day and night in a power plant in Ashkelon while putting themselves in danger of being hit by Qassam rockets falling in the area.

The Gaza power plant only produces 30% of the electricity consumed in the Strip while Israel supplies the rest.

"It is simply offensive and arrogant for them to claim that there is shortage," Zarfati said.

The IEC employee was upset that Israel continues to supply electricity to Gaza while the Qassam rockets continue to land in the western Negev.

"The situation is totally absurd. We're continuing to supply them electricity despite the (demand) overload for electricity in Israel and despite the fact that Israeli residents and Electric Company workers that are being sent to Gaza Vicinity communities are under threat from Qassam rockets," Zarfati railed.

"The Electric Company sends people to fix power outages that are caused from the Qassam barrages everyday in Sderot and the Gaza vicinity and more than one worker has already been injured in these rocket attacks."

According to Zarafti, the workers have been pressuring him to cut off the flow of electricity to the Strip: "I am being pressured to disconnect the electricity, but I am of course a law-abiding man and I cannot do this.

The decision to disconnect the electricity to Gaza is a decision which can only be made by the Israeli government and I understand the consideration sagainst shutting off the power."

The workers' committee chairman has been thinking of ways to improve the lives of the employees on the front line. "I explode with anger and feel hopeless in the face of the workers' situation and in the face of the whole situation in the Gaza vicinity and in Ashkelon," Zarfati continued.

"I appealed to the Finance Ministry and asked them to approve a plan to reward these employees in some way, a few cents for everything they're going through. Unfortunately, I received a negative response."

The Treasury responded saying "no precedents will be created with regards to salary bonuses for workers living in dangerous areas."

Not only is Israel still supplying Gaza with 70% of its electricity directly - it forces its electric utility employees to endanger their own lives, under Qassam and Katyusha fire, to keep that electricity supply up and running.

This is an astonishing bit of dishonesty from the mainstream media in spinning the story the way they are.

We already knew that Gazan terrorists have been shooting rockets not only at Israel but at the border crossings as well, limiting their own ability to get humanitarian aid, for months. But the MSM doesn't mention it.

We already knew that even though Israel is under no obligation to provide food, fuel or medicine to Gaza, it still accepts dozens of medical patients daily (70 on Sunday alone.) But the MSM barely addresses this.

And now, we learn that Israel puts its own citizens in danger in order to keep the electricity flowing to Gaza. And the MSM happily accepts the Palestinian lies as gospel as it hammers Israel for creating a crisis that doesn't exist.

UPDATE: Honest Reporting covers this well.