Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, September 29, 2008

Another heartbreaking Gaza starvation picture

A Palestinian vendor sells sweets as Muslims prepare for the Eid-al-Fitr festival in the southern Gaza Strip September 28, 2008. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

The packaging on the candy boxes is in Hebrew.

(Although it is possible that the vendor is using old boxes as display cases. "Medjool" is a type of date.)

Abbas in 2007 accused Israel of "desecrating holy places"

I couldn't find Mahmoud Abbas' full speech at the UN this year, but his speech last year included an amazing libel against Israel that I do not recall anyone condemning him for:

Is it not time for the city of Jerusalem to become a city of true peace for all peoples of faith from all religions, and for Israel, the occupying Power, to cease all actions aimed at altering the character of the sacred city, imposing siege on it and forcing its inhabitants to leave, and desecrating the Christian and Islamic holy places in the city?

This is an outrageous lie, and it far better fits the description of how Arabs have historically taken care of the city rather than how Jews did.

Yet I do not recall the Israeli government angrily condemning Abbas for this libelous claim, let alone other Western nations.

When a supposed "peace partner" cannot be trusted to tell the truth, how much weight should one give to his promises?

Religion of Peace firebombs book publisher

From the Guardian (h/t Yerushalimey):

The London home of the publisher of a controversial new novel that gives a fictionalised account of the Prophet Muhammad's relationship with his child bride, Aisha, was firebombed yesterday, hours after police had warned the man that he could be a target for fanatics.
A petrol bomb is believed to have been thrown through the door of Martin Rynja's £2.5m town house in Islington's Lonsdale Square, which also doubles as the headquarters of his publishing company, Gibson Square. Three men have been arrested on terrorism charges.
The Observer has learned that police told Rynja late on Friday night to leave his property. His company recently made headlines when it announced it was to publish The Jewel of Medina.
Written by US journalist Sherry Jones, the book was due to have been published in August by US giant Random House. But amid controversy the company halted publication, a move denounced by Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, as 'censorship by fear'.
Rynja bought the UK publishing rights earlier this month. 'The Jewel of Medina has become an important barometer of our time,' Rynja said at the time. 'As an independent publishing company, we feel strongly that we should not be afraid of the consequences of debate.'
Yesterday the Metropolitan Police confirmed that three men had been arrested in connection with the incident in Lonsdale Square. Two men aged 22 and 30 were stopped by armed officers in the street outside the property and a third man, aged 40, was arrested near Angel tube station. Police have begun searching four addresses around north-east London - two in Walthamstow, one in Ilford and one in Forest Gate.
The men were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, and last night were being questioned at a central London police station, a Met spokesman said. Scotland Yard confirmed that a small fire inside the property had been extinguished. 'At this early stage it is being linked with the arrests,' the spokesman said.

This is exactly how Jews, Christians and other religions react when books are published that they feel insulted by, right?

Anatomy of a supposed "settler attack"

Ma'an, as well as the rest of the PalArab media, reports:

Israeli settlers executed an 18-year-old shepherd boy in the fields outside Aqraba, a town in the Nablus district of the northern West Bank.

Village municipal affairs representative Ghassan Douglas identified the young man as Yahya Atta Riahin. Douglas said that a gang of Israeli settlers from Itamar settlement shot the boy at least 20 times at close range.

Yahya did not return home with his sheep for the fast-breaking meal, Iftar. His family alerted the neighbors and the whole village organized a search party to look for the missing boy.

His body was found in fields between the illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar and the villages of Aqraba and Awarta.

According to Douglas, eyewitnesses reported seeing a white vehicle driven by Israeli settlers stop, chase down the boy and shot him directly.

We have here a story that only exists in the Palestinian Arab press and its veracity depends on a politician who claims that eyewitnesses saw it. (Some of the Arabic press is more lurid, claiming that the settlers beheaded the victim.)

None of the Israeli media has picked up on this story nor has any wire service.

Besides the fact that it is highly implausible that a carful of settlers was driving around just to kill a random Arab shepherd for no reason, there is another problem with this story: it supposedly happened on the Jewish Sabbath.

It had to have happened before the Sabbath was over, because the dead youth would have made sure to make it home to his family at the moment of the Iftar meal during Ramadan which would be roughly the same time that Shabbat is over.

So now we are supposed to believe that not only were settlers driving around and randomly murdering Palestinian Arabs, but that these supposed religious fanatics were violating the Sabbath to do that?

Sorry, but chances are more likely that the victim was shot by other Arabs, or something completely different happened. As it is, the accusations seem to be just another of a long series of lies.

UPDATE: The Israeli media is now reporting this story. YNet mentions the skepticism that "settlers" have towards being blamed; al-Aretz predictably believes the accusation, which now includes the detail that it happened "late Saturday night" - which means that the shepherd was still alive when he missed his family's Iftar meal, again making no sense.

UPDATE 2: Sure enough, it was not a settler attack. Ma'an reports it came from a grenade, which might indicate either a mistake or a "work accident." (h/t Shimshon)

Iranian "Qods Day" pictures (updated)

Hat tip to commenter Marc El, who noticed that the turnout to this year's Iranian hatefest was pretty poor.

From Iran's Fars News Agency:

No rally is complete without the obligatory burning of the infidel flags:

The "Holy War or Victory" sign shows a kid with a Palestinian Arab flag smashing a Star of David:

"How many must die before YOU act?" says this sign held by an army of veiled drones. Looking at it closer, it appears to show a US soldier shooting bullets that have - corporate logos. (The upper left is clearly Coca-Cola, I couldn't make out the others.) Does this mean that Iran is imposing sanctions on the US? I hadn't noticed.

True love - a Hezbollah supporter and his partner.

Chances are very good that this keffiyeh was manufactured in China.

Can't you feel the love?
UPDATE: A couple more:

This guy should go into advertising.

Finally, someone who admits that the Al Aqsa mosque was built on Jewish land!

"Free Gaza" freaks delayed yet again

There is an old maxim that when someone gives you more than one reason, you can be sure that they are lying:

Foreign activists who planned to sail to Gaza in defiance of an Israeli blockade have delayed their trip to late October, an organizer said on Friday.
Members of the U.S.-based Free Gaza Movement had planned to sail to the Palestinian territory from Cyprus this week, but said they were held up while attempting to find a boat.

There were also poor weather conditions in the eastern Mediterranean, and activists did not want their trip to coincide with the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan next week, a spokeswoman said.

"The only analogy I can think of is like showing up with 22 people you don't know for Christmas dinner," said Greta Berlin, a spokeswoman for the Free Gaza Movement.

Hmm. If they don't have a boat, the rough seas don't seem to be as big a problem. And isn't it amazing that the people who planned this trip for weeks - includign many Muslims - didn't notice that it was the end of Ramadan?

Their press release, which is not yet on their website, darkly implies that the Jooooz were behind their inability to find a decent boat:

Unfortunately, every time we thought we reached an agreement with a boat owner, our agreement has fallen through, in part, we believe, due to outside pressure. Though it is a very difficult decision to make, we have decided to temporarily delay our voyage.

Yes, that Jewish lobby stops all boat owners from selling their boats to an organization that is still deeply in debt and almost certainly couldn't scrape the money together to pay for it.

Even though their website has mutliple pages begging for money, they don't have the honesty to tell reporters the truth, and would rather blame those nefarious Zionists yet again for their own pathetic inability to do anything remotely useful for Gazans.

Bolton on Iranian nukes

From the New York Daily News:

A wakeup call on Iran's nukes

BY JOHN BOLTON

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, just a few hours after President Bush. The contrast was palpable. Ahmadinejad expressed continued defiance of the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency, insisting that Iran would continue and even accelerate its nuclear program. Bush, by contrast, has overseen nearly six years of failure trying to stop Iran from doing exactly that.

Iran is now closer than ever to achieving its long-held strategic objective of obtaining deliverable nuclear weapons. Why has Iran succeeded and the United States failed in this struggle? What does it tell us about the options available to our next President, in this increasingly dangerous situation? Will Iran be a centerpiece of the first presidential debate?

First, negotiating with Iran will not stop its nuclear weapons program. Sen. Barack Obama has said that he will speak with rogue state leaders like Ahmadinejad "without preconditions," implying this is a new idea. In fact, Britain, France and Germany ("the EU-3") have been doing exactly that for over five years. Throughout, they have been surrogates for America, and yet Iran has shown no inclination to terminate its nuclear program.

Negotiation is like all human activity: It has costs as well as benefits. The history of Europe's efforts underscores a significant cost of negotiating with a nuclear aspirant: time. More time is almost always on the proliferator's side, because it allows for the complex work necessary to master the nuclear fuel cycle. The net effect of five years of EU-3 negotiation is that Iran is five years closer to achieving a deliverable nuclear weapon. We cannot afford more of the same.

Second, Europe still does not fully appreciate the risks of a nuclear-armed Iran, nor is it willing to take the steps necessary to prevent it. Europe's lack of real concern stems in part from the controversy over intelligence about Iraq, but also from the deeper EU mindset that its members have passed beyond history, and entered a zone of security that will persist as long as outsiders are not "provoked."

This false sense of security saps EU willingness to take steps stronger than mere diplomacy, such as tough economic sanctions, much less contemplating the use of force. Thus, whatever impact on Iran that sanctions might have if imposed swiftly and comprehensively have only wound up giving the appearance of decisive action rather than the reality.

Third, the Security Council will not solve the Iran problem. Russia, and to a lesser extent China, have made it clear that they will block meaningful sanctions in the Council. This was the case in the first three sanctions resolutions, where Russian intransigence wore down the EU-3 to the point where they accepted only what Russia was prepared to allow, so they could "declare victory" even when weak sanctions resolutions were finally adopted.

Russia has an enormous interest in protecting Iran from meaningful Security Council sanctions. Moscow hopes to sell nuclear fuel, and construct many nuclear power plants in addition to the one nearly complete at Bushehr, and sees Iran as a substantial market for high-end conventional weapons sales. Similarly, China's large and growing demands for energy make Iran an attractive partner for assured supplies of oil and natural gas, as well as a potential market. All of these interests and more virtually guarantee that the Security Council's role in dealing with Iran will remain minimal at best.

On Jan. 20, either President McCain or Obama will face very unattractive choices if he is serious about disarming this outlaw regime. One is regime change in Tehran, through support of the widespread discontent across Iran with the mullahs. The other is the targeted use of force against Iran's nuclear program.

Both of these options are complex, risky and highly difficult. Unfortunately, the only other alternative - Iran with nuclear weapons - is far worse. Ready or not, our new President will have to make decisive and far-reaching choices.

14 weeks in a row

For the fourteenth consecutive week, far more Palestinian Arabs managed to die from their own actions than from anything Israel did.

According to the PCHR, the IDF killed one "child" this week (a boy who was lighting up a Molotov cocktail and who had, the week before, stabbed a 9-year old). Interestingly, they repeat the accusation that the IDF was responsible for a woman's death in Abu Dis, but they don't count it as someone the IDf killed. (The woman apparently died of a heart attack.)

Meanwhile, I counted 10 people killed by Palestinian Arab actions this week in the territories - 5 in tunnel incidents that had no apparent other cause, the rest shootings and the like.

And, for more comparison, 5 more were apparently killed by Egypt when it dynamited a smuggling tunnel. And one PalArab was killed in a bomb in a mosque in Lebanon this week; three more killed last week in intra-PalArab fighting.

I dunno; this genocidal IDF is not doing a very good job compared to the Palis themselves.

Happy Qods Day!

Today is the last Friday of Ramadan, a day declared by the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran to be "Qods Day," where a city that Islam essentially ignored for most of the first twelve centuries of its existence is suddenly considered vitally important - only after Jews recovered control of Jerusalem.

Here is a roundup of posts I've made to celebrate Qods Day over the past couple of years:

Introduction - An overview of how Muslims have ignored Jerusalem when they had control over the city.

The originator of Qods Day: A brief snippet of another, rather disgusting, legal ruling by the late Ayatollah.

A 1910 article showing the tremendous growth of Jerusalem in the few decades since mass Jewish return to the city, including how much land values increased and how much money Arabs were getting for selling land to Jews.

Jerusalem in Islamic art: A survey of the (non)-existence of Jerusalem in any Islamic art that pre-dates Zionism, compared to some ancient Jewish pictures of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem in Islamic poetry: A very similar posting showing every ancient Islamic poem I could find that mentions Islam's "third holiest city," plus a 12th century Jewish poem about the city.

Jerusalem in Islamic coins: Another post comparing the number of times Jerusalem was depicted in historic Islamic coins compared to ancient Jewish currency.

Jerusalem in Islamic prayer: Jerusalem, for some strange reason, is not mentioned once in Islamic prayer, but it is a central motif of Jewish prayer.

Guest post: Review of Paul McCartney's Tel Aviv concert

Guest post by commenter Yerushalimey:
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It's difficult to decide where - or when - to begin an account of Sir Paul McCartney's "Friendship First" concert last night in Tel Aviv. I could describe the closest train station, a couple of hours before the event where, besides the steady flow of people of all ages wearing Beatles T-shirts there were about 20 women standing in line outside the shirutim (public toilets), presumably because they didn't expect to be able to relieve themselves comfortably at the Hayarkon Park venue. (There were, in turned out, rows of Portapotties lined up near the park's shirutim.) Or I could review the death threats from Muslim clerics; or the comments in The Guardian arguing that it is not hypocritical for someone to demand that McCartney boycott Israel yet, at the same time, enjoy Israeli cell phone and computer technology...

Although I saw a security guard single out a lone male for what seemed to be careful questioning, for the most part the people at the gates seemed to be at least as intent on preventing large bottles of water from being brought in as detecting weapons. (The most lax security I've ever seen in Israel was at a reggae concert: at music events I suppose the people who don't belong are easily spotted.) I saw no weapons within the fabric wall. That's understandable, but noteworthy because so many people routinely carry guns in public in Israel.

Two hours before the show was scheduled to start, the area in front of the stage was filled. We spread our blanket a couple of hundred yards back and waited. There was a gigantic vertical screen on either side of the stage and the crowd became a little more energized when images from Paul's history scrolled down. No Israeli songs came over the sound system, just British and American music (and one Jimmy Cliff).

Ten minutes after the eight o'clock scheduled start, Paul began with a rousing "Hello Goodbye." Obvious opening choice, but especially canny because the audience couldn't resist joining in with the "Hey La, Hey Hey Lo Ah...." part. Then came "Jet." This pair of songs was a taste of what was to come: 32 songs (if I counted correctly,) the vast majority of which were
Beatle songs, and only a handful from after 1975.

"Shalom, Tel Aviv!" Paul greeted the audience, who seemed delighted when he added, Shana Tova!" It was the week before Rosh Hashana: maybe that was why there were so few men with yarmulkes visible - with the notable exception of the Chabad people outside, encouraging concert-goers to don tefillin...

"Baby You Can Drive My Car" was next, with an automobile sequence rolling behind him on the stage's rear wall.

I confess I don't know what the next song was: I could blame the poor scrawl in my notebook, but truthfully I didn't recognize it.

Paul next addressed the audience in Hebrew again: "Zeh echad hayashanim." ("This is one of the oldies.) And it was! "All My Loving." The crowd loved it.

Next was "Flaming Pie," followed by "Let Me Roll It." This was, therefore, the second of four tracks - including the title song - from Band on the Run. Later, when he sang "Mrs Vanderbilt" the audience sang along, "Ho, hey ho!" as though we were in a jungle....

The audience listened attentively to his next number, especially since he introduced it, in Hebrew, dedicating it "L'Linda." It was a very moving "My Love." he followed it with another from his post-Beatle songbook ("Let 'em In"); then came "Long and Winding Road." He played "Dance Tonight" (from 2007's Memory Almost Full), which, apart from "Flaming Pie," I think were the only songs from after 1975! (But you can check the Internet...)

Paul then talked briefly about how he and George - this was before they were Beatles - used to sit sometimes and play classical pieces on guitar. He demonstrated a Bach piece they used to play, and then showed how he stole a riff and turned it into...."Blackbird"!

During one of his anecdotal reminiscences, one of Paul's spontaneous asides probably baffled the native Israelis in the audience. "A long time ago," he began, and then interrupted himself with "- this wasn't in Bethlehem." I figure he wasn't referring to his trip to the Church of the Nativity; instead he was alluding to the '50s song that began "Long time ago in Bethlehem" about Mary's Boy Child... This seemed to be the only Christian reference in the evening. (He has stated that the mother Mary in "Let It Be" was actually his own mother, Mary.) But he did make a point of saying "Ramadan Karim" twice during the evening, the second time almost asking us to be fair. (Sorry, I didn't catch his exact words.)

I watched virtually all of the concert on one of the screens. I think it was during "Let It Be" that I turned around to see the lights of a thousand cellphones held up instead of candles. At one point I went forward and stood on my toes and craned my neck and peeked and finally caught a glimpse of the tiny figure in a pink shirt, so I can say I actually saw Paul with my naked eye, albeit from a couple hundred yards away. During the show he addressed the people he could see outside in the park proper. I turned to see what he saw: thousands of people who didn't pay and who, sitting or standing on a hill, probably had a less obstructed view of the stage than many of the paying audience. He had nothing to gain by greeting them. Paul was playing for the people - not simply for the money.

"I'll Follow the Sun," "Mrs Vanderbilt," "Here, There and Everywhere." After "Eleanor Rigby" (with keyboard synthesized violins), Paul addressed us in Hebrew again" "Hashir hazeh l'George." And he played "Something" - on the ukelele! The band joined in after the middle eight, so it ended up sounding quite like the album version, with thousands of people singing along.

Next he announced, "This is for John." I'm sure I wasn't the only one in the audience surprised - and delighted to hear "A Day in the Life." It's just not something you'd expect at a concert (unless Phish decided to perform "Sgt. Pepper!). It was amusing to watch one of the band members on the big screen panting just before the "Woke up, fell out of bed" segment. Without the London Symphony Orchestra present, there needed to be a new ending - it was Paul singing "Give Peace a Chance."

Clearly, Paul's tribute to John was, as Lennon himself would probably have wanted, a powerful political and very human declaration. Before the show I'd lamented that it's too bad that no one but Lennon could really sing the lead vocal. So I was happily impressed that Paul led about fifty-thousand Israelis in an indisputably sincere rendition of the plea for peace. I confess I felt smug, convinced that nowhere else in the Middle East could this anthem be sung by so many people. (Oddly, for me, this was not the most moving experience of the melody: the first time I heard "Oseh Shalom bimromav, etc." sung to "Give Peace a Chance," [at Kol Rina, in Jerusalem] tears came to my eyes: All we are saying...O-oseh shalom...)

"Band on the Run," "Back in the USSR" (with amusing old films of Soviet dancing in the background). Then "I Got a Feeling" with an extra hard biting extra ending.

There were fireworks for "Live and Let Die." Rockets shooting up, mostly white, with some glowing red balls. Not the most expensive or elaborate pyrotechnics, but especially effective because they were unanticipated and because they emphasized the sudden violence of the title. I took it as a kind of affirmation. "Live! and (if those crazies want to go around killing each other) Let Die..."

"Let it Be" - more inspiration, instruction for the weary - but not, like Olmert and his gang, hopeless - Israeli. And "Hey, Jude!" Paul playfully acknowledged different sections of the audience, singing "Na, Na, Na, Nanananah". "Rak Hanashim!" (Only the women!) he called, hand on hip, mincing across the stage...

He'd performed for two hours. Now the end of the show approached. The first, faux end. Stage empty, screens blank for a minute, while they took a quick break. First encore? What would it be?

"Lady Madonna." Then "Get Back." He chatted with the audience again, asked if they weren't real old rock and rollers, before he slammed into "I Saw Her Standing There." What was left? Of course: "Yesterday."

He bid the audience goodbye again. Introduced the musicians. Thanked everyone. Declared that the crew was the best in the world. (Maybe they were; but someone I was with said that the sound was off. I didn't know. I couldn't tell. I didn't care.)

"Shana Tova! Ramadan Karim!"

The final encore: "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (Reprise: "We're sorry but it's time to go...") And finally, "The End."

Wow! From "Hello, Goodbye" to "The End." Great set. Great show.

Paul McCartney is an amazingly talented composer and performer. It was a privilege to see him live in concert. He clearly is genuinely devoted to peace and love. His tribute to Linda was an act of personal courage, exposing himself as a vulnerable human. His tributes to George and John were similarly mentschlich. The fact that he ignored threats and criticism from the Blue Meanies, exposing himself to the possibility of physical danger and censure from some of the media, show him to be a seeker of justice.

Thank you, Paul.

Haifa, December 1-7, 1947

In the comments to my posting of Peres' speech at the UN, devoted commenter (and sometimes adversary) Aaron said:

Well,it was a half truth for Peres to say that "the Arabs went to war". The last weeks of 1947 saw a number of aggressive actions by both Arabs and Jews.

I responded with a link to a previous posting of mine, showing that the first Arab massacre of Jews occurred on the day after partition, to which Aaron responded:

There was not a Jewish attack before November 30th,but there was not an Arab attack in Haifa before the Irgun attack on December 7th.

So I went to the Palestine Post to see if there were any attacks against Jews by Arabs before December 7, 1947.

Here's what I found in date order:

Things did not appear to be idyllic in Haifa in the days after the Partition vote; at least one was killed (another Jew was killed by an Arab but it appeared to be an armed robbery) and the Jews lived in fear. And there were clearly numerous Arab attacks in that time period.

For the sheer heck of it.

Not that they have been so successful, but its nice to know they are there when needed!

(This is a "random" image from the Internet.
Literally. I typed in "random" at Google Images and chose the first picture. Although these numbers sure don't look random!)