Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Saudi family tries to marry off 5 and 11 year old daughters

A doctor in Saudi Arabia was able to stop the wedding of a five and 11 year-old whose family wanted to marry them to protect financial assets. "Thanks to the law that compels spouses to carry out blood analyses before marriage, we were able to stop a wedding with underage girls, among them a five year-old," said Hani Harsani, the doctor in charge of laboratory analysis in an interview with Saudi daily al-Watan.

"Two sisters came to us accompanied by their parents to undergo pre-marital blood analyses. The first one was five, and the other 11 years-old. When we asked the mother why they wanted to do the tests, she told us that she wanted to marry the girls to cousins to preserve the family's property rights."

During the interview, Harsani remembers an episode when a 10-year-old orphan was brought to do pre-marital blood tests by her brother, who wanted to marry the sister to a 40-year-old friend who already had two other wives.

"We cannot technically impede a marriage with a girl of this age. However, we can delay the process (by refusing to carry out the tests)," said Harsani.

The unanswered question is what stops the family to find a less ethical doctor?

Palestinian Authority blames Hamas for Gaza deaths

From MEMRI (h/t jhrhv):

In his visit to Egypt, PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) placed the responsibility for the Israeli attack on Hamas, saying, "We called the leaders of Hamas, and told them both directly and directly, through Arab parties and non-Arab parties. We talked with them on the phone. We told them, 'Please, do not end the tahdiah.'"

Nimr Hammad, an advisor to Mahmoud Abbas, said: "The one responsible for the massacres is Hamas, and not the Zionist entity, which in its own view reacted to the firing of Palestinian missiles. Hamas needs to stop treating the blood of Palestinians lightly. They should not give the Israelis a pretext." He called upon the leaders of Hamas to stop carrying out "operations which reflect recklessness, such as the firing of missiles."
Bassem Abu-Sumayyah, director of the Palestinian TV & Radio Authority and columnist for the PLO daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, reiterated the accusation that "Hamas blocked its ears… They should have had even a little bit of political and security sense, and not left the people wandering, and losing their way, getting killed and injured. It is clear that Hamas was struck by megalomania since they took over Gaza, which blinded them so they would not listen to any advice.
Editor of the PLO daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida Hafez Al-Barghouthi criticized Hamas for not prolonging the tahdiah, and for kidnapping Gilad Shalit: "Prolonging the tahdiah was a supreme national interest. Why hasn't [Hamas] prevented the aggression and the massacre? How many times have we written, and President Abu Mazen has declared, that these missiles [that Hamas is firing at Israel] as ineffective and contrary to the supreme national interest.
Columnist Muwaffaq Matar called for creating an internal Palestinian investigation committee, and blamed Hamas for being responsible for the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza: "Will we learn the lesson, or are our leaders going to run away from bearing responsibility, as they usually do? ...What did the commanders in Gaza expect? That the commanders of the Israeli army will let them know what is the zero hour, so that they will remove their people from the military and security headquarters?.
Abdallah Awwad, columnist for the PA daily Al-Ayyam, argued against Hamas' attempt to be both a government as well as a fighting resistance: "The Israeli incursions after 2000 [during the Al-Aqsa Intifada] and the destruction of the PLO headquarters were enough [for the PLO] to see the incompatibility of being a government at the same time as fighting the resistance… We are paying the price of stupidity, and the maniacal love of being rulers, that has nothing in it except for hollow slogans.

It bears repeating that at the exact same time that Gaza was going downhill under Hamas rule, the West Bank has been economically booming - as the PA started to take responsibility for its own people, Israel has been easing restrictions, and the result has been that West Bank residents' quality of life has been improving dramatically. This proves that Israel is not a racist entity hell-bent on enslaving Palestinian Arabs but a pragmatic country that yearns to live in peace with its Arab neighbors and takes its security seriously.

And it underlines that Hamas is indeed the party responsible for what a hellhole Gaza has become.

I'm nominated for the 2008 Weblog Awards

Elder of Ziyon has been nominated for the 2008 Weblog Award for Best Middle Eastern or Africa Blog. And I am in very good company.

I was similarly nominated in 2006 and was roundly destroyed in the final round, getting less than 10% of the vote of the winner. So to make it interesting I announced my goal to beat The Sudanese Thinker for a distant fourth place, which I managed to get at the last minute.

This year I expect to do about the same as I did then. The category includes some serious heavyweights:

Michael J. Totten - Excellent professional journalist who ran away with the award last year
Martin Kramer on the Middle East - A prolific author, professor and noted Middle East expert. Oh, great.
Fundamentally Freund - Writer who blogs for Israel National News
My Marrakesh - The adventures of an American family in Morocco
Informed Comment - Juan Cole's site. I would love to beat him just to prove how irrelevant he really is. Unfortunately, he'll get 100% of the moonbat vote.
The Sudanese Thinker - my old nemesis. We meet again!
Muslimah Media Watch - I don't know it, but it looks interesting.
Days of My Life - An articulate teenage girl in Iraq.
Israellycool - Popular and essential Israeli blog where I contribute posts as well
Elder of Ziyon - um, who? Some anonymous guy who doesn't even live in the Middle East! What's he doing here?

There were some 23 nominations, so it is a great honor to have been chosen to even compete in this category. I'll let you all know when the voting begins.

Other Israel-themed blogs that were nominated in other categories include Daled Amos, Israel Matzav, and Snapped Shot. Congratulations!

UN Lies

I caught the statement from UNRWA head Karen Abu Zayd and was going to spend some time showing that it was false, but Omri and Meryl Yourish did it first, and better.

Meryl's synopsis:

Here’s what Omri caught:
“What we understood here (was) that there was a 48-hour lull to be called, and this was called by the Israelis,” Abu Zayd said. “They said they would wait 48 hours. That was on Friday morning, I believe, until Sunday morning, and that they were going to evaluate.”

“There was only one rocket that went out on Friday, so it was obvious that Hamas was trying, again, to observe that truce to get this back under control,” she said.

“Then, everything got loose on Saturday morning at 11:30 a.m. We were all at work and very much surprised by this,” Abu Zayd said.

Here’s what’s wrong with Abu Zayd’s facts: Everything. She is lying through her teeth. Hamas was not “trying, again, to observe that truce.” Hamas was firing rockets and mortars at will.

Dozens of mortar shells and Qassams have been fired at Israel since Thursday night. Several mortar shells were launched while Israel opened border crossings to allow humanitarian aid into the Strip, but all of them landed within Palestinian territory.

Heads of the Gaza vicinity communities were outraged Friday by Israel’s decision to allow 40 trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip, despite the incessant rocket and mortar fire at the western Negev.

The AP could easily fact-check this article by looking in their own archives.

The militants kept up their fire on Israeli border areas despite Israel’s agreement to open its crossings Friday. In all, 13 rockets and mortars were fired toward Israel by Friday evening, the military said. One home was struck but no injuries were reported.

And yet, the AP is passing along Abu Zayd’s lies, uncritically.

There was a time that the UNRWA actually had scruples and morals, and tried to do the right thing. That time passed over fifty years ago, as it transformed from an organization that tried to end the Arab refugee problem into one that was dedicated to prolonging it.

Free Gaza freaks turned away

Israel wisely decided not to allow the Free Gaza publicity hounds to arrive in a war zone. The FGM claims that the Israeli Navy rammed and fired on their boat; Israel says that they told the ship to stop and it kept going and rammed into the Israeli boat.

The Free Gaza mailing list quotes a Ha'aretz article about the incident but prefixes it with "We all know the Israelis are inveterate liars, so I wouldn't assume any of it is actually true."

Since there were journalists on board, I am sure that a video will soon be available showing whether Israel fired at them. The CNN video report interviewing a CNN reporter on board says nothing about any shooting, only that the Israeli boat "rammed" the "Dignity." No doubt if there was any live fire, the CNN reporter would have mentioned it. Showing who the "inveterate liars" are.

The FGM freaks explicitly said yesterday in a press release that they will refuse to stop, no matter what:

We are not asking Israel for "permission" to go, and we will not stop until the DIGNITY lands in Gaza.

Just for context: The Free Gaza boat was supposed to have 3 tons of medical aid. During the past three days, Israel has sent 186 trucks filled with aid to Gaza - plus ten ambulances. Each truck, from past experience, holds between 10 and 20 tons of material.

Which means that for all the noise the FGM makes about how necessary their trip is to help Gazans, their "aid" equates to roughly 0.1% of what the hated, lying Zionist enemy has given while under direct attack from Gaza. Proving yet again that the off-key moonbats' purpose is not to help Gazans (they could coordinate sending aid through Israel, as Jordan does, or through Egypt, which sent 72 trucks of its own) but to hurt Israel through PR.

(I'm pretty sure that Israel's tractor trailers filled with aid are far larger than Egypt's.)
(h/t Humanitarian Aid commenter.)

UPDATE: Al Jazeera's report here.

UPDATE 2 - More proof of Free Gaza's lies.

Gleeful Hamas press release on 4 Israeli deaths

From Hamas' Al-Qassam website (autotranslated):

The Brigades of the Martyr Izz el-Deen al-Qassam, the military wing of the "Hamas" movement bombed on Monday (29/12) the port of Ashdod with "Grad" rockets and the settlement of Nahal Oz with three mortar shells. The Zionist enemy admitted the deaths of four rapists, including an officer, and injuries to more than 20 others wounded by the Qassam rockets.

The group said in its "The Mujahduha bombed the Ashdod port, which lies 40 km north of the Gaza Strip, Grad rockets at 9:15 "which led to the death of Zionist rapists and injuring more than 20 others, three of them seriously.

The Mujahduha battalions have also shelled the settlement of Nahal Oz with three mortar shells at 9:40 and the Zionist enemy admitted the killing of two soldiers, one officer and wounding four others.

The statement said "We declare jihad on the work of shelling Zionist settlements with Grad rockets and mortar shells, which resulted in the recognition of the Zionist enemy of the killing of four rapists and wounding more than 20 others, three of them seriously.

The group said the bombing was a response to the continued Zionist aggression against our people in Gaza and the West Bank, in response to the Zionist massacre in Gaza, which led to the deaths of more than 350 people and injured hundreds, and on the continuing unjust siege on our people.

Of course, one of the victims was a 39-year old mother of four, another was an Israeli Arab and a third was a 58-year old man sitting at home. Only one of these attacks hit a military target, and a career officer was killed - who was a Druse.

Hamas knows this quite well, and celebrates the murder of innocent civilians even as it pretends that it targets only soldiers.

In English, however, Hamas has not yet published this press release. Instead, it aims straight at the heartstrings of the useful idiot crowd, with this graphic. It is pretty much the talking points of the pro-terror "peace" crowd in one convenient picture

It is also the exact antithesis of how Hamas sounds on the Arabic website. In Arabic, death is glorified; in English, it is tragic. In Arabic, martyrdom is the highest achievement; in English it is barely mentioned.

Rocket fire after the disengagement.

Many terror-apologists are playing loose with the facts about what happened after Israel voluntarily evacuated all Jews from Gaza, so here is a short time-line of rocket attacks from Gaza in the aftermath of disengagement:

September 12, 2005: The Israeli flag is lowered in Gaza and disengagement is over.
September 12: Rocket attack on Sderot.
September 12: Rocket attack on Yad Mordechai.
9/23: Islamic Jihad attacks Kfar Aza
9/24: Hamas attacks Sderot, 11 injured
9/25, 26, 27, 30 - At least six separate rocket attacks - followed by more...
October 2005: At least 7 rocket attacks
November 2005: At least 11 rocket attacks
December 2005: At least 34 separate rocket attacks, causing numerous injuries and much damage
January 2006: At least 27 separate attacks (most with multiple rockets)

January 25, 2006: Hamas wins the PLC elections.

February 2006: At least 55 rocket attacks
March 2006: At least 47 attacks, with injuries
April 2006: At least 53 separate rocket attacks

..and on and on. (Statistics from the Worldwide Incidents Tracking System.)

Rocket attacks occurred before, during and after disengagement; before, during and after Hamas elections; before, during and after the Hamas/Fatah unity government; through the Hamas coup, through the worldwide blockade of Gaza, through the 2007 "truce" and through the 2008 "truce." They happened while Gazans were happily employed at the Erez Industrial Park in Gaza as well as when it was shut down, they happened while Jews lived in Gush Katif and when they didn't, when the crossings were opened and when they were shut.

Qassam rockets have been shot at Israeli areas since October, 2001, and their numbers have only increased over time. To say that somehow Israeli actions are forcing the terrorists to shoot Qassams and mortars at Israel and to dismiss Israeli justifications for finally saying that enough is enough is the height of arrogance.

Nice shooting

Some videos released by the IAF and IDF:

Fatah militant accidentally kills another in WB

It is not easy to understand the Arabic Ma'an news story, but it appears that a Fatah Presidential Guard member "accidentally" killed a colleague - and wounded two others.

I can understand a single accidental bullet, but three?

It seems that a woman threw something out of her window that might have caused the soldier to fire. So she was arrested.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now 230.

Once again, Iran makes it explicitly clear that it wants to destroy Israel, despite the claims of its apologists.

Iran's Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar (R) stands under a banner as he takes part in an anti-Israel rally in Tehran in support of Palestinians in Gaza, December 29, 2008.

Maybe those words translate into Persian as "We love flowers and cute cuddly animals." You can't really be sure, can you?

Islamic Jihad claims to have shot IDF soldiers in West Bank

I have not seen this confirmed anywhere. From Palestine Today:

Saraya al Quds, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, stated that it shot at Israeli occupation soldiers in the Jenin province, on Thursday evening, and confirmed casualties among the soldiers.

There is no doubt that Islamic Jihad and Hamas would love to see this conflict expand to the West Bank, so this is an arena that needs to be watched.

On the other hand, this could be from a slingshot, as was so artfully photographed by an AP photographer.

There are more Gazans alive today than on Saturday morning

The word "genocide" is being bandied about a lot in the Arab world and far left-wing media outlets to describe Israeli actions in Gaza.

One editorial in the Gulf News that caught my eye doesn't use the word explicitly but implies it, as it castigates Arab governments for not doing anything:

While Gaza is burning, Arab officials are busy working the phones in an attempt to arrange an Arab emergency meeting. The earliest date possible, we are being told, is Friday.

By then though, there will be fewer Gazans in Gaza.

Putting aside all issues about how many of the dead are terrorists or civilians, let's examine this statement.

According to the CIA World Factbook, there are 1,500,202 people living in Gaza as of July 2008. The population growth rate is 3.422%, with the birth rate outpacing the death rate by more than ten to one.

This means that some 51,000 Gazans are born every year - and that translates to 141 more Gazans every day than the day before.

So, while on Saturday night there were indeed fewer Gazans than there were in the morning, that gap has been made up by Sunday night.

This also means that Saturday was the only day - ever - that Israel killed more people in Gaza than were born.

The Zionists can't even do genocide right!