Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Tunnel collapse, and more PalArab news

Ma'an seems to have backtracked from its bizarre claim yesterday that a tunnel collapse was due to Egyptian "gas bombs." Three more bodies were pulled from the rubble from the illegal tunnel, and one more was found later in the day.

In other PalArab self-death news, an Arab man was stabbed to death while “sitting together in a friendly atmosphere” with pals in Qalqiya.

There are reports that Hamas stole medicine from a PA Ministry of Health storage facility last week.

George Galloway's British aid convoy for Gaza, traveling through north Africa, crossed the border from Morocco to Algeria, the first time that any traffic has crossed between the two countries in 15 years. No word on whether that means that Morocco's closing of its border with Algeria means that Algeria is "occupied" by Morocco, which is apparently the UN definition of "occupation" - even when it isn't.

The PalArab self-death count climbs to 38.

PalArab news roundup 2-21-09

Work accident! Two Hamas members were killed in another of those "mysterious explosions" in Gaza.

Tunnel accident! One died, five injured in a Rafah smuggling tunnel. Ma'an claims that Egypt had fired something called "gas bombs" but the other PalArabic press just say that they suffocated. I will not count this as a self-death yet, but if Ma'an is correct, that means that Egypt just killed a Palestinian Arab and no one cares.

"Collaborators" no more: Two Gazans were executed for being suspected of collaborating with Israel. I couldn't find any mention of an arrest or trial. It's almost as if Hamas doesn't subscribe to normal standards of behavior and human rights!

When homemade projectiles turn deadly.... A Qassam rocket, invariably described as a mere nuisance when shot against Israel, fell short in Gaza - and now it is a big deal:

Two families said narrowly escaped death when a Palestinian homemade projectile hit their apartments in Al-Farahin, east of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday night.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted the owner of the apartments, Ahmad Abu Duqqa, as saying, “The projectile drilled through the roof causing serious damage."

"Only the heavens prevented a massacre," said Abu Duqqa, "as the projectile hit a bathroom next to my four grandchildren and their mother, who live with us after they fled their home because it is in the range of Israeli fire.”

Working to make Hamas respectable: Representatives from the Carter Center are working on reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. They met with Hamas leaders today in Ramallah. No doubt they are trying to find ways that Hamas can keep its desire to destroy Israel but can convince Europe that they don't really mean it.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 32.

New mosque in Sri Lanka named after Arafat

Palestine Press Agency has a lengthy article about a new mosque in Sri Lanka named after the "martyr" Yassir Arafat.

In an interesting autotranslation, the article says

Ambassador Agha added that the Minister of Religious Endowments has made a statement on that occasion that he was happy with the overwhelming opening of the mosque which bears the name of the immortal martyr leader Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian suicide revolution and commander of the Palestinian national project, which has devoted his life to serving the Palestinian cause.

Do they mean that he oversaw the idea of using suicide bombers against kids in pizza shops, or that he started a suicidal Palestinian Arab movement?

And will the mosque start sporting a consistently three-day old beard?

More intrigue from Jabalya UNRWA school

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), which earlier this week told The Jerusalem Post that 12 Palestinians were killed in the shelling near a UN school in Jabalya, north of Gaza City - and not 42 as claimed by Palestinian officials at the time - has now given the Post the names of seven of those fatalities.

The incident at the UN school was a key case in point, said the CLA's head, Col. Moshe Levi, since initial reports erroneously stating that the IDF had fired at the school, and putting the death toll at 42, were widely adopted at first by the UN and various NGOs. Earlier this month, the UN corrected its position and confirmed that the shelling and all of the fatalities had taken place outside the school compound.

Within hours of the incident on January 6, the IDF named two Hamas operatives, Immad Abu Askar and Hassan Abu Askar, as being among the dead.

Levi said nine Hamas operatives and three noncombatants died in the incident near the school. The seven names newly released by the CLA were: Ranin Abdullah Sameh, 12, Hadifa Jihad Kahloud, 17, Faris Mahmoud Faraj Allah, 21, Nafed Abu Abid, 22, Abed Muhammad Kadas, 25, Ayman Ahmad el-Khourd, 35, and Basem Abdel Gabin, 40.

The CLA would not specify how it had obtained the names. Officials said these names were being checked and categorized as combatants or noncombatants.

This sentence doesn't make much sense - if they already announced that 9 of them were combatants and three civilian, why don't they know which of the names are in each category?

But the next sentence is more intriguing:

On the day of the incident, officials further said, officers from the CLA contacted the Palestinian Health Ministry and were told that three Palestinian civilians had been killed and that Hamas was hiding the identities of the remaining casualties.

If the Palestinian Health Ministry never claimed the initial count of 42 deaths, then who did? The UN said 30, and PCHR said 27 civilians, so it wasn't either of them. Was this just another case of some reporter or bystander making up a number and having the world believe them without question? And if so, how many other times has this sort of thing happened?

And if the IDF turns out to be correct - and so far, they are the only ones to release names of the victims - then we have solid proof that the UN and PCHR are not reliable. All the other groups need to do to prove the IDF wrong would be to give us their own list of more than 12 victims.

PalArab news roundup 2-20-09

For the third time in two months, someone opened fire at the Fatah newspaper headquarters Al Hayat al-Jadida. And for the third time, Ma'an tries to imply that it came from a Jewish settlement, not from the many Hamas supporters in the West Bank.

An illegal fuel pipeline between Egypt and Gaza exploded, injuring two on the Egyptian side; the fire is still burning.

Islamic Jihad claims to have shot at a "settler" car on the West Bank.

Ten mortar shells shot from Gaza this morning. A rocket launched today was claimed by the "Hezbollah Brigades" of Gaza.

Things I didn't blog this week

Some stories that, for whatever reason, I didn't feel like going into this week, but that are still important or noteworthy. Many were sent to me either via email or comments.

The Park Slope Food Co-op, a major Brooklyn cooperative food store with 15,000 members that many Jews frequent, is considering boycotting Israeli products. The board has not brought it up yet as an official agenda item. (via email as well as Vicious Babushka)

Lots of blogs covered the case of Muzzammil Hassan, founder of Bridges TV, who apparently beheaded his wife in Buffalo. Bridges TV is meant to fight ugly stereotypes against Muslims, like the canard that Muslims like to behead people or support honor killings.

sshender via email points me to many more Pierre Rehov videos available online, including one about Arafat, The Road to Jenin (the truth about the Jenin "massacre,")and Suicide Killers (about the minds of suicide terrorists.) He has an entire YouTube channel as well (h/t ahoovah)

Bishop William Richardson, the Holocaust denying cleric who was reinstated to the Catholic Church last month, has been told to leave Argentina, officially for technical reasons but clearly because of his noxious views.

A number of rumors started swirling around Presidential Determination No. 2009-15 of January 27, 2009, "Unexpected Urgent Refugee and Migration Needs Related To Gaza," which seem to imply that the US will be taking in Gaza refugees. WND researched it and found it to merely be a method for the US to authorize some $20 million for relief efforts in Gaza.

Multiculturalism now includes "put yourself in the terrorists' shoes."

US allowing Durban II to be like Durban I

A very troubling article in NRO:

President Obama had been warned to avoid having anything to do with the U.N.’s Durban II “anti-racism” conference this year. The U.S. walked out of the 2001 Durban I conference because it proved to be a U.N.-sanctioned platform for anti-Semitism. Its final Declaration singled out Israel for criticism, accusing the country of racism.

Ignoring these warnings, the U.S. sent a seven-person delegation to a preparatory meeting in Geneva this week — without asking anything of conference sponsors in return. The State Department explained the decision as an effort “to try to change the direction in which the Review Conference is heading.” But the delegation’s behavior during the week, which began by expressing “strong reservations about a document singling out Israel for criticism,” more closely resembles a double-cross.

...In other words, it didn’t take President Obama’s delegation two days before it sat in silence while Israel was singled out as guilty of racism — again.

Why would the delegation behave this way? The idea, seemingly, is to make it appear to an American audience that the Conference’s prospects are improving, that there are no intense disagreements. Just business as usual at the U.N., where multilateral engagement is always a force for good. The less said by the United States, the smoother multilateralism proceeds.

Read the whole thing. It is even worse than I predicted.

Peace rallies, Pakistani-style

The third paragraph of this story pushes the irony meter to 12.

Hundreds of journalists throughout Pakistan have protested against the murder of a reporter in the volatile Swat Valley.
Journalists rallied in cities across Pakistan to mourn the death of television reporter Musa Khan Khel.

The 28-year-old was kidnapped at gunpoint while covering a peace rally to celebrate the planned introduction of Sharia law in the Swat Valley.

His bullet-riddled body was found later outside the town of Matta.

That was some "peace rally!" But I guess the murder was perfectly halal according to Swat Valley Sharia.

What's so far right about Lieberman?

A guest post from EBoZ because I don't have time to write anything thoughtful:

The "far right" label is beginning to stick to Lieberman. See, for example, today's NYT which characterizes him as "ultranationalist," or NPR, AP and CBS who prefer the "far right" terminology.

But what is so far right about Lieberman? The loyalty oath he wants from Arab citizens? Every new US citizen must take a similar oath. Every member of congress must take a loyalty oath every time they are sworn into office. Every first grader in the country does it when they recite the pledge of allegiance.

Lieberman wants to cede Arab parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinian state. Normally, someone who wants to give up sovereignty over united Jerusalem is considered "left wing". He also wants to cede Umm el Fahm which is within the Israeli green line. Umm al Fahm residents are up in arms at the very thought of joining a Palestinian state, (while at the same demonstrating in
favor of Hamas).

The buttonholing of Lieberman into the far-right camp is part of the media's desire to oversimplify a nuanced election platform while at the same demonizing a large Israeli constituency.

UAE allows Israeli tennis player to compete

From AlBawaba (Jordan):

An entry permit has been issued to permit the Israeli tennis player Andy Ram to take part in next week's tennis tournament in Dubai, the Director of the Consular Affairs Department of the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Sultan Al Qertasi, said Thursday in a statement issued to the Emirates News Agency, WAM.

"The relevant Government department has issued a special entry permit to allow the tennis player Mr. Andy Ram to enter the country to take part in next week's international tennis tournament being held in Dubai," the statement said. "The decision to issue the permit is in line with the UAE's commitment to a policy of permitting any individual to take part in international sports, cultural and economic events or activities being held in the country, without any limitation being placed on participation by citizens of any member country of the United Nations," Al Qertasi said.

A commitment that is now approximately one day old.

The visa permit for the Israeli player came following stern international criticism against the organizers of Dubai women's tennis tournament after they failed to issue visa permit to Israeli player Shahar Peer.

But Dubai still has to make sure that the Arabs don't freak out and start slaughtering the collaborators/traitors/infidels who allow Israeli tennis players in the country:

"This is a well-established policy and has no political implications. Nor does this decision indicate any form of normalisation of relations with countries with whom the United Arab Emirates does not have diplomatic relations," the statement concluded.

Whew, glad they cleared that up!

Prisons and private homes have taken over from mosques as recruiting hubs for Islamist radicals in Europe, a shift that cannot be tackled simply by short-term government security measures, an academic said yesterday.
Under pressure from state surveillance and disapproval from local communities, activists who once trawled high-profile mosques for recruits increasingly use more discreet venues including makeshift prayer halls and bookshops, said Peter Neumann, a political scientist at Kings College, London.

"This pattern of withdrawal from open agitation is consistent across Western Europe," said Neumann, author of "Joining Al Qaeda," a report on radicalisation in Europe.

"A lot of open activities that used to go on at mosques are now taking place in private flats, as mosques themselves become more vigilant and restricted," he said.

"Recent years have seen the emergence of radical Islamic prison gangs which - although not always overtly political in outlook - are aggressive in their rhetoric."

Neumann said such gangs provided inmates with a protective social network and a sense of self-esteem, the report says.

I suppose that the fact that European mosques no longer openly advocate jihad is somewhat of an accomplishment.

Conspiracy theory of the day: Jews to colonize Iraq!

From the nutty Online Journal, January 30:

Israeli expansionists, their intentions to take full control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and permanently keep the Golan Heights of Syria and expand into southern Lebanon already well known, also have their eyes on parts of Iraq considered part of a biblical “Greater Israel.”

Israel reportedly has plans to relocate thousands of Kurdish Jews from Israel, including expatriates from Kurdish Iran, to the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Nineveh under the guise of religious pilgrimages to ancient Jewish religious shrines. According to Kurdish sources, the Israelis are secretly working with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to carry out the integration of Kurdish and other Jews into areas of Iraq under control of the KRG.

Kurdish, Iraqi Sunni Muslims, and Turkmen have noted that Kurdish Israelis began to buy land in Iraqi Kurdistan, after the U.S. invasion in 2003, that is considered historical Jewish “property.”

The Israelis are particularly interested in the shrine of the Jewish prophet Nahum in al Qush, the prophet Jonah in Mosul, and the tomb of the prophet Daniel in Kirkuk. Israelis are also trying to claim Jewish “properties” outside of the Kurdish region, including the shrine of Ezekiel in the village of al-Kifl in Babel Province near Najaf and the tomb of Ezra in al-Uzayr in Misan Province, near Basra, both in southern Iraq’s Shi’a-dominated territory. Israeli expansionists consider these shrines and tombs as much a part of “Greater Israel” as Jerusalem and the West Bank, which they call “Judea and Samaria.”

Reportedly assisting the Israelis are foreign mercenaries paid for by U.S. Christian evangelical circles that support the concept of “Christian Zionism.”

Iraqi nationalists charge that the Israeli expansion into Iraq is supported by both major Kurdish factions, including the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan headed by Iraq’s nominal President Jalal Talabani. Talabani’s son, Qubad Talabani, serves as the KRG’s representative in Washington, where he lives with his wife Sherri Kraham, who is Jewish.

Also supporting the Israeli land acquisition activities is the Kurdistan Democratic Party, headed by Massoud Barzani, the president of the KRG. One of Barzani’s five sons, Binjirfan Barzani, is reportedly heavily involved with the Israelis.

The Israelis and their Christian Zionist supporters enter Iraq not through Baghdad but through Turkey. In order to depopulate residents of lands the Israelis claim, Mossad operatives and Christian Zionist mercenaries are staging terrorist attacks against Chaldean Christians, particularly in Nineveh, Irbil, al-Hamdaniya, Bartalah, Talasqaf, Batnayah, Bashiqah, Elkosheven, Uqrah, and Mosul.

The ultimate aim of the Israelis is to depopulate the Christian population in and around Mosul and claim the land as biblical Jewish land that is part of “Greater Israel.” The Israeli/Christian Zionist operation is a replay of the depopulation of the Palestinians in the British mandate of Palestine after World War II.

Wow, these Joooz are amazing! I guess that since Israel's attempt to expand to the Nile was derailed by that damned peace agreement with Egypt, they are setting their sites on the Euphrates.

The author, not surprisingly, is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist as well.

Even though this is simply stupid, Iraqpundit points out that the fact that it has been translated into Arabic makes it potentially dangerous:

When talking about what might derail progress in Iraq, people rarely mention the power of the conspiracy theory. Rumours have traditionally done a great deal of damage in the Middle East, and Iraq was never spared from this exercise. Sometimes the talk can be so silly that it's harmless, such as Saddam Hussein wore a crucifix under his suit. And sometimes it can be so carefully constructed that it can persuade even the cynical. I used to think the stories were created only by locals. But here's an American-made conspiracy rumour that is spreading.....

The problem is his story was translated into Arabic, which makes it sound more credible. The the Middle East, if something is written by Americans, British, etc, it is more likely to be believed. Many times people start a rumour and attribute it to a western source.

On the surface, the story sounds so absurd that it should be dismissed, right? But Madsen wants to make sure he ignites something: "According to Kurdish sources, the Israelis are secretly working with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to carry out the integration of Kurdish and other Jews into areas of Iraq under control of the KRG."

Tensions are rising between Kurds and non-Kurds in Iraq. And when Madsen introduces such a conspiracy, he is bound to stir up trouble. The disagreement between the Kurds and non-Kurds centers on a land dispute. And when Madsen brings in Israel, he is playing with fire.

Whether wittingly or unwittingly, conspiracy theorists know to play with the Mideasterner who loves to find the most negative angle possible to explain any situation. Some pretty strange stuff has happened in our past, which is why conspiracy theories are not always so easy to disregard.

Conspiracies have been powerful in Iraq. Under the Baathists, access to information was so limited that people depended on gossip for news. Saddam Hussein used gossip to help control the population. Such habits, the belief in rumours, can be very difficult to break. But ignoring the problem is not a good idea. Serious news coverage in Iraq would be helpful. Maybe when people see that Israel does not colonise Iraq, they can figure out that such stories are not to be believed. If Madsen succeeds in persuading Iraqis that Israel is helping Kurds to take over, say, Mosul -- I don't even want to go there. All I can tell you is that it would be foolish to underestimate the power of the conspiracy rumour.

Iraqpundit is right on. No one knows which theories disappear and which gain traction, but the ones that get believed can have deadly results in the Arab world.

(h/t Suzanne)