Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 19, 2010

YNet: Hamas brags that it swaps fake shekels to Israel for real ones

The Bank of Israel is about to transfer tens of millions of shekels to the Gaza Strip this week. It has been less than six months since the last time this occurred. Hamas' website claims that the amount to be transferred is NIS 81 million (about $21 million).

A senior official in Israel's banking system claimed that the sum will be smaller than what Hamas claims, but confirmed that tens of millions of shekels will be cashed for residents of the coastal enclave.

The Hamas website asserts that the Bank of Israel is cashing money of two kinds for banks in the Strip. Firstly, it is exchanging worn-out banknotes for fresh ones, and, secondly, it is cashing money that Salam Fayyad's government in the Palestinian Authority transfers to Gaza as part of its aid program to the Strip.

Officials in the Israeli and Palestinian banking systems confirmed Hamas' claims.

The Bank of Israel declined to comment.

Deputy finance minister in the Hamas government Ismail Mahfouz boasted on the movement's website, "We are transferring counterfeit money to Israel, and they transfer real money to us in exchange."

I'm not sure if this is true. The screenshot that accompanied the story was not a Hamas website, but rather the PA Ministry of Finance site, in a story from a few weeks ago about paying salaries and quoting Mahfouz about the possibility of a new Palestinian Arab currency, plus a few other topics, but nothing about counterfeiting.

The YNet story is mentioned in a number of Arabic media, but without attribution, so it might be that YNet got it from a Fatah site, or vice versa. At any rate, I cannot find any Hamas site that says this.

On the other hand, the Hamas-linked Felesteen site says that Hamas denies the charges that it sends counterfeit money, saying that Israel checks the worn-out notes. It also has a story about Hamas itself busting a counterfeit money operation over the weekend - where someone was printing out US currency on his laser printer.

YNet might be mistaken in this case.

(I updated this with new information about the YNet screenshot.)
(h/t Jed and Ali)

Swastikas in Lebanon. Germany not amused.

My apologies for not mentioning this earlier. It was all over the Lebanese blogs and I simply missed it before.

Before the FIFA World Cup started in June 2010, a German flag with a swastika was seen on a house in Bteghrine, Lebanon (Germany prompted the Lebanese authorities to take these flags and swastika's down):

Unfotunately it's not just one incident.

Another Lebanese blogger shows us this picture of a guy wearing a shirt with a swastika on July 3rd:

and comments:

"While having dinner at Napoletana in ABC Dbayyeh, a guy walked in wearing the Swastika symbol on his tshirt. If i were the manager, i would have definitly kicked him out of the restaurant. Surprisingly, he turned out to be friends with the manager who sat with him for a short while.

Ignorance is indeed a virtue"

A day later a Lebanese (?) blogger wrote the following:

"One thing that really bothered me during the World Cup in 2006 was the occasional German flag with a swastika painted on it, mostly flown from passing cars. So you can imagine my disgust to see this banner flying in Bourj Hammoud, a predominantly Armenian Christian neighborhood east of Beirut today:"

(In German it reads: Germany (though misspelled) and "we live together, we fall together")

The blog Now Lebanon did some investigation and found out that the guy who hung the German flags with swastika-banners in the streets of Bourj Hammoud in Beirut is not an ignorant fool, but one sick dude:

Self-described “ferekh teis” (“stubborn bull”) Carlos Demien is celebrating Germany’s World Cup presence in a manner many around the world would find appalling. For the past few weeks, the 38 year-old Bourj Hammoud resident has displayed huge Nazi banners – swastikas and images of internationally-reviled Adolf Hitler included – across the Armenian district’s Zanco Street.

“I would not take [the banners] down if I was asked to,” said Demien, a Lebanese antiques dealer. “If anyone were to get upset, then for sure it is someone passing by. And, if this is the case, then he should just change his route.”

Demien insisted that he was not part of a neo-Nazi movement, but was simply praising what Hitler “had accomplished historically.” He claimed that the Nazi leader improved Germany’s standard of living, economics and agriculture. His reasoning took some sinister turns.

Demien lamented that Hitler was not allowed six more months in power. He also expressed no sympathies for the victims of the Holocaust and said he approved of the genocide. “Just look at the world and what is happening, and you would know why Hitler was right,” he said.

and..

“I make them myself,” said Demien of his signs. “I buy the material, design them and oversee their sewing.”

The German ambassador Birgitta Siefker-Eberle told The Daily Star that although the embassy didn't wish to cause a stir, she had been disturbed by the phenomenon:

“I find it very sad when this sort of thing happens,” the ambassador said. “Hitler is an extremely difficult legacy for Germany, and we have worked hard to atone for the crimes of the past – these flags simply negate that.”

Combining the current German flag with a swastika is also “historical nonsense,” she said, as the two have never coexisted. Although she put people’s fascination with Hitler largely down to ignorance, the ambassador stressed that the swastika was the symbol of a dictatorship for Germans, and one that reminded them of the darkest chapter in their history.

Update:
Zvi quotes part of the Daily Star in the comment section which I overlooked in the first place, but is important to mention:

"According to Nabil Dajani, a professor of media studies at the American University of Beirut, hostility to Israel also plays an important part in the endorsement of Nazi insignia.
“Most Arabs conceive the Israeli treatment of Palestinians as similar or worse than what the Jews faced in Nazi Germany,” he told The Daily Star.
“What the Germans feel today has nothing to do with how Arabs conceive of Germany. They still want to remember Germany as the country that [achieved revenge] for them from the Israelis,” despite the anachronism, he said.

I wonder if the German ambassador is aware of this.

Zvi also reveals some extra info on the Syrian-sponsored SSNP and wonders whether Demien is a member of this party rather than just a Nazi-obsessed nut-case:

"The SSNP has strong historical ties to the Nazis. Its anthem, for example, used to be Deutschland über Alles, its symbol is a reversed, swollen red swastika and its colors are black, white and red (reverse of the Nazi RWB). Those associated with the party tend to revere the Nazis."

New papers discovered from John Roy Carlson

John Roy Carlson, the pen name of Avedis Boghos Derounian, made a name of himself by infiltrating and exposing a number of Nazi and other groups in the 1930s and 1940s.

In 1948, he pretended to be an Arab fighter and observed Israel's War of Independence - from the Arab side. His observations were published in 1951 as "Cairo to Damascus." You can read most of the book online here, and it is fascinating. For example, he writes about dinner with London anti-semite, Nazi admirer and Arab supporter Robert Gordon-Canning:

Similar anecdotes about Arabs in 1948 abound. Here is one right after the Arabs captured Castel, but at the cost of losing their commander, Abdel Kader Husseini:

It turns out that Carlson has an unpublished manuscript from right after the war, and JStreetJive has part of it. Here is some of what they have published so far, from his interviews of Arab refugees in UNRWA camps:

Follow the rest at JStreetJive.

Sunday open thread

I'm having a minor case of blogger's block, so I'll work on other projects and let you guys take over.

Uproar in Lebanon over Nasrallah speech

Last Friday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah made a speech that prompted a number of Lebanese observers feel that he might be planning a coup.

Right now, the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon is coming closer to announcing the results of its investigation into the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri in 2005. According to an investigation by Der Spiegel last year, the STL has found strong evidence that Hezbollah was behind the assassination.

At the same time, Lebanon's internal security forces have arrested a number of people in the past few weeks as Israeli spies, most recently members of Lebanon's telecommunications carrier Alfa Telecom.

Nasrallah's speech slammed the STL as working for Zionist interests. Moreover, he charged that the Lebanese government itself was infiltrated with Zionist spies, pointing to an incident on May 5, 2008, when the government decided to declare Hezbollah's internal telecommunications network illegal.

Hezbollah responded to that incident by staging a bloody takeover of West Beirut, killing dozens.

Nasrallah also bragged that his organization could not be infiltrated by collaborators with Israel the way that Lebanon's government was, and he called for the death penalty for Israeli spies.

Phalange MP Sami Gemayel said that Nasrallah's speech could be asignal for a repeat of the May, 2008 events, as did March 14 General Coordinator Fares Soueid. An article in Ya Libnan warns of the same scenario.

Meanwhile, Lebanese security forces say they have identified three Hezbollah officials who were collaborating with Israel!

Lebanon remains a powder keg. No one dares to confront Hezbollah on its virtual stranglehold on the Lebanese, but the results of the tribunal may ignite another civil war.

I seriously wonder how this new measure will influence Hamas' popularity in the Gaza Strip:

In its latest attempt to try to impose a conservative Islamic way of life on Gaza, Hamas started this weekend to enforce a ban on smoking water pipes in public.

A spokesman for the Hamas police, Ayman al-Batniji, said that the ban applied only to women and that it was in line with “the Palestinian people’s customs and traditions.”

But many cafe owners said they had been ordered to ban water pipes for both men and women.

Smoking large water pipes called shisha, usually with bowls of flavored tobacco, is a longstanding pastime here.

Plainclothes members of the Hamas security services have been inspecting cafes along the Gaza City beachfront, including men-only establishments like Al Shera Café, where men go to drink coffee, tea and soft drinks while playing cards.

Ahmed Yazji, manager of the Orient House Hotel in Gaza city, said the conflicting orders were confusing. Plainclothes policemen “come to check and still order us not to serve shisha to anybody,” he said, “though we hear the order has been amended to include only women.”

Hamas are bad policy makers in the first place, but what else could you expect from a militant group?

Hamas has a vague and bewildering record when it comes to such campaigns.

Last year, for example, the authorities issued similar verbal orders against women smoking water pipes, but the ban was not enforced.

There have also been orders for female lawyers to wear Islamic head scarves in courthouses, men not to work in hairdressing salons catering to women, and girls to wear long Islamic robes at schools, but these orders either have not been enforced or were quickly reversed.

Some have ascribed the confusion to disagreements within Hamas, as guardians of religious morality, some self-appointed, others within the government, have sought to impose their own views.

On Friday night, a bearded man in plainclothes with a pistol entered the Al Shera Café, and nodded his head in satisfaction that no shisha was being smoked.

The receptionist asked him how long the ban would stay in place.

“Until a different, new order is issued,” the man with the pistol replied.

Grand Opening of the Gaza Mall

On Saturday night, the starving people of Gaza opened up a luxury mall.

At opening ceremonies attended by ministers and government officials, the Gaza Mall is a multi-story shopping center that includes food, clothing, perfumes, shoes, household appliances, office supplies and more.

The mall has a website, where we can see that it has air conditioning and parking, as well as delivery and other amenities that one would expect in any major mall.

The mall web page advertises "Israeli men's trousers at an attractive price," men's shirts from the US, girl's dresses from France and boy's pants from Turkey.

More pictures here.

The humanitarian crisis continues to grow in Gaza.

UPDATE: AP had pictures as well - but no accompanying story.

Also, i just emailed Catherine Ashton, European Union's foreign policy chief, who is now visiting Gaza, if she will have the opportunity to visit this mall.

UPDATE: More heartbreaking photos here.

UPDATE 2: And now we have video! Truly tragic!

Look how happy Gazans are at the easing of the blockade!

h/t MENW

Good News Friday: Save a Child's Heart

From Israel21c:

While the world's focus was out to sea, an Israeli-based charity was busy performing open-heart surgery on children from Gaza.

"The international media was talking about the flotilla, while Israeli hospitals were treating kids from Africa, Iraq and Gaza," says Simon Fisher, executive director of SACH (Save a Child's Heart), an Israeli-based international humanitarian project with a mission to save the lives of children from developing countries with cardiac ailments.

"That's the Israel I know - nothing like the one portrayed in the media. It deserves acknowledgement," Fisher tells ISRAEL21c.

"We hold a free cardiology clinic at the Edith Wolfson Medical Center in Holon every Tuesday for Palestinian children from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, regardless of the regional political atmosphere. The clinics took place even during the war in Gaza [18 months ago]. Even in the worst of times, out programs continue. We find that on both sides, regardless of Hamas, Fatah or any other organization, there is always cooperation."

"The day after the flotilla incident, the kids from Gaza turned up as usual. We treat an average of 10 each week, referred to us by 10 Palestinian physicians in the West Bank and Gaza."

This summer, SACH is launching two projects: The Israeli Ministry for Regional Cooperation has committed NIS 1 million (some $260,000) to supporting life-saving heart surgery for 100 Iraqi, Palestinian and Jordanian children in the coming year. Meanwhile, the European Union has allocated Euro 400,000 to fund heart surgery for 150 children from the Palestinian Authority and provide in-depth postgraduate training in pediatric cardiac care for eight Palestinian physicians under the 'Heart of the Matter project, which is part of the EU's "Partnership for Peace" Program. This is the third time the EU has co-sponsored 'Heart of the Matter' - a cooperation that began in 2005.

The two projects were launched on June 20 at the Wolfson Medical Center with a ceremony attended by Minister for Regional Cooperation Silvan Shalom and the EU's Ambassador to Israel, Andrew Standley.

"At a time when the world is debating Israel's actions in Gaza, our answer to the next flotilla is this project and saving children from Gaza," Shalom said during the ceremony. "We are not engaged in a conflict with the Palestinian people." Standley added that the project proves that Israel and the Palestinians can cooperate.

Read the whole thing.

Links and videos and more!

Notable stuff for a Friday afternoon:

The Daily Inquisitor on the NYT's "revelation" of the link between IHH and Turkey's government

The Definition of a Horse on his first visit to Israel.

Sweden's Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt, has been adamantly opposing even mild sanctions against Iran. Why?

And, the famous Only Israel video that has been going around the 'sphere.

As far as the "more".....have a Shabbat Shalom!

Just a little Holocaust revisionism from our PLO friends...

From MEMRI, republishing an article by former PLO ambassador to Vienna Dr. Ghazi Hussein, in Al-Ba'th, the daily of the Syrian ruling party,

"The ideological similarity between the two racist [movements] – Zionism and Nazism – as well as the persecution of the assimilated (non-Zionist) Jews by the Nazis and the signing of the Transfer Agreement between the Nazi economic authorities and the Jewish Agency, drove German and Austrian Jews to immigrate to Palestine in order to establish [the state of] Israel over the remnants of the Arab Palestinian people.
"Hitler's rise to power in Germany, the racist Nuremberg Laws, the Kristallnacht, and the collaboration between the Nazis and the Zionists all led to the realization of the Nazis' and Zionists' mutual goal, namely purging Germany of Jews and deporting them to Arab Palestine. The immigration of these Jews spelled the success of the Jewish settlement [of Palestine], thanks to the know-how, money and abilities provided by Germany [to these Jews] under the Transfer Agreement.
"World Zionism took advantage of the fact that the U.S. and the other countries of the world had closed their gates to Jewish immigration in accordance with a request by Golda Meir at the conference on refugees, held in Evian, Switzerland in 1938 with the aim of rescuing the Jews of Germany and Europe from the Nazis. The conference agreed to close the gates of all [countries] to Jewish immigrants, in order to channel [the Jews] to Palestine alone. The goal of the Zionists and the U.S. in taking this decision was to [leave the Jews] with only two options: either immigrate to Palestine or be thrown into the Nazi detention camps.
"The Zionist [movement] managed to convince the superpowers that the only way to rescue the Jews and [provide them with] a safe haven was to establish a [Jewish political] entity in Palestine. As the persecution of the non-Zionist Jews by the Nazis grew, the political and moral pressure on the European countries to establish this entity grew as well, because these countries had closed their gates to Jewish immigration in accordance with the resolutions of the Evian Conference and at the request of the Jewish Agency...
"In talks between representatives of Nazi Germany and the Zionist movement in Turkey, the Zionist movement turned down a Nazi proposal to hand over all the Jews in the Nazi detention camps in return for thousands of trucks and many tons of tea and coffee.
"The link between the persecution and the extermination of the non-Zionist Jews by the Nazis and the establishment of 'Israel' is very strong... because the persecution of the Jews, the [Zionists'] collaboration with the deportation [of the Jews] to Palestine alone, in accordance with the Transfer Agreement, and the despicable exploitation of the exaggerated [stories] about the Holocaust and antisemitism [all] caused a massive emigration of Jews to Palestine. The immense humane sympathy and support [enjoyed by] the Jews, the pact between the U.S. and the Soviets in fighting the Nazis, the warm relations of the Jews with [the American and Soviet?] governments, and the interests of these government in the [Middle East] region [all] led to the approval of [U.N.] Resolution 181 by the General Assembly immediately after the end of World War II."
"Since its establishment, Israel has been perpetrating against our Palestinian Arab people [crimes] far worse than those allegedly committed by Nazi Germany in Hungary and [against] the non-Zionist Jews and its [other] enemies. This is perfectly clear from the Holocaust perpetrated by Israel in Gaza in 2008-2009, from the oppressive siege, from the collective punishments imposed on the [Gaza] Strip, from the Judaization of Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi [the Cave of the Patriarchs] in Hebron and the Bilal bin Rabbah mosque [Rachel's Tomb] in Bethlehem, from the construction of 62 synagogues, including the Hurva Synagogue, around the Al-Aqsa mosque in order to Judaize it and build over its ruins the false [Jewish] temple, from the destruction of homes [of Arabs] in Jerusalem and their deportation, and from the criminal terrorist violence against civilians on the Freedom Flotillas in international waters.
"Today, the Israeli army and the Mossad are much more barbarous and despicable than the Nazi army and the Gestapo were, because when the Nazi army perpetrated its crimes, it used the pretext that there were no international charters prohibiting war crimes and crimes against humanity, while the Israeli army is now committing war crimes and crimes against humanity despite the existence of international charters and agreements that prohibit these crimes and punish the perpetrators.
"The deeds perpetrated today by the Zionists against the Palestinian people are worse than what the Nazis did to the Jews in Czechoslovakia, and especially in Terezinstadt. Even today, [the Zionists still] exaggerate the persecution stories and the number [of victims], despite the huge sums of money and the huge amounts of weapons they have received. They employ ideological, political, diplomatic and media blackmail and pressure in favor of 'Israel' and World Judaism, over the backs of the Nazis' victims, the taxpayers in Germany, Switzerland and other European [countries], and our Arab Palestinian people. They steal its land, water, property and rights, impede its progress, and [try to] eliminate it in order to transform Palestine into the homeland of all the Jews in the world.
"The largest of all Jewish ghettos, established in the heart of the Muslim Arab region, is a base that is hostile to the countries of the region and serves the interests of World Zionism and of American and Western imperialism.
"Had the [Holocaust] really been as extensive as claimed by the leadership of American Jewry and by the famous liar Elie Wiesel, it would have caused an earthquake and a crisis among Jews worldwide, and their perspective and position on the colonialist, imperialist and terrorist crimes perpetrated by 'Israel' against the defenseless Palestinian people would have been different.
"Israel did not take a lesson from the atrocities committed by the Nazis. It only exploited them, and continues to exploit them, in order to commit horrors [even] more barbarous [than those of the Nazis] aimed at realizing the aspirations and claims of the Torah, the Talmud and the Zionist [movement]..."

OK, let me get this straight. The Zionists were complicit in the Holocaust against non-Zionist Jews. But the Holocaust really didn't happen. Even so, what the Israelis do to Palestinian Arabs is worse than the non-existent Holocaust.

And most Jews weren't Zionist, and the Nazis' nonexistent persecution of Jews was only towards the assimilated non-Zionist Jews, while they kept the Zionists alive. The Zionists of the era were the ones who follow the Torah and Talmud - like Golda Meir, who worked hard to ensure that no Jews could emigrate to any other country in accordance with Torah teachings. That's OK, because the Jews only went to "detention camps."

After the war, presumably, there were lots of Zionist Jews who were spared by their Nazi friends who then used the non-existent Holocaust that they engineered to make the world give them a new ghetto in the middle of hostile Muslim Arabs, an ideal location in order to persecute the then-unknown Palestinians.

There is an internal logic here. That logic is simple: Zionist Jews, and any Jews who are religious, are unbelievably evil. The good Jews like Noam Chomsky and MJ Rosenberg and Richard Silverstein are off the hook. Thank G-d!

By the way, the PLO is not an irrelevant vestige of pre-Oslo days - it controls the PA.