Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, October 07, 2010

IDF blog releases comprehensive Qassam statistics

I had been feeling guilty about not keeping up with the monthly Gaza rocket calendars that I used to maintain but haven't created since February of this year.

But now I don't have to worry anymore, because the IDF blog has all the numbers.

2010	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
Qassam	16	6	24	5	11
Mortars	11	0	5	7	3
Grads	0	0	0	0	0
Total	27	6	29	12	14
	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Total
Qassam	15	9	6	14	106
Mortars	1	1	7	15	50
Grads	0	6	0	1	7
Total	16	16	13	30	163

There is much more at the site.

In 2008, there were 3278 rockets. Their rate was increasing by roughly a thousand a year, which means that if the trends between 2006-2008 had held steady, Israel would have absorbed over 5000 rockets this year instead of the projected 200 or so.

In that sense, Cast Lead cannot be considered anything but a success.

Even so, there have been 162 more rockets this year than any other country would tolerate without going to war. For some reason Israel is treated by the world as if it doesn't have that moral imperative that every other sovereign nation does to protect its citizens.

(h/t Yaacov Lozowick)

A Zionist T-shirt for gentiles

After I made the T-shirt for non-Jewish women, I was asked to do one for men as well.

This posed a problem. The male equivalent of "shiksa" is "shaygetz" but it is not well known and can be taken offensively. Saying something like "Goys for Israel" could look like "Gays for Israel" at first glance, which could diminish the target audience a bit.

I mentioned the dilemma to the beautiful and talented Daughter of Ziyon this morning, and within ten seconds she came up with this slogan:

I couldn't resist!

My CafePress shop homepage went inexplicably down as I was creating the items, as did my product editing page, so I didn't yet get a chance to make the double-entendre product of the same logo on a pair of women's briefs. With apologies to those who this might offend, sorry, but it's just too funny and I will add that as soon as I can get back into the shop.

Anyway, CafePress seems to have a sale on this type of T-shirt today and you can get it for $15 rather than $22 it costs normally. Available in three light colors; another version in dark colors is $25. Click here to order.

Al Azhar sheikh's weird logic in banning Arabs from visiting Jerusalem

From a Q&A with the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar University in Egypt, Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb, in Asharq al-Awsat:

Q) This leads us on to talk about inter-faith dialogue. What does it mean? And what does the future hold, in terms of engaging in dialogue with the Vatican and Christian institutions around the world? Would this dialogue be restricted to Christians, thus dismissing the Jews? And would holding dialogue with Jews be considered a kind of normalization?

A) ...We have not ruled out the idea of holding dialogue with the followers of Judaism, but we refuse to have such dialogue taken as a pretext for normalization. Therefore we abstain from engaging in any dialogue with the Zionists who deny the collective rights of Arabs and Muslims and persist in occupying Arab territories, violating sanctums and inflicting injustice, aggression and blockades.

Q) This leads us to question the call made by the Minister of Religious Endowments, Dr. Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq, urging all Muslims to visit Jerusalem. What is your personal and professional opinion of this call?

A) ...In my own opinion, visiting Jerusalem whilst it is under Israeli occupation does not serve any interest, nor does it help to protect the sanctum. What proves my point is that Israel does not allow the actual Arab residents of Jerusalem, or those from the 1948 Arab population who hold Israeli nationality, to visit Jerusalem except under stated terms. And since Israel has the power to permit or refuse visits to Jerusalem, it is inconceivable it would allow an influx of Arabs and Muslims from across the world to visit al-Aqsah Mosque. That would undermine Israel’s attempt to Judaize Jerusalem, and change the dynamics of al-Aqsah Mosque. However, Israel would try and capitalize on the idea of Arabs and Muslims visiting al-Aqsah Mosque, by advocating further steps toward normalization. It would claim that no one is prevented from visiting al-Aqsah Mosque, and would state that visiting al-Aqsah Mosque, with an Israeli entry visa, is completely a natural occurrence. This would encourage Arabs and Muslims to gradually become familiar with such a situation, without disapproving of it, and that in itself constitutes great harm.

So first he says that there is no way Israel would allow many Muslims to visit Jerusalem, and then he say that Israel would allow many Muslims to visit Jerusalem, and that this is the worst possible thing for Arabs.

It amazes me how religious leaders actively discourage their people from visiting their own holy sites if there is even a perception that Israel might benefit, perhaps from a PR perspective. Can anyone imagine an Israeli rabbi prohibiting any visits to Joseph's Tomb because there is a possibility that the PA could use it as a propaganda victory?

Indeed, hatred for Israel trumps love of the Al Aqsa Mosque in today's mainstream Arab/Muslim thought (influential cleric Yusuf Qaradawi has issued a similar ruling.)

But one thing is correct. Israel does indeed trumpet freedom of worship in Jerusalem, for good reason. As Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said Wednesday: (h/t My Right Word)

The only limitation on religion in Jerusalem today is that Jews are not allowed to pray at the Temple Mount. Over 200,000 Muslims came during Ramadan to pray at the Temple Mount. This was strategically important for us in the future. Israel proved, both practically and ideologically, that we can share this wonderful city with the world.

Al-Tayeb hates, with a passion, the idea that Jerusalem's Jewish mayor can make such a statement. Because Barkat's accurate description of freedom of worship in Jerusalem makes Israel look less than totally evil, and that is simply not acceptable. Better to forbid the entire Arab Muslim world from visiting a Muslim holy site than give the chance for a Jewish politician to make a statement like Barkat's.

Beyond that, Zionist Jews are by definition selfish, so when they say they want to share Jerusalem's holy sites, they are denying the Muslim imperative to close them off to Jews!

In case you don't see the obvious logic in the Arab position vis a vis Jerusalem, here's a handy guide:

"Sharing" is a keyword for "normalization" which means "Judaization" which means "apartheid" which means "ethnic cleansing" which means "genocide."

When Jews talk about having Jerusalem open to all people, what they really mean is that they want to kick all the Arabs out. Therefore, Muslims must boycott visiting Jerusalem so that Israel cannot have the satisfaction of sharing it with Muslims which is phase one of its Judaization plan. As long as Muslims keep away from the city, the Jews cannot take it over.

This is what al-Tayeb is saying. And it makes perfect sense, if you at first assume a seething hatred for everything Israeli, where having Israel "win" is to be avoided at all costs, your own people be damned.

From Naharnet:

A Sunni Islamist group in the northern city of Tripoli sent a blunt "not welcome" message to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday ahead of his visit to the country.
Several banners and pictures of the Shiite Iranian leader, who is due in Lebanon October 13-14, went up in the mainly Sunni port city expressing discontent at the visit.

"You are not welcome in Lebanon", read in Arabic one banner hung over a pedestrian bridge in the Abu Samra neighborhood and signed by the Islamic Labor Front-Emergency Committee.

"No to Wilayat al-Faqih" said another banner in a nearby neighborhood, referring to Iran's brand of Islamic rule.

A picture of the hardline leader in another part of the city bore an X over his face and a message that read "Wilayat al-Faqih is not welcome here".

The doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih, as it is called in Iran, grants absolute authority over all matters -- religious, social and political -- to a marjaa, or senior spiritual leader.

The Gaza tunnel export trade is heating up

Gaza tunnel operators have been forced to change their business plans from smuggling items into Gaza into smuggling them out, now that Gaza is awash with Israeli goods.

PalPress (Arabic) has the most detailed article yet about this phenomenon.

The number one export is copper, apparently scavenged from damaged buildings. Copper scrap is sold in the markets of the cities of El Arish and Rafah and Sheikh Zuwaid. Also in demand are scrap aluminum, steel and iron.

Comsumer goods are also being smuggled into Egypt, apparently those being sent from Israel. These include soap ("Hawaiian" brand) and hair gel, as well as Israeli dairy products.

They are also exporting home-grown nuts, animal skins, fruit and eggs, all of which are much cheaper in Gaza than Egypt. Gaza mangoes are half the price of mangoes available in Egypt.

The tunnel operators are not making nearly the profit they used to, however. A ton of nuts costs only $100 to smuggle to Egypt.

The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Hate

The Palestinian Authority has a "Ministry of Information." Its web page is most informative - but not in the way that it intends.

In English, it provides pretty straight news, both about what the PA is doing (another $40 million from the World Bank) and some things that it thinks the world should know Israelis are doing in the West Bank. For example, news about new buildings being built in a Jewish town in the Jordan Valley, or reporting that Jews went to the Temple Mount at the end of the Sukkot holiday. Quite partisan but not inflammatory; all in all very appropriate news for such a ministry.

In Arabic, however, the facade of acting like a "peace partner" is ripped right off.

Here we see that government officials are holding press conferences sponsored by this same ministry saying as a fact that Israel has a "a planned strategy to uproot the Palestinian people from their land."

Another story talks about a proposal, not even close to being approved, to add a new gate into the walls of the Old City to improve access to the Western Wall Plaza that Ha'aretz reported yesterday. It calls this proposal, which it accepts as already being planned, "an act mentally infected with hatred." (It will be recalled that during the nineteen years that the Old City was Judenrein, the Arabs treated it like a dump. Now they pretend to be concerned about its historic architecture!)

A third story talks about Netanyahu's plan to "blackmail" Washington, threatening to sabotage Democratic chances to win the congressional elections in November unless Israel gets what it is demanding.

Not surprising is the story that still claims that Mohammed al-Dura was killed by the IDF.

Yet another story extols the greatness of the second intifada. Wasn't it great that 6000 of their people were killed but that they managed to kill a thousand Jews? What a victory! This is not Hamas or Islamic Jihad celebrating the terror spree; it is the government of "Palestine" officially celebrating the single event that demolished the "peace process."

None of these stories make it to the English site, of course.

The site is filled with lies, bias, slanted opinions and bizarre conspiracy theories that it reports as straight news.

The Arabic site proves that the incitement to hate Israel is not an aberration that Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI take out of context from a semi-independent media. Incitement is sewn into the fabric of the very government that Israel is expected to negotiate peace with.

The sun came up, birds sang, and Abbas threatened to quit again

Mahmoud Abbas has, for the umpteenth time, threatened to quit if negotiations with Israel are not successful.

He made the statement in Amman today at a meeting of the Palestinian National Council.

It is difficult to imagine how life would be any different for Palestinian Arabs if he would finally make good on this constant threat.

Irish Times flunks its own standards (updated)

The Irish Times writes on its website about its journalistic integrity. Among the items they say they are scrupulous about are:

The truth is presented having made every reasonable effort to establish it on the basis of verifiable fact and reliable sources. During the reporting and editing process, every story is measured against taste, preference and inclination in an effort to eliminate any trace of partisanship.

We never go to publication without seeking both sides of the story. And if, in spite of our best efforts, we cannot get one side's version, we make it clear in our report that we have made every reasonable effort to secure that information.

Above all else, we commit ourselves to accuracy.

OK, let's see an example of these sterling qualities, in an article by Michael Jansen:

THE ROUTE from Jerusalem to Bethlehem takes us through Israel’s Har Homa settlement, constructed during the 1990s on formerly forested hills incorporated into Greater Jerusalem.

More than 4,000 Israeli families dwell in stone-faced multistoried apartment blocks in this urban colony. Buildings stand wall-to-wall in solid fortress ranks. Buildings are rising at the heart of Har Homa and on its flanks, invading the Bethlehem district, populated by descendants of the world’s first Christians.

Har Homa was built on land that no one had ever lived on previously. Ever.

The majority of Palestinian Christians did not descend from early Christians. Bethlehem Christians, for example, mostly came from the Arabian peninsula. Wikipedia links to this paper that has more details.

Most people traveling to Bethlehem would use the Tunnel Road. It would be odd to go to Bethlehem through Har Homa (h/t YM)

George Rishmawi of the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement says: “Israel is interested in dealing carefully with Palestinian Christians although we don’t know what the Israelis have in mind for us.

“Christians are part of the Palestinian social fabric . . . and of Islamic culture. Palestinians do not differentiate between Muslims and Christians – who are less than 2 per cent of the population,” says Mr Rishmawi.

But Israel makes a key distinction designed to cause animosities.

“It grants West Bank Christians permits to travel to Jerusalem for Christian holidays . . . It is not the same for Muslims. For them it is difficult to get permits. This makes Muslims angry at Christians,” Mr Rishmawi adds.

The Irish Times is quoting a Palestinian Arab as to what the purposes of Israeli policy is - but doesn't ask any Israeli official. It then states that opinion as fact.

The policies are, of course, because of security - Christians never rioted against Jews from their holy places in Jerusalem.

“Israel makes no distinction between Christians and Muslims about land grabs. Most of Jebel Abu Ghneim [confiscated for the massive settlement of Har Homa] is Christian land."

Between 75% and 80% of Har Homa land was owned by Jews. The Arabs who owned land there were compensated for it. None of these relevant facts are mentioned in the article.

Israeli settlements and infrastructure are changing Palestinian demographics in formerly Christian towns. “Bethlehem is 50 per cent Christian, [neighbouring] Beit Sahour is 80 per cent Christian and Beit Jala is 60-70 per cent Christian,” says Mr Rishmawi.

The current Christian population of Bethlehem is much less than 50%. Yet, over the years, as Bethlehem's Christian population has decreased, its Muslim population has gone up, as has its total population. In other words, it is not Israel that is squeezing the Christians out of the territories - it is the Muslims, plus the intifada accelerated their flight.

Muslim oppression of Christians in Palestinian Arab territories is ignored in this article, even though it is far more relevant than anything written there. Gaza Christians are almost gone altogether.

Muslims have stolen land from Christians. Christians live in fear of their Muslim neighbors. Yasir Arafat directly threatened Christmas pilgrims in 1967. And the Christian population in Israel has increased while that in the territories has been decimated. (Just as the Lebanese Christians have also been pushed out by Muslims.)

This article is one-sided, inaccurate and untruthful. It directly violates the standards that the Irish Times proudly claims for itself.

(h/t Yisrael Medad. Also see a previous CAMERA report on the newspaper from which I found the Irish Times standards.)

Israel's latest weapon of mass destruction: Junk food!

Commenter T34zakat finds a gem at The Examiner (San Diego):

After three years of defending its decision to place restrictions on Gaza to ensure that Hamas does not divert construction materials to build weapons and bunkers, Israel has now decided to ease the restrictions and allow the flow of junk foods into Gaza. Palestinian liaison official, Raed Fattouh, reported that Israel now allows soda, juice, jams, potato chips, cookies, and candy to enter Gaza.

... Israel’s decision to allow junk food into Gaza, whether knowingly or unknowingly, will be incredibly destructive on the health and well-being of the Palestinian people in Gaza. If Israel officials are purposely allowing junk food into Gaza for this reason, then the junk food should be viewed for what it really is-- a weapon of mass of destruction.

Luckily, Gazans can manage to offset the population losses that come from consuming potato chips and soda: Israel also distributes sex gum!

Mass wedding in Nablus today

Perhaps taking a page from Hamas, the government in Nablus is staging a mass wedding today. It is meant to save young couples the costs of their own weddings and to help them start out right.

Nothing really wrong about that, except for one thing:

Nablus officials said the local government would sponsor a mass wedding on Thursday at the Jamal Abdul Nasser Park in the center of the city.

Taysir Nasrallah, the general coordinator for the event, said officials were working hard to prepare for the day. He said the event's patron, President Mahmoud Abbas, had pledged cash to each of the grooms, as well as gifts like furniture and home wares donated by local companies.

Is Abbas' cash coming from his own personal funds - which would indicate that he is a rich man indeed - or is it coming from the massive amounts of aid that the PA gets from the West?

For all the talk about how the PA budget is supposedly so transparent, it is difficult to find out details like this. Of course, no Western reporter is even asking the questions.

Boston "spy" story will be fertile ground for lies

This story, about an American Jew who apparently offered to spy for Israel, is going to be a big hit in the Arab and leftist media.

An Akamai Technologies Inc employee was charged with trying to give confidential company information to an undercover FBI agent he thought worked for a foreign country, probably Israel, US prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Elliot Doxer, 42, worked in Akamai's finance department in Massachusetts and was charged with one count of wire fraud for providing customers lists, contract details and employee information. He sought $3,000 in return, prosecutors said.

In June 2006, Doxer e-mailed a foreign country's consulate in Boston with his offer to help. Court papers indicated the country was Israel because at one point he identified himself as a Jewish American who wanted "to help our homeland and our war against our enemies."

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny that it was Israel.

A year later, an undercover FBI agent posing as a representative of the foreign country contacted Doxer to see if he still wanted to help and after he agreed, the agent provided instructions on how to communicate with him and told Doxer where to deliver the information.

You have to read a few paragraphs down before you realize that his offer was ignored by "Country X", no information was transferred to "Country X" and that "Country X" cooperated with the FBI in busting him.

But it will only be a few hours before the first misrepresentations of the story hit the Israel-hater crowd. The obvious initial implication is that all American Jews are fifth columnists; then we will see other stories that will try to make it sound like Israel is recruiting American spies, and then the intellectual sounding ones will start saying that Israel is burrowing deep into the Internet as Akamai is a client of many major organizations and governments.

Not to mention the conspiracy theories that follow in coming weeks when the haters realize that Akamai was co-founded by Danny Lewin, a former member of the Sayeret Matkal special operations unit of the IDF who had his throat slashed by the 9/11 terrorists as he apparently tried to thwart the hijacking of the first plane, American Airlines Flight 11.

It's coming.

By the way, this strongly indicates that the US monitors all of the emails to Israeli diplomats in the US. Not that this is surprising, or the least bit unethical, but imagine the outcry that would follow if the roles were reversed. After all, doesn't this prove that the US is spying on Israel?

Egypt gives five conditions to the convoy

From DPA:

Egypt said Wednesday that it presented the organisers of a Gaza-bound aid convoy with five conditions for allowing their ship to dock in Egyptian waters and for delivering the aid to Gaza.

The Egyptian ambassador in Syria met with the organisers of Viva Palestina 5 capital of Damascus to lay out Egypt's conditions for the entry of the aid, said Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hossam Zaky.

The ambassador informed the activists of measures which should be taken in order to facilitate the ship's docking at the Egyptian port of el-Arish and the subsequent entry of the aid into Gaza over land, Zaky said.

He did not specify what the conditions were.

The Viva Palestina activists, led by British parliament George Galloway, are expected to depart from the Syrian port of Latakia in the coming few days.

I would guess that the conditions include:

* Galloway doesn't step foot in Egypt
* A limit on the number of activists allowed into Gaza
* No demonstrations
* Galloway must dress up like an idiot and start running around.

Oh, sorry, he already met that condition: