Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, October 22, 2010

Viva Palestina makes it to Gaza with very little aid

The Viva Palestina convoy made it into Gaza on Thursday, and the activists were thrilled, saying that they managed to "crack" the "blockade."

They delivered 500 tons of aid that took over four weeks to travel from England and other countries.

In those same four weeks, Israel delivered over 75,000 tons of aid - over 150 times as much aid as was sent by this high-profile convoy.

The Israeli aid included cars, cement, and infrastructure equipment.

Hamas arms cache found - in Ramallah

Palestine Press Agency reports that PA security forces uncovered a cache of weapons in Ramallah that belonged to Hamas.

The weapons included automatic weapons and RPGs.

It appears that the weapons were meant for targeting the Palestinian Authority, not Israel. It is especially significant that they were being stored in Ramallah itself, which is about the most pro-Fatah spot in the territories.

The discovery angered the PA leadership, which has been trying in fits and starts to negotiate a unification agreement with Hamas. A meeting between the parties that was meant to be in Damascus this week was canceled, but the PA denied that it had anything to do with Hamas. Instead, they claimed that they had a dispute with Syria and they wanted to move the venue.

AP? Biased? Nah.....

Here is the initial headline from AP this morning about the Rachel Corrie trial:

This inflammatory text was clearly the headline that AP sent it out initially over the wire, because many news sites that grab the AP feeds reproduced it (the New York Times seems to be the exception in the list below):

As well as major news sites:

Some editor at AP must have realized that the headline was not exactly unbiased. It was changed about six hours later to this:

The change has been propagating slowly through the local news sites that grab the AP feed.

I found the thread of AP headline posts on the topic:

#1 at 5:26 AM said "US activist's parents confront bulldozer driver"
#2 said "Slain US activist's parents face Israeli killer": at 7:59 AM
#3 and #4 said the same thing as the story got updated during the morning
#5, at 11:21 AM, changed it to "Israeli driver", as did #6 at 12:16 PM.

(h/t SoccerDad, Zach, Vic)

Iranian cleric explains how Jews corrupt America's human rights

Syria's SANA news agency informs us that the vice president of the Iranian Shura Council, Muhammad Hassan Abu Turabi, says that human rights in America today have become a victim of the "illegitimate interests of a few international Zionists."

He was speaking at a conference in Iran called "Human Rights and the United States." He said that democracy is now an instrument for violating human rights, and that Iran has detected the Zionist influence in this scheme.

That term "International Zionists" reminds me of something....

Hunting Iranian arms brokers - 8 part series

The Philadelphia Inquirer published an 8-chapter series on a sting operation that nabbed a major Iranian arms dealer - and possibly a whole lot more.

It is long, but very much worth reading.

Nasrallah upset at UN report

AFP reports:

Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement Wednesday accused the United Nations of interfering in Lebanese affairs, days after the world body warned tension in the country could affect the entire region.

The UN on Monday released a report on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all militias on Lebanese soil and the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon.

In the report, released after a controversial visit to Lebanon by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned that Lebanon had been hit by a new climate of "uncertainty" that could cause instability across the Middle East.

"The report released by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Resolution 1559 ... marks interference in internal Lebanese affairs as well as political interference in the affairs of the international tribunal," Hezbollah said in a statement.

For some reason, I couldn't find the new report in the UN website, although I found a copy here.

While it is welcome to see the UN actually try to enforce a Security Council resolution, the bad news is that the Secretary General has written similar reports every six months since 1559 was adopted. Here's the one from April, and all the others.

Meaning that, it the end, the UN cannot do anything about it.

What happened between Peres and Morocco's king?

From JPost on Monday:

President Shimon Peres on Sunday announced that he would not attend the World Economic Forum being held in Morocco at the end of the month because King Muhammad VI had refused to meet with him during his planned visit.

According to reports from Beit Hanassi, King Muhammad let it be known that Peres is an Israeli figure held in high esteem in Morocco but that at time was not ripe for a meeting between the two leaders due to tension caused over the stalemate in peace talks with the Palestinians.

The Arabic media is reporting that Arab states, including Syria, Libya and especially Saudi Arabia, put intense pressure on Morocco's King Muhammad to shun Peres, especially after there were other press reports in the Israeli media that the king had invited Peres to meet.

The current Arab League trend is to avoid having Israeli leaders step foot on Arab soil, including Egypt and Jordan, in order to further isolate Israel politically, according to the article.

UAE court ruling allows wife and child beating

From HRW:

A decision by the United Arab Emirates Federal Supreme Court upholding a husband's right to "chastise" his wife and children with physical abuse violates the right of the country's women and children to liberty, security, and equality in the family - and potentially their right to life, Human Rights Watch said today. The ruling, citing the UAE penal code, sanctions beating and other forms of punishment or coercion providing the violence leaves no physical marks.

Human Rights Watch called on the government urgently to repeal all discriminatory laws, including any that sanction domestic violence.

"This ruling by the UAE's highest court is evidence that the authorities consider violence against women and children to be completely acceptable," said Nadya Khalife, Middle East women's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Domestic violence should never be tolerated under any circumstances. These provisions are blatantly demeaning to women and pose serious risks to their well-being."

The October 5, 2010 court ruling, a copy of which Human Rights Watch obtained, states that, "Although the husband has the right to discipline his wife in accordance with article 53 of the penal code, he must abide by conditions setting limits to this right, and if the husband abuses this right to discipline, he shall not be exempt from punishment."

Article 53 of the UAE's penal code acknowledges the right of a "chastisement by a husband to his wife and the chastisement of minor children" so long as the assault does not exceed the limits prescribed by Shari'a. Similarly, article 56 of the UAE's personal status code obligates women to "obey" their husbands.

The court ruling said that abuse that results in visible injuries that require treatment is illegal, but anything less than that is (by implication) OK.

French human rights official asks Arab League to curtail anti-semitic programming

Al Manar, Hezbollah's Lebanese media outlet, reports:

On Wednesday, Paris requested that the Arab League take action on "the problem of television channels that broadcast anti-Semitic propaganda in the Middle East and also to Europe via satellite."

Francois Zimeray, Ambassador for Human Rights at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said he had noted in particular the case of channels of Hamas, "Al Aqsa," and that of Hezbollah, "Al Manar," during during a visit to the headquarters of the pan-Arab institution.

The anti-Semitic propaganda of these channels is "spreading hate via satellite, returns a bad image of Islam and does not contribute to creating a climate conducive to peace," he told reporters.

I have not yet seen this reported in any non-Arab media outlet.

"Princess Diana was killed because she converted to Islam"

Arabic media is abuzz about the latest twist in the story of the late Princess Diana.

Safia al-Fayed is the sister of Mohammed al-Fayed, whose son Dodi was killed with Diana. Safia, speaking to Egypt's al-Shorouk newspaper, claims that Diana had publicly converted to Islam - and that is why she was killed.

She also says that Dodi was planning to live with Diana in Alexandria and to move his business there after they got married.

Khaled Abu Toameh asks why everyone is lying to PalArab 'refugees'

Khaled Abu Toameh continues his stellar series of articles in Hudson-NY, telling the truth that goes against all conventional wisdom of the Middle East:

The Palestinian Authority, like the rest of the Arab governments, has been lying to the refugees for decades, telling them that one day their dream of returning to their villages and towns, many of which no longer exist, would be fulfilled.

Meanwhile, the refugees are continuing to live in harsh conditions in their UNRWA-administered camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

No Arab or Palestinian leader has ever dared to confront the refugees with the truth, namely that they are not going to move into Israel. On the contrary, Palestinian and Arab leaders continue to tell these people that they will go back to their former villages and towns.

Arab and Palestinian governments are lying to the refugees because they want to avoid any responsibility toward their plight. The Arab governments hosting the refugees have done almost nothing to improve the living conditions of the refugees.

On the contrary, Palestinian refugees living in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan have long been subjected the victims of racism and other repressive and unjust measures and laws that deprive them even of basic rights. Governments such as Jordan receive a payment for each refugee, turning the refugees into nothing more than property, like stocks on Wall Street.

Since its establishment in 1994, the Palestinian Authority has also done very little to help the refugees. In the West Bank, most of the international aid is being invested in major cities such as Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem and Jenin, as well as scores of villages.

UNRWA is also not offering a solution to the refugees. Instead, the UN agency is perpetuating the problem by creating new generations of refugees. UNRWA is in fact encouraging the refugees to stay where they are. For UNRWA, refugees are a gigantic UN jobs program, providing over 30,000 of them, costing over $1 billion USD a-year, or, according to separate sources, a third of all other UN regugee services combined.

The case of the Palestinian refugees is one of the most important issues in the Israeli-Arab conflict. It needs to be solved for once and for all -- and immediately. The refugees have the legitimate and moral right to continue dreaming about their original villages and towns. But the Arab and Palestinian governments do not have the right to continue lying to these people.

The issue of the refugees can easily be solved if the entire international community, with the help of the Arab world, gets together to find a solution. Israel alone will never be able to solve the problem.

The refugees should be offered financial compensation or resettlement in Arab and other countries. Those who wish to move to a Palestinian state that is established alongside Israel in the future should not be denied that right. Arab countries should be urged to absorb Palestinian refugees.

Western countries should also participate by taking some of the refugees and offering them a new life. Why not establish an international fund that would offer financial compensation to those who lost their homes and lands? And let us not forget that there are also hundreds of thousands of Jewish "refugees" who lost their properties in Arab countries.

The world needs to tell the Palestinian refugees that while they are entitled to many rights, they must forget about returning to Jaffa, Haifa and other places inside Israel.

The issue of the Palestinian refugees can be solved only when a courageous Arab or Palestinian leader confronts them with the truth. As long as the refugees are being fed with false hopes, there can be no solution.

More on the fake graves in Mamilla

Palestine Today writes that the Muslim Waqf and the Al Aqsa Foundation went to court to stop the demolition of Arab graves in the Mamilla cemetery.

Their lawyer eloquently said, "We are the owners and the ones with the rights this historic Muslim cemetery. No one else has any rights there! There is no basis for the occupation authorities to demolish the graves of Muslims, [it is a] heinous crime and a flagrant violation of basic human rights, and violation of the feelings and beliefs of the Muslim people."

The only problem is that the Jerusalem Municipality isn't destroying any Muslim graves, but instead they are dismantling new headstones that the Al Aqsa Foundation have erected only recently in order to expand the boundaries of the cemetery. No one is buried under them.

Of course, the Arabic press is silent on this minor fact. They are inciting their readers by telling them that hundreds of their ancestors' graves are being destroyed.

This outright lie, that Israel is targeting Muslim graves, started in August. It was even believed by the president of the UN's General Assembly, who happily repeated the lie.

And so it goes.

(h/t Yerushalimey)