Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, November 07, 2010

Palestinians, leftists caught burning a forest in the West Bank

From YNet:
Six foreign nationals and Palestinians set fires alight near the West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin in the Gush Etzion bloc. Police said the suspects were taken in for questioning on suspicion of arson and illegal congregation.

Settlers said that at about 11 am they saw fires on lands they said belonged to Bat Ayin. Security sources said it was apparently land whose ownership is not regulated.

Dov Mark, land supervisor for the Gush Etzion Council, said such acts have taken place a number of times. "This is a known Palestinian method to take over state land," he said. "With the support of anarchists, who usually come from abroad, they come to an area of natural woodland which has never been cultivated, burn it on purpose and at the same time plant trees. It's all supposed to alter the reality on the ground."

Mark warned that "in this way, it's hard for the Israel Land Administration to work from the moment they plant trees on the land or cultivate it for agricultural crops. In today's case, some 80 dunams (20 acres) of natural woodland were burned by a group of 25 Palestinians and anarchists."

I grabbed the YNet video and put it on YouTube:

(h/t Jed)

This rose bush is in front of Chez Elder, and I can assure you that the leaves are just as painful as they look. However, the bush seems to thrive as the temperature goes down. (This photo was also taken by my phone, and heavily cropped.)

Google started keeping statistics for Blogger sites. The stats go back to July 2010. According to Google, the number of pageviews that I get is about 50% higher than what Statcounter tells me.

If that is true, then I have already passed a million pageviews this year! Statcounter says I am at 750,000 hits for 2010.

Maybe Google also includes RSS feed views, because otherwise I cannot account for the discrepancy.

Anyway, here's an open thread because I am having a busy Sunday.

The Virginity Capsule - now for sale

We have discussed the phenomenon of hymen restoration surgery for Muslim women to appear more like virgins for their wedding night, and how it is illegal in many Arab countries. But since it can save the lives of many women who might be murdered by their new husbands, the procedure is even covered by British national health insurance.

But now, there is a cheaper method.

According to Elaph.com, a capsule is being sold in Arab communities in the Middle East - including in Israel - that is inserted vaginally before the wedding night. It then explodes, giving off a red dye that resembles blood, thus potentially saving the woman's life, as well as her reputation.

Not bad for a few bucks.

The capsule is not legal in any country.

Elaph also says that there are many Israeli clinics that perform hymenoplasty, often in a half-hour procedure.

This capsule is similar to a Chinese device I mentioned last year that performed the same function, when an Egyptian cleric demanded that any bride found to be using it should get the death penalty.

PA arrests atheist for his online activities

Palestine Press Agency reports that PA police arrested a man for his postings on Facebook and his blog.

The man, who was not identified, was caught as he was at an Internet cafe in Qalqilya.

In his Facebook postings, he supposedly claims to be God and he attacks other monotheistic religions, including Islam. He reproduced the Danish Mohammed cartoons and, according to the article, angered hundreds of thousands of people with his atheistic arguments. People who complained managed to get him removed from Facebook but he simply kept writing on his blog, which seems to have been named "Code of The Light of Reason."

I believe that his name is Waleed Al-Husseini and this is the blog. The Facebook page it links to is indeed gone (here's the cached version.) This would be his English-language blog.

I don't see him claiming to be God, except perhaps in a sarcastic way; he is advocating atheism and describes why he doesn't believe in Islam.

So, of course, the enlightened Palestinian Authority - who staked him out for two months - regard him as a deep threat to their nascent, democratic, secular, enlightened nation they are planning.

Weekend Christian conference in DC hosts a would-be ethnic cleanser

The mission of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation is to ensure "the continued presence and well-being of Arab Christians in the Holy Land and to developing the bonds of solidarity between them and Christians elsewhere."

This is admirable. Christians are disappearing from the Middle East at an alarming rate (everywhere, in fact, except for Israel.)

Unfortunately, the HCEF seems to be a bit fixated on supposed Israeli actions that are forcing Christians out, and they downplay any oppression that come from the Palestinian Muslims. I couldn't find anything on their website about threats, or attacks, or stealing land.

This group held a conference in Washington this weekend. One of the speakers is "Ambassador" Maen Areikat, who represents the PLO in Washington.

And who says, very explicitly, that he envisions a Palestinian state that would have no Jews in it.

In other words, he advocates the forcible transfer of some half-million Jews out of the free, democratic country he pretends to support.

It seems a little odd that an organization that is against Christians being forced out of the Holy Land has no problem honoring a man who wants to do exactly that to hundreds of thousands of Jews.

Gaza businessmen must be really stupid

From Ma'an:

Nablus businessman Munib Al-Masri on Sunday toured industrial projects being carried out by the Palestine Development and Investment Company in the Gaza Strip.

The West Bank multimillionaire told journalists Friday that after three years of waiting, his company decided to inaugurate a five-star hotel in the northern Gaza Strip. The hotel was completed in 2007, but its opening was delayed due to the dire conditions in the Strip.

I guess this is another successful businessman who doesn't read the papers enough to realize that Gaza is filled with poor, starving people to whom a luxury hotel would be a cruel joke, how no one in Gaza can afford even the basics that are for sale there, and how such a project is doomed to failure.

This comes on the heels of the announcement of another Gaza mall that is equally doomed.

It's almost like these people expect to make money in a place that is universally regarded as one of the worst places on Earth. How arrogant they are to think they know more about Gaza than the New York Times and the UN!

Video of Israel's "Dancing with the Stars" same-sex couple

I mentioned it last week, so how can I not show it? Especially since it is a magnet for blog hits....

This is the first time that any incarnation of "Dancing with the Stars" has shown a same-sex dance team.

And, come on - who is going to object?

Did you ever received a parcel saying "fragile" but the sticker "this side up" was missing so you never knew how to handle the package carefully? This is how I feel towards Lebanon. How to approach Lebanons fragile state at this moment?

Hezbollah is threatening, because of the Hariri Tribunal, which it wants to boycott amid unconfirmed reports that an impending indictment would implicate its members. This worries of course the Lebanese army. A general said ahead of the UN indictment:

"I am worried but I am not afraid," General Jean Kahwaji, who rarely makes public statements, told the daily An Nahar. "We have deployed sufficient troops in Beirut and have studied all other areas at risk," he said. "The army will be firm... in all areas and particularly Christian areas," he said without elaborating.

This is how Hezbollah threatens in the meanwhile:

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has openly warned Lebanese against further cooperation with the tribunal.

His second-in-command, Sheikh Naim Qassem, has said charges against Hezbollah would be "equivalent to lighting the fuse, to igniting the wick for an explosion."

(...)

Last week a report in the daily Al Akhbar, which is close to Hezbollah, said the Shia party had quietly sent its partisans throughout the country in a dry run for a possible takeover of the capital and other areas in the aftermath of the STL indictment.

The fact that people die as a result of clashes between the Lebanese army and "gunmen" might be a warning for worse to come.

A package usually will not crash itself when you just stand there and watch it. We can wait and see, but I just hope the package was not a ticking bomb.

Maybe it's not such a stupid move by Netanyahu to withdraw from the northern part of the village Ghajar after all.

Hamas? Anti-semitic? No way!

You know how Hamas always says that they have nothing against Jews, just Zionists?

Apparently, they are also referring to the Zionists of the Middle Ages:

The Jews will soon be expelled from Palestine that same way they were kicked out by France, Britain, Belgium, Russia and Germany, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said over the weekend.

“The only nation that received the Jews after they were expelled was the Islamic nation, which protected them and looked after them,” Zahar said in a speech in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip over the weekend.

“But they have no place here amongst us because of their crimes. They will soon be expelled from here and we will pray at the Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem].”

Zahar claimed that Jews were expelled in the past “because they betrayed, stole and corrupted these countries.”

I seem to recall Jews being expelled from or fearfully fleeing state-sponsored persecution in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran and Jordan, but perhaps Zahar's is more a scholar of medieval history than modern.

Notice that he doesn't mention Spain and Portugal, two other countries that famously expelled Jews. Why not? Because in those countries Muslims were persecuted and/or expelled along with the Jews! That little fact might make his fellow Muslims question his theory that people who are kicked out of countries, or forcibly converted, deserve it. Better to avoid that topic, then.

Oh, by the way - Zahar is one of those "pragmatic" Hamas leaders that so many people pin their hopes on for an ultimate peace treaty.

Hospitals in Gaza have no medicine - but not because of Israel

Palestine Press Agency has an article Gaza hospitals that do not have basic medical supplies, like pain relief medicines and even gauze.

Families of patients have to go to pharmacies to buy the medicines - of which the pharmacies have where there are plenty - and then give them to the nurses at the hospitals to administer.

What is interesting is how the medicines in the pharmacies are labeled. They say things like "In support of the Palestinian people" or "in support of charity X." In other words, medicines that are meant to be given to the hospitals for free are being diverted and being sold to pharmacies instead, for what is presumably a tidy profit for the thieves.

Israel does not limit the shipment of medicine and medical supplies at all.

The PA is responsible for coordinating shipments of medicine to Gaza, and they have only been sending roughky half of what was needed, thus creating a black market for the supplies.

Although this article did not explicitly blame Hamas, we have seen in the past that Hamas has confiscated aid meant to be distributed for free and diverted it to Hamas-run hospitals and clinics, or to the black market.

UNRWA chief asks for machine guns to protect himself in Gaza

From Ha'aretz:

The defense establishment has taken the unusual step of granting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency approval to take four weapons into Gaza. The weapons, submachine guns, are to serve the security detail guarding the heads of the agency in Gaza.

The request to bring in the weapons was made three years ago and approved last week.

The director of UNRWA's activities in Gaza, John Ging, said on his website that his life is in constant danger and he needs more suitable protection than the handguns his bodyguards had been carrying.

The UN body asked for German Heckler and Koch submachine guns for UNRWA's commissioner general, Filippo Grandi, and for Ging.

The organization told Israeli security officials that its personnel are being threatened by Hamas representatives. UNRWA operates 221 schools in Gaza and dozens of medical centers, employment centers and women's help centers.

More than a million refugees and their descendents are registered with UNRWA, which operates eight refugee camps in Gaza.

In March 2007, gunmen fired at Ging's convoy and he escaped without injury. In the summer of 2007, armed men again attacked him, in Rafah, killing one.

Ging supports unsupervised flotillas to break the blockade of Gaza, which would be able to bring all the weapons he might need.

So why didn't he ask his Hamas buddies to smuggle in some submachine guns for his team?