Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Winners of pro-Israel video competition

I got wind of a course that was taught in how ordinary people can make videos that can help Israel.

The students each made a video to be judged for effectiveness.

Here are the winners:

And honorable mentions:

Al Quds reports that the northern branch of the Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has started warning women to cover their eyes if they are judged to be "exciting." (The other autotranslated word used is "seditious.")

The exact criteria were not publicized.

The minister of religious affairs in Gaza, Dr. Taleb Abu Sha'ar, is warning that Israel plans to rebuild the "alleged" synagogue Tiferet Yisrael, also known as the Nissan Bek Shul, in the Jewish quarter of the Old City.

He claims that the project is underway and is budgeted for 40 million shekels.

Tiferet Yisrael's dome was about as prominent in Jerusalem's skyline as the Hurva was before Jordan destroyed those and every other synagogue in the Old City in 1948. In fact, as Abu Sha'ar warns, the dome of the rebuilt Tiferet Yisrael will be taller than the new Hurva synagogue dome, at 26 meters. This would, of course, help "Judaize" the eternal Jewish capital, which is the worst thing that can occur to the Arab mind.

He also complained about the tens of thousand of visitors that the rebuilt Hurva has been receiving.

I can find nothing about this plan anywhere. A moribund two-year old Facebook group was pushing that cause.

But even evil people can give blessings to the Jewish people, so let's hope that Dr. Abu Sha'ar's words help spur the project along! Where can I donate?

Interior of old Tiferet Yisrael

As it was being destroyed by Jordan

The ruins today

UNRWA workers in the West Bank have been on strike since October 14th - and that fact has been completely absent from UNRWA's website the entire time.

Not even a word about a UNRWA worker who went on a hunger strike and is now being hospitalized.

Even though UNRWA is paid for with donor money from throughout the world (mostly the US and EU), it apparently does not feel that it has the obligation to tell the whole truth to its donors. The strike is well-known in the territories, of course, but the world media has been largely silent on the matter.

So garbage is piling up, schools are closed, medical clinics are closed, and food distribution has stopped in all the so-called "refugee" camps.

The residents generally support the strikers, who are demanding pay from a previous strike.

Most of these camps are in PA-administered areas. Even though UNRWA provides services in the camps, they do not administer them. Which means that the PA can easily send in people to pick up the garbage and take up some of the slack from the strike. Moreover, the PA could have created a plan years ago to close the camps altogether and mainstream the residents into the areas it has control over.

Most governments' major responsibility is to take care of their citizens.

Instead, the PA is silent, letting the trash piles grow and letting the poor people get more and more miserable. Because if the PA would take actual responsibility for its citizens who live in the camps, UNRWA would happily divert resources elsewhere - and the PA is more concerned with money than with the well-being of its people.

So we have a UNRWA that is trying to hush up the whole situation.

And a supposedly institution-building government that refuses to lift a finger to help people under its control.

And a world that is utterly clueless about the dysfunctional situation of a quasi-state that threatens to unilaterally declare its independence but that refuses to act in even the most minimal way as a state should - to protect and support its people.

The reason is the same as always - if the dynamics of how Palestinian Arab leaders are willfully negligent towards their own people were known, the world might realize that Israel is not the problem. And that piece of information is the one that all the parties agree must be kept absolutely hidden.

"Arafat was poisoned - but not by food"

From YNet:

Yasser Arafat's personal bodyguard said the Palestinian leader did not die as a result of poison injected in his food.

"We all ate what he ate," 47-year-old Imad Abu Zaki told the London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat in an interview published Sunday, a few days after the sixth anniversary of Arafat's death.

The bodyguard, who accompanied Arafat from 1988 until his death at a military hospital in France on November 11, 2004, said, "It is widely assumed that he was poisoned, but not with the use of food, because we ate together with the Rais. We would eat from the same food 45 minutes before he did.

"Once, a foreign guest brought the Rais a box of chocolates. He (guest) took out a piece of chocolate and served it to the Rais. I immediately took the box and handed the pieces of chocolate to all the bodyguards who were present. I did the same with all boxes of chocolate, sweets or any other foods we received as gifts – we all shared the food and gave it out to the bodyguards," he recalled.

However, Abu Zaki did not rule out the possibility that Arafat was poisoned. "It is safe to assume that he was poisoned, but not with food," the bodyguard said in the interview.

Which can only mean one thing: it really was a high-tech Joo-Ray device that killed Arafat!

Are you ready for some (American) football?

From CNN, hat tip Israelli:

The webpage of the Israel Football League is here.

Turks only know lies about Mavi Marmara

From Calire Berlinski in Standpoint Magazine, quoted by Michael Totten:

In May, a ship full of civilians — but not full of humanitarian aid — sailed from Turkey to join the Free Gaza flotilla. Having warned the Mavi Marmara that it would not be allowed to breach the blockade, Israeli commandos raided the ship. In the clash, nine Turks were killed. I've lived in Istanbul for five years and I've spoken to hundreds of Turks about these events. A Turkish documentary filmmaker and I have filmed some of these conversations. Something will immediately strike the viewer: the Turkish people have no idea what happened. This is because the most basic facts about and surrounding these events have not been reported in Turkey.

In billing the flotilla as a humanitarian mission, the IHH — the expedition's Islamist sponsor — exploited the Turks' Achilles heel: their generosity. Turks think of themselves as charitable and compassionate, as indeed they are. They genuinely believe, because this is what has been reported here, that the Palestinians are starving. They know almost nothing about the reasons for the blockade. They believe that the ship was on a humanitarian mission and nothing but a humanitarian mission. They are bewildered that anyone would have interfered with such a noble-minded endeavour. They do not know that there were no humanitarian supplies on the Mavi Marmara. They do not know the most rudimentary facts about Hamas. As one man said: "These are elected people. It's not like they took over by force, via a coup."

Almost no one in Turkey understands any language but Turkish. If this obviously thoughtful man was unaware that indeed, Hamas took over precisely by force, via a coup, it is because he had no way to know. The men and women to whom we spoke were astonished when we told them that Israeli officials had invited the ship to disembark at Ashdod and deliver the aid overland. But they were not disbelieving — and importantly, when we told them this, it changed their view. Many spontaneously said that they knew they could not trust what they heard in the news, that the situation confused them and that something about the story just didn't sound right.

Michael Totten adds:

A new Turkish film may make the big lie all but permanent in the minds of millions of Turkish people. Kurtlar Vadisi Filistin, or Valley of the Wolves: Palestine, is the sequel to the notorious Valley of the Wolves: Iraq, which was released in 2006. The first installment portrays American soldiers massacring civilians at an Iraqi wedding party and harvesting the internal organs of prisoners to sell to Israelis.

The trailer for the second installment begins with an obviously false portrayal of the Mavi Marmara incident, and a later scene shows Israeli soldiers shooting more than a dozen handcuffed prisoners in the back.

The film’s main character is a Turkish special agent who sets out to avenge those killed on the boat by assassinating the Israeli commander in charge at the time, who is cartoonishly outfitted with an eye patch. “Our hero acts for the rights of the oppressed,” says Zübeyr Sasmaz, the director. “We’re talking about things people don’t want to hear,” says Necati Şaşmaz, one of the actors. “Up until now we have seen only Western heroes such as Rambo and James Bond. For the first time in the history of cinema there is an undefeatable protagonist from the Middle East.”

It’s too bad the story is based on a lie.

If someone knows Turkish, it might be very worthwhile to subtitle or voiceover one of the videos showing the noble, charitable IHH members beating Israeli soldiers.

(h/t Zvi and IsraelMuse)

Hamas tunnel collapse - in northern Gaza - kills two kids

Palestine Press Agency reports that two boys, aged 11 and 12, were killed when a tunnel collapsed underneath them. A 20-year old man was wounded. (The boys weren't digging or smuggling, they just happened to be above the cavity when it gave way.)

But this tunnel was not a smuggling tunnel in Rafah. It was dug underneath a "refugee" camp in Jabalya, in northern Gaza.

Which means that it is either a bunker that Hamas is building under civilian houses and buildings, or that it is a tunnel meant to go to Israel to attack Jews.

Either way, you can be sure that no human rights agencies will notice or condemn Hamas.

Meanwhile, a 20-year old woman was killed by two gunshots in central Gaza, but officials are not calling it an honor crime.

"Jeopardy!" TV show knows what Israel's capital is

On the popular TV quiz show "Jeopardy!" on Novermber 12, during their College Championship Week, the first round $200 "answer" on the topic of "World Capitals" was:

"This capital of Israel is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world"

The "question," of course, is "What is Jerusalem?," answered correctly by Sam Spaulding, a sophomore from Yale University.

Apparently, people complained to the TV show for the question, but Sony (which owns Jeopardy) deleted the thread about the topic on its message boards and there is nothing in Google's cache. All I can see is what someone responded on the topic as a fragment in the Google search results, which says "Jerusalem has been defined as Israel's capital, and that's that. Jeopardy! is there to report facts, not to make judgment calls."

(h/t Bill)

UPDATE: RP found the Google-cached discussion.

Elder Merchandise Sale!

My Printfection store, with "Ziyonist" apparel, mugs and other items, is having a week-long sale starting tomorrow. Just use the following coupon codes:

FALL2010 $5 off subtotal of $25+
HARVEST2010 $10 off subtotal of $50+
AUTUMN2010 $20 off subtotal of $100+

Disclaimer:

Please enter coupon code FALL2010, HARVEST2010, or AUTUMN2010 before completing checkout. Discount is applied to the subtotal and does not include shipping, taxes, or additional charges. This offer may not be combined with other offers. Coupons valid from 11/14/2010 12:00 am to 11/20/2010 11:59 pm Mountain time.

If the above link doesn't work, use this one.

Weekend bridge open thread

כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד, והעיקר - לא לפחד כלל

All the world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important thing is not to fear at all. (R' Nachman of Breslov)

Why aren't Arab countries free? Because of Israel!

The Toronto Star had an amazing interview with Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League.

While the entire thing is the usual nonsense (he whines about how the "peace process" has taken 20 years but doesn't mention a small thing called the "second intifada") it gets really ridiculous at this point:

I asked Moussa about why the Arab states have failed to embrace democracies; why women still do not have equal rights; and why minorities are being mistreated in Arab lands.

“I would say that indeed we have many problems that we have to resolve. As a citizen of this region, I should not deny that there are lot things that need to change.

“At the same time, we have also seen that the U.S. and others in the West hoisted the flag of democracy and wanted the Arab countries to follow the path of democracy. But when the Palestinians called their bluff and conducted elections and Hamas won, they all forgot about democracy.

“That was a major disappointment, a major disappointment that the promoters and proponents of democracy are not really serious.

“Had they been serious, they would’ve accepted the outcome of the Palestinian election. They should not have punished the Palestinians.

“There’s no sincerity in the Western call for democracy.

“On the other hand, the only solution for Arab societies is to (adopt) a democratic system — one man, one vote. We need that, we need that.”

But it is not happening, I tell him.

“It is not happening now. It will happen in the future — the near future, I am sure, not the distant future.

“Arab societies are not the same as 10 years ago. The political scene is full of NGOs, political parties, opposition newspapers, demonstrations and protests . . . These democratic steps have already been taken.”

Does he really see all the kings just giving up power? Does he see Hosni Mubarak in Egypt giving up his autocratic power?

“If we succeed in solving the Palestinian problem, things will change dramatically towards social and economic development,” Moussa said. “There’ll be less threats of terrorism, less threats of violence, less regional tensions, which will open up the movement of people, more tourism, railways, highways, etc. Once we embark on it, it will happen quickly. That’s why we need peace.”

So the reason that Mubarak and King Abdullah are autocratic is because there is no peace.

Just one problem - they are at peace with Israel.

But surely, Bahrain and Yemen and Saudi Arabia and Syria will democratize very soon. They don't do it only because they are disappointed in the Palestinian Arab democratic experiment. Yeah, that's the reason.

Of course, Algeria and Libya are keenly interested in freedom and reforms as well, but, after all, there's a remarkably non-violent war going on in Palestine a couple of thousand miles away and that is holding them back.

The problem in the Arab world is that the leaders have no ability to self-criticize and take responsibility for their actions, and Amr Moussa has proven that beautifully.
(h/t Ben Dror Yemini in Ma'ariv)