Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, December 05, 2010

University drops "Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award"

From NPR:

Wayne State University won't be bestowing any more diversity awards named for Helen Thomas following more controversial remarks by the former dean of the White House press corps.

The university pulled the honor, the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award, after the 90-year-old said this week that "Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by Zionists. No question, in my opinion."

Thomas made those incendiary comments, according to a Detroit News report, before a diversity conference Thursday.

In an earlier report, the newspaper quotes a Wayne State official explaining the obvious, that the university had to put distance between itself and its famous alumna.

"The controversy has brought a negative light to the award, which was never the intent of the award," said Matthew Seeger, interim dean of the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts.

Even the very liberal NPR recognizes that Helen Thomas is a nasty old bigot with its (unprofessional but accurate) side comment of "explaining the obvious."

Wonder if Ray Hanania will figure that out for himself?

"Forest Jihad"

A very interesting article by Jonathan Fighel written two years ago for the International Institute of Counter-Terrorism:

From the beginning of September 2008, a renewed concern emanated from Western intelligence agencies to the effect that Al Qaeda terrorists were planning a “global fireball”, in a departure from its war on the West.[1] Deliberately lighting forest fires in Europe, the US and Australia, would not only stretch emergency services, but would also leave insurance companies facing multi-billion dollar claims, as the credit crunch bites.[2] The fires would also create a pollution disaster, with billions of tons of climate-change gases escaping into the atmosphere. The so-called “forest jihad” is being championed by Islamic scholars and Osama Bin Laden’s terror strategists who believe setting fire to dry woodlands will produce maximum damage at minimum risk.

Already back in November 2007, radical Islamic forums spelled out the terrorists’ mindset in graphic terms. One of the Arabic web sites affiliated with Al Qaeda’s ideas, called “Al-Ikhlas Islamic Network”, posted a long and detailed message, in which it was argued that lighting fires is an effective form of action, justified in Islamic law under the "eye for an eye" doctrine. The posting instructs remembering the "Forest Jihad" during the summer months, noting that "fires cause economic damage and pollution, tie up security agencies and can take months to extinguish.” Imagine, if after all the losses caused by such an event, a jihadist organization were to claim responsibility for the forest fires," the website says, "you can hardly begin to imagine the level of fear that would take hold of people in the United States, Europe, Russia and Australia."… [3]

Another Al Qaeda affiliated website,”Al-Jazeeratalk.net” posted a similar message on 27 December 2007, where supporters were reminded, “not to forget the summer forest jihad”. It added: “This is an invitation to the Muslims of Europe and America, Australia and Russia to burn forests.” [5] The message claims that the burning of trees, as a warfare method, is permitted in Islam and it quotes from the Qur’an to back it up. The “benefits” of the fires, are to cause casualties, hit tourist income, create timber shortages for domestic, industrial use and pharmaceuticals, and stretch emergency services.[6]

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, arson comprised about one-third of all forest fires in Israel, which is a very large proportion. Some of the sources of this arson were identified as the work of criminals, whose sole aim was to collect the insurance money. However, many instances of arson in the late 1980s were directly related to the Palestinian uprising (the first Intifada). Palestinians have used arson in the past as an insurgency method, as early as the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, but in the 1980s it was adopted as a highly visible action against Israel. Arson was found to be easy to execute: all one had to do was cross the old border between the West Bank and Israel, which was unguarded and open to all, start a fire in one of the many forests in the hilly areas near the border, and then disappear. According to the International Forest Fire News (IFFN), between 1988 and 1991 the number of fires attributed to arson rose to over 30%, which was explained by an increase in politically motivated arson associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[7]

There were frequent occurrences of forest fires in areas adjacent to the old "Green Line" border between Israel and the West Bank, during the years 1988-1990. Between 288 and 388 forest fires were caused by arson, which occurred in areas near the old pre-1967 border.[8] In some of the fires, which occurred in northern Israel, Israeli Arab Palestinians were found to be responsible. These fires were extraordinary, given the fact that in 1988, there was a great deal of rain and, as a result, the vegetation was highly combustible.

Read the whole thing.

While it looks like the Carmel fires started more from negligence than arson, Al Qaeda is taking credit for them, which is consistent with the information above.

Forest fires are potentially potent weapons that need to be defended against.

(h/t Serious Black and O)

PalArab "euphoria" over fires

From Palestine Today:

Untold euphoria prevailed among Palestinians after the fires that broke out in several places in northern Israel, which led to the deaths of more than 40 Zionists, although grief was felt by some [because of] the large amounts of Arab and European aid to assist in fire suppression at the time when the Palestinian people are groaning from violations of the occupation.

Palestine Today met many people whose faces reflected a great joy about what happened in Israel, where they stressed that this was the least that can happen to the entity...

Citizen Bassam Hamdan expressed her delight at the fall of more than 40 people in the ranks of the Zionists, calling it revenge of God Almighty for the children of the martyrs who fell from the Zionist occupation fire, forcing the enemy to know that there are forces greater than all.

The citizen Sami Al Masri described how the Palestinian people always rejoice when there are casualties among the Israelis and this stems from the nature of the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, but feels unfortunate for the participation of Arabs in fire suppression.

Now, when have Israelis ever rejoiced over the deaths of civilians living in enemy states? Let alone unapologetic and public euphoria over the deaths of innocents.

Abbas Resignation Theatre, 2010 edition

From JPost:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to resign as PA president if Israel continued construction of settlements in the West Bank, in a TV interview on Friday, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported Saturday.

In an interview with Palestine TV on Friday, Abbas said he would not "afford to remain the president of a nonexistent Palestinian Authority" if construction continued, according to the report.

Time to brush off the ever growing list, compiled by Daled Amos, of times that Abbas has threatened to resign:

November 11, 2009:
President Mahmoud Abbas is considering resigning from his roles on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee and the Fatah Central Committee, Palestinian officials said on Tuesday.

March 18, 2008
Exclusive: Abbas threatens to quit peace talks, revive Fatah terror
(OK, Abbas is not threatening to resign--but we're just getting warmed up...)

Jan 17, 2008
Abbas threatens to quit if 'escalation' continues

June 12, 2007
Fatah movement threatens to quit Hamas-led unity gov't

February 26, 2006
Abbas threatens to quit over Hamas
(Feb 28, 2006 Abbas: I did not threaten to quit)

30 January 2006
Abbas to resign if Hamas fails to work with foreign powers

January 25, 2006
Palestinians Vote in First Legislative Elections in a Decade
Abbas is "a touchy man of dark moods, who often threatens to quit, as he quit as prime minister after four months in 2003 when Mr. Arafat did not allow him enough power."

Jan 17, 2006
PA head Abbas threatens to quit

December 16, 2005
Palestinian Chief Threatens to Quit Over Rival Fatah Slate

March 30, 2005
Palestinian Abbas threatens to quit unless Fatah groups cooperate.

Wed 09 Sep 2003
Abbas threatens to quit unless he gets more authority

Thursday, September 4, 2003
Abbas threatens to quit over leadership

Aug. 21, 2003
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas threatens to resign unless Yasser Arafat approves a crackdown on Hamas

July 9, 2003
U.S. Supports Abbas After Palestinian Leader Threatens to Quit

April 08, 2003
Moderate Palestinian PM threatens to quit as Arafat hinders change.

Of course, he never has; it is an empty threat. But it invariably scares Westerners who false consider him to be "moderate."

Keeping the open thread going....

Sorry, but I don't have time tonight to blog, so ....keep up the discussion.

Administrivia open thread

Thanks to all who wished me a Mazel Tov!

In the Watcher'sCouncil this week, I was nominated twice, for Iran used Red Crescent to send agents and weapons to Hezbollah and UN “threatened” CBC reporter; Hezbollah uses hospital for comm HQ. Unfortunately, both entries tied for fifth place, but it is still nice to be doubly nominated by the Council in a single week! (The winners are pretty good, too :) )

I don't know how many people will attend next week's EoZ Z-Vent Off Broadway Extravaganza Hasbara 2.0 Live One-Person Show Featuring the First Annual Hasby Awards, but in the Facebook invitation there are 34 people who say they will attend and 71 "maybes." And others will show up who didn't receive the FB invite. So it will not be a bad crowd for such an event; from the similar events I've attended held on college campuses and the videos I've seen this is quite respectable. Especially considering that no one knows if I even know how to speak to begin with. Of course, I want more people to attend....Yeshiva University, Tuesday night, 8 PM. Free food to attract the fence-sitters!

I noted earlier that Elecronic Intifada gets donations to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars to run their website, even though it gets fewer readers than mine. Commenter anarchofascist notes that Mondoweiss just was offered a $20,000 matching grant. I guess it pays to bash Israel - literally. None of that Zionist money that Helen Thomas is whining about has managed to filter down to me.

Statcounter says I've averaged about 4500 pageviews a day this past week. That is about 1000 higher than usual.

Here's an open thread for me to catch my breath.

Have a great weekend. Not sure how I'm going to manage to shoe-horn blogging into it...

A Mazel Tov at EoZ HQ

The beautiful and talented Daughter of Ziyon is engaged to be married.

So things will be even more hectic around here than usual.

And to think, it seems so recent that she a typical but quite articulate teenage blogger, with insightful and thoughtful posts (and a tiny amount of teenage angst.)

You may also want to check out her unforgettable guest post here a couple of years later.

And, a bit after that, my readers actually saw her wearing a beach-towel burqa.

Life hurtles on....

EI vs. EoZ

The anti-Israel, anti-semitic Electronic Intifada website, which has been seen this week to have received funds from the Dutch government, says it had a budget of $149,208 in 2008 and $183,760 in 2009.

It's Alexa ranking is currently at 237,143.

Elder of Ziyon's Alexa ranking is higher at 219,966, a bit better than this well-funded site run by at least four people. The EoZ budget for this past year has been approximately $19.

Maybe I should start asking European governments to fund me.

Sarah Palin's Chanukah message

From Sarah Palin's Facebook page:

As Jewish families all over the country and the world come together to celebrate the festival of lights – the miracle of one day’s worth of oil lasting for eight – we are reminded that this holiday is also about the miracle of taking a stand against impossible odds, surviving existential threats, and staying true to one’s values and beliefs through it all.

More than two thousand years after the Maccabees rebelled against their oppressors and reconsecrated their Holy Temple, the Jewish people continue to face threats to their existence, and they continue to persevere and overcome great odds. Today we should all recommit ourselves to ensuring that the miracle of a Jewish state endures forever. The dreidel is one of the most familiar symbols of Hanukkah, with Hebrew letters on it representing the phrase Nes Gadol Haya Sham – “a great miracle happened there.” Indeed a great miracle is still happening there. Todd and I wish the Jewish community a very Happy Hanukkah.

Whether or not you think she is qualified to run the country, there is no doubt that Palin is a deep friend of Israel. These words do not ring hollow as some politicians' messages do.

More evidence at least some of the Carmel fires are arson

From JPost:

Coastal District Police Commander Roni Attia said Friday that two arson suspects were apprehended in the North, near Kiryat Bialik.

The suspects were allegedly attempting to rekindle a fire in the forest with the use of Molotov cocktails. Police are not connecting the arsonists at this stage to the massive fires in the Carmel and Atlit but rather to the fire which broke out earlier at the Tzur Shalom area of Kiryat Bialik.

Attia added that arson is suspected in a number of separate fires, including Kiryat Bialik and Kiryat Tivon.

Earlier on Friday, police found a bike, a bag, and a wig inside near a fire center in Tzur Shalom, leading them to believe that the fire was caused by an arsonist or arsonists.

Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told the Post that there are 3 fire centers - Tzur Shalom, the Atlit - Tirat Hacarmel area, and the Carmel hillsides. In one, Tzur Shalom, north of Haifa, "we located suspicious items pointing to arson. As for the other two major fires, it is too early and the incidents are to large in scale to know their causes at this stage." The death toll in the fires rose to 42 on Friday, according to Army Radio.

Now, who would want to do something like that?

Could it be the types of people who celebrate it?

(h/t Israel Matzav)

UPDATE: Commenter Jed says

Update from Israeli TV:
Fire investigator says fire source was from burning garbage.
Suspicion that more fires set up by gang, 2 suspects from Daliat el Carmel arrested by police.

Erekat creates "The Zionist Grinch Who Stole Palestinian Arab Christmas"

From Ma'an:

"The Israel Ministry of Tourism has hijacked Christmas for political purposes," Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erakat said Thursday, denouncing the occupying nation for hosting a pre-Christmas reception in East Jerusalem.

The reception, set for 6 December, will see diplomats, heads of churches and other community members gather in the city to mark the start of the holiday season.

"This is yet another display of the lengths that Israel is willing to go to distract the world from its policies of dispossession against the Palestinian people," the official said in a statement, on the one hand hosting events to celebrate the Christian holiday, while on the other continuing to "sever the ancient link between Jerusalem and Bethlehem through the construction of the Wall and the expansion of settlements surrounding Bethlehem, including Har Homa and Gilo."

The isolation of Jerusalem from its West Bank neighbors, separating holy sites, families and religious networks was condemned by Erekat, who said "we seek an open Jerusalem as the capital of two states, where free access to all holy sites is guaranteed."

In contrast, he added, "Israel continues its plan to make Jerusalem an exclusive Jewish city."

Yes, those wily Israelis are making Jerusalem exclusively Jewish by holding Christmas events there.

And look how much Erekat is decrying the supposed severing "the ancient link between Jerusalem and Bethlehem" when his entire political career is based on severing the ancient Jewish link between Hebron, Shechem, Bet El, Shiloh, and even the Western Wall from the rest of the Jewish state.