Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Samir Kuntar visits Syria to promote his book

From Syria's Al Baath newspaper, a celebration of a baby killer:

The dean of Lebanese prisoners freed from Israeli jails, Samir Kuntar, spoke of the steadfastness and principled positions of the Syrian government that gives courage for the resistance to achieve victories...

Kuntar spoke while promoting his book, "My Story," now in its second edition, in a discussion held yesterday at the University of October at the invitation of the National Union of Syrian Students to support the unlimited help provided by Syria to the [Hezbollah] resistance in the victory in 2006 and that this culture of resistance constitutes a milestone for Syria. He noted that this culture is planted in the minds and hearts of the youth and the sons of Syria, and that Syria's heroic struggle stems from betting on the young generation... gathered around the leader of the nation, Mr. President Bashar al-Assad.

Kuntar said that the youth of Syria is real and effective in supporting and sustaining the resistance and the educational and cultural institutions play a major role in promoting a culture of resistance and victory. he told the masses of students that... under the leadership of President Bashar al-Assad Syria is the focus of pride and the pride and respect for the whole world.

Here's his book.

Jordanian lawyers to sue former PM for peace treaty with Israel

From Jordan's Ammon News:

A group of Jordanian lawyers said that they intend to sue former Prime Minister Abdul Salam Majali following comments he made on signing the Wadi Araba Peace Treaty with Israel.

Lawyer Muhammad Khreisat stressed that he will file a lawsuit against the former Prime Minister after the latter made statements admitting that he "was wrong to sign the peace treaty with Israel," and that he regrets signing the agreement.

Khreisat added that Majali has "harmed the Jordanian state" by signing the peace treaty and through his recent admission in statements to the press that he regrets signing it.

Video of people being shot in Bahrain (updated)

Not sure when it was taken, uploaded yesterday:

(h/t Missing Peace)

UPDATE: Mike sends me the same incident from another angle, showing more. It was uploaded on the 18th.

Arab leaders meet to condemn their fellow dictator

The Arab League is going to have an emergency meeting to discuss the situation in Libya.

You know...these guys, standing around the other guy wearing brown:

And these guys, around the guy wearing with the long hair (although the person to his left will not be there.)

Ya gotta wonder what they will say without sounding like they are writing their own epitaphs.

In the same vein:, from Reuters:

Hamas supporters step on a poster depicting a crossed-out portrait of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi during a rally in Gaza City against the Libyan leader February 22, 2011.

Yet just a little over a year ago, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal traveled to Libya to hold talks with Gaddafi.

And Mahmoud Abbas has spent a bit of time with the crazy dictator as well, at least twice since 2009:

But then again, some other world leaders have not been embarrassed to be seen with Gaddafi either.

"Apartheid Week" poster

Just playing with the format of a series of posters I'd like to create for the upcoming "Israel Apartheid Week" on college campuses.

In general, I don't like playing defense, but I'd love to see video of the Israel-haters tearing down posters showing smiling, proud Israeli Arabs.

(The entire collection of posters is here.)

More Palestinian Arabs working for Israelis

The latest labor statistics are out from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

Among the findings for the 4th quarter of 2010:

The labor market increased by 41,000 jobs in the West Bank and 13,000 jobs in Gaza.
In the West Bank, the number of Arab workers in Israel or Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria increased by 4000, from 75,000 to 79,000.
The number of Arab workers in settlements themselves went up from 7000 to 9000, a whopping 28% increase. Almost certainly this is largely because the construction freeze ended in late September.
11.5% of all employed West Bank workers are working for Israelis.
While the average daily wage in the West Bank is 86.8 NIS, the average daily wage for those working in Israel or in Jewish settlements is nearly double that, at 160.5 NIS (an increase of nearly 4% in the quarter.)
Gaza's unemployment rate went down from 40.5% to 37.4%. The West Bank unemployment rate decreased from 20.1% to 16.9%.

Statistics are slightly skewed compared to Western standards because the PCBS counts unemployment for everyone 15 years old and above, as opposed to 18 years old. Not surprisingly, the unemployment rate is highest for the 15-19 age group.

Erdogan wants to keep his Gaddafi Human Rights award

From Today's Zaman:

In response to growing calls from Turkish society on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to return the Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights he received last year, the Prime Ministry said yesterday that “returning the award is out of the question.”

As the growing anti-government unrest in Libya is met by the brutal response of security forces, Turkish civil society has begun calling on Erdoğan to give back the award in protest of the Gaddafi violence in Libya, a demand that was rejected by the Prime Ministry in a statement released yesterday. The refusal to return the award may be linked to the safety of thousands of Turks in Libya who still expect to be evacuated.

The Young Civilians -- a civil society group known for its creative demonstrations in support of democracy -- made an open call to Erdoğan yesterday to return the award. “You showed sensitivity to what happened in Egypt. Take the side of the oppressed against the oppressive Gaddafi as well. Fix this evil act, which you cannot fix with your hand, with your tongue. Immediately give back the Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights that you recently received. As long as this award exists on the shelves of the Republic of Turkey’s Prime Ministry, the responsibility for the ongoing massacres in Libya will remain on us,” the Young Civilians said.

...The human rights prize was established in 1988 by Muammar al-Gaddafi. According to its website, the prize is awarded to one of the “international personalities, bodies or organizations that have distinctively contributed to rendering an outstanding human service and has achieved great actions in defending human rights, protecting the causes of freedom and supporting peace everywhere in the world.” Former South African President Nelson Mandela and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez are among the recipients of the award.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) also commented on Erdoğan’s silence regarding the Libyan uprising yesterday and argued that “Erdoğan is doing what the award requires.”

Other illustrious past winners include Fidel Castro, Louis Farrakhan, Mahathir Mohamad and Daniel Ortega.

(h/t Harry's Place via T34)

Muslim Brotherhood wants to build a satellite channel

From Al Arabiya:

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is currently studying the possibility of establishing a satellite television station and a number of newspapers and magazines, according to leading MB member Essam al-Arian.

“Freedom of access to information is key to keeping up with the evolution of international media,” al-Arian told Al-Masry Al-Youm, adding that Egyptians "are fed up with biased media.”

“Soon we will begin publishing a monthly magazine called 'Al-Daawa,' in addition to a weekly newspaper,” he added.

Head of the MB's media committee Assem Shalabi said the group was preparing to publish daily, weekly and monthly newspapers and magazines.

“We're expecting amendments to Egypt's press laws that will facilitate the publication of new newspapers," said Shalabi. "This is why we are seeking to issue different publications."

There is of course nothing wrong with this.

The problem is that no Egyptian pro-freedom group could possibly hope to match the expected media onslaught from the Islamists.

Even worse - no Western powers are even thinking in this direction.

The Islamists show yet again, by contrast, that the West has no real strategy to effectively promote freedom in the Arab world. We are great at empty platitudes and worthless words of support, but in the end, no one is on the ground setting up a real marketplace of ideas in the Arab world where Islamism would be just one alternative among many. We think that our system is so obviously better that it doesn't have to be promoted.

Sound familiar? Yes, that's Israel's problem as well.

Strategically, the Islamists run circles around the West, and they have just proved it again.

Freedom House vs. HRW on Libya

Last month I compared how Freedom House rates countries against how much attention Human Rights Watch pays to them.

Libya is a special case, because in 2009 its Middle East and North Africa director, Sarah Leah Whitson, gushed about how wonderful things were there. As quoted by Omri Ceren:
:

For the first time in memory, change is in the air in Libya. The brittle atmosphere of repression has started to fracture, giving way to expanded space for discussion and debate [and] proposals for legislative reform… I left more than one meeting stunned at the sudden openness of ordinary citizens, who criticized the government and challenged the status quo with newfound frankness. A group of journalists we met with in Tripoli complained about censorship… [b]ut that hadn’t stopped their newspapers… Quryna, one of two new semi private newspapers in Tripoli, features page after page of editorials criticizing bureaucratic misconduct and corruption… The spirit of reform, however slowly, has spread to the bureaucracy as well… the real impetus for the transformation rests squarely with a quasi-governmental organization, the Qaddafi Foundation for International Charities and Development.

Yet even without this "Tripoli Spring," HRW wrote only 10 reports on Libya - fewer than for Greece Peru, or the Philippines, or Brazil, and far fewer than Israel, the US, the UK or India.

Freedom House, however, gave Libya the worst score possible - a 7 on civil liberties and a 7 on political rights.

It sure looks like Freedom House's scores correlate a lot better with reality than HRW reports do.

Crazy Libyan rumors of Israeli involvement

Israeli F-16s! Jewish African mercenaries! Zionist riots! According to a bunch of tweeters, one or more callers to Al Jazeera claim to have seen Israeli F-16s land in Libya and/or bomb innocent civilians.

And the tweeters believe it.

Another rumor says that Israeli-trained African Jews are the mercenaries Gaddafi hired to shoot people:

But, of course, the Libyan regime has his own theories:

But no matter what, some tweeters understand that this is a great opportunity to engage in some old fashioned anti-semitism:

US throws Israel under the bus

My latest NewsRealBlog article is up, on the US veto of the UNSC resolution - and Susan Rice's groveling to the Arab world afterwards.

After I wrote it I saw this from Elliot Abrams' blog:

This is amazing language for a diplomat: “folly,” “illegitimacy,” “devastates,” “corroded,” and so on. It’s hard to recall such a vehement statement against Israel, nor one that contains so many conclusions that are, to say the least, highly debatable. Has construction in and around Jerusalem or in Ma’ale Adumim, for example, “undermined Israel’s security?” Given that the Israelis and Palestinians concluded the Oslo Accords and the numerous other agreements while construction activity was far greater than it is today, what is the basis for saying that it “devastates trust?” No doubt the Administration decided that as it had vetoed it would “make it up” to the Arabs with this statement. But emotive language such as Amb. Rice employed serves no purpose. Arab newspapers will headline the veto—assuming of course that they have space in their pages tomorrow after covering the revolts in Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, Libya, Bahrain, and Egypt—and are very unlikely to cover her speech. Only Israelis and supporters of Israel in the United States will study her language, and remember it.

So, the Administration emerges having damaged relations with both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Decades of American experience at the United Nations proves clearly the “folly” of such diplomatic action, which “devastates trust” in the United States and therefore “corrodes hopes for peace and stability in the region.” Next time, say you’ll veto, veto, and leave it at that. The United States will end up with fewer angry friends and fewer gleeful enemies.

Exactly. In fact, none of the Arab media I can find is even mentioning Rice's tirade and instead are just concentrating on the veto:

Israeli Muslim sues Coca Cola for putting alcohol in recipe

From Globes:

An Israeli Muslim filed a NIS 1.2 billion class action suit against The Central Bottling Company Group Ltd. (the Israel franchisee for Coca Cola) in the Jerusalem District Court today for compensation for mental anguish and infringing the independent choices of the individual.

The plaintiff, an Israeli Muslim, filed the suit following publication on the web last week of what is apparently the secret recipe of Coca Cola, and which allegedly contains alcohol. The class action suit was filed by Advs. Hani Tannus, Ofir Cohen, and Mahmud Machjana.

Alcohol is forbidden by Islam, and the plaintiff cites he has been unwittingly drinking alcohol for years. He therefore claims Coca Cola is guilty of misleading consumers, infringing the independent choices of the individual, and causing huge mental anguish.

The plaintiff says that his class action suit comprises NIS 1,000 compensation for each of the 1.2 million Muslims living in Israel.

The suit said, "This is one of the greatest deceptions in the history of consumer affairs, when a company ignores the existence of alcohol as an ingredient despite being aware that the Muslim world abstains from products like these. This is a very serious matter and it certainly won't be the last in the world in light of the fraud.

The "secret recipe" story came out last week when a public radio show noticed that one of the pages from Coca Cola's founder's notebook was visible in a 1979 newspaper article. Here's the alleged recipe.

Of course, if it is legitimate, that is a recipe from the late 19th century.

It is a bit crazy to assume that Coke contains alcohol today. The company admits this recipe might be an early version of the formula, but it is not close to what Coke is today.

Not only that, but Coke is manufactured in Muslim countries as well. As the Economic Times reports:

Coca-Cola has no alcohol in it, said the firm's manufacturer in Malaysia as it rubbished reports that the secret of the way it is prepared is out.

Coca-Cola Malaysia's public affairs and communications director Kadri Taib said alcohol was not an ingredient and no fermentation took place during the manufacture of the drink.

"The precise formulation of the drink is our company's most valuable trade secret.

"The ingredients and manufacturing process are rigorously regulated by government and health authorities in more than 200 countries, including Malaysia, which have consistently recognised the beverage as a non-alcoholic product," he said.

The clarification about alcohol is essential for the beverage manufacturer in the Muslim majority nation since Islam forbids it.

This isn't stopping the Arabic press from reporting that class-action lawsuits in all Muslim countries might put Coca Cola out of business.

The demand is for compensation of the Muslim Ummah for psychological and religious damages theyh have suffered as a result of drinking Coca-Cola, which contains a proportion of alcohol... and the teachings of the Islamic religion prohibits drinking alcohol.

Counsel explains that "the Muslim population in Israel, approximately 16%, were drinking Coca-Cola all the time without their knowledge that it contains alcohol, and this is what caused significant psychological damage after discovering the presence of alcohol.

"The Coca-Cola Company is deceiving consumers, particularly Muslims, for the past 150 years, and we demand compensation of 1000 shekels for every Muslim Arab citizen inside Israel, where the number of Muslims in Israel is 1.1879 million, so total of compensation is about 1.2 billion shekels."

If the Jerusalem District Court rules to compensate Muslims inside Israel 1.2 billion shekels, that will open the door to all the world's Muslims, estimated at about one billion Muslims, to bring cases against the Coca-Cola Company, which may have to declare bankruptcy to compensate those affected.

I guess we shouldn't tell them the secret behind Mecca Cola....