Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 25, 2011

Latest Latma (3/25/11)

I thought the NATO spoof was weak, but I liked the "optical illusion."

Who killed Mary Gardner in J'lem? Herald-Scotland doesn't know

An unbelievable article in the Herald (Scotland) about the victim of the Jerusalem terror attack makes it sound like anyone could have planted the bomb:

A SCOTS Christian campaigner from Scotland who worked in the Third World has been killed in a bomb blast in Jerusalem.

Mary Gardner, 59, who previously taught in Orkney, was the only fatality. She was caught up in the explosion caused by a bomb placed in a phone booth as she stood at a bus station in the Israeli city.

She died in hospital from her injuries despite desperate efforts by paramedics following Wednesday’s terror attack.

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Ms Gardner was killed by the blast across the street from the Jerusalem Convention Centre near the central bus station.

A spokesman said: “[Ms Gardner] was critically wounded as a result of the bombing, and rescue services transferred her to hospital, where doctors fought for her life for about an hour and ultimately were forced to declare her dead.”

Beautiful Jerusalem, where bombs just appear and explode spontaneously.

(h/t Tony H.)

Red Cross sheltering Hamas terrorists?

From CBN:

Hamas officials are praising Wednesday's deadly bombing of a bus station in Jerusalem -- a city they've vowed to conquer.

Jerusalem is also a place where wanted Hamas members have found safe haven from Israeli authorities -- and they're getting help from one of the world's leading humanitarian organizations.

Although Hamas's main headquarters can be found in Gaza and Damascus, over the past several months, three officials from the terror group have also set up shop at the International Red Cross office in East Jerusalem.

Israel suspects these three Hamas legislators had a role in the 2006 kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. It ordered them to be deported from Jerusalem last summer.

Instead, the three found refuge at the Red Cross, where they've set up a tent and held court on a daily basis, with no protest from their hosts.

The three Hamas officials have been living there since July. During that time, they've held a number of press conferences and met with foreign dignitaries, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Every Friday, dozens of East Jerusalem residents gather at the Red Cross to hold prayers as a show of support.

Red Cross spokesperson Cecilia Goin told CBN News that hosting the wanted Hamas officials is in line with the organization's humanitarian mission -- despite Hamas' long track record of terrorism.

"Under international humanitarian law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory," Goin said. "So the Palestinians living in East Jerusalem are considered protected people."

Goin, who refers to Israel as an "occupying power" in East Jerusalem, said politics are not involved in the Red Cross's decision.

Even if part of Jerusalem is considered occupied (and it clearly isn't,) that doesn't mean that the 'occupying power' has no right to arrest known terrorists in the territory. In fact, they have an obligation to.

From a monograph called "US Army Doctrine and Belligerent Occupation" that interprets international law for occupation:

The first essential task is to restore public order and safety. ...

The third implied task is to review the local laws in order to enforce, suspend or repeal them and enact new laws in their place as needed. ...Although not commonly done, the
occupying power may also enact their own laws in the occupied country, as both Germany and Allied forces did during World War II. Clearly, certain procedures must be adhered to ensure any new laws are both effective and obeyed. Such procedures would include giving notice to the populace in their native language(s), publishing the laws in writing, and ensuring that new laws are not applied in an ex post facto fashion.

The fourth implied task to the restoration of public order and safety is supervision of courts, jails, and prisons. The Geneva Convention provides, “[t]he necessity of ensuring effective administration of justice, the tribunals of the occupied territory shall continue to function in respect to all offenses covered by the said laws.” The occupying power has considerable latitude to use a variety of courts, tribunals, and local government systems to adequately enforce and administer the law.

If I am reading this correctly, the Red Cross is unlawfully interfering with Israel's obligations and allowances to create and enforce laws, under international law.

Moreover, while civilian occupants are considered protected people, Hamas is by any definition at war with Israel. It is less clear that these Hamas members have the status of combatants, but an argument can be made that Hamas does not distinguish between their own military and civilian infrastructures and that these three people are de facto militants.

So if the CBN article is accurate, and it appears to be, the Red Cross is helping to violate international law of the rights of the occupier, by its own definition of Israel as an occupier.

(Usual disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.)

Here come the Quran riots

Parts of the Muslim world are upset over Terry Jones' buring of a Quran last Sunday. So guess who they blame?

From The International, Pakistan:

The Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam announced on Thursday a province-wide protest on Friday (today) against the desecration of the Holy Quran in Florida by a US pastor.

Hundreds of demonstrators of the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Pakistan and of the Jamaat Ahle Sunnat blocked the road off the KPC and burnt the effigy of the pastor and a US flag.

JUP activists, led by their leader, Qazi Ahmed Noorani, held banners inscribed with anti-US slogans and demanding death sentence to Jones.

Noorani, speaking on the occasion, said that the Zionist forces had hatched a conspiracy against Muslims to incite their religious feelings. He said that Islam never allowed harming of sentiments of people from other religions, but Jones and people like him had always hurt the sentiments of Muslims.

Another version of the story from Pakistan:

Condemning the sacrilegious burning of a copy of the Holy Quran by devilish American pastor Terry Jones, Jamaat-ud-Dawa ameer Hafiz Muhammad Saeed on Monday called it a conspiracy of the zionists and the crusaders working in collusion to disrupt peace and order in the world.

Separately, addressing a Jihad Conference in Jamia Masjid, Qadisiya Town, the Dawa chief said America, India and Israel are scared of Jihad. The Muslim must understand that Jihad is the key to their survival.

Oh, and here's how some Muslims in the area are reacting:

Tension continues to spread in eastern Punjab province where police struggled to control a mob attempting to raid a Full Gospel Assembly church in Lahore.

Two separate mobs headed to the Christian slum on March 22 after different mosques announced that the “church members deliberately burnt the Qur’an transcript in garbage on a US pattern.”

Most of the 250 Christian families in the slum have sent their daughters to relatives for fear of further violence.

Well, it's Friday, and that holy day of prayer is usually the day that we see the most violence. Funny, that.

"Palestinian traditions and morals" (video)

(h/t Joel)

New record/ Begathon/ Open thread

This month I have gotten 120,000 page views, making this the best month for EoZ ever - beating out July 2010, the Mavi Marmara month.

And there is still a week to go.

The posters I have been featuring - Apartheid?, Real Liberals Love Israel and now The Face of a Terrorist - have been very popular, and seem to have given me lots of new readers, as my daily averages keep going up and up.

The "Apartheid" posters in particular are now all over the place. It has been printed in newspapers (more coming, I am told.), hundreds have recommended it in Facebook and people are forwarding them in email chain letters.

I'm getting more emails than usual, which also take time to answer (please forgive me if I didn't answer you). And lots of the emails are of the type "why don't you make a poster of X?" Hey, I'm fast, but it still takes time to find the right photos and how to make it look nice! But thanks for the emails, even if I don't answer.

I also have an article about hasbara in the upcoming Passover issue of Young Israel Viewpoint, under my nom de plume Eldad Tzioni.

Also some relatively well-known people in the hasbara community have been contacting me to see if we can work together, which is really cool. Nothing to report yet, but it is still fun talking to people who have been behind some very well-known initiatives.

Like movies.

Not bad for a month when I was so busy in real life as well!

Yesterday I received a very generous donation from a remarkable woman who, I later found out, has over the years helped literally thousands of disadvantaged people go to college in Israel. She's really amazing. When I thanked her, she responded, "It is a pleasure to know that people like you exist."

Now, that's a nice compliment!

It is great to see that as I continue to take my own advice from my Hasbara lecture, it is paying dividends for the blog and, hopefully, for the pro-Israel community.

Since spring has officially started, it is a good time for me to ask that if you enjoy the blog and the hard work I do, to please consider a donation.

You can make a one time donation in the upper right corner of this page, or sign up for a monthly donation. If you prefer, you can also choose to buy something from the Elder Store, or pay the $5 to watch my Hasbara 2.0 lecture.

A big thank you to all those who have donated to EoZ! It really does help, and I do deeply appreciate any and all donations. (So does the long-suffering Mrs. Elder.)

Now...open thread time!

Miral - the posters (updated)

The pro-Palestinian Arab movie "Miral" is being released after a gala premiere at the UN. The New York Times has run a couple of stories on it already.

I have not been following the controversy about the movie that closely, and I do not know if the movie is as anti-Israel as some claim it is.

But I am offended by the movie's poster:

The implication of the poster is that the nice young woman portraying the protagonist (who is actually an Indian actress, by the way) could not possibly be a terrorist because of her innocent looking face. To me, it also implies that Israel, or perhaps the West, unjustly considers all Palestinian Arabs to be terrorists.

Unfortunately, a friendly face does not exclude the possibility of a young woman being a terrorist:

(h/t Jon Y)

UPDATE: Yisrael Medad had a special request:

Egyptian army forces women protesters to take "virginity tests"

Ain't Arab democracy wonderful?

From Amnesty International:

Amnesty International has today called on the Egyptian authorities to investigate serious allegations of torture, including forced ‘virginity tests’, inflicted by the army on women protesters arrested in Tahrir Square earlier this month.

After army officers violently cleared the square of protesters on 9 March, at least 18 women were held in military detention. Amnesty International has been told by women protesters that they were beaten, given electric shocks, subjected to strip searches while being photographed by male soldiers, then forced to submit to ‘virginity checks’ and threatened with prostitution charges.

‘Virginity tests’ are a form of torture when they are forced or coerced.

"Forcing women to have ‘virginity tests’ is utterly unacceptable. Its purpose is to degrade women because they are women," said Amnesty International. "All members of the medical profession must refuse to take part in such so-called 'tests'."

20-year-old Salwa Hosseini told Amnesty International that after she was arrested and taken to a military prison in Heikstep, she was made, with the other women, to take off all her clothes to be searched by a female prison guard, in a room with two open doors and a window. During the strip search, Salwa Hosseini said male soldiers were looking into the room and taking pictures of the naked women.

The women were then subjected to ‘virginity tests’ in a different room by a man in a white coat. They were threatened that “those not found to be virgins” would be charged with prostitution.

According to information received by Amnesty International, one woman who said she was a virgin but whose test supposedly proved otherwise was beaten and given electric shocks.

(h/t Silke)

Abbas exposed as a liar on video

From Palestinian Media Watch:

It doesn't get more blatant than this!

(h/t Challah Hu Akbar)

West Bank rejoices over terror attack

From the Palestine Times, which is a Hamas mouthpiece:

We missed these scenes for a long time: The joy of the West Bank after the bombing in Jerusalem

Having missed the scenes of the explosions and operations that targeted Zionist buses in Jerusalem for years...

Despite condemnation by the Fatah leadership, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas and his Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and described that operation as "terrorist", there was joy in the street despite the pain experienced in the cities of the West Bank.

Upon hearing the news of a bus bombing in Jerusalem, citizens hurried to the coffee shops to follow up on television news channels and radio stations to track the latest developments.

Abu Mohammed from Nablus, sitting in a café, said: "By God, it's about time for such operations, which warms our hearts and the hearts of all who [suffer] from the oppression of the occupier recently."

He added: "The occupation only understands the language of force and blood. The netanyahu government claims they want peace in public, but carries out massacres against the Palestinian people everywhere. "

Joseph, 20, from Ramallah, said as he put headphones on his ears to listen to the radio for news on the blast: "This is surely a response to the massacre carried out by the occupation authorities in the Gaza Strip, that claimed the eight martyrs, including 3 children."

He added: "The Palestinian people have become convinced that the Netanyahu government only understands the language of force and operations such as what happened today in Jerusalem."

"The people want the return of martyrdom operations .. people want to end the occupation."

There are those who expressed their joy of such events. Samira from Ramallah: "When I saw the breaking news on one of the satellite TV news and there was an explosion on Jerusalem, the joy made my heart stop."

A young man recalled happy memories of Tulkarm for operations similar to what happened today...

Others Palestinian citizens went into social networking sites like Facebook and forums on the World Wide Web, to express their joy and the news firsthand. The majority stressed our people's right to respond to crimes of the occupation.

Cutting and pasting from Reuters' "terrorist" quote

Looking at Google's cache, I can see that it was not only Reuters who wrote yesterday this disgusting phrase:

Police said it was a "terrorist attack" -- Israel's term for a Palestinian strike.

Jeffrey Goldberg has a nice article about this phrase.

But the exact same phrase was used in reports by CNN (since changed,) Sky News (since changed) and the Daily Mail (also since changed.) In none of those articles was Reuters credited. (Of course, many, many news sites still have the original Reuters report with that phrase, but they at least credit Reuters.)

Not that we needed any more evidence of how lazy many reporters are, but to plagiarize an already offensive sentence is really something.

(h/t Joel)

Morning links

The UNHRC will only vote on six anti-Israel resolutions in the coming session. That's out of 14 that criticize specific countries. See how moderate they have become?

Richard Landes coins a neologism: "neo-progs." And he uses it well.

Barry Rubin on why terrorism flourishes.

A British MP slams the BBC for its non-coverage of the Fogel massacre.

Isi Leibler says to get tough with Hamas now.

Honest Reporting notes that Western reporters are a lot more skeptical of wild Libyan claims than they are of wild Palestinian Arab claims.

FrontPage Magazine notes what I had noted recently about that ridiculous map of Arab land - but directs its criticism towards Juan Cole, who has helped popularize it.