Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

What nice people: Iran offers free weapons for Lebanese army

Iran’s Ambassador to Lebanon Ghazanfar Roknabadi renewed his country’s offer Monday to equip the Lebanese Army during a meeting with Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn.

During the meeting, which reviewed local and Arab developments, Roknabadi said: “Iran stands on Lebanon’s side and is fully ready to provide any assistance it demands at all levels, especially with regard to the army’s armament,” the state-run National News Agency reported.

He also renewed Iran’s invitation to Ghosn to visit Tehran to discuss with Iranian officials agreements on military aid to the Lebanese Army, NNA said.

Ghosn praised “Iran’s backing for Lebanon” and underlined the need for boosting relations between the two countries, NNA said.

ISNA adds:

The remarks came in a meeting between Ghazanfar Roknabadi with Lebanese Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn, where the Lebanses official expressed gratitude over Iran's support for Lebanon's rights and said, "We are proud of the supports."

Fayez Ghosn also said he would visit Iran in near future following official invitation from his Iranian counterpart Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi.

"Iran is ready to back Lebanon's army and expand mutual relations with Iran including defense cooperation without any condition," the Iranian ambassador added.

When they say "without any condition," do you think that means that Lebanon can shoot back when Syrian tanks enter Lebanese territory?

Erekat uses lawfare against Al Jazeera (updated)

PLO official and serial liar Saeb Erekat filed a complaint with the British broadcasting regulator Ofcom against Al Jazeera over its release of the so-called "Palestine Papers."

He complained that the release of the papers was unjust to him.

Previously, he had said that their release would result in his life being threatened.

Erekat said the Qatar-based network had misrepresented quotes and made up others in covering "The Palestine Papers."

"What Al Jazeera people are doing is asking Palestinians to shoot me, physically. That's what they are doing. They are saying: 'You are guilty and thus you should be executed'," said Erekat, for years a central figure in the peace talks.

"Speaking for me and my family, they are inciting against our lives," he told Reuters in an interview at his office in the West Bank city of Jericho.

Which shows how much he believes that his people support compromises with Israel - he believes that they would murder him!

Ofcom, for its part, dismissed the allegations, saying that Erekat brought no evidence that the papers hurt him and that he had plenty of chances to tell the world his side of the story.

Al Jazeera was pleased at Ofcom's decision.

UPDATE: Challah Hu Akbar found the Ofcom ruling.

The main impression I get is that Erekat is really a whiner.

Report: Egypt bans Jewish pilgrims

From Arutz-7:

For the first time in recent history, Egypt has decided to completely bar Jews from visiting the tomb of Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira, head of the dynasty that included Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira, the famed “Baba Sali.”

The decision, issued by regional ruler Mukhtar el-Hamlawi, was reported by the Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa.

El-Hamlawi reported that a Cairo court had ruled that celebrations are forbidden at the tomb, and Jewish visitors would be barred for that reason.

In addition, he said, “We prohibit Jews from visiting the tomb because we identify with the Palestinian people, and because we do not want to offend the Egyptian public’s sensitivities.”

I couldn't find the story on Wafa. There are plenty of Arabic websites reporting it, but they all seem to be quoting Arutz-7.

So while the story is believable, and consistent with what we have seen in recent years in Egypt as people protest the pilgrimage, I'm still trying to confirm it.

Egyptian state TV fueled deadly protests with a lie

From Bikya Masr:

Egypt’s state television announced on Monday that there are no deaths among the military forces after previously reporting there were during the bloody Sunday clashes between the military and Coptic protesters, saying that it was the fault of the news presenter.

State TV, also known as Maspero, is under fire from rights activists for falsely reporting that the Coptic protesters attacked the military forces with weapons, which resulted in the death of at least three soldiers and then called on the Egyptian people to take to the street to help protect the armed forces.

The news, when reported on Sunday evening, agitated many Muslims, who took up arms and went to the streets of downtown, clashing with protesters, both Muslims and Coptic Christians, injuring dozens in the worst sectarian violence since the fall of ousted President Hosni Muabrak’s regime.

State TV also reported that the protesters were armed and initiated the violence that killed the soldiers, which escalated the bloodshed late on Sunday.

The Copts who were marching and demanding justice for the burning of a house of worship in southern Egypt last week, were shot at by the military upon their arrival at the state TV building by the military.

Videos posted online show armored vehicles running over people, killing and injuring scores of them. Eyewitnesses told Bikyamasr.com at the protest that Copts were “not armed” and the army was “not provoked to attack.”

International media outlets largely reported on Sunday night Cairo what state television was reporting.

Details from Al Masry al Youm:

[TV host Rasha] Magdy repeatedly emphasized that Coptic protesters were attacking soldiers. She started her broadcast by apologizing for not being able to host the families of military martyrs of the 1973 war because of the unfortunate events, and went on to say that “the same troops that fought the war and sided with the revolution earlier this year are under attack as we speak.”

Magdy, in what some view as an incitement to violence, ended her broadcast with a call on Egyptian citizens to protect the military.

“State TV committed a number of fatal mistakes,” says [journalism professor Nalia] Hamdy, citing an interview with a military soldier who called Coptic protesters “dogs” and asked people to defend the soldiers.

“This might not have been intentional,” says Hamdy. “But it is certainly giving the wrong message and has to stop.”

Channel One repeatedly claimed that Coptic protesters were attacking the military with stones, Molotov cocktails and occasionally live ammunition.

Work accident!

From the official Palestinian Arab Wafa news agency:

An Israeli Strike targeting the village of Umm Al-Nasser in the northern Gaza strip Monday killed a Palestinian, Ahmad Al-Azayzeh, from the town of Beit Hanoun, north of Gaza, according to local sources.

Sources said that Al-Azayzeh was killed while he was passing near the separation wall, of about 300 meters distance from the wall, adjacent to the Beit Hanoun crossing in northern Gaza.

And here is why you can never trust a word that Wafa tells you.

From the Washington Post:

The Israeli military said it was not involved. Army officials said they believed explosives detonated as militants tried to plant a bomb.

From Ma'an:

The military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed Ahmad al-Azazmeh, from the northern city of Beit Hanoun, as a fighter in their brigades, and said he was on a "jihad mission."

Yup, he exploded himself as he tried to plant a bomb at the Gaza border.

Give that man a Splodie Award!

Wire services: Only Palestinian Arabs grow olives

If you search for the word "olives" in wire service photos, you would get the impression that there is only one people on Earth who grow and harvest olives.

AP:

A Palestinian farmer empties a bucket of olives onto a pile, in a field outside the West Bank village of Al Araqah near Jenin, Monday, Oct. 10, 2011. Palestinians began to harvest olives in October, a staple for many local farmers that also use them to make oil.

Reuters:

A Palestinian woman picks olives during harvesting season in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza StripOctober 9, 2011.

Getty Images:

A Palestinian man collects olives at the start of the annual harvest season in Khan Yunis in the southernGaza Strip on October 8, 2011.

Indeed, you will look in vain if you try to find any photos of people in Italy or Spain harvesting this year's olive crop from news agencies.

Only one type of people, apparently, still harvest their own olives. By implication, only one set of people love their land so much as to still harvest olives the way that their ancestors did for centuries.

As I pointed out last year when this same phenomenon occurred, this is a subtle type of media bias that is pervasive, and no less pernicious than the more blatant types of bias we are used to.

It just so happens that Jews have been growing and harvesting olives for quite a long time in that area:

Olive press in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem

And they still do.

So why are there no photos - and I mean zero - of Israeli Jews harvesting olives from wire services?

Gaza farmers lose $1 million from Hamas lulav ban

Video report from Al Jazeera:

The report makes it clear that Hamas' reasons have nothing to do with any tree disease and everything to do with inconveniencing Jews.

By the way, if they are really losing $1 million and they planned to export 100-200,000 lulavim, that is quite a profit they would have been making! My understanding is that the usual wholesale price to farmers is closer to $3 each than $5-$10.

(h/t Allen L)

"Fatah hasn't thrown the rifle aside"

From JPost:

The US is the number one enemy of the Palestinians because it supports Israeli “oppression” against the Palestinians, Tawfik Tirawi, a senior member of the Fatah Central Committee, said on Sunday.

Tirawi, former commander of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Force in the West Bank, also said that Fatah has not abandoned the armed struggle option against Israel.

“Fatah hasn’t thrown the rifle aside,” Tirawi told thousands of university students during a rally in Hebron.

Tirawi also criticized the PA leadership for refusing to allow Palestine TV to use the term “Israeli enemy” in its broadcasts.

“Those who prevent the use of the term ‘Israeli enemy’ are acting in violation of national awareness and the principles of people under occupation,” he argued. “They must go away.”

The #1 Middle East media rule is that if a high-ranking Palestinian Arab says something that espouses violence, it is just rhetoric and therefore meaningless. When they say something that can be barely interpreted as pragmatic or peaceful, even if those statements are outnumbered 100-1 by the violent ones, it reflects "reality."

Alan Dershowitz at Park Avenue Synagogue 10/3/11

I mentioned that I saw Alan Dershowitz speak last week in Manhattan (and managed to interview him afterwards.)

Here is video of his speech, and of the Q&A:

They lie, and lie, and lie....

ISM co-founder and Free Gaza leader Huwaida Araff tweeted:

@huwaidaarrafHuwaida Arraf

Settlers from Itamar set 35 olive trees on fire in Palestinian village of Awarta, south of Nablus. Photo:facebook.com/photo.php?fbid…

Here's the photo:

It was promptly retweeted by a couple of dozen people.

However, like many of these stories, it is a lie.

As AFP reports from Awarta:

Israeli soldiers also put out a fire in a nearby field lit by a number of Palestinians, a military spokesperson said. Palestinian witnesses confirmed there had been a fire but said it was started accidentally.

There was another bogue story from Awarta yesterday, but it was so absurd that AFP didn't bother mentioning it.

Palestinian Arabs accused Jews of releasing wild pigs again, injuring a woman harvesting olives.

I'm surprised Araff didn't tweet that as well.

(h/t Captain Barak Raz tweet)

31 killed in Syria today - but don't protest if you are in Lebanon

From Al Arabiya:

More than 30 people were killed in clashes across Syria, including 14 civilians and 17 soldiers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday, as army forces continued to pound the cities of Homs and Qamishli.

Seven of the 14 civilians killed on Sunday were gunned down by security forces in the central city of Homs, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that seven others were killed in other towns.

Seventeen security personnel died the same day in clashes with mutinous troops refusing orders to shoot on anti-regime protesters, the watchdog said.

“It was like a war scene in Homs, where blasts and sound bombs were heard all over town, with heavy machine guns also being fired,” said officials with the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), which organizes protests on the ground.

“A lot of homes were destroyed. Nine people were killed and dozens wounded. Security agents and pro-regime militias prevented ambulances from evacuating the wounded,” the officials said.

It said the regime “attacked the Homs region in yet another desperate effort to make its free residents bow and to snuff out the revolution.”

Activists said Army forces pounded Qamishli through the night on Sunday. The city was the scene of a mass rally on Saturday against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad during the funeral of Mishaal Tammo.

Gunmen shot Tammo, a Kurdish opposition figure, dead on Friday in his home in the east of the country, activists said.

In Lebanon, Kurds protested the murder of Tammo - and learned their own lesson:

A group of Syrian Kurds decided to organize a small demonstration in front of the Syrian Embassy in Beirut on Sunday to protest the assassination of an opposition leader and key member of the Syrian National Council, Meshal Temmo, who was a Syrian Kurd himself.

Temmo’s assassination came at a very critical time for the Syrians, immediately after the formation of the SNC, and the group of Syrian Kurds in Beirut wanted to express their resentment. According to activists at the scene, Lebanese security services erected extensive checkpoints that delayed and prohibited the arrival of seven buses carrying demonstrators to the embassy. The protest still took place, but not many could attend.

Surprisingly, this time Lebanese security protected the protesters who made it to the demonstration from a group of thugs who, as usual, went to break up the event.

But the incident did not end there. That night in the neighborhood of Dora, members of the Lebanese intelligence service brutally attacked and humiliated Syrian Kurd workers who participated in the demonstration.

They delivered the message that no one is allowed to demonstrate in support of freedom in Syria.

That same Now Lebanon article also talks about another example of the chilling of freedom of expression in Lebanon:

Three film directors were banned from travelling to Lebanon by the Iranian authorities. Iranian Nader Davoodi, Iranian Kurd Babak Amin and Iraqi Kurd Ibrahim Saeedi were not allowed to come to Lebanon to attend the screening of their films, “Red, White and Green,” “I Wish Someone Was There Waiting for Me,” and “Mandoo” at the Beirut Film Festival.

These directors are probably heading for a tough trial by the Iranian authorities, and that’s probably why the festival’s administration decided to pull the most controversial one, Davoodi’s “Red, White and Green,” after Lebanese censorship authorities requested to see the film before its screening. The film focuses on the violent events of the three weeks leading up to the disputed June 2009 re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Lebanese authorities did not even have to ban the film, but only made a simple call, which instilled enough fear among the festival’s administration to pull it. This fear is based on previous incidents when the same authorities banned Lebanese, Arab and Iranian films from the BFF and other festivals. Because festivals rely heavily on the Lebanese authorities for licenses and passes, some believe it is safer not to challenge authorities; otherwise, the whole festival could be shut down.

That didn't take long: Egyptian leader blames Israel for violence

Egypt's Youm7 reports that an Egyptian former foreign minister and ambassador and current presidential candidate has blamed the deadly riots yesterday on Israel.

Abdallah al-Ashaal said that the Zionists were behind the rioting Copts. According to him, Israel is attempting to destroy Egypt from the inside by instigating these disturbances. He claims that at the urging of the Mossad, the Copts are inviting Americans and Zionists into Egypt to protect them and through that to burn and destroy the country.

He suggests that the police need to be more brutal to stop such acts.

(The death toll has reached 36.)