Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Fatah leader begs Christians to stop leaving "Palestine"

Mohammad Shtayyeh, a member of the Central Committee of Fatah, spoke at a Fatah-organized dinner in Bethlehem on Friday night.

During his speech, Shtayyeh asked Palestinian Christians to stay and to stop emigrating to other countries, quoting Matthew 5:13, "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?" He said that no one deserves the land more than Palestinian Christians and that they are part of the "mosaic" of Bethlehem.

Ma'an English did not bother mentioning his appeal to Palestinian Christians. Their exodus from the territories, mirroring the Christians fleeing from every single Muslim-majority country, is something that must be downplayed.

He also threatened the Israeli government, saying that if it doesn't distinguish between Har Homa and Tel Aviv, the Palestinian Arab leaders will not distinguish between Ramallah and Jaffa.

Of course, judging from the Fatah logo, they never did. Except between 1964-1967, when they said they have no political interest in the West Bank.

Given that, Shtayyeh's Christmas card that he sent out to his friends is more than a bit ironic:

At Christmas, all roads lead to Jerusalem and Bethlehem

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year hoping that next year we celebrate together in liberated Palestine

Not a single Palestinian Arab leader ever expressed that wish when those areas were under Jordanian control. Which means that "liberated Palestine" doesn't mean an independent Palestine, but a land liberated from Jews.

(h/t SM)

Stone throwers for UNICEF

Every week we can find lots of photos of people throwing and slinging stones at high speeds towards Israeli policemen, in what are called "peace protests."

The irony gets lost after a while.

But sometimes, a protester will wear something that brings it all back.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a repeat of this photo I found last year:

UPDATE: The UNICEF shirt is a Barcelona football shirt. (h/t Ian)

Egyptian tourism down; man cuts off penis

From Reuters Arabic:

An Egyptian newspaper reported that a young man from the city of Luxor in the south cut off his penis and buried in a graveyard after suffering depression as a result of the decline in tourism since the outbreak of popular protests that led to the removal of former President Hosni Mubarak in February.

Most residents of Luxor, about 690 km south of Cairo, work in the tourism trade as it has many of the most famous ancient Egyptian antiquities, including the Temple of Luxor and the Temple of Karnak, in addition to the large number of tombs of kings and queens of the Pharaohs from the era of the Egyptian empire (about 1567-1085 BC.)

The newspaper al-Wafd in the Sunday early edition reported that the man is 35 years old and married and that his psychological state worsened "due to lack of income due to tourism downturn."

The newspaper added that the Luxor International Hospital received the young man with heavy bleeding and they performed surgery, but attempts to re-attach his penis were unsuccessful.

That will definitely increase tourism!

"Nittel-nacht" open thread

It is "nittel-nacht," and one of the time-honored customs is to avoid blogging all night. (Or something like that.)

Here's an open thread.

Egyptian gas line to Israel blown up again

For the eleventh time this year, the gas line from Egypt to Israel and Jordan was blown up.

The company responsible for the line, GASCO, sent investigators out to see the extent of the damage. It also informed the Misr Insurance Corporation of the damage so it could be compensated.

Hmmm.

Earlier this week, Jordan and Egypt negotiated new pricing for the gas.

Chanukah Video Night 4: The Avoda - Spread the Light

The Guardian: "Mary and Joseph wouldn't make it into Bethlehem" (updated)

Every year we are treated to stories where reporters use Christmas as an excuse to bash Israel.

Here's one from The Guardian:

If Joseph and Mary were making their way to Bethlehem today, the Christmas story would be a little different, says Father Ibrahim Shomali, a parish priest in the town. The couple would struggle to get into the city, let alone find a hotel room.

"If Jesus were to come this year, Bethlehem would be closed," says the priest of Bethlehem's Beit Jala parish. "He would either have to be born at a checkpoint or at the separation wall. Mary and Joseph would have needed Israeli permission – or to have been tourists.

"This really is the big problem for Palestinians in Bethlehem: what will happen when they close us off completely?"

Al Arabiya reports that some 30,000 Christian pilgrims are expected to visit Bethlehem this weekend.

There is no problem for Palestinian Christians to visit. There is no problem for tourists to visit. 500 Gazans are even visiting. Is it really so strange that Israel must give permits for people to cross from or through Israel to PA-controlled areas? And are these permits really difficult to obtain?

CiFWatch has much more.

UPDATE: Commenter Ira_rosen says:

Indeed, The Guardian is correct. If Mary and Joseph tried to get to Bethlehem today, it would be difficult. They were Jewish.

Latma video: Christmas in Eurabia

(h/t Basketballpro66)

Rock throwers hiding behind an ambulance

Tweeted by Captain Barak Raz of the IDF, about the weekly riots in Nabi Saleh:

We've seen this before here and in other riots - hiding behind an ambulance while throwing rocks

He also noted that an Israeli border police officer was hit in the face by one of those harmless rocks.

The YouTube videos of the weekly protests are carefully edited to cut out any rock throwing. For example, here's a screen shot from last week's riot, where you cannot see a single rock thrown - but you see plenty of rocks littering the road behind the Israeli police:

Linkdump - Hudson NY edition

There have been a bunch of great posts in Hudson-NY this week, so here are some of them:

Arab Apartheid by Khaled Abu Toameh

"Kairos Palestine": From Mendacity to Megalomania by Malcolm Lowe

Radical Islamic Television Arrives in Spain by Soeren Kern

Betraying Ben-Gurion by Efraim Karsh

The Muslim Brotherhood Unmasked by Herbert I. London

Turkey Reaffirms Its Support for Palestinian Cause And more from the Turkish Press by AK Group

Spain's Jew-Hating Majority by Anna Mahjar-Barducci

Muslim Persecution of Christians: November 2011 by Raymond Ibrahim

Canada's State-Sponsored Fight Against State-Sponsored Anti-Semitism by Christine Williams

Arab Spring Sending Shudders Through Christians in the Middle East

Khaled Abu Toameh

From Wikipedia, first round results

Al Masry al Youm reports on the second phase of the parliamentary elections in Egypt.

As with the first round, it looks like the Muslim Brotherhood has done exceptionally well, with the more extreme Salafist Nour party in second place.

The majority of the seats were won by the MB's Freedom and Justice party. In Giza, they scored an impressive victory; in Sohag, MB combined with Nour to win most seats. In the East, the MB swept, and this was the pattern for most districts.

Tomorrow the official results of one of the run-off elections are supposed to be announced.

At the moment, the Freedom and Justice party has 49% of the seats assigned by the election. Because of the way the runoff elections work, I think it is possible that the Muslim Brotherhood can end up with an absolute majority of seats, even without a coalition with Nour.