Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Meet the new Mufti, same as the old Mufti (updated)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday ordered an investigation into the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, who called for the killing of Jews in a televised tirade last week.

The prime minister, who has asked Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein to oversee the investigation, said at the weekly Cabinet meeting that the remarks made by the grand mufti, a representative of the Palestinian Authority, should be condemned by every nation in the world.

Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein said that the fact that the mufti's remarks had been broadcast on Palestinian Authority television and posted on the official website of the Palestinian Authority was disturbing. "If that is not anti-Semitism, I don't know what is," he said.

Just before the Cabinet meeting, National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau (Yisrael Beitenu) said the mufti should stand trial and be thrown in jail. He described the Muslim leader as an "extremist imam who gets his inspiration from Nazi Germany."

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has instructed Israel's ambassadors around the world to condemn the anti-Semitic tirade. Lieberman encouraged the ambassadors to publicly denounce the mufti's remarks, and to approach the governments of their host countries on the issue.

For his part, the mufti told Israel Radio earlier Sunday that he had not in fact encouraged the murder of Jews, but rather had quoted Muslim holy text that makes such a call.

Last week, Palestinian Media Watch reported that the mufti had said that the murder of Jews was justified by Islamic text. The group said Hussein told television audiences that according to the Hadith, the record of the words and actions of the Prophet Muhammad, Islamic Resurrection would not come until Muslims fought the Jews.

Palestinian Media Watch provided video footage of Hussein's speech in which the mufti says: “Forty-seven years ago the revolution started. Which revolution? The modern revolution of the Palestinian people’s history. In fact, Palestine in its entirety is a revolution, since [Caliph] Umar came [to conquer Jerusalem in 637 C.E.], and continuing today, and until the End of Days. The reliable Hadith, in the two reliable collections, Bukhari and Muslim, says: 'The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call: ‘O Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’ Except the Gharqad tree [which will keep silent].' Therefore it is no wonder that you see Gharqad [trees] surrounding the [Israeli] settlements and colonies."

In 2006, Hussein said suicide bombings were a "legitimate weapon" in the Palestinian struggle for independence.

We noted the speech last week, along with the moderator of that same event calling Jews the "descendants of apes and pigs."

Given that the more famous Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was an anti-semite, it looks like things don't change too much.

(Who appointed Hussein as Mufti? During the British Mandate, the position was appointed by the British themselves, and it is not a hereditary position - so who chose this clown to be the Mufti of Jerusalem? )

UPDATE: Challah Hu Akbar found that it was none other than Mahmoud Abbas who appointed the Mufti. Imagine that.

Stories from the "open air prison" of Gaza

In the latest report from COGAT, detailing the imports and exports between Gaza and Israel, we learn an interesting detail:

Heavy-duty diesel for the power plant is delivered directly from Egypt according to the Palestinians' decision; therefore, no diesel is transferred from Israel.

For years Palestinian Arabs and their anti-Israel cohorts have blamed Israel for choking off Gaza's power plant. Yet now Hamas is saying it doesn't need any diesel fuel from Israel at all!

Does that sound like a besieged area?

Other interesting stories about that "open-air prison" known as Gaza that you won't see in the news:

During that same week, Gaza exported 56 tons of agricultural goods (carnations, cherry tomatoes and strawberries.)

For the first time, furniture has been exported from Gaza, with a truck full of furniture going to Jordan.

Last month, 99.5% of the people trying to leave Gaza for medical care in Israel or PA territories received permits. That number has been steadily increasing over the last couple of years.

Also, last week, the Arab League sent 45 tons of food to Gaza through Rafah.

Sounds like a lot, right?

Here are the amounts sent via Israel to Gaza during the second week of January:

Food Products	Trucks	Tons*
Wheat	6	120
Cooking Oil	7	140
Rice	2	40
Produce (Fruits and Vegetables)	57	1140
Meat, Chicken and Fish Products	44	880
Salt	8	160
Dairy Products	25	500
Flour	23	460
Sugar	8	160
Mixed\ Additional Food Products	92	1840
Total food, tons		5440

Most of the aid coming through Israel's crossings originate in the West, showing that while Arabs trumpet every time they give any aid to Gaza, it is a token amount compared to what comes from the West.

And, by the way, Juan Cole's site still says that exports from Gaza are "zero."

*I based this on 20 tons/truck. The total shipments given in the COGAT statistics indicate 25 tons of aid per truck, so this is a conservative estimate.

Idiotic Atlanta Jew hands a gift to anti-semites and Israel-haters

From Al Arabiya, although it is being reported all over the world:

Owner and publisher of The Atlanta Jewish Times has offered his apology twice for suggesting that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should order Mossad agents to assassinate U.S. President Barack Obama in an attempt to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Andrew Adler wrote an op-ed piece on January 13 in which he presented Israel with three options: one, attack Hezbollah and Hamas, two, order the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities at all costs, and third, to assassinate President Obama.

“Give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies,” Adler wrote.

The op-ed is no longer available online but was posted by gawker.com.

“Yes, you read ‘three’ correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?” he writes.

Israel-haters seized upon this. Dissident Voice headlines their coverage with "Have Israel’s “Inner Circles” Discussed Assassinating President Obama?" (Answer: "Who knows?" But now that the headline is out there, the assumption is "Probably.")

A site called Judeofascism.com notes that Mondoweiss commenters are using this as evidence that Israel probably assassinated JFK in order to get a friendlier vice president.

To his credit,972 Magazine's Yossi Gurvitz admits "I am certain that had anyone suggested such a covert operation to Netanyahu, that person would be fired on the spot. And that even had Netanyahu entertained such an idea, the leadership of Mossad would submit their resignation rather than going along with the plan. What Adler wrote was a fantasy, unrelated to Israeli reality."

But he goes on to say "However, Adler did prove a point, albeit not one he intended: He showed us that there are, in fact, American Jews who are 'Israel-firsters', that is, people who put the interests of Israel ahead of their own country. In Adler’s case, to the point of supporting the assassination of his own duly-elected president – which skirts very closely to treason."

No, the point he proved is that there are American Jews who are morons. (And not to defend him in the least, but Adler was putting forth the idea that Israel, in a no-win situation, might consider a hit on Obama as one of three stated options, not necessarily advocating it himself. Even the Israeli coverage of the story is getting it wrong, showing that Jerusalem Post journalists are not necessarily much smarter than Adler himself.)

But it doesn't matter how many American Jewish organizations condemn him in the strongest terms. It doesn't matter that Adler's paper has a minuscule readership (roughly 8% of what this blog gets every week.) Adler has just "proven" the dual-loyalty canard that is so freely promulgated by the dedicated Israel-haters and their anti-semitic cousins towards American Jews.

With friends like Adler, Israel doesn't need enemies.

Qatar to participate in Herzliya Conference on the Arab Spring

Palestine Press Agency and a number of other Arab publications are concerned that Qatar intends to participate in a Tel Aviv conference entitled "In the eye of storm ... Israel and the Middle East," about the challenges facing Israel regionally.

The Qatar representative, Salman Shaikh, will present a paper on the Arab revolutions and the rise of political Islam in the region, calls "Arab Spring or Islamist Winter? The Rise of Political Islam." He will also participate in a strategy roundtable.

Shaikh is the director of the Brookings Institute in Doha.

He is indeed listed in the preliminary program for the Herzliya Conference scheduled from January 30-February 2.

Other participants come from Jordan and Egypt, as well as many other well-known experts and analysts from Israel and worldwide.

Saeb Erekat is also speaking. I have not yet seen any complaints about that, though.

PA blames Israel for stupid UAE rumor about Abbas

Ma'an Arabic reports that the PA strongly denied rumors that Mahmoud Abbas will leave Ramallah because of fear that he will be treated like Arafat as a result of his intransigence in negotiations. Meaning that ISrael will imprison him in his equivalent of the Muqata and then they'll poison him, as comspiracy-minded Arabs like to believe.

The Ma'an report says that the PA claims that this rumor was planted by Israel, naturally.

Only one problem: The rumor came out of the UAE. I reported a version of it on Monday and another version came out of a UAE newspaper, al-Khaleej, over the weekend. It's just another silly Arab rumor that gets tossed around, especially in Gulf-area newspapers who love to publish "inside" stories from far away to an audience that is raised on conspiracy theories.

What makes this especially funny is that the rumor is believed by some Palestine-Firsters. No rumor about Israel can be too outrageous to be wholeheartedly believed by activist "journalists" who dedicate their careers to inciting against Israel.

Overnight open thread

Go for it!

Iran blinks in face of US warships

From the NYT:

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Saturday that it considered the likely return of American warships to the Persian Gulf part of routine activity, backing away from previous warnings to Washington not to re-enter the area.

The statement may be seen as an effort to reduce tensions after Washington said it would respond if Iran made good on a threat to block the Strait of Hormuz, the vital shipping lane for oil exports from the gulf.

“U.S. warships and military forces have been in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East region for many years, and their decision in relation to the dispatch of a new warship is not a new issue, and it should be interpreted as part of their permanent presence,” a Revolutionary Guards deputy commander, Hossein Salami, told the official IRNA news agency.

On Jan. 3, after President Obama signed new sanctions aimed at stopping Iran’s oil exports, the Iranian government ordered the [USS] Stennis not to return — an order interpreted by some analysts in Iran and Washington as a blanket threat to any United States carrier.

“I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf,” Iran’s army chief, Maj. Gen. Ataollah Salehi, said at the time. “We are not in the habit of warning more than once.”

Washington says it will return, and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said any move to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a third of the world’s sea-borne traded oil passes, would be seen as a “red line,” requiring a response.

Apparently, Iranian machismo evaporates when there is a credible response.

Final results of Egypt elections: MB 47%, Salafi 24% of seats

From AFP:

Egypt’s Islamists led by the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood clinched nearly half of seats in parliament in historic polls after the ouster of strongman Hosni Mubarak, official results showed on Saturday.

The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won 235 seats in the new People’s Assembly, or 47.18 percent, electoral committee head Abdel Moez Ibrahim told a news conference, giving the final results from marathon polls.

The FJP secured 127 seats on party lists and its candidates won another 108 in first-past-the-post constituency votes.

The ultra-conservative Salafist Al-Nur party came second with 121 seats or 24.29 percent, and the liberal Wafd Party was third with nearly nine percent.

The liberal Egyptian Bloc -- which includes the Free Egyptians party of telecoms magnate Naguib Sawiris who is facing trial on allegations of insulting Islam -- came fourth with around seven percent.

It was only last April that the leading experts and polls were predicting a much different outcome:

The poll, conducted by the Pew Research Center and based on face-to-face interviews with 1,000 Egyptians, is the first credible survey since the revolution lifted many restrictions on free expression. It is also the first to directly address Western debate over whether the revolution might drift toward Islamic radicalism.

The poll found about 30 percent of Egyptians have a favorable view of Islamic fundamentalism and about the same number sympathize with its opponents. About a quarter have mixed views.

That range was exemplified by attitudes toward the Muslim Brotherhood, the previously outlawed Islamist group.

Many in the West have assumed that as the best-organized nongovernmental organization in Egyptian society, the Muslim Brotherhood might quickly dominate Egyptian politics — a view long espoused by the Mubarak government. The poll shows the Muslim Brotherhood is indeed regarded favorably by about three in four Egyptians, receiving very favorable ratings from 37 percent of respondents and somewhat favorable ratings from an additional 38 percent.

But that put the group roughly at a par with the April 6 Movement, a new and relatively secular and progressive youth group that played a leading role in organizing the revolution. Seven in 10 viewed that group favorably, with 38 percent viewing it very favorably and 32 percent viewing it somewhat favorably. The poll’s margin of samplinfg error is plus or minus four percentage points.

Only 17 percent of respondents said they would like to see the Muslim Brotherhood lead the next government. Al Ghad, a liberal party led by Ayman Nour, a formerly jailed presidential candidate, was favored to lead the new government by roughly the same number. And one in five supported the New Wafd Party, a secular liberal party that was recognized under Mr. Mubarak.

Nearly two-thirds of Egyptians said civil law should strictly follow the Koran, but then the existing Constitution of Egypt’s largely secular state said that it is already based on the Koran.

Sobhi Saleh, a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood and a former parliamentary candidate, dismissed the poll’s findings as wildly overstating the support for other parties. Only the Brotherhood has a broad organization and a well-known platform, he argued, predicting success at the polls. “These findings are wrong, and it’s only a matter of two months until you see that,” he said.

And now the major liberal parties combined to receive only 16% of the seats in Parliament.

The discrepancy is probably due both to bad polling methods (did Pew ask the right questions to Egypt's rural voters?) and to the importance of organization in winning elections. Initial enthusiasm is no substitute for grassroots organization and hard work to get out the vote.

But then again, I already said that - last February, in response to an overly enthusiastic column by Nicholas Kristof:

Kristof is making a major mistake. He is confusing bravery for political maturity.

No one doubts the protesters' bravery. No one doubts their integrity, or their desire for change, or even their desire for democracy.

But there are serious doubts at their ability to translate the raw desire for freedom into a functional, liberal, democratic government.

It is hard work to create the institutions necessary. More importantly, it takes time - and time is not on the side of the protesters.

It is now fashionable to pooh-pooh the dangers of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kristof's liberal circles, but no one can doubt that the Islamists are better organized and much more politically mature than the Facebookers of Tahrir Square. It takes time to set up an organization, to define a clear agenda, to build a fundraising mechanism, to attract volunteers, to build a means to communicate with all the people - including in rural areas, and to do all the myriad details from physical buildings to a phone system to a mailing list.

True freedom cannot flourish until Egyptians have been exposed to a wide range of ideas on a level playing field. The existing Islamist groups are running circles around the "Egyptian youth" we hear so much about. Kristof is so caught up in the emotions of the moment that he cannot think outside Tahrir Square, to the 99% of the country that is not as emotionally invested in who their leaders would be. To them, the nice people with beards who build a free Islamic school for their kids are the only game in town.

Enthusiasm does not ensure effective state building and true freedoms. Kristof, instead of spouting straw-man arguments, should be advocating ways for his jeans-wearing heroes to channel their sparks of enthusiasm and bravery into the hard, thankless and often boring work necessary to build a new Egypt from scratch.

How many times will NYT columnists keep making the same mistakes over and over again?

For as long as their adoring readers choose to forget those mistakes.

Moderate Jordan: Youth charged with "Undermining Royal Dignity"

From Human Rights Watch:

‘Uday Abu ‘Isa, an 18-year-old activist from Madaba, 40 kilometers south of Amman, and a member of the Youth Movement for Reform, ignited a large banner showing King Abdullah II that was hanging on the municipal building in Madaba, witnesses told Human Rights Watch. Such images adorn nearly every official building and office in Jordan. Security forces immediately arrested Abu ‘Isa, who is already on trial on similar charges for shouting slogans in December. The prosecutor also charged him with burning property.

“Burning a royal’s image as a political statement should not be criminally prosecuted,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. “To prosecute this act would send a chilling message that criticizing the king is off limits.”

Abu ‘Isa’s father and fellow activists said on January 12 that they did not know his whereabouts, but media reports later that day said the military prosecutor at the State Security Court had charged Abu ‘Isa with “undermining his majesty’s dignity.” The charge is among several acts of lèse majesté, or insulting the king, for which article 195 of Jordan’s penal code imposes sentences of between one and three years in prison.

Abu ‘Isa’s father visited his son in Muwaqqar 1 prison on January 13 and 17, and told Human Rights Watch that he saw marks on his body Abu ‘Isa said were the result of a beating by police at Madaba’s Public Security Directorate on January 11.

"The Ongoing Palestinian Holocaust" - incitement clothed as research

From The National (UAE):

It took the distinguished Palestinian scholar, Nawaf Al Zaru, 15 years to finish his latest book, The Ongoing Palestinian Holocaust, an encyclopaedia-size opus that just came out in the Jordanian capital Amman, according to the London-based newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi.

In his review of the new release, Rashad Abu Shawar wrote: "Because the Palestinian holocaust targets not only human beings but also land, trees, heritage and civilisation, the author gave it a subtitle: The fabrication of 'Israel' and ethnic cleansing policies.

"And because the Palestinian holocaust did not end with the 1948 war, or the 1967 war, and because the Zionist genocide scheme … and displacement policies are still very much in effect - and will stay that way until the Palestinians are completely and definitively uprooted from the land of their ancestors - the Palestinian holocaust could only be described as 'ongoing'."

The 1040-page book is arranged in 14 sections, with several chapters under each section, complete with "irrefutable facts and figures," the reviewer said, in addition to photographs documenting the massacres perpetrated against the Palestinian people since the beginning of the conflict.

"It is Al Zaru's ambition to give the idea of the 'Palestinian Holocaust' the status of a universal truth," the reviewer said, "but one that is not limited to the murder of thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, rather one that includes such aspects as the altering and falsification of the identity of a people's land: Palestine."

Under the world's watch, he went on, and with complete immunity, Israel has been disfiguring the city of Jerusalem, which contains holy sites for both Muslims and Christians.

In this scholarly enterprise, Al Zaru was helped a great deal by his "close familiarity with the Zionist discourse," the reviewer said, as he speaks perfect Hebrew, which he picked up during his 11 years in Israeli prisons. After he got out in 1979, he worked as a journalist and developed his research skills until he became a reference on the Palestinian-Israeli issue.

This synopsis does not capture the feelings of the Al Quds reviewer, who was enraptured by the book. He got good and angry looking at the many gory photos, naturally.

Which is of course the entire purpose of the book - not to inform but to get readers to be angry at Israeli Jews. It is incitement clothed in the mantle of "reference." I'd love to see the "irrefutable facts."

To give you an idea of how objective this book is, here is the cover of an earlier edition:

Jenny Tonge and her Hamas idol

Remember Jenny Tonge, the British baroness who accused Israeli doctors of stealing the organs of disaster victims in Haiti?

Yesterday she spoke at an event in the British Parliament for the "Palestinian Return Centre".

At one point she picked up a magazine (apparently part of the Independent) that had a four page story on Hamas terror leader Ismail Haniyeh, talking about how wonderful that was.

You can see her entire speech, along with plenty of other hateful speakers, at Richard Millett's blog. Truly amazing.

Here's that heroic photo of Haniyeh from the Independent:

The interview is here. While part of it is fawning, there is at least a little skepticism there:

[T]here have also been allegations – by Amnesty International, among others – of the repression of political dissidents, detentions, and beatings meted out without even the pretence of a trial. Similar accusations have been levelled at the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of these charges; what I did witness in Gaza, however, was something of the atmosphere of fear and intimidation that one would expect in such an environment. One evening, I had dinner with a selection of local artists, musicians and private citizens. After we had finished eating, a figure in a loose-hanging black leather jacket appeared and took a selection of them to one side to demand their names and details of why we had been meeting.

Sounds like a place that Baroness Tonge would feel right at home.

(h/t Simply Jews)