Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 09, 2012

IDF boots are stitched together by Palestinian Arabs

The Israeli army’s boots are stitched together by Palestinian workers in factories in Hebron and East Jerusalem, a little-known example of economic coexistence driven by necessity more than goodwill.

“The Jews who knew how to do that work are gone,” said Shimon Horovitz, the boot product manager at Brill Shoe Industries Ltd, which makes some 85,000 pairs of boots for the army every year. “There are no craftsmen left.”

In fact, some 40 percent of all shoes on the Israeli market come from the southern West Bank city of Hebron. “It is the city of shoes,” Horovitz said of Hebron. “Everyone knows that.”

At the Brill factory in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion, where the army boots are made, Israeli workers handle all other stages of production.

Asked about the role of Palestinians in the assembly line, a security official said, “We’re an equal opportunity employer. We look at quality, durability and budget.”

“If the boots fit, feel good and allow you to defend the county, then that’s all that matters,” he said.

Now let's do a thought experiment of how the "pro-peace" crowd would react to reading this shining example of Arab/Israeli co-existence and a situation where everybody wins.

Would they smile or frown?

Buy your own pair of IDF boots, and help out the Arab shoemakers of Hebron, for $110. Or, if you are "pro-Palestinian," start a call to boycott the Arab factory for collaboration with the Zionist enemy. Your choice.

Psychotic students in Jordan protest Israeli lecture - on mental health

YNet reports:

Hundreds of Jordanian students rallied outside Amman's University of Jordan on Thursday in protest of a scheduled lecture by an Israeli expert at a mental health conference.

The protesters demanded that Dr. Gideon Anholt's lecture be canceled and called on authorities to expel the Israeli ambassador from Jordan and cancel the 1994 peace treaty.

A university official met with the protesters and promised to cancel the Ben-Gurion University lecturer's appearance so as not to disrupt the conference. Protesters bragged they succeeded in cancelling "the Zionist's lecture" on Facebook. Another lecture by an Israeli expert was also canceled, apparently unknown to the protesters.

Dr. Anholt told Ynet he was smuggled out of the university by security guards. "The protesters handed out flyers expressing outrage over the participation of Israeli occupiers in a Jordan conference," he said. "As things heated up security officers eventually had to take us out the back door."

Anholt recounted his feeling of panic as hundreds gathered outside the university. "It was stressful. Leaving out the back is unpleasant," he said. He noted he returned to Israel via the Allenby Bridge.

According to Anholt, the Jordanian conference dealt with anxiety and depression in the Middle East. He had hoped to meet Arab researchers and explore possible collaborations. Despite his unpleasant experience, Anholt hopes he will return to Jordan in a professional capacity.

The protesters were not shy in noting that their hate was against the Jew.

The JFRANews site headline says "Islamic students union is protesting the participation of the Jewish doctor" and, in case you weren't clear about it, illustrates it this way:

The statement from the students' union says that "every Jew in Palestine is a Zionist warmonger and must be boycotted."

The people who need mental health counseling the most are always the last ones to admit it.

Is Egypt calling Hamas' bluff on fuel?

Dar Al Hayat, via Palestine Today, reports that an Egyptian official claims that the fuel crisis in Gaza will be solved "within hours."

But there's a catch.

An Egyptian source said that Hamas wants to create a political crisis with Egypt using the electricity crisis that exists in Gaza. He pointed out that Egypt is working hard to resolve this crisis, but that existing Egyptian agreements on the topic are with the PA, not Hamas. He said that a delegation from Ramallah was due in Cairo tomorrow to discuss the issue and make arrangements for the transfer of fuel for Gaza's power plant..

However, he said that Egypt will supply diesel through the Kerem Shalom crossing in coordination with the Israeli side. And, he added, if Israel does anything to hamper the fuel transfer, only then will Egypt provide the diesel through the Rafah crossing to Gaza.

Egypt knows quite well that Israel has not done anything to limit fuel to Gaza through Kerem Shalom, and is willing to restart those transfers as soon as Hamas agrees. And they also know that Hamas is refusing the fuel from Israel because they cannot impose an additional tax on that fuel (beyond the PA tax) without risking a mass uprising of Gazans unwilling to pay the high prices.

In other words, if this story is true, Egypt is getting ready to publicly call out Hamas for their role in creating this artificial crisis, but is first giving them one more chance to quietly give in and start accepting fuel from Israel as they used to.

In an interview with Al Quds al Arabi, Hamas spokesman Salah Bardawil says that Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar met with Western and US officials in Cairo last May.

Bardawil said that Hamas wants to be part of the Arab spring, which led to the rise of Islamic movements in the Arab world. In that context he says that Hamas representatives held a back-channel meeting with Western officials, including Americans.

While he says that Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar was one of the people who met with Western officials in Cairo in May, he refused to provide details about the meeting.

Zahar today is talking further about the idea of Hamas having closer ties with Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad are classified as terrorist organizations by the US State Department.

"World to end, Palestinian women affected most"

There is an old joke about a headline in a politically correct newspaper, "World Ends, Women Affected Most."

It seems that the joke has been updated by Israel-haters who turn every UN Day into "bash Israel day."

From Ha'aretz:

The United Nations' Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), scheduled to wrap up its annual session on Friday, is expected to pass a resolution condemning Israel's part in the degrading of living conditions for Palestinian women, while failing to mention the mistreatment of women in the ongoing crisis in Syria.

Friday's session will include such professional resolution as concerning "woman and natural disasters," "women hostages," women and girls and AIDS," and "mortality among women."

However, the panel is expected to also an eight-clause resolution, determining that the "Israeli occupation" in territories, including East Jerusalem, is the main obstacle for the advancement of the Palestinian woman.

Responding to the decision to condemn Israel, Israeli envoy to the UN Ron Prosor told Haaretz that the "council's bring levels of absurdity and cynicism to new heights."

"The thousands of Syrian women butchered, tortured, raped and trampled under Assad's iron boot don't even get a passing mention in the panel's decisions," Prosor added.

In private discussions and in response to official Israeli appeals, the panel's European members have attacked the wording of a resolution specifically addressing Palestinian women, and agree that it is not professionally motivated.

However, like similar resolutions accepted in last year's session, European representatives are expected to either back the draft or abstain the vote.

Prosor referred to this apparent pattern, saying that "under the protection of the European states' abstaining, the [CSW] turns its back on the tortured and murdered women of Damascus and continues to obsessively deal with Palestinian women."

"Does the resolution denounce 'honor killings' in the Palestinian society? Does the resolution discuss Hamas' repression of women in Gaza? Of course not. The UN continues to deal with the Palestinian issue without any connection to what's happening on the ground."

Naturally, no other country is singled out for its treatment of women by the UN. Because women's rights are jealously safeguarded in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Meanwhile you can read about the 58.1% of wives in Gaza who are exposed to violence by their husbands.

Or you can check out the top women executives in Israel.

In a related news item from the rarefied halls of international diplomacy:

The UN’s education, science and culture organization has just voted 35 to 8 for a resolution that condemns Assad for abuses, yet — despite vigorous efforts led by the U.S. — keeps the regime on its human rights committee.

“For UNESCO to keep President Bashar al-Assad on a human rights committee while his regime mercilessly murders its own people is immoral, indefensible and an insult to Syria’s victims,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, the Geneva human rights group that heads a campaign of 55 parliamentarians, human rights and religious groups demanding Syria’s expulsion.

“The world squandered a golden opportunity to expose the Assad regime’s lack of legitimacy. Politics trumped human rights, with too many UNESCO diplomats fearful that if Syria were removed for gross violations, their own regimes would be next.”

“Today’s appalling decision calls into question the credibility of UNESCO’s mission to promote human rights. Syria’s membership is a lingering stain upon the reputation of the UN as a whole,” said Neuer.

After UNESCO elected Syria to its human rights committee in November, UN Watch launched a campaign to reverse the decision, prompting the US and Britain to initiate today’s debate at UNESCO.

“While today’s text rightly condemns Syria’s violations — a welcome first for UNESCO — the promised call to oust the regime from UNESCO’s human rights panel has been completely excised. We’re left with words, but no teeth.”

“By maintaining Assad in a position of global influence on human rights, UNESCO today has sent absolutely the wrong message. It an unconscionable insult to the suffering people of Syria,” said Neuer.

Bibi on Fox News

I don't know, but Greta Van Botox's face is so distracting it is hard for me to concentrate on the interview.

Youths leaving Gaza to work in Libya

PalPress reports that many Gaza youth are leaving their homes to help build up Libya.

For $900, Gazans can get the proper permits to enter Libya to work. Most of the work needed is physical labor, mostly in construction - no university degrees needed.

Young men in Gaza, disillusioned at the high rate of unemployment, are happily shelling out the $900 to be able to get out of Gaza.

Palestinian Arab officials are concerned at the drain in resources, worried that they might never come back. One official, Abu Iyad Misbah, was quoted as saying "Youth is the mainstay of society, but what is happening in Palestine is to the contrary: everyone wants to migrate from his homeland to live in the homelands of others."

The article goes on to say that nothing is being done to keep the youth in Gaza.

It should be noted that in the 1950s a significant number of Palestinian Arab males went to work in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq and also Libya to get jobs and get away from the UNRWA-run camps. Many of their descendants are still in Gulf countries, although the Palestinian Arabs were expelled from Kuwait before the first Gulf War and most of those in Iraq were chased out during the second. Qaddafi expelled most of the Libyan Palestinians as well for political reasons in the 1990s.

Hamas assaults journalists from BBC, Sky News

Palestine Press Agency and Wafa report that Hamas beat three journalists today, and abducted one.

According to the story, the beaten journalists were Mohammed Mashharawi from Sky News, Adnan al-Barsh from BBC Arabic service, and Amer Abu Omar. They were covering a mass wedding in Gaza.

Mashharawi was reportedly abducted by Hamas.

There is nothing on this in the media yet.

Mohammed Mashharawi

Ironically, Adnan al-Barsh said last year that he and other Palestinian Arab journalists would never abandon their desire to report on the truth and support the cause of their people - no matter how much Israel intimidates them. It will be most interesting to see if he reports on his own little run-in with the people who control the place he works.

In fact, it will be interesting to see which, if any, Western media and human-rights organizations make a stink over this.

(I found videos of Mashharawi on Al Quds TV, which is Hamas' station, from last year.)

20,000 women escaped the Holocaust by working as maids in England

From the BBC:

As the Nazis tightened their grip on power in the late 1930s, Jews in Germany and Austria began to fear for their safety. Many fled abroad using well-documented methods such as the Kindertransport. But less well known is the story of thousands of Jewish women who fled to the UK by getting jobs as domestic servants.

When Natalie Huss-Smickler arrived in England in 1938 as a 26-year-old, she found her new job as a domestic servant something of a shock compared with her secretarial work back home in Vienna.

"My first job in England was very, very hard," she says. "I had to work from 8am to 11pm with an hour's break, cleaning and scrubbing and looking after the house, with half a day off a week.

"After a few weeks I complained, saying it's a bit too hard. The lady of the house said, 'If it's too much for you, I'll send you back to Hitler.'"

Natalie was one of an estimated 20,000 Germans and Austrians, mostly women, to take advantage of the domestic service visas being issued by the British government in the late 1930s. The woman, predominantly Jewish, took the work to escape from the Nazis.

This number means domestic service visas were hugely significant in saving Jews, about double the number saved by the celebrated Kindertransport - but their story has largely been forgotten.

The holder of a domestic service visa had a priceless ticket to get out of the Nazis's reach - even if it did mean that many middle class women, who may even have had servants in their own households, were cooking, cleaning, making beds and scrubbing floors for the first time in their lives.

Anthony Grenville, of the Association of Jewish Refugees, says the women who came over using the domestic service visas were mostly from well-to-do Viennese families and "completely unprepared psychologically" for their new lives.

"The British government brought in a visa requirement for refugees seeking entry from Germany and Austria after the annexation of Austria to the Third Reich in March 1938.

"This was a way of the government controlling the sheer weight of numbers of applicants flooding over from the continent, particularly Austrian Jews for whom the situation had become desperate.

"Although they took them in great numbers, there was a very clear motive for the British having Jews over - not to save them, but to provide labour for middle and upper middle class households. A small number of Jewish men also came as butlers or gardeners."

There are a couple of interviews with now 90+ year old women whose lives were saved by this loophole.

(h/t John W.)

Shimon Peres' "Be My Friend for Peace" mash-up video

How does an 88 year old politician gain fans who are one-fifth his age?

Here's how:

Jewish veterans' headstones targeted in Florida cemetery

From Fox Tampa Bay:

Detectives in central Florida are investigating a hate crime in Bushnell – the vandalism of Jewish headstones in a veterans' cemetery.

Sumter County Sheriff's Office detectives started their investigation into what happened to the headstones on Monday. Several headstones in two sections of the Florida National Cemetery were found pushed over or dug out last weekend.

The headstones were identified as Jewish by the Stars of David on them.

It's probably because of "occupation."

(h/t Ian)