"Islam is not to blame"

From an op-ed in The Telegraph by Ed West:

Many people kill in the name of jihad but they do not represent Islam or Muslims, the vast majority of whom will be horrified by the Toulouse killings. It is not religion that turns some young Muslim men in the West violent, but the sense of alienation and frustration that inevitably comes from being a second-generation immigrant. Confused and angry young men easily attach themselves to something greater than themselves, especially a strong, confident inter-national identity historically opposed to the West from which they feel so rejected.

Many of the campaigners who earlier blamed these attacks on a xenophobic atmosphere across Europe are now very keen to point out that they are nothing to do with Islam. Not because they care about Islam, but because their faith is “diversity”, the catchy term for universalism, the idea that all limits to human altruism are immoral.

Universalism is the basis of the post-war European moral settlement, and it has motivated two of its great revolutions – European integration and the creation of multi-ethnic societies. This followed two appalling nationalist-fuelled wars, and Europe’s universalist leaders believe that nations “lead to war”, in the words of EU President Herman Van Rompuy. Any opposition to universalism, whether to trans-national governments or open borders, is therefore racism, xenophobia or “far-Right rhetoric”.

And yet, as GK Chesterton put it, to condemn patriotism because people go to war for patriotic reasons, is like condemning love because some love leads to murder.
Islam is not to blame for the Toulouse killings. But had it been the work of white extremists, neither would patriotism have been the problem.

...
You cannot buck human nature, and universalism is an unsustainable, unworkable idea based on a utopian vision of humanity. One of the sadder ironies is that it is motivated partly by our revulsion over the Holocaust, yet this idea has helped to introduce Middle Eastern anti-Semitism into Europe....

But at the same time this universalism has become the moral basis for a worldwide intellectual assault on the state of Israel, whose citizens are charged with the crime of wishing to form a separate, Jewish state, an idea called “apartheid” by Europeans who have the moral good luck to be able to voice such absurdities without facing any consequences.

People should reconsider this idea, but as for the tragedy in France, it does not say anything about Islam, only of human nature and its potential for evil. All that matters ultimately is that three innocent children, a father and three young soldiers are now dead.

West is trying to say the right things, and his point about 'universalism" being morphed into modern anti-semitism is on target, but he has a huge blind spot.

I agree that the religion of Islam is not to blame for the murders. The religion itself, in the narrow Western sense of religion, is no more likely to create murderers than Christianity (or Judaism.)

Yet there were the Crusades in the past, and there are jihadists today. For West's theory to be true, he must explain how those could exist; how people can kill "infidels" in the name of religion. His attempt to blame "the sense of alienation and frustration that inevitably comes from being a second-generation immigrant" is ridiculous and offensive, because practically everyone in the Western world is either such a second-generation immigrant or descended from one. And the idea that being a second-generation immigrant from a Muslim country in Europe is somehow more frustrating than the daily lives of a couple of billion people elsewhere who don't go around killing people is beyond absurd. West falls in the same trap of oversimplifying things that he is blaming others for.

But today's jihadists have something in common with the Crusaders. To them, religion is not a personal belief system meant to improve themselves. It is an aggressive political framework whose philosophy includes the idea of  gaining power at the expense of everyone else.

Westerners like West are so protective of the idea of "religion" that they cannot see the basic fact that to hundreds of millions of people, Islam is not merely a religion but a political philosophy. And as a political movement, it is no less toxic than Communism or Nazism. 


Islam itself does not distinguish between its personal and political aspects. It is up to the Muslims themselves to modernize the religion to make such a separation. Modern Westerners do it instinctively, as no doubt most Muslims who grow up in the West do. But that distinction is a Western invention over the past couple hundred years, not something inherent in Islam.

To the vast majority of Muslims living in the Middle East, such fine-honed distinctions do not exist.

Not that most of them are jihadists - but a lot of them are potential jihadists, because there is no overriding moral code that discourages it. Islam is political; it wants to divide up the entire world into Dar al Islam (the Muslim house) and Dar al Harb (the "house of war.")

And, sad to say, there are a large number of Muslims who glorify violence.  A Gallup poll that was disgustingly whitewashed by the pollsters found that about one third of Muslims worldwide found the 9/11 attacks partially or completely justified. 

That is half a billion Muslims who support violent  jihad against innocent civilians.

It is true that most of them will not become violent, but it is equally true that the Muslim world has not done nearly enough to discourage and vilify such thinking. It is mainstream.

That brings up another issue about Islam. It is not only a religion and a political movement, but it is also a culture. And too often, that culture is toxic.

To give some examples, the "moderate" Palestinian Authority has officially honored the worst terrorists and child murderers like Dalal Mughrabi and Samir Kuntar. While Salam Fayyad condemned the fact that Jewish kids were murdered in a school in France, 84% of Palestinian Arabs approved of the murder of other Jewish kids in a school in Jerusalem in 2008. And the 9/11 attacks were celebrated in many Muslim communities worldwide, not just by Palestinian Arabs.

It is not a problem that can be swept under the rug as merely disenchanted youths who need an excuse to murder people - it is a culture where large swaths of people openly celebrate murders.

That is the problem that must be attacked, and it must be attacked from within the Muslim community. Unfortunately, the reactions we've seen from the French Muslim community has been more defensive than introspective. They are far more interested in distancing themselves from the murderer than in looking to see what in their culture might have created him.

Islam, in a narrow sense, might not be to blame for Toulouse. But mainstream Islamic culture and Islamism as a political movement, today, supports the thinking that can lead to such outrages. Until that problem is dealt with, nothing will change.

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Merah is dead

From The Telegraph live-blog:

11.03 French Interior Minister Claude Gueant has just given a remarkable description of the gun battle which ended in Mohammed Merah's death less than half an hour ago. He said the police decided to storm the building after the gunman had threatened to kill police and refused to surrender late last night. Describing the raid itself, he said: 

We sent in special cameras to be able to see where he was but we could not locate him. It was when we were able to locate him in the bathroom that he came out shooting madly at everybody.

The police had never seen anything like this kind of violence and the RAID police had to protect themselves.

Merah jumped out of the window and continued to shoot. He was found dead on the ground.

According to an interesting interview noted in Ha'aretz about a French woman who complained to police about Merah years ago, his brother is even worse than he was.

The woman also stated that the “true mind” behind the suspect was his brother Abdelkader, who is currently in police custody. “It is he who brainwashed [Merah] and often flew out of France,” she said.

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Finally! A good article on the Gaza fuel crisis (updated)

AP has an article that  accurately describes the reasons for the Gaza fuel crisis.

A dispute between Egypt and Gaza's Hamas government has produced the worst energy crisis here in years: Gazans are enduring 18-hour-a-day blackouts, fuel is running low for hospital backup generators, raw sewage pours into the Mediterranean Sea for lack of treatment pumps and gas stations have shut down.

The fuel and electricity shortages, which have escalated over the past two months, are infuriating long-suffering Gazans who say their basic needs, perhaps more than ever, are being sacrificed for politics.

"Life here is getting worse every day," said Rawda Sami, 22, part of a group of students waiting in vain for public taxis outside the Islamic University. "There is no power, no transportation, and none of the leaders are thinking of us."

Ostensibly the spat revolves around fuel supplies from Egypt — but on a broader level, it is linked to Egypt's troubled relationship with Hamas and its long-standing deep ambivalence toward Gaza itself.

Hamas wants not just fuel: It hopes to leverage the crisis into getting Egypt to open a direct trade route with Gaza. Such an outcome might stabilize the Islamic militants' rule over the territory they seized in 2007 from Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, headquartered in the West Bank.

Egypt refuses, wishing to keep Gaza at arms' length, and to avoid absolving Israel from continuing responsibility for the crowded, impoverished slice of Mediterranean coast. Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005, after a 38-year military occupation, but still controls access by air and sea — and, except for the several mile (kilometer) long border with Egypt, by land.

After the Hamas takeover, Israel and Egypt imposed a border blockade on Gaza to try to dislodge the new rulers. Since the fall of Egypt's pro-Western President Hosni Mubarak last year, Cairo has eased restrictions on passenger traffic but has refused to open a cargo route. Instead, it largely has turned a blind eye to smuggling fuel and other supplies through hundreds of border tunnels.

The fuel crisis has its origins in the decision by Hamas, more than a year ago, to use smuggled fuel to run the territory's only power plant instead of paying for more expensive fuel coming through an Israeli cargo crossing. The plant normally provides 60 percent of Gaza's electricity.

Several weeks ago, the flow of smuggled Egyptian fuel began to slow: Egypt was itself suffering shortages, and it grew annoyed that Hamas was profiting by imposing tariffs on subsidized fuel meant for Egyptians.

The Gaza power plant shut down on Feb. 10 and has been mostly offline since. Depots of fuel for transportation gradually ran low, and major gas stations in Gaza City closed several days ago.

In recent days, no smuggled fuel has reached Gaza, traders say.

As a result, hospitals say fuel supplies for generators have run dangerously low, endangering hundreds dependent on steady electricity, including premature babies in incubators, kidney patients on dialysis and those in intensive care. Half the ambulances serving Gaza's biggest hospital have been grounded.

Most cars are now off the streets, and large crowds fight over the few public taxis. The Gaza Cabinet ordered some 1,800 civil servants with government-issue cars to start picking up hitchhikers.

Those with diesel cars have begun pouring used cooking oil into their tanks. Water supplies have dropped sharply because there's not enough fuel to pump it up from wells. Sewage is discharged into the Mediterranean because waste-treatment pumps can't operate.

"The storage in Gaza is zero and within 48 hours, we will see a real disaster in terms of health, water and transportation," said Amjad Shawa, who heads a network of Gaza civic groups.

Gaza has had fuel problems since the start of the Israeli-Egyptian border blockade. Initially, the EU bought the fuel needed for the Gaza power plant from Israel, which then delivered it through one of its crossings. Eventually, the EU asked the Abbas government to pay for the fuel and get the money back from Hamas. After a standoff, Hamas did make contributions for buying the Israeli fuel — before gambling on the cheaper option of smuggled Egyptian fuel.

Hamas now wants Egypt to openly deliver its fuel to Gaza through the Rafah crossing on their shared border — setting a precedent for establishing a proper trade route.

Egypt would agree to ship fuel, but insists on delivering it through Israel and via Israel's Kerem Shalom cargo crossing to Gaza, said an Egyptian diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the issue.

The circuitous arrangement makes the point that Israel bears responsibility for Gaza and not Egypt.

"We propose Kerem Shalom, because with this, we stress that Gaza is still under Israeli responsibility," the diplomat said. "If we accept what Hamas wants, we would absolve Israel of this responsibility."

Hamas argues that the Kerem Shalom option would give Israel control over Gaza's fuel supply.

The West Bank and Gaza, both captured by Israel in the 1967 war, lie on either side of the Jewish state. Over the past decade, Israel has enforced strict travel restrictions between the two, raising Arab concerns that it wants to "unload" Gaza onto Egypt and limit any future Palestinian state to a part of the West Bank.

Egypt also wants market rates for its fuel, which Hamas says it cannot afford. In recent days, Hamas officials have visited Qatar, Turkey, Bahrain and Iran in search of fuel subsidies. Gaza's prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, said Qatar has promised to help.

Yousef Rizka, an adviser to Haniyeh, accused Egypt of "political blackmail" and called on Egypt's newly elected parliament, dominated by Islamists, "to solve this problem."

Hamas officials also suspect Egypt is using the fuel issue to indirectly pressure the movement into accepting a Palestinian unity deal that would help Abbas regain some control in Gaza. Hamas leaders in Gaza have blocked the deal signed last month by their top leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal.

In recent days, Hamas has sent dozens of supporters to demonstrate near the Egyptian border to demand that Cairo start sending fuel.

But Hamas faces growing discontent.

"The government is responsible to find a solution for us," said Amjad Daban, a 44-year-old teacher who spent an hour Wednesday looking for transport. "I don't care where the fuel will come from. What I need is to find electricity and transportation."

It only took six weeks for a major news service to tackle the issue. Given the huge number of reporters in the area, this shows how little journalists care about the lives of Palestinian Arabs if their problems cannot be blamed on Israel.

The only major point that AP mentions that I haven't is the idea that Egypt doesn't want to be responsible for  Gaza and wants it to still be Israel's responsibility. The funny part is that Israel has never expressed any problem with sending fuel through Kerem Shalom and has been ready and willing to do so for months.

The only major point that AP misses is the fact that one main reason Hamas wants fuel through Egypt is to be able to charge higher taxes on it (and deprive the PA from getting taxes from fuel that goes through Kerem Shalom.)

(h/t billposer)

UPDATE: Now that AP felt it was worth reporting, Reuters rushed to pen a similar story. Funny, that.

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Disgusting: Turkish cosmetics company uses Hitler in commercial

Biomen is a Turkish cosmetics company trying to make a splash in the local market. They hired M.A.R.K.A., an advertising agency known for its "edgy" ads.

The resulting ad shows footage of Adolf Hitler, dubbed and subtitled as if he is speaking about men's shampoo.



This spot is being shown in commercials during soccer games, and getting a huge audience.

(h/t Gurhan)

UPDATE here.

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Springtime appeal: Donate to EoZ!

The first day of spring has arrived, and with it comes my quarterly request for donations.

EoZ has continued to grow this year, now with 2150 Twitter followers and 2250 subscribers (including over 700 that get my daily email digest.) I have received over 400,000 hits this year already, and 42,000 just last week.

I now have over 13,500 posts. As a result, Google loves me and I get lots of search engine traffic. (Inexplicably, I'm still getting over a thousand hits a month just for people looking for Victoria Beckham's Hebrew tattoo.)

I experimented with posting on Times of Israel and the Algemeiner, and might try it again. I'm also working on other projects that will be revealed in good time.

I get thousands of comments, most of which I at least skim, as well as lots of emails asking questions or offering tips.

Twitter is an increasingly important component of the blog. While I am hardly an avid tweeter, I do tweet lots of interesting  links that I come across in the course of the day that I don't have time to blog. It is sort of like a real-time linkdump. Also, people tweet ideas and links to me, so you can often see interesting scoops early.

I just added two Twitter widgets on the right side of my blog webpage so you can keep up with the latest links and information coming from and going to EoZ.

Also, if you have a tablet or smartphone, you can read my blog on the Google Currents app which makes EoZ look almost like a native magazine app.

Anyway, all of this takes a lot of time (and some money.) I spend countless hours reading, researching and writing. My day usually starts at 5 AM so I can get most of the posts done early and still have time to do the Real World stuff that keeps coming up (and, lately, increasing.)  The donations I've received, for which I am most thankful, help out tremendously.

I'm not interested in fame, but I am very interested in getting the truth out to the world. When you donate, you become a partner in this endeavor.

The easiest way to help is to donate with the PayPal buttons in the upper right of the page. You can give a one time donation, or, if you are a regular, you may want to subscribe to pay every month. If you think that the information you get here every day is comparable in value to what you read in the newspaper or magazines, please consider paying what you would pay for your local paper.

If you dislike PayPal, you can also give an Amazon gift certificate.

Thanks as always for your support!

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Christian family evicted from Egyptian town

From AP:

Nabil Gergis, a Coptic Christian, lived for nearly two decades in the Egyptian town of Amriya, raising his children and managing a modest business. Those ties couldn’t protect him after a sex video purportedly showing his brother with a Muslim woman began to circulate.

Angry residents in the conservative, Muslim-majority town held protests and set fire to the Gergis family businesses. None of the attackers was prosecuted. Instead, a committee of tribal elders, local lawmakers and security officials ordered the 11 members of the Gergis family -- the brother, Nabil and others -- to leave town.

The story of Amriya demonstrates one of the reasons Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority and even some in the Muslim majority feel the situation is precarious, particularly since the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak a year ago. The rule of law, they and human rights groups say, is being eclipsed by such “reconciliation councils,” trying to fill the security vacuum left by Mubarak’s fall.

“There is no law that would have found me responsible for anything, and under the law I would have never been kicked out of my home,” said Nabil Gergis. He said he, his wife and their two children do not know who to turn to protect their rights and that he feels the government has turned its back on them.

The Amriya case was unique because the punishment was so extensive. The town is comprised of scattered villages with some 500,000 residents, about 15 percent of them are Christian.

The incident erupted in late January, when the explicit video allegedly showing Nabil Gergis’ brother with a Muslim woman circulated on residents’ cell phones. The brother, who is married, has denied any affair.

Any sex outside of marriage is a lightning rod for controversy in the Muslim world, where a woman’s chastity is vociferously protected by her family. That a Christian man might have an affair with a Muslim woman only further fanned the flames.

The rumors sparked widespread protests by Amriya residents, who are mostly tribal and deeply traditional. Angry residents set fire to three stores owned by the Gergis’ family, which were under their homes. Some Muslim residents tried to help, but were outnumbered by the ultraconservative rioters.

Police showed up hours later and instead of investigating the attack called in the brother for questioning, Gergis said.

With tempers still high, local officials and tribal leaders held a series of meetings and decided to order the expulsion of the entire Gergis family. A Muslim family who had fired shots in the air during the protest to protect their property were initially told they must leave too, but were later allowed to return.

Amriya police argued that they could not guarantee the Gergis family’s safety in the face of angry protesters, according to security officials and the Gergis family. Last week, with the family gone, their homes were robbed of cash and other belongings they had to leave behind, Gergis said.

This is exactly what "equal rights" means in the Muslim world. While the governments will officially say they embrace human rights, in reality little is done to safeguard religious minorities. And it will only get worse with an Islamist government in Egypt.

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Updates on India investigation on diplomat attacks

The "freelance journalist" Syed Kazmi seems to have been up to his ears in the Iranian terror plot in India. From Hindustan Times:

Syed Ahmad Kazmi, 50, the freelance journalist arrested for allegedly facilitating an attack on an Israeli diplomat’s wife in February, was in ‘indirect touch’ with the operational head of an international conspiracy to target Israeli diplomats, Delhi Police claimed on Thursday. They also claimed he was paid to help such activities in the capital.

Nabbed by the Special Team from his Jor Bagh residence on March 6, Kazmi was allegedly paid $5,500 by one Seyed Ali Sadr Mehdian, an associate, ‘to provide assistance in India’ for the international terror plot during two trips the former made to Tehran in 2011, Delhi Police Commissioner BK Gupta said.

“Mehdian directed Kazmi to meet Houshang Afsar Irani of Iranian origin, when the latter came to Delhi. Kazmi and Irani had receed the Israeli Embassy together and also discussed the matter of targeting Israeli diplomats through explosive devices,” the commissioner said.

Irani, who is in his early 40s and has an open arrest warrant issued against in his name along with three of his other associates, is the man who stuck the magnetic explosive device on the Innova vehicle carrying Tel-Yehoshua Koren, 42, the wife of an Israeli defence attaché, on the afternoon of February 13, police said.

Technical surveillance, police said, revealed that Irani was in touch with Sedaghatzadeh Masoud, the operational commander and one of the three Iranian men who were poised to target Israeli diplomats in Bangkok on February 14.

Masoud had fled the Thai capital after an accidental explosion at the module’s hideout only be arrested from the Malaysian airport hours later.

“It must be stated that technical investigation has also clearly established telephonic contact between Kazmi and Irani,” said the Commissioner, choosing not to comment on the suspected direct link between Masoud and Kazmi.

On March 9, HT had reported on how Delhi Police zeroed-in on Kazmi after their counterparts in Bangkok helped them get hold of his number from the callers’ list of one of the three Iranians arrested there.

Kazmi and his wife, police claimed, have been receiving foreign remittances regularly and, “till date his wife has received Rs18,78,500 while he received Rs 3.80 lakh as foreign remittances regarding (the source of which) there is no satisfactory explanation,” Gupta said.

And later:

Arrested on charges of facilitating an ‘international conspiracy’, Mohammad Ahmad Kazmi, 50, had used a global, cellular phone-based closed user group (CUG) to remain in touch with his handlers in southwest Asia for more than a year, sources claimed.

The freelance journalist, who was nabbed by the special team from his Jor Bagh residence on March 6, had allegedly been using a mobile SIM card purchased from Tehran, Iran, to communicate with Seyed Ali Mehdiansadr and Mohammadreza Abolghasemi since early 2011.

“When he went to Iran in 2011, Mehdiansadr and Abolghasemi paid him in dollars and also provided him the SIM card to dodge domestic technical surveillance. He was communicated with and also issued instructions from his handlers in Tehran through this line,” said a senior police officer.

His ‘hotline’ to Tehran, police claimed, played a major role in connecting the technical dots between him, Houshang Irani — the man who executed the attack, and Sedaghatzadeh Masoud, the alleged operational commander of the global operation.

Also:

The man who attached a bomb to the car of the Israeli diplomat on February 13 reached the Indira Gandhi International Airport a little over an hour after the explosion and waited six hours for a flight to Kuala Lumpur, officials said on Monday.

Houshang Afshar Irani, the Iranian who is suspected to be the bomber, rushed to the airport immediately after the terror strike. The explosion was reported at 3.20 pm on February 13 and investigators have found records of Irani entering the airport around 4.30 pm.

“It was found during investigations that Irani checked in at the airport counter around 4.30 pm, just a little over an hour after the bomb blast. So, even before immigration authorities could be alerted, he was through with his travel documents and could flee India,” an official said.

But even though the evidence is mounting, many in India - including journalists - are calling for Kazmi's release, claiming that all the evidence is "circumstantial" and a contrived Zionist plot. Rallies are being held throughout the country to support him.

There was a candle-lit vigil at India Gate on March 13 and a sit-in demonstration at Jantar Mantar on March 16, which saw the tremendous participation of people from a wide array of walks of life, blurring religious and ideological lines. A delegation of 13 Muslim MPs, led by Sultan Ahmad of the Trinamool Congress, also visited Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and urged him to ensure no injustice was carried out in the case.

Kazmi's son Shauzab Kazmi, SQR Illyasi of Jamaat e Islami and I addressed a public meeting organised by the Democratic Students Union in Jawaharlal Nehru University on March 16. "Kazmi's arrest does not come as a surprise, as it follows the well-known pattern of a minority witch-hunt by the Indian state," said the DSU.

Condemnations of Kazmi's arrest have also come from the Communist Party of India and the Lok Janshati Party.

"Government has made the arrest without a proper probe," said CPI General Secretary AB Bardhan. "This journalist dealt with the Palestine and Israel issue, what's the harm in that? [This] is an attempt by the government to please Israel."

There have been many solidarity marches, peaceful protests, sit-in demonstrations and press conferences held by Kazmi's supporters across the country - including in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Aligarh, Meerut, Lucknow, and even as far afield as the UK and Muscat.

"It is good to see people standing up and speaking out for my father, who has been framed on totally bogus charges," said Kazmi's 23-year-old son, Shauzab. He has been busy attending protests, giving press conferences, meeting lawyers, and looking after the family ever since his father's arrest.

Meanwhile, his supporters have planned a huge demonstration outside the Indian parliament on March 26.

(h/t Challah)

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BDS Fail: Intel builds high tech empire in Israel

From The Media Line:

In Israel’s high tech economy, the local operations of Intel Corp. stand out as a kind of high tech economy all of its own.

The world’s biggest maker of computer chips has been operating in Israel for four decades, long before many of the country’s start-up entrepreneurs were born. It has four research and development centers that have produced some of the company’s best-selling products and, in contrast to most of the technology multinationals present in Israel, also manufactures products in plants in Kiryat Gat and Jerusalem.

With nearly 8,000 people on its payroll, it is the largest private sector employer in Israel, accounting for 10% of all the jobs in Israel’s total electronics and software industry. Last year, its exports reached $2.2 billion, making it the country’s biggest single exporter of high technology. It even acts as a venture capitalist.

In 2011 Intel’s Israel operations marked a new milestone by both developing and producing a product entirely inside the country.

“Today Intel Israel is at the core of the global company, with a central role in developing new products like Sandy Bridge and the Ivy Bridge. We ourselves are in sync for the first time, with a product both designed and produced in Israel,” Maxine Fassberg, an Intel vice president and general manager for Israel, told The Media Line on the sidelines of a news conference on Sunday to discuss the company’s 2011.

All told, products developed in Israel accounted for 40% of worldwide sales for Intel last year, said Muli Eden, who arrived in Israel last week to take up the post of Intel Israel president alongside Fassberg.

Total exports by Intel from Israel since 1999 have reached $22.4 billion. Last year as it was re-tooling in Kiryat Gat, Intel made purchases of $628 million in Israel – everything from production equipment to lunchroom napkins – and contributed indirectly as much as $4.5 billion to the economy. The U.S. company has invested in 64 start-ups since 1998.

“Israel is the No.3 foreign country in the world in terms of Intel’s investments. After the U.S., China, India, its Israel. Intel invests more in Israel than in Europe,” said Oren Reiss, the outgoing general manager of the Kiryat Gat plant.

Additionally, ex-Intel employees have formed about 20 start-up companies every year since 2006, creating about 250 workplaces. “We regard ourselves as a school for the Israeli industry,” Fassberg said.

The article goes on to say that even through wars and rockets, Intel Israel has never missed a manufacturing deadline.

(h/t/ Yoel)

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Hamas backs off blaming Egypt for fuel crisis - blames Israel, PA instead

Hamas Gaza political leader Mahmoud Zahar has distanced himself from statements made a Gaza official recently that blamed Egyptian intelligence for Gaza's artificial fuel crisis.

An Egyptian officlal blasted Hamas in a newspaper interview, saying "the Hamas government instigated a crisis with Egypt to escape from its responsibilities towards the sector ...they make up and promote false information by claiming that Egypt was behind the electricity crisis in Gaza in order to deceive and mislead the Palestinian citizens."

Zahar, sensing that Hamas' relations with Egypt are not in good shape, instead decided to blame - who else? - Israel, and the PA as well. He said that "the Israeli occupation authority bears the responsibility of 100% of the crises within the Gaza Strip, because the Israeli occupation legally responsible for providing the Gaza Strip with supplies, stressing that the Authority in Ramallah owns the electricity company, which is responsible for providing fuel."

This is of course a baldfaced lie, since Hamas has been refusing to accept fuel via Kerem Shalom that Israel has been willing to provide.

The same official denied that Egypt ever agreed to ship fuel through Rafah, saying that a jerry-rigged pipeline there is too dangerous. If there is only one mistake it could explode and kill the hundreds of people who use that crossing every day.

He also claimed that Hamas did agree to have fuel shipped temporarily through Kerem Shalom, something that Hamas spokesman Abu Marzouk denied.

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Former "America's Next Top Model" contestant now an IDF soldier

Remember Esther Petrack, the first observant Jewish woman to compete on America's Next Top Model?

The Jerusalem-born model moved back to Israel - and is now a soldier in the IDF and planning to become a tank instructor:

She says in an interview that her fellow girls in the Israeli army are nicer than the ones she lived with while doing the show.

(h/t O)

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Egyptians protesting fuel shortages, not happy with Hamas

Egypt Independent reports:

The crisis resulting from the shortage of fuel and butane gas cylinders escalated on Tuesday, with taxi drivers blocking roads and people staging protests in various governorates.

In Sohag, taxi drivers blocked a railway and set fire to the signals, completely halting train movement in both directions, and the residents blocked the Akhmim Bridge that connects the east and the west of the city. They also threatened to storm the governor’s office if he did not solve the crisis, prompting him to call security services for protection.

Altercations took place between drivers and gas station employees in Fayoum. Both sides fought with knives but no injuries were reported. When the drivers threatened to set fire to the station, the police had to intervene and regulate the distribution of fuel among the cars.

In Minya, scores of people protested the shortage and blocked the roads, demanding that government officials resolve the problem. In Kafr al-Sheikh, cars queued in front of gas stations, obstructing traffic in the city, while in Beheira people clashed with taxi drivers for raising their tariffs.

The Egyptian Gazette adds:

Some drivers linked the crisis to smugglers, who reportedly buy up the subsidised petrol to sell abroad.

Which means - Gaza.

Egyptians are not happy with the idea of selling fuel at a low rate to Hamas while they cannot get any for themselves, which might be one reason Egypt has been dragging its feet on sending fuel to Gaza.

The Media Line details other problems between Hamas and Egypt:

Over the weekend, Yusef Rizka, adviser to Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh, whose Hamas movement has ruled the Mediterranean enclave since seizing power in 2007, charged that the leadership in Egypt is using the fuel crisis for “political extortion.” But Cairo charges that Gaza smugglers are buying subsidized gasoline in Egypt and reselling it at a profit at home.

The latest bickering comes against a background of disappointment on the part of the two neighbors.

Cairo accuses Hamas of taking advantage of the lawlessness in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula by turning a blind eye to a flood of 1,300 stolen cars being smuggled into Gaza and allowing drugs grown there to be shipped out. They accuse the Islamic group of being behind the circulation of some $40 million of counterfeit U.S. currency in Egypt.

A senior Hamas security source sheepishly admitted that purloined vehicles had made there way to Gaza, but denied it was on a large scale. “It’s only 15 cars, not 1,300,” he told The Media Line on condition of anonymity.

But Egyptian accusations go deeper. Officials in Cairo say Hamas and other terrorist groups backed by Iran have turned Sinai into a staging ground for attacks on Israel. In fact, Israel says it has repeatedly foiled Sinai operations directed from Gaza. Its air force killed Zuhir Al-Qaisi, heads of the Popular Resistance Committee in a targeted assassination March 9, saying he was planning an attack from Sinai.

Cairo has been unhappy that Qatar, the distant, tiny but hugely wealthy Gulf emirate, supplanted it as mediator in the latest attempt to negotiate a reconciliation agreement between Hamas and its rival Fatah movement, which retains control of the West Bank. The talks have failed so far, but Qatar’s involvement was a blow to Egyptian prestige.

Hamas has it grievances, too. Expectations that the interim military government that replaced Mubarak would open the border between Gaza and Egypt and undermine Israel’s blockade have been disappointed; months after it was opened, traffic through the sole crossing point -- Rafah Terminal -- is severely restricted.

Moreover, Hamas officials themselves have been subject to delays travelling in and out of Gaza through Egypt, their only route to the outside world. Over the past few weeks, dozens of Hamas field commanders were blocked from crossing through the terminal Last month, Atef Edwan, a Hamas lawmaker, former minister and official in charge of refugees, was denied permission to visit Egypt when he landed at Cairo Airport and was told that he would be taken directly to Rafah, Hamas sources in Gaza told The Media Line.

Even Haniyeh, the prime minister, has been subject to insulting treatment, the security sources said. When Haniyeh left Gaza for a tour of the Gulf (including Iran, despite Cairo’s disapproval) his crossing at Rafah was delayed for two hours, allegedly for technical reasons, and his meeting with Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal Al-Janzouri was cancelled.

IANS adds:

Yousef Rezqa, an aide to the head of the Hamas government Ismail Haniya, told Xinhua that the Egyptian intelligence, who works to topple the Hamas rule, "is behind the crisis."

"The crisis is completely political. Particularly, the Egyptian intelligence has a hand in it. We hope that Egypt will be part of the solution, not part of deterioration of the crisis," said Rezqa.

Hamas expected the post-Mubarak Egypt to cozy up with the terrorist group, but it hasn't happened yet. The question is whether things will change when the new Islamist government is fully in place.

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Toulouse murder suspect an Islamist

The suspect in the horrific Toulouse murders is named Mohammed Merah, 24.

From CNN:

About 300 police officers surrounded a house in the south of France on Wednesday, trying to coax a man whom authorities called a self-styled al Qaeda jihadist to surrender after a series of shootings that left seven people dead.

Soon after special operations police mounted their raid in Toulouse at 3:30 a.m. (10:30 p.m. ET Tuesday), shots rang out from inside, wounding two officers, police said.
But as the standoff stretched to its sixth hour, Interior Minister Claude Gueant said the suspect would surrender at noon (7 a.m. ET).

"The suspect told me -- and I hope he told me the truth -- that he will surrender at 12 p.m.," Gueant said.

The 24-year-old suspect is accused of killing seven people in the last 10 days: a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school on Monday, and three soldiers of north African origin who had recently returned from Afghanistan in two earlier incidents.

Interior Minister Gueant said the suspect is a French national of Algerian origin who spent considerable time in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"He claims to be a jihadist and says he belongs to al Qaeda. He wanted to avenge the Palestinian children and take revenge on the French army because of its foreign interventions," he told reporters at the scene.

The minister did not say how he knew this.

The suspect reportedly belongs to a little-known group called Forsane Alizza, or Knights of Glory, which the French government banned in January for trying to recruit people to fight in Afghanistan.

Police tracked the suspect down via his brother's IP address, which was apparently used to respond to an ad posted by the first victim, Gueant said.

Imad Ibn Ziaten, a paratrooper of North African origin, arranged to meet a man in Toulouse to sell him a scooter which he had advertised online, the minister said. The victim said in the ad that he was in the military.

A message sent from the suspect's brother's IP address was used to set up an appointment to inspect the bike, an appointment at which the paratrooper was killed on March 11, Gueant said.

Four days later, two other soldiers were shot dead and another injured by a black-clad man wearing a motorcycle helmet in the southwestern French city of Montauban, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Toulouse.

In the attack at the private Jewish school Ozar Hartorah on Monday, a man wearing a motorcycle helmet and driving a motor scooter pulled up and shot a teacher and three children -- two of them his own young sons -- in the head.

The other victim, the daughter of the school's director, was killed in front of her father.

Police said the same guns were used in all three attacks.

Police launched an intense manhunt, and on Wednesday night, zeroed in on the house, located about 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the Jewish school.

Meanwhile, the bodies of the four victims arrived in Israel where they will be buried in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning.

"Today, all Israel is in pain and mourning over the deaths of innocent children and a dedicated father," Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told the families as the coffins were lowered from the plane.

The teacher, Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, was born and raised in Bordeaux, in southwestern France, but pursued his religious studies in Israel. He married and had children, before returning to teach at the Toulouse school, the consistory said.

His sons, Gabriel, 4, and Arieh, 5, will be buried with him.

The other victim, 7-year-old Miriam Monsonego, will be laid to rest at another cemetery.

The funeral is underway now.

The Telegraph is liveblogging the standoff.

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