Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 09, 2012

Another Palestinian Arab killed during Ramadan

This time - in Iraq.

Qudsnet reports that unknown gunmen killed 31 year old Ahmed Mustafa Naji in a hail of bullets outside his home in Baghdad.

The article goes on to say that Iraqi authorities have raided the Palestinian section of the town three times during Ramadan.

The number of Palestinian Arabs in Iraq has gone down from 35,000 to about 7,000 since the Gulf war, as Iraqis have been targeting Palestinians who were felt to be collaborators with Saddam Hussein.

Sounds like apartheid, doesn't it?

Thursday links

Palestinian “President” Nears Record

"Next week, Mahmoud Abbas will enter the 92nd month of his 48-month term, and now has Yasser Arafat’s record in sight. Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in 1996, running essentially unopposed (his opponent was a 72-year old woman with no political party). In 2004, in the ninth year of his four-year term, he left office on account of death. His second-in-command was elected president less than two months later, running essentially unopposed (Hamas boycotted the election). Abbas is now midway through the eighth year of his own four-year term, almost certain to break Arafat’s record if he can just stay healthy."

Iran pledges support as Syria battles rebels

“Iran will continue to back the Syrian government, which acts as a pillar of an Iran-led regional alliance, a high-level Iranian diplomat has told President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.”

Turkey's nightmares coming true in Syria

US expert says most troubling scenario for Turkey may also be the most likely one: protracted chaos and sectarian conflict, leaving a security vacuum across the border

New US intelligence report shows Iran moving closer to nuclear weapon

Haaretz reports that official estimate, which pulls back 2007 claim that Iran had halted weaponization program, brings Washington in line with Israel
“The report is a 180 degree turn from the last NIE on Iran, in 2007, which reported that Iran had given up on its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and had not returned to it.”

Saudi Arabia says it would ‘intercept Israeli planes en route to Iran’

Message reportedly received via Washington seen as warning against unilateral strike
“Defense Minister Ehud Barak said later Thursday he had received no such message.”

Desert Reconnaissance Battalion commander: “We were prepared in advance”

“This is the decorated IDF hero that led the battalion that successfully protected Israel against the massive attack launched from Egypt on Sunday. And yeh he’s a black muslim. He Doesn’t sound like the product of an “apartheid regime”, spoils the BDS narrative.”

IDF article about him here.

Cairo Tightens Egypt’s Blockade of Gaza After Sinai Terrorist Attack

“The Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement (BDS) has been conspicuously silent about the ramped up Egyptian blockade of Gaza. In the past, the BDS movement’s well-oiled social media and petition campaign has pretended that the Gaza blockade existed only on the Israeli side when, in fact, Egypt, Gaza’s main partner, has enforced its own air-sea-land blockade for the past half-decade. In fact, Egypt maintains an embassy in Gaza. The Muslim Brotherhood, which won big in recent Egyptian elections, considers Hamas to be its Palestinian chapter. However, on the ground, Egypt has long blockaded Gaza out of dire security concerns. Those concerns were ignited as never before by the brazen assault on Egyptian soldiers.”

Jewish radicals and anti-Semitism

“Robert Wistrich, Hebrew University professor of European and Jewish history and director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of anti-Semitism, has just published his 29th book,"From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews and Israel."

Groups Blast Carter’s Role at Convention

“When it comes to Israel and the Middle East, President Carter has unfortunately embarrassed himself — as his analysis and commentary has been stubbornly wrong, harmful to the peace process, and getting worse all the time,” said Harris. “I’m confident that he won’t be speaking to the Party about Middle East policy.”

MEMRI: Hizbullah MP Ret. General Walid Sakariya: Iranian Nuclear Weapon "to Finish Off the Zionist Entity"
From Ian:

Tourism to Israel continues record-breaking pace in July

Last month saw nearly 700,000 visitors, 10% of whom came from America; more than 2 million tourists have arrived this year

Golden Raisman honors slain Israelis

US Jewish gymnast says she would have supported moment of silence for Munich 1972 victims
"Jewish American Olympian Aly Raisman honored the memory of slain Israeli athletes after she took gold in the women’s floor exercise Tuesday. Raisman, whose routine was set to the music of Hava Nagilah, said she would have supported a decision to observe a moment of silence in honor of the Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the 1972 Munich games."

Study: Different Jews Are Genetically Alike

“While it’s easy to be flip about studies on the similarities of Jews in far-flung places, a study recently released by a consortium of colleges in the United States, Israel, France, and Spain, did yield some interesting results:”

Israel confronts world hunger with a solar-powered desert oasis

"The best of Israel’s agri-tech and clean-tech innovation is combined in a new oasis system that could help feed millions of desert-dwellers."

Also...

I published a wrap-up of the Emirates Photo Competition and FIAP at The Algemeiner

Jewish Ideas Daily on two opposing viewpoints about The Levy Report. I like the second one better...

Time for the EU to ban Hezbollah (TheJC)

IDF begins draft of haredim without problems (JTA)

The Atlantic on Orthodox Jewish migration to the suburbs, and why it is unlikely that they will return to live in cities.

(h/t Zach N.)

Funniest Arabic headline of the day

From Firas Press:

[Hamas official] Ghazi Hamad: "We will not allow terrorist groups to grow in the Gaza Strip"

Egyptian video says Israelis are celebrating soldier deaths

From MEMRI:

Following is an excerpt from an Egypt TV video about the Sinai massacre of Egyptian soldiers, which aired on Channel 1 on August 7, 2012.

Voice: Who do you raise your weapons against?
Wake up! Awaken!
Arise from your slumber.
You are slaughtering one another, while the others sleep in the bosom of fornication.
Who do you raise your weapons against?
Against those who persevere, steadfast on our borders?
Or against those who drove us from our homes years ago?
Who do you raise your weapons against?
Israel celebrates today, and the news of our dead causes them joy, as long as our newborns are being orphaned, and we are being slaughtered from vein to vein.
Forgive us, oh the wounded!
You have been wounded for something that causes shame.
Or maybe you cannot be ashamed anymore?!
Who do you raise your weapons against?
Who do you raise your weapons against?
Title: "Those who do not deserve death were killed by those who do not deserve life."

Even when they know that extremists are murdering them, they want to redirect all the hate towards Israel.

Because hating Israel is pretty much the only thing Arabs can agree upon.

New "Gauss" malware grabbing Lebanese bank information

Here are the conclusions of a full analysis of the newly-discovered "Gauss" malware, written by Kaspersky Labs:

Gauss is the most recent development from the pool of cyber-espionage projects that includes Stuxnet, Flame and Duqu. It was most likely created in mid-2011 and deployed for the first time in August-September 2011.

Its geographical distribution is unique; the majority of infections were found in Lebanon, Palestine and Israel. One of the modules from Jan 2012 contains the path “c:\documents and settings\flamer\desktop\gauss_white_1”. The “flamer” in the path above is the Windows username that compiled the project. Given the focus on Lebanon, the “white” version identifier can probably be explained as following: “the name Lebanon comes from the Semitic root LBN, meaning “white”, likely a reference to the snow-capped Mount Lebanon.” (Wikipedia)

Code references and encryption subroutines, together with the Command and Control infrastructure make us believe Gauss was created by the same “factory” which produced Flame. This indicates it is most likely a nation-state sponsored operation.

Between Gauss’ functions, the “Winshell.ocx” module which gives the name to the malware as “Gauss”, steals credentials required to access online banking accounts for several Lebanese banks – including the Bank of Beirut, Byblos Bank and Fransabank. This is the first publicly known nation-state sponsored banking Trojan.

Another feature which makes Gauss unique is its encrypted payload, which we haven’t been able to unlock. The payload is run by infected USB sticks and is designed to surgically target a certain system (or systems) which have a specific program installed. One can only speculate on the purpose of this mysterious payload.

The discovery of Gauss indicates that there are probably many other related cyber-espionage malware in operation.

The current tensions in the Middle East are just signs of the intensity of these ongoing cyber-war and cyber-espionage campaigns.

It isn't too hard to guess that some Lebanese banks are probably a major conduit for Westerners to transfer money illicitly to and from Iran. Following the money is a time honored way for spies to find what they are looking for.

It is worth noting that Eugene Kaspersky, founder of Kaspersky Labs which has been discovering a lot of this nation-state malware, has ties to the KGB and has a view of the Internet that is decidedly anti-freedom. Not that his researchers are not doing a good job, but he is a political animal and he will make sure his company only does what his politics allows - and his politics coincides to a great degree with what Russia wants.

Egypt closing up smuggling tunnels, Hamas angry

In reaction to the deadly attack killing 16 Egyptian soldiers on Sunday, the Egyptian government has sent many bulldozers and other large earth-moving machines to close smuggling tunnels going to Gaza, starting with those that are far away from residential areas.

Sinai residents have reported to Ahram Online that heavy machinery of the state-owned Arab Contractors company is being used to destroy tunnels linking Egypt and the besieged Gaza Strip. The destruction of the tunnels is happening under the supervision of Egyptian military forces.

Hamas leader Mahmoud El-Zahar confirmed that the Egyptian military was closing the tunnels and would abort any attempt to build new ones.

Hamas, which was looking forward to Mohamed Morsi add a commercial crossing in Rafah, is upset that he is doing the opposite. Hamas denies that any Gazans were involved in the attack and is calling Egypt's moves "collective punishment."

Opportunistic traders doubled the prices of some smuggled goods within hours of Egypt's starting to close the tunnels. Diesel fuel and construction materials are being affected. Also, medical patients who had been crossing Rafah for treatment are being denied passage.

Hamas is already going on a media offensive about what a hardship this is causing Gazans, as it has in the past to pressure Egypt to increase the amount of electricity it sends to Gaza and to try to get them to open a fuel pipeline in Rafah. But this time the residents of the Sinai are the ones who are protesting against any opening of Gaza, and Morsi will have a hard time keeping his promises to Gaza when he has his own people so angry.

Morsi also seems slightly embarrassed that his Muslim Brotherhood has publicly blamed Israel for the attack, when the Egyptian military is saying otherwise and even admitting that Israel passed intelligence about a possible attack to their Egyptian counterparts. Morsi is also dealing with the embarrassment of not attending the funerals of the dead soldiers, which angered many Egyptians.

Not only that, but there are reports that Morsi is demanding that the Hamas government extradite three suspects in the attack.

Hamas is putting up a front of caring about the soldiers, declaring three days of mourning and hoping that they can gain the sympathy of Egyptians again. But it must also play to appearances to its people, to Fatah and to the larger Arab world. Those are all incompatible now. And blaming Israel is unlikely to work this time.

Any way you look at it, this attack was a game changer for Egypt's relationship with Gaza.

(It will be interesting to see how human rights organizations will try to pin the blame on Israel for Gaza's new shortages.)

Idea (and some text) by Zvi

Springtime! Egypt's Parliament names 50 newspaper editors

From AP:

Egypt's upper house of parliament named 50 new editors for state-owned newspapers on Wednesday, including several who have Islamist leanings, raising concerns among journalists of Islamizing the press.

The state-owned papers, run for years by secular-leaning editors, had a reputation as a mouthpiece for President Hosni Mubarak, who was deposed last year.

Elections following the popular uprising put the Muslim Brotherhood in control of the parliament and the presidency. State-owned media formally belong to the upper house of parliament, the Shura Council, and it was poised to put its stamp on the newspapers.

The Brotherhood and its newly elected president, Mohammed Morsi, have complained about negative press coverage, and the move by the Shura Council to replace the old editors with people more sympathetic to the Islamists was not a surprise.

Several of the new editors named Wednesday appear to be linked to Islamists. Abdel-Nasser Salama, appointed chief editor of Al-Ahram, Egypt's oldest paper, was suspended from writing his weekly column in 2010 for inflammatory articles against Christians.

The new chief editor of Al-Akhbar daily, Mohammed Hassan al-Bana, is the grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood's founder, Hassan al-Bana.

Gamal Abdel-Rahim, new chief editor of el-Gomhouria, was accused by rights groups of inciting Muslims against the Bahai religious minority in 2009, when Muslim villagers attacked houses of Bahais, denouncing them as "enemies of God."

The Shura Council, headed by Ahmed Fahmi, who is Morsi's brother-in-law, formed a committee of 14 members to filter applicants for the editor posts.

The committee comprised six lawmakers, two professors, two administration experts and four journalists. Journalists who favor normalization with Israel or had strong ties with old regime were banned.

Two of the journalists resigned from the committee, voicing suspicions that the filtering process was not transparent and that Islamists were choosing their loyalists.

Isn't Egyptian freedom freaking fantastic?

(h/t @OrenKessler via @WarpedMirrorPMB)

Honor killing after years of abuse

Practically every sentence in this Ma'an article is more outrageous than the one before.

A man is being charged for the murder of his sister, who he is suspected of killing after he was released on bail facing charges of beating her.

Days before the death of Randa al-Mahareq, aged 34, her brother and father were detained after she complained to police that they beat her.

The men, from al-Samu near Hebron, were detained for four days, but a court released them on bail on July 18.

Randa's brother has told south Hebron prosecutor Mohammad Gaboon that on his release he returned home and beat Randa on her face and chest. "She lost her conscious and I left the room at that time," he said.

On July 21, Randa's father took her body to a clinic, where a doctor issued a death certificate.

Suspicions were raised by the family's failure to give Randa a proper funeral, said Atta Jawabra, who works at the family protection unit of Hebron police.

"As a result, we immediately informed Hebron police chief Ramadan Awad, about this matter as it might be a murder," he told Ma'an.

Police exhumed Randa's body on July 23 and a pathologist found seven fractures in her ribs.

Police detained the doctor that had issued Randa's death certificate, and after many hours of questioning the doctor said he issued the certificate without examining the body because Randa's father told him she suffered from epilepsy, the prosecutor in the case said.

Several months before her death, Randa had sought police protection from her father and her brother, said Farid al-Atrash, the regional director of the Independent Commission for Human Rights told Ma'an.

In January, she filed complaints with the family protection unit and at police stations in al-Samu, where she lived, and Yatta, a nearby town. Police made her father sign a "pledge" to stop beating her.

The beatings continued and Randa approached the Independent Commission of Human Rights on Feb. 4.

"We called the family protection department to find her a safe house, but family protection said that her father and brother promised to find her a job," al-Atrash said.

Randa was living with her family after her husband threw her out, Hiyan Qaqour, a lawyer for the Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling told Ma'an.

Aged 28, Randa was forced to marry a 78-year-old man from Beersheba, in Israel, her mother told Ma'an.

They were married for six years and he regularly beat her, the lawyer said. Randa complained to Israeli police, who arrested him. On her husband's release, he sent her back to her family in as-Samu in the southern West Bank, Qaqour added.

The Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling provided Randa legal support to divorce her husband, but the process was complicated by Randa's family's refusal to stand as witnesses in the case.

After four months, her brother finally agreed to stand in court and she was able to get a divorce, the lawyer said.

This is horrifying, even worse than the usual honor killings. Randa did everything she was supposed to and yet the people who should have protected her were the ones who punished her, repeatedly.

(I am also wondering how many other Palestinian Arab girls are forced to marry people in Israel. There is some evidence that there is a conscious decision by some either to try to overwhelm Israel demographically or simply to become Israeli citizens.)

Wednesday links

From Ian:

Scandinavian activists launch new ship to Gaza

Swedish and Norwegian backed 'SV Estelle' set to sail from Oslo to Gaza; organizers hoping more ships will join.
"This time around it will be an easy task for the Israelis to stop us because we will be so few and strictly non-violent," Dahle told Reuters at Oslo harbor.

Is a Palestinian State Today Economically Viable? by Michael Curtis

The Report of the World Bank is a bitter commentary on the Palestinian economy, currently in a self-inflicted decline induced by the violence it brought on itself by launching the Second Intifada in 2000. Above all, the fundamental requisite for economic and political progress is to end the violence.

Radical elements in United Church infected with antisemitism, minister says

“I have wracked my brain trying to understand why Israel gets such a disproportionate measure of our moral criticism,” said Love. “I keep coming back to a very difficult conclusion, and that is that there remains an undercurrent of antisemitism in our church, and that disturbs me.

It’s Official: Genocidal Sudan Running Uncontested for U.N. Human Rights Council Seat

“Electing Sudan to the international community’s highest human body is like putting Jack
the Ripper in charge of a women’s shelter,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

Saudi Olympic Athletes Test Kingdom's Dedication To Gender Apartheid by Qanta Ahmed

Far from revered, the Kingdom’s first female athletes are ignored or insulted at home, writes Qanta Ahmed.
“Her father, a judo referee who said he wanted his daughter to make "new history for Saudi's women," is reportedly incensed at conservative Saudis who showered her with racial slurs on Twitter and called her a “prostitute” for participating.”

MEMRI: Saudi Cleric Sa'd Al-Qa'ub: The CEDAW Agreement Sends Shivers Down Your Spine And Makes Your Hair Stand On End

He's not a a fan of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women: "One of the articles states that when a girl reaches the age of 18, nobody has guardianship over her – not her father, her husband, her brothers, or anyone for that matter. She can act with complete freedom.

’Al-Hayat Al-Jadida' Editor: The PLO's Goals Have Not Changed Since Its Establishment In 1964
Why MEMRI matters

In a perfect world, it would be best to have at our fingertips translations of every article that appears in the foreign press.

Fearing backlash, Morsi skips funerals for slain Egyptian soldiers

Aides advise president to avoid the mob after PM attacked at funeral

Egypt admits it ignored Israeli warnings of attack

Intelligence chief says no action taken because they didn’t believe a Muslim would kill another Muslim during break fast

Guardian: We were wrong to call Tel Aviv Israel’s capital

Terror ring busted after smuggling 21 kg of explosives into Israel for Hezbollah

Sharia4Holland spokesman fined for threatening Geert Wilders

“At an impromptu press conference on Dam square in Amsterdam in May, Ab Qasim, 29, likened Wilders to a Roman dog and warned him to learn the lesson of what happened to Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh was killed by an Islamic militant.”

Headline of the Day: Outraged Lebanese demand end to anal exams on gay men

Israeli Daily Picture Zion Gate in Jerusalem -- More Pictures Uncovered in the Library of Congress Archives

Zion Gate, 1898

Also:
Documentary trailer: "Make Hummus Not War"

A poster from The Israel Project:

The International Federation of Journalists condemns Hamas for meddling in journalists' affairs

Expanded notes and explanations for Richard Landes' WSJ article I posted Monday.

Solomon2 brings us Will Durant, Palestine, 1930

(h/t Rob, Emma, Jean)

24 hours of anti-semitism in Arabic media

Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir says that "The Jewish entity is the crux of the disease and the scourge in the region, and wherever they settle they bring calamities to the nation."

A Salafist group in the northern Sinai said the attack against Egyptian soldiers was a "terrorist act that serves only the Jews."

An article in an Iraqi resistance group newspaper, Al Basrah, says that "Can there be a collapse of the Zionist entity?! Do we have an analysis or a clear vision for it?! Answer: Yes, the Koran tells us that the Jews are cowards and submissive and weak themselves, if they gain strength and dominance and control it is because of external forces...This is how the Koran says to defeat the Jews and their inability to hold power permanently..."

An Egyptian artist expressed sorrow over the killing of the Egyptian soldiers, and cried out, "Oh God, the Jews burned them."

A writer for Al Watan Voice says "the Zionist enemy and his intelligence and his cronies carried out this terrorist act and the evidence of this is the history of the dirty Jews, full of such crimes from the beginning of history; they have been killed Prophets and kill children and the elderly and their assassinations here and there are without any regard for humanity nor of morality."

This Egyptian preacher also blames the Egypt attacks on "the Jews, enemies of Allah."

But the stories aren't all bad. Why, this article in Shorouk News explains that "in the eyes of these Islamists, the Muslims in Egypt who have sold themselves to the West and the United States, and those who sold themselves to the Shiites in Iraq, and also those who sold themselves for Bashar al-Assad in Syria - they are much worse than the Jews and Americans." Meaning that even a relatively sober newspaper that knows that Islamists attacked the Egyptian soldiers accepts as a fact that Jews and Americans are bad, but the Islamists think that some other Muslims are even worse.

All of these stories were published in the past 24 hours.

Egyptian cleric: "People Worldwide 'Thirst for the Blood of the Jews'"

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from two Friday sermons delivered by Egyptian cleric Sallah Sultan, the founder of the Ohio-based American Center for Islamic Research. The sermons aired on Al-Aqsa TV on July 27 and August 3, 2012.

Sallah Sultan: I travel all over the world, and I met supporters of Al-Aqsa, of the prisoners, of Jerusalem, and of Palestine – people who thirst for the blood of the Jews, and who are eager for the promised war against the sons of Zion, until Palestine is liberated in its entirety. .

[...].

Under the previous [Egyptian] regime over 30,000 Zionists entered Egypt every month, defiling its land. The Egyptian police were forced to protect them, while they were getting drunk and picking fights. .

There was a great scandal, when [alleged Israeli spy] Misrati and some Jews entered Egypt, in order to commit all kinds of crimes here: counterfeit dollars, taking photographs of military bases, girls with AIDS seducing young Egyptians in order to infect them, and the vilest act of all – for the price of one Egyptian pound Misrati and his gang would seduce young Egyptian boys from Cairo, Alexandria and Upper Egypt. They took young children who did not know any better and sodomized them. .

Sultan has previously called for Muslims to murder every Israeli who sets foot in Egypt.

And that Jews use Gentile blood for matzoh.

On his website I saw this nice little article about the "divine battle between the believers and the Jews," where we can read that "the entire universe hates Jews."

And this guy founded an Islamic center in Columbus, Ohio - which is considered a tax-deductible charitable organization.