Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, April 26, 2013

Tunisia riled up over Taekwondo match with Israel (update)

The Tunisian public was surprised to hear the news that its national Taekwondo team would participate in a match against the Israeli national team, which is considered a form of normalisation with Israel. This participation has caused the issue of normalisation with Israel to resurface in Tunisia.

Once the news of the match spread, the Tunisian Ministry of Youth and Sports immediately expressed its condemnation of the national Tunisian Taekwondo team's participation in the international championship with Israel and described the participation as "a mockery."

In a statement aired by the official Tunisian radio station on Sunday, the Tunisian ministry said that it opened an immediate investigation of the "participation of members of the national Taekwondo team in an international championship in Belgium who are competing against Israel without prior discussion with the Supervising Authority."

It also explained in its statement that this investigation "aims to find out reasons for this participation" described as a "mockery."

The Tunisian Taekwondo Federation called for "immediate discontinuation of the activities of those causing this mockery - including the technical and administrative members accompanying the Tunisian delegation - until the investigation is over and accountability is established."

The Tunisian Taekwondo team has participated in the Belgian Open with Israel in the past, where some members of the Tunisian team competed against Israelis, which angered former coach of the Tunisian national Taekwondo team, Murad Al-Souli, who spoke out against what he considered "normalisation with Israel."

Al-Souli expressed his anger over this participation, pointing out that the Tunisian team has never participated in any match with Israel. He held the Tunisian Taekwondo Federation responsible for this, as well as the head of the Tunisian delegation participating in this championship.

In addition to this, activists on social media networks launched a campaign against the temporary Tunisian government, accusing it of normalisation with Israel. This explains the statement mentioned earlier by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, an effort to tone down this anger.

One coach, trying to avoid being lynched upon his return, claimed that one of the athletes didn't know he was competing against an Israeli.

UPDATE: Zvi adds:

It is time for global sporting federations to stop treating this disgusting behavior as normal behavior and to start censuring and expelling member organizations that refuse to participate in international competition against other countries.

The US and the USSR had no problem with competing against each other in sports for decades, even when they were aiming massive arsenals of nuclear weapons against each other and attempting to destroy each other through overt and covert means.

The behavior of the Arab sporting federations with regard to Israel is disgusting, the kind of behavior in which poor losers and small-minded bigots engage.

Israel, on the other hand, is happy to participate in sporting events anywhere and to compete against other countries - even ones that seek to destroy it - because international sporting and culture are supposed to be above politics in our global athletics system. Israel's stance is the stance that the nations of the world have embraced - all but a few regimes run by small-minded bigots.

Israel embodies the ideal of all sporting federations. Her enemies embody the antithesis of these ideals. This should be highlighted EVERY time one of these stories arises.

This week's Egyptian Muslim attack on a church

Seems to happen a lot, doesn't it?

Ahram Arabic website reported that clashes broke out between protesters and security forces at Saint George's Church in Beni Suef, with eight people injured and 11 arrested.

Angry Muslim protesters attempted to storm Saint George’s Church in Al-Wasata city in the governorate of Beni Suef on Friday.

Tensions erupted in the city recently after reports that a 21-year-old Muslim girl had disappeared, with her family accusing a Christian family in the city of forcing her to convert to Christianity and facilitating her travel to Turkey with a Coptic Christian man.

Local Islamist groups had given the Christian family a deadline to return the girl, which expired on Friday, reported Ahram's Arabic language website.

Security forces fired teargas grenades at angry protesters, who attempted to storm the church following the Friday Muslim prayer, and arrested five people for throwing Molotov cocktails at the church.

Security vehicles and forces are reportedly surrounding churches in the city.

A number of traders have already closed their shops, particularly Christian jewelers who fear they will be targets.

It's remarkable that so many Copts haven't fled yet.

Iranian terrorist in Bangkok claims he was "stunned" to find bombs in his cupboard

Remember the three Iranian men found last year to be targeting Israeli diplomats using identical magnetic devices as the New Delhi attack?

One of them - who actually threw one of the bombs at police - claims it is all just a huge, huge misunderstanding:

An Iranian man whose legs were blown off during an alleged botched bomb plot last year against Israeli diplomats in Bangkok said Friday he found the explosives and was trying to dispose of them safely when they detonated.

Saeid Moradi, 29, told a Bangkok court that he was about to leave Thailand when he found four bombs hidden inside radios in a cupboard at a rented house in the city.

Two of the devices exploded as he ran into the street to throw them into a nearby canal -- the second tearing off his legs, he said.

Moradi and Mohammad Khazaei, 42, are among five Iranians suspected of involvement in the February 2012 blasts that followed attacks in India and Georgia and saw Tehran accused by Israel of a terror campaign.

Giving his evidence first, the younger defendant said he accidentally triggered one of the bombs when he opened a cupboard in the apartment.

“I was stunned and threw it into the corner, believing it was a smoke bomb,” the wheelchair-bound suspect said via a translator, adding he grabbed two other bombs and ran outside to throw them into a nearby canal.

He did not refer to the fourth device.

Prosecutors accuse Moradi of hurling one bomb at a taxi and a second at two police officers as they approached him on the street, but it instead detonated near the suspect.

The defendant gave a different version of events saying he dropped one of the devices near the taxi by mistake, and tried to throw the other away as the policemen approached fearing it would detonate and hurt them.

“I knew if the police stopped me I’d have to drop the bomb which may have endangered them and people nearby.

“So I threw it about a metre in front of me,” he said, adding he blacked out and woke up at hospital later to find his legs had been torn off in the blast.

He just innocently tried to dispose of the four bombs, that mysteriously popped up in his apartment for no apparent reason, in three different spots.

Of course, finding four bombs in your apartment is not a reason to run outside and call the police.

He was instead being a hero, trying to save lives, by disposing the bombs himself - throwing one towards, but not of course at, the police.

I can't wait for the testimony of his roommates. What are the odds that they blame the Mossad for planting the bombs?

Friday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian Journalists Declare War On Israeli Colleagues

If Palestinian journalists have been so radicalized that some are even willing to resort to threats and violence against colleagues, what must one say about the rest of the Palestinians who, for the past two decades, have also been exposed to messages of hate by their leaders?
How can anyone talk about resuming the peace process when Palestinians are being told by their leaders, on a daily basis, how bad and evil Israel is? If Israel is so bad and evil, then how can any leader go to his people and say that he is negotiating with them?

Imagine: a Boston bombing every week

I genuinely empathize with the victims of the Boston bombing. They were killed, maimed, injured, and/or forever traumatized only because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As they gathered to compete in or watch the marathon underway, they were – like all terrorism victims – the epitome of innocent.
But imagine if this happened again next week, at a pizzeria, killing 15 diners. And again, a week later, on a bus, killing 19 passengers. Then, at a discotheque, killing 21 teens. Then, at a church, killing 11 worshipers. And so on, with a new bombing terrorizing us almost every week.

Boston or Jerusalem, terrorism is terrorism

It is important to understand that terrorism is terrorism. It is simply never justifiable. Whether committed by al-Qaeda, Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah or Ansar al Islam, once someone starts talking about "understanding the root cause," it provides them with a rationale and opens the door for more of these heinous acts against free people, anywhere around the globe.

Playing the Nihilists

“Public intellectual” seems a needlessly complicated term. Isn’t “intellectual” already enough of a slur without “public” adding the suggestion of filthy municipal toilets and inefficient mass transport?
Then again, that’s the role of your modern intellectual: to take something reasonably straightforward and render it incomprehensible. Here’s public intellectual Juan Cole, for example, on the simple matter of two stupid Boston bombers:

Hamas Slams PA for Postponing Anti-Israel Resolutions

Gaza’s Hamas terrorist rulers condemned on Thursday a decision by the Palestinian Authority to postpone five UNESCO resolutions against Israel.
"This step is like a reward to the occupation for its crimes and violations," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in a statement quoted by the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency.

EU Parliament Iran Visit Under Fire For Not Including Meeting with Human Rights Winners

By removing the requirement to meet with the winners, the European Parliament is “completely undermining the powerful human rights message that the award sent to Iran’s oppressive, internationally isolated leadership,” Schwammenthal added.

IDF shoots down drone near Haifa; Hezbollah denies involvement

Israeli officials maintain UAV likely sent by Lebanese terror group; ‘attempt to violate our border’ is grave, says Netanyahu, whose helicopter was forced to make emergency landing during incident

Analysis: Hezbollah drone a publicity stunt

Hezbollah’s attempt – likely Iranian-backed – to fly a drone into Israeli air space on Thursday is a dangerous publicity stunt designed to distract attention from its large-scale and bloody involvement in the Syrian civil war.

Lebanese Youth Sign Up for 'Jihad' Against Hizbullah

Lebanese youth have begun to sign up for “armed Jihad in Syria” against Hizbullah terrorists helping Assad.

‘Jordan king may be next casualty of Syrian war’

On eve of Abdullah II’s talks with Obama, Senator Lindsey Graham says monarch may fall unless conflict on his northern border is contained

NY Judge Rules: Jordanian Bank Can Face Trial Over Terrorism

The victims claim in their lawsuit that the Amman-based Arab Bank “knowingly and purposefully supported” foreign terrorist organizations from 1995 to 2004 by providing financial support to terrorists, including administering payments to the families of Palestinian Authority Arab suicide bombers.

“Manchester Guardian Demands an Independent Jewish State in Palestine”

Remarkably, given the ideological bent of the institution today, there was a time when the Guardian was genuinely concerned over the possibility that ‘only’ a truncated Jewish state would emerge – one which would represent a mere fraction of the original territory legally assigned to it under the Mandate for Palestine.
My, how their moral sympathies have shifted.

BDS Condolence Cards

A few months ago, I created a series of "condolence cards" for BDS advocates for the many times Israel shows how utterly ineffective they are. They have been popular on Twitter.

I can't believe I never posted them here before....

UPDATE: It seems I did post the first two in context of different stories.

This is what happens when you approach being 2,000 years old.

In order to make up for it, here is a new one I just created:

Worries of Salafi attack at annual Jewish pilgrimage to Tunisia synagogue

From ANSAmed:

A Jewish pilgrimage this weekend to the most ancient synagogue in Africa will take place under huge police presence amidst fears of a Salafist attack. A little under 1000 Jews are arriving at the so called "island of dreams" on Djerba ahead of the pilgrimage on 26 - 28th April to the El Ghriba synagogue, Tunisia's most ancient Jewish site, and the scene of a 2002 suicide attack by Al Qaeda in which 21 people were killed when a bus full of explosives detonated against its walls. The synagogue, which is located in the Jewish village of Hara Seghira, or 'Er-Riadh', dates back to 586 BC and is revered for the chanting of the Torah which resonates from its walls. This peaceful and meditative place is a symbol to Tunisia's Jewish community, who, until yesterday, had been fully tolerated and fully integrated into Tunisian society. But today's pilgrims will make the visit under a shadow of fear as the threat of attack from certain Salafist elements threatens to cancel out what until now has been a peaceful co-existence.

Hundreds of armed officers are lining the entrance to the island as well as in the traditional sites where pilgrims gather for prayers. Most of the 2000 strong Jewish community - the biggest in the country, lives in Arryadh, where the synagogue is located, and the Tunisian government is determined not to be caught off guard by any potential Salafist trouble.

At a demonstration on January 14 last year to mark Ben Ali's escape, Salafist groups shouted at their Jewish neighbours, and threatened to attack them in their homes. Tunisian Salafists make no distinction between Jews and Zionists and Jewish community leaders are hard pressed to drive home the idea that they are first and foremost Tunisians - by many generations, and only second Israelites. In a bid to cut risk security forces have carried out a "clean sweep", arresting nearly 500 people in the last few weeks.

Hezbollah's Al Manar points to the security measures as proof that Arabs are only against Zionism. not Jews. They don't quite mention how the Al Qaeda attack against the synagogue fits in with that alleged tolerance.

Or how this Hassan Nasrallah's quote fits in with that tolerance as well:

If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli. (New Yorker, Oct. 14, 2002)

Or how Hezbollah's deadly attack on the Jewish center in Buenos Aries fits in with that famous Muslim tolerance.

1944 Jewish Agency letter to Britain describing death camps in detail

The Guardian has an article about newly released archives describing how the British predicted in 1948 the Jews would win any war, and many other details.

Being the Guardian, it is spinning things to make the Jews look as evil as possible, and I cannot compare the Guardian's reporting with the actual documents yet because they do not seem to be available on the British National Archives website.

But while I was looking, I came across this:

As we all know, the British did nothing with this information to save the remainder of Europe's Jews.

That antipathy seems to have spilled over into the more recently released archives, based on the new report.

Hopefully we will be able to check it out soon rather than trust a newspaper that can be relied upon to always put on an anti-Zionist spin on history.

Absolut Tel Aviv

From YNet:

Tel Aviv is becoming part of the desired list of cities who have got their own special Absolut Vodka bottle.

The Absolut Tel Aviv bottle is being released as part of the Absolut Blank series designed by artist Nir Peled, who uses the professional name Pilpeled.

Pilpeled joins a long and distinguished list of artists from all over the world who have designed posters and other items for the Swedish vodka brand, including Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and others.

The bottle, which is being released in a limited edition of 150,000 units, commemorates Tel Aviv's ficus tree boulevards. It serves as a tribute to nights filled with vodka and alcohol in the city, which is associated - internationally as well – with the club and nightlife culture.

Here's a detail of the bottle design.

Muslim cleric says Jews behind French Revolution. Plus - EoZ business card!

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from a religious program featuring Egyptian cleric Sayyed Azab, which aired on Al-Omma TV on April 18, 2013:

Sayyed Azab: The Jews wanted to corrupt the world. They staged what is known as the French Revolution, establishing the world’s first republican regime. They wanted such regimes to protect them. They based the revolution on so-called freedom, fraternity, and equality, regardless of religion, race, gender, or language. Then they made themselves superior, and whenever anyone dares to criticize them, they raise hell, accusing him of being an antisemite.

They established the first republican regime, in order to leave the ghetto, or the Jewish neighborhood. The people suffered so much from the evil of the Jews that they confined them to designated neighborhoods, called ghettos, which they were not allowed to leave. They prevented them from marrying non-Jews. They confined the Jews to specific quarters, and prevented them from running in elections or doing anything, because they knew how dangerous and scheming the Jews are.

So the Jews carried out what is known as the French Revolution, in order to crawl out of the woodwork, and to practice their scheming in public, so that they could take over the world. After staging the French Revolution, the slogan of which was “Hang the last priest by the intestines of the last king,” they discovered that they had not accomplished their goal.

All this was not enough to corrupt the world and take control of it. So they carried out what is known as the Communist Revolution. Marx the Jew, the founder of the Communist theory, and Friedrich Engels, the philosopher of the revolution… The revolution was staged by Lenin, who was also a Jew. This entire revolution was carried out by the Jews. This is how they wanted to spread atheism throughout the world. Leon Trotsky the Jew established what was known as the Soviet Red Army, which brought catastrophes upon the Muslims, killing millions of them.

All these Jews wanted to spread atheism and to corrupt people.

And he is absolutely right, although Jews have been controlling the world from way before the French Revolution. My limited edition business card, which is a prized collectible item, admits the truth.

If you want your own limited edition and signed EoZ business card, just donate $200! (Hey, it can't hurt to ask...)

Thursday Links Part 2

From Ian:

Elie Wiesel, history's witness

His impassioned writing and speaking have won him a Nobel Peace Prize, and a large place in the public intellectual discourse about the Holocaust and the human condition.

Muslim Arab Bedouins serve as Jewish state’s gatekeepers

[Lt. Col.] Mazarib is a Bedouin, a Muslim Arab who grew up in northern Israel, intimate with its green, hilly landscape from an early age.
“This is our country,” he states simply in perfect Hebrew with a light Arabic accent. And its Jewish symbols, such as the Star of David or the theme of the national anthem, do not perturb Mazarib. “The flag of England also has a cross on it, and the Jews there are fine with it,” he says during a tour of the Bedouin Heritage Centre which houses a memorial to the 182 Bedouin killed fighting for Israel. (h/t Zvi)

IDF Chief Gantz to Druze Community: We Are Brothers in Arms

Israel’s Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, sent a letter to Israel’s Druze community Wednesday in honor of the Druze holiday of Nabi Shu’aib, a celebration of the Islamic prophet Shu’aib. In the letter, Gantz praised the Druze community’s long-standing commitment to the State of Israel’s security.

BBC recognizes that the Mavi Marmara was not an “aid ship”

Whilst additional amendments would have contributed to bringing this report and others into line with the standards of accuracy demanded by the BBC Editorial Guidelines, this is nevertheless a (small) step in the right direction.

BBC promotion of PA narrative on Jewish heritage sites

By lending oxygen to the long-existing Palestinian Authority campaign to distort history and deny Jewish connections to what objectively (whatever one’s opinions of the desired form a negotiated settlement to the conflict should take) cannot be seen as anything other than a geographical area steeped in Jewish heritage, Berg is severely compromising the BBC’s reputation for impartiality.

New App Warns Drivers: Arab Mob Ahead

Only in Israel: a new app for android phones lets drivers know if they are about to drive into a mob of Arabs armed with firebombs and rocks.
Such ambushes have killed and maimed many Israelis over the years, including a baby girl, Adelle Biton, who has been barely clinging to life in the Schneider Children's Hospital since last month.

Tunisia ups security ahead of annual Jewish pilgrimage

Visitors to arrive Thursday at 2,500-year-old El Ghriba synagogue on Djerba Island; in 2002 a terrorist bomb killed 21 at the site

Thailand Seeks Israeli Security Solutions

A group of 33 Thai Members of Parliament are in Israel Wednesday to learn about Israeli defense systems for use in Thailand.
The MPs’ visit is intended to lay a framework for trade in defense and security equipment between Israeli companies and Thailand.

Israeli ‘smell technology’ bans bugs from food, crops

It’s not just the ick factor: Insects are responsible for a great deal of economic damage. According to the United Nations, between 5 and 10 percent of the world’s post-harvest produce was rendered unusable last year due to insect infestation. That’s on top of as much as 15% of crops lost due to destruction by insects out in the field.

Top Azeri Diplomat Praises Ties With Israel on First-Ever Visit

Mammadyarov, Azerbaijan’s first foreign minister to visit Israel, met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres and other Israeli officials during his April 21-23 trip, saying the visit will help expand ties further, his office said today by e-mail.
The visit marks a turning point in Azerbaijan’s relations with Israel after the former Soviet republic has in the past refrained from high-level visits under Iranian pressure. (h/t Zvi)

Israeli biotech company sold for $480 million

OPKO Health Inc. chairman Dr. Phillip Frost: "Prolor's drug-product candidates for growth hormone deficiency, hemophilia, obesity and diabetes ... are highly valuable assets that will complement OPKO's strategy."

"Shiites even worse than the Jews!"

I have noticed a recurring theme in Egyptian media over the past several weeks. In at least five separate instances, religious and other officials have declared that Shiites, and sometimes Iranians, are at least as bad as Jews are.

Al Mesryoon on April 5 quoted Sheikh Mohamed Alaa El Din Abu Azaim as saying that Egypt needs to cut Egyptian-Iranian relations, because "they are more dangerous than the Jews" - he is worried that Iranian tourists will try to convert Egyptians to Shiism.

Al Mogaz on that same date reported that the Suez Bar Association said something similar, warning of the spread of Iranian tourism in Egypt and spread of Shi'ism Egyptian society. They added that these Iranians "represent a more serious risk to Islam than from the Jews themselves," saying that they did not want the tourism money that they bring in.

Al Mesryoon revisited the topic on April 13, quoting Salafi spokesman Sheikh Abdel Moneim El-Shahat, of warning President Morsi not to allow Shiites into Egypt, saying - again - that the Shiites are more dangerous to Egypt than the Jews themselves because they want to spread their ideology in Egypt. He pointed out that the function of the state in protecting religion "does not extend to Shiites whose hands are stained with the blood of innocent people."

Yet another article in Al Mesryoon, an op-ed on April 18, attempts to draw comparisons between how disgusting the Shiites are to how terrible the Jews are. He points out that the Jews sway during prayer, as well as the Shiites. The Jews like shedding blood of every Muslim, and so do Shiites. Jews distorted the Torah; Shiites distorted the Koran. Jews and Shiites both hate the angel Jibril (Gabriel.) (There are a few others that I didn't quite get, something about women and another about kissing, that apparently Jews and Shiites have in common.

Finally, in Wednesday's Masrawy, Sharif Taha, Secretary of the Nour Party in Dakahlia province, said that the Shiites are worse than Jews as they are more bloodthirsty and filled with malice to Sunnis. He also said that both Jews and Shiites engage in "intellectual terrorism."

How Muslims persecuted the Jews of Shiraz (Persia), 1893

You know how Iranians like to pretend that they have always treated their Jewish subjects with respect?

Well, not so much.

From "Jewish Missionary Intelligence," July, 1893:

Shiraz has the largest Jewish population in the south. Their number is 5,000, and they occupy 430 houses in their own quarter, called Mahale Yahoodian i.e., "the quarter of the Jews." They have ten large synagogues, two chief Rabbis, and five schools, where the children study Hebrew. No one knows the Talmud except the Rabbis. They read Hebrew in order to be able to say their prayers in the synagogue. Not one Jew in Shiraz can read the Persian language, or speak it properly. They speak a jargon Persian, quite different from the Jews of other parts of Persia.

All the Jews are very anxious to have a proper school in which to learn the Persian and European languages. By occupation they are goldsmiths and silversmiths, and have their shops on the back streets of the Mohammedan quarter. There are a good many petty merchants, who go to Fessa and Jahroom to buy opium, and return to Shiraz where they sell it to the Mohammedans on credit.

...Nowhere in Persia are the Jews so badly persecuted as in Shiraz. The chief Mollah has promulgated the following laws with regards to them:

1st. "They must not wear ordinary clothes like the Mohammedans." This law is carried to such an extent that no Jew dare put on a black hat like the Moslems.

2nd. "The Jews must not ride on horse, mule, or donkey to the towns." (I did not see one Jew acting contrary to this law.)

3rd. "A pervert to the Mohammedan religion has a right to claim the whole property of his deceased relative." At the present time the perverts have not so much power as before, and dare not claim the whole of the property, but they trouble their relatives, and get about 500 kerans from them, and then leave them in peace.

4th. "If a Mohammedan is in debt to a Jew, the Jew must not force him to pay, but the Moslem may pay his debt at his own pleasure; but if a Jew owes to a Mohammedan he must pay him on the first notice."

5th "If a Mollah or priest beats a Jew in the street or abuses him, that Jew must not return the abuse, but must pass on quietly."

These laws are in some respects similar to those enacted by the Mollahs of Ispahan for the Jews of that town. (See Jewish Intelligence, November, 1889, page 116.) About six years ago, when Prince Zel-El Sultan was the Chief Governor of the whole of the South of Persia, he ordered the Chief Mollah of Shiraz to be brought to Ispahan, because he used to trouble the Jews. He obeyed the order, and come to Ispahan, where he was kept until June, 1888, when the Prince was deposed. He then returned to Shiraz^ and commenced his enmity against the Jews.