Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 29, 2013

7/29 Links Part 1: Peace Talks Roundup

From Ian:

Israel should not have to foot the bill for the failure of the Palestinian leadership to prepare its people for peace with the Jewish state. And no Israeli who has already experienced the unfathomable pain of knowing that another person intentionally killed a loved one should be forced to endure the additional torture of seeing that murderer go free in exchange for the dubious prospect of a renewed peace process.
What’s more, by caving in to the Palestinian demand to pardon terrorists convicted of murdering innocent civilians, Israel blurs the clear differentiation that must be made between legitimate political activity used by Palestinians in pursuit of self-determination and the illegitimate use of terrorism to further their political goals.

Can Netanyahu go all the way in peace talks? And does it matter?

There is ample reason to believe that the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, getting underway Monday in Washington, will end in failure, well before the nine months slated for them are up.
But analysts say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on going into talks and seeking to reach a deal, bluff or not, may well leave Israel in a commanding position if the negotiations do indeed fail.
Conventional wisdom says that the “direct final status negotiations,” as they are referred to by the US State Department, are doomed to fall apart because the maximum Netanyahu can offer is far less than Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas can accept.

Releasing terrorists is obscene

We are constantly told that: “One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter”. It may have become a moral relativist mantra, but that doesn’t make it true. On the contrary, it is a fallacy designed to whitewash atrocities. A terrorist is a terrorist, is a terrorist. Mohammed Atta, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Adam Ibrahim Juma are terrorists by anyone’s standards, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion or politics. If indeed there are those that consider them “freedom fighters” – then they are themselves criminal minds.
The very notion of Palestinian preconditions before even reaching the negotiating table, to enter a process in which they would be the potential beneficiaries – is utterly absurd. But when it involves the release of some of the most vicious terrorists of our time, it becomes obscene. And that obscenity has been made possible by none other then the US Secretary of State.

Shin Bet Head Warned Ministers: Don't Release Terrorists

Cohen explained that the release of terrorist prisoners would diminish security “both in the immediate threat to the public, and because of the erosion in deterrence.”
"The chance that the prisoners will go back to terrorism is relatively large,” he said. Experience shows that as the years pass from the terrorists' release, they tend to go back to the activity that landed them in jail, he added.

Netanyahu Said: Freeing Terrorists Strengthens Terror

"The government decided to release terrorists and I ask, why? In return for what? What have we received? This crossing of a line, of releasing murderers, is dangerous in the struggle against terror."
These words were spoken just five years ago, when the Kadima government released 200 terrorists as a “gesture” to Mahmoud Abbas. Only two of those had blood on their hands.

MK: Let's Just Shut Down Shin Bet

In a Knesset debate on the budget, MK Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) expressed her frustration with the government's decision to release terrorist murderers, by proposing that the budget for the Shin Bet intelligence services, and military courts be slashed, alleging that they are unnecessary anyway.

Terrorist to be Released: There Will be More Intifadas

"As long as there is no political horizon there will be a third, fourth, fifth and sixth intifada," declared the terrorist, Nasser Abu Srour, who was interviewed by Channel 2 News as part of a special project which showed the excellent treatment of terrorist prisoners by Israel.
Abu Srour, who murdered Shin Bet agent Chaim Nachmani in 1993, told the channel, “"I was a soldier in the army of Palestine. What do soldiers do? Fight.”

While Abbas Talks 'Peace,' PA TV Continues Hate Broadcasts

As Israel and the Palestinian Authority prepare to sit down yet again for another round of talks, PA television has been broadcasting the latest in its long string of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic programs and songs.
In a “music video” first released in 2011 and re-released over the past several days, and monitored by Palestinian Media Watch, Israel is called “the snake's head” which needs to be crushed by Arab rifles. It comes only days after another PA program honored arch-terrorist Abdallah Barghouti for his role in the murder of 61 Israelis in a string of atrocities.

Cabinet approves referendum bill on relinquishing territory

The cabinet approved on Sunday a bill that requires a public referendum on any future peace deal with the Palestinians that would have Israel give up sovereign territory.
The bill covers all of Israel, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem, but does not relate to the West Bank, which was never annexed by Israel.

Report: Palestinians claim Kerry vowed to reject Israeli bid for interim deal

According to Al-Hayat, Kerry promised PA President Mahmoud Abbas that Washington would oppose any Israeli attempt to avoid a final-status deal in favor of an interim arrangement. The senior Palestinian official was also quoted as saying that Ramallah would initially aim to come to agreement with Israel on the contours of a Palestinian state.

Indyk to be named head US negotiator, says report

Martin Indyk is expected to be named the head of the American delegation to peace talks between Israel and Palestinians, possibly as early as Monday, a US source familiar with the matter has said.
The source, cited by Reuters, confirmed rumors floated early last week regarding the two-time US ambassador to Israel. Indyk, born in London and educated in Australia, currently serves as the director of foreign policy for the Brookings Institution, an influential DC-based think tank.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Iran Enters the Peace Process

With the support of Iran, Hamas will step up its efforts to foil any attempt by the Palestinian Authority to regain control over the Gaza Strip. And with Iran's backing, Hamas and other Palestinian groups will do their utmost to foil any attempt to achieve peace between the Palestinians and Israel.
Some Palestinian Authority officials expressed fear that Hamas, on instructions from Tehran, would try to initiate a confrontation with Israel in an attempt to embarrass Abbas and thwart US Secretary of State John Kerry's effort to resume the peace negotiations.

BBC misrepresentation of Resolution 242

There are many other examples which also clarify the fact that the wording of resolution 242 was in fact deliberately very precise and intended. It is therefore unfitting that the BBC should chose to misrepresent it in this disingenuous manner and the fact that it does so clearly contravenes BBC guidelines on accuracy and impartiality as well as deliberately misleading BBC audiences.

Christian Israel-Backers Blast Obama on Peace

Christian evangelical supporters of Israel sent a strong message of opposition to President Obama on Iran and the renewal of Mideast peace talks as they convened last night for their annual Washington conference.
A series of speakers who took the stage at the conference, which hosted 4,200 members of Christians United for Israel from across the nation, stressed Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran by taking military action and spoke out against attempts to force Israel to accept a peace plan based on the 1967 borders.

PLO negotiator openly calls for destruction of Israel

Aussie Dave at Israellycool notes the cover photo on the Facebook page of Dr. Mohammad Shtayyeh, one of the major PLO negotiators in Washington today to kick off "peace" talks.

Yes, that is a map of all of British Mandate Palestine, filled with Arabic, and no room for a Jewish state.

Yet even though his goals are exactly the same as the goals of Hamas, he is being honored and respected as a moderate peacemaker.

His page also features this:

Islamists force Jews off of the Temple Mount

According to Arabic media, an Arab mob forced a group of Jews, led by Yehuda Glick, off of the Temple Mount on Sunday.

The videos posted that document this are unclear; they appear to be mostly taken after the Jews left:

The articles say that the existence of Jews on the Temple Mount "provoked the feelings" of the Muslims.

To give you an idea of how much of an "extremist" Glick is....

Here is a video of Yehuda Glick on an Muslim TV show saying that Judaism has a lot in common with Islam and that he wants to share the Temple Mount in peace with Muslims. He even quotes Koranic verses in Arabic.

Report: Rami Hamdallah apologized for his resignation as PA PM

Remember Rami Hamdallah, the appointed prime minister of the Palestinian Authority who resigned only two weeks into his term?

As a reminder, here are the two tweets he sent out in that position:

Al Quds al Arabi is reporting that Hamdallah has apologized for his hasty resignation, and Abbas is considering allowing him to continue on as prime minister.

I believe that he has been the caretaker prime minister since his early resignation, meaning he has been a caretaker PM far longer than he was actual PM.

Meanwhile, the last prime minister, Salam Fayyad, has been active on Facebook, acting as if he is not out of politics at all.

Hamas forges letters from Fatah (update)

Hamas claims to have gotten copies of letters from Fatah and the PLO, allegedly proving that they are behind the incitement against Hamas in Egypt.

I found a high resolution version of one of the letters, and it is obviously fake. And this is clear even without understanding the Arabic.

There is a handwritten signature on this letter - but the rest of the letter itself could not have been scanned. It is way too perfect, especially when zoomed in.

Scans always leave artifacts, whether the text is slightly skewed, or dust on the scanner, or cracks in the toner on the dark parts, or something. Here we cannot even see the edges of the paper.

Some Hamas member got a copy of the signature of some Fatah member as well as letterhead, and simply Photoshopped them around a letter that could say whatever the accuser wants it to say.

In other words, this letter cannot possibly prove anything.

Again, here is another indication that Hamas is running scared with the loss of its Muslim Brotherhood patron, and its increasingly hysterical attempts to blame its problems on its enemies.

UPDATE: Fatah responded also by saying they are forgeries - and points out that even the letterhead shown above is a forgery. While in English it says "Foreign Relations Commission" the Arabic says "Arabic Media Commission."

Egyptian MB leader says Jews behind all anti-Islamist actions worldwide

I gotta admit, I enjoy seeing these people freak out.

Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie accused Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of carrying out massacres "only likened by those carried out by enemy Zionists and their treacherous agents."

In a message addressed to Sisi on Sunday, Badie said that Sisi is even worse than the Pharaoh who used to kill the children of the believers and let the women live. "You and your soldiers are worse, you kill everybody," he said.

...Badie also said that the current regime with its security, military, judicial, and media tools twists the truth such that communications with Gaza are portrayed a crime while communications with the Zionist enemy are considered an honor.

Badie accused "Zionist fingers" of meddling in the affairs of the Arab Spring countries the same way they are present in Egypt in order to build a Greater Israel.

He added that the Zionists have killers in Libya and Tunisia assassinate political activists opposed to the Islamist current to pave the way for the removal of Islamists from power.

Badie has no idea how deep the conspiracy goes.

After all, in Jew-owned Hollywood, movies are sent worldwide with Western/Zionist ideas of who is a good guy and who is a bad guy.

Someone named "Badie" never had a chance.

Some EoZ site debugging and other administrivia

The EoZ website was getting worse and worse. Page-load times were horrendously slow and, most recently, Internet Explorer users could no longer comment using Disqus.

A lot of junk scripts accumulated over the years on the page, and I was not able to successfully excise them to figure out what was causing the problems.

Therefore, today, I started from scratch, keeping the basic design but building it from the ground up.

So far, it appears (using most of the online speed test sites) that things are much faster than they were, and IE comments seem to work again.

Unfortunately, I decided to let SpongeBob go. I know a lot of people loved him but he was (along with the blog name itself) an impediment to people taking the blog seriously.Yes, that was the point of using him to begin with, but he outlived his usefulness.

Let me know how the site is working for you, or if something is broken (or missing).

In other EoZ news, I am going on a business trip this week to a certain Nevada city known for gambling, drinking and debauchery. So blog posts will be more sporadic, and possibly unintelligible. I imagine there will be some open threads rearing their ugly heads as well.

Gaza exports potatoes to Jordan via Israel

PalPress and COGAT report that two truckloads of potatoes, weighing 34 tons, were exported from Gaza to Jordan this morning.

Some 330 truckloads of goods also entered Gaza via Kerem Shalom this morning.

Although I saw a small shipment of gravel last week from Egypt to Gaza, I have not seen any exports from Gaza into Egypt.

Must be because of that Israeli siege.

7/28 Links: PA TV - Female terrorists Are Role Models, Another Mysterious Airstrike in Syria

From Ian:

Another peace process charade

The major changes in our region -- in Egypt, Syria and in Iran -- not only place challenges before the State of Israel but they also create considerable opportunities for us."
The prime minister's language is worth noting, particularly the phrase "exhaust the chance of ending the conflict with the Palestinians." Does this suggest that when 9 months are up and another stalemate has been achieved, that Israel will resist further American pressure to continue the futility?
There is another way to read the time horizon for the effort. It may be that during the upcoming 9 months, perhaps in the first few months of the process, that Israel alone, or Israel and the United States will take military action or other action required to shut down Iran's nuclear program. The peace talks with the Palestinians may also be the smokescreen needed to insulate Israel from any major international condemnations, if it moves unilaterally (wink, wink first to the Americans ) against Iran.

On the Release List: Terrorists who Murdered Children

On the list are Mahmoud Salam Saliman Abu Harabish and Adam Ibrahim Juma'a-Juma'a, who in 1988 murdered 26-year-old schoolteacher Rachel Weiss, her three young children, and a young soldier. The two hurled firebombs at a civilian bus, sending it up in flames; Weiss and her children ages 3, 2 and 9 months were unable to escape.
Soldier David Delarosa died trying to save them.
Also on the list is the terrorist who committed a similar murder the year before. The 1987 firebomb attack on a family car killed pregnant Ofra Moses and her young son Tal Moses. Father Abie Moses and three other young children were badly burned but survived.

‘Why Hunt Down German Nazis, but Release Muslim Nazis?’

Twenty-two years ago Rabbi Eliezer Weiss lost his wife Rachel and their three young sons in a brutal terrorist attack. The four burned to death in a bus targeted in a firebomb attack.
On Sunday morning, Rabbi Weiss learned that his children’s murderers are expected to go free in a mass terrorist release. The government is planning to free over 100 terrorists, several of them murderers, in a “gesture” to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

MKs: Has America Ever Freed Murderers?

“It isn’t moral to release murderers. It isn’t safe to release murderers… Has the United States ever released murderers as a concession to terrorism?” asked MK Motti Yogev (Bayit Yehudi).
“The United States hasn’t even freed Jonathan Pollard, after he served his sentence and has been in prison for more than 28 years,” he noted.
“Negotiations based on releasing killers have nothing to do with peace, or security, or morality, or truth,” Yogev warned.

PMW: Female terrorists Dalal Mughrabi, Wafa Idris, and others are role models for students, on PA TV

NGO Monitor: The EU's closed feedback loop

These same organizations work to undermine Israel's relations with the rest of the world. They want to force their agenda on the Israeli public. Any issue related to the conflict is oversimplified and used to vilify Israel. Under these absurd circumstances, senior European officials are fed unreliable, inaccurate and distorted information from organizations that they themselves fund (under the pretense that they represent Israeli "civil society"). On the basis of these falsehoods, they criticize Israel and make policy decisions that are disconnected from reality. It is a closed feedback loop that turns Europe's decision-making process into a failure. It prevents educated discussion and raises the question of whether it is appropriate for political NGOs and European governments to influence the Israeli and Palestinian publics.

Erasing Jewish Jerusalem from Apple maps

Although this city was developed after 1967, much of the land was bought by Jews in the 1930s. On the basis of Jordan's illegal occupation of this land during 1948-67 the 'international community' regards it as 'occupied territory' even though it did not belong to any state. Any rational person who has actually travelled through this and other Jewish areas of 'occupied Jerusalem' knows that this land will never be 'given up' under any 'peace agreement'. Yet, bizarrely, when I tried to navigate to Pisgat Zaev using the Apple iPad Maps application (not Google Maps) I discovered to my astonishment that not only does no such place exist but there is a completely empty space on the map where it is physically located. The same is true for all other Jewish areas of 'occupied East Jersusalem' such as Gilo; yet, far smaller Arab areas of East Jerusalem such as Silwan are on the app. The most bizarre omission of all is the completely empty space where the old city of Jerualem should be.

UN Watch: Noam Chomsky in Geneva with support of Swiss government

Chomsky’s lecture was entitled “USA, Iran, Israel and the Arab World: Where are we?” In his 35 min speech he only kept accusing “neocolonialist” Israel and its American backers. Only in the last minute did he say he worried about the situation in Syria and Egypt.
His talk was incoherent, using selective evidence, poorly-formulated arguments, distorting historical facts and with conspiracy theory undertones such as “the American media is hiding the truth from us.” Among his claims was that there is no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and, if it does, it is for defensive purposes only. Also he thought the model of the Ottoman Empire is something we could use in the Middle East, forgetting that the Ottoman military was guaranteeing the stability of the empire.

Muslim Brotherhood: 120 Dead in 'Massacre'

Graphic video shows bodies at morgue, reportedly shot by security forces in weekend violence involving pro-Morsi rioters.
A Muslim Brotherhood spokesperson, Ahmed Aref, said 66 people were killed, while another 61 are "clinically dead", and a further 4,500 people were injured. Of these, he claimed, 700 were wounded by live bullets.

Reports: Israel attacked another weapons convoy in Syria

Israel has attacked yet again, according to foreign reports, in Syria. Arab media outlets and websites affiliated with Syrian opposition forces reported on Saturday that Israeli fighter jets seen flying over Quneitra bombed a weapons convoy intended to reach Hezbollah.
It was also reported by Lebanese news outlet El-Nashra that Israeli jets bombed weapons warehouses at Syrian army outposts in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon.

Pakistan may seek to trade hero Afridi for Al Qaeda-linked terrorist

Pakistan is preparing a proposal to swap the doctor who helped the CIA pinpoint Usama bin Laden for a notorious female neuroscientist and suspected Al Qaeda operative being held at a federal prison in Texas, FoxNews.com has learned.

Tom Jones to wrap up Israel’s ‘summer of nostalgia’

After hosting international stars like Barbra Streisand, Cliff Richard and the Pet Shop Boys, Israel will end its “summer of nostalgia” with a performance by ’70s heartthrob Tom Jones.
The Welsh “Sex Bomb” will be performing in Tel Aviv’s Nokia Arena on October 26.

French and Israeli Scientists Use Stem Cells to Study Schizophrenia

Thanks to a simple human hair, French and Israeli scientists have made a breakthrough in understanding schizophrenia. French researchers at INSERM (the French equivalent of the British Medical Research Council) and an Israeli team from the Haifa Technion, have developed a new stem cell model in order to gain a better understanding of schizophrenia.

Will the Eastern Mediterranean become the next Persian Gulf?

The United States has for more than two decades taken Eastern Mediterranean maritime security for granted. The 1978 Camp David Accords ended the state of war between Egypt and Israel, and the fall of the Soviet Union diminished Moscow’s influence in the region. The triangular relationship between the United States, Israel, and Turkey also provided a foundation of stability. But with the recent discovery of vast oil and gas deposits in the region, the Eastern Mediterranean is in flux.
In 2010, the US Geological Survey estimated that the Eastern Mediterranean’s Levant Basin—which is surrounded by Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Cyprus—may hold up to 3,450 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas and 1.7 billion barrels of oil, putting it on par—at least when it comes to natural gas resources—with onshore lands and state waters off the Gulf Coast of the United States.

An Israeli Special Forces Soldier, An Arab Investor, A Religious Zionist -- And A Hot Start-Up Called Webydo

Webydo has removed software code developers and programmers from the picture – enabling professional graphic designers to create sites on the fly for ten times cheaper, and far faster.
Not only that, but the team that is doing this is a case study of what Israel’s “Start-up Nation” may look like in the years to come. Webydo is a collection of individuals that few might imagine joining hands on a venture — even inside a country that already boasts the most NASDAQ-listed companies per citizen. But the multi-cultural Israel – there are Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druse, Bedouin nomads, Bahai, Samaritans and so many others — has begun to fuse many of these groups into their modern economy. At Intel , for example, ultra-orthodox Jews (mainly women) now comprise 10% of its Jerusalem workforce, as FORBES reported this week. And high-tech collaborations between Israelis and Palestinians are increasing, as we also discovered and revealed.
At Webydo, one finds a microcosm of this new alchemy. (H/t EoZ)

I guess I'm in a 'toon mood today.

(The fourth panel is not the Prime Minister's office. That building is actually fuzzed out in Google Street View! This is a nearby office building in Jerusalem that will have to stand in for the PM's HQ.)

Will Jordan be next?

From AFP:

Jordan plans to raise power prices after doubling taxes on cellphones to offset a large budget deficit, despite warnings that such measures will provoke a public outcry.

Grappling with little or no natural resources and an external debt of more than $23 billion, the kingdom is trying to reduce a $2 billion fiscal deficit this year and at the same time tackle cuts in Egyptian gas supplies.

Sabotage attacks on gas pipelines from Egypt -- the energy source for 80 percent of Jordan’s electricity -- are costing the government at least $1 million a day, energy officials say.
In response, as it tackles paring down a $10.5-billion 2013 budget, the government in Amman intends to hike the price of electricity by 15 percent, having already doubled taxes on cellphones to 16 percent and to 24 percent on mobile telephone contracts.

“Such wrong and uncalculated steps show that the government lacks a comprehensive understanding of the situation,” Yusuf Mansur, chief executive officer of the Amman-based Envision Consulting Group, told AFP.

“When the government increases prices and taxes, the productivity and consumption of people will be affected and this will reduce government revenues.”

Mansur, who headed Jordan’s Agency for Economic Development, estimated the current inflation rate at about seven percent and this year’s real economic growth at 2.6 percent.

According to the government, the inflation rate now stands at 6.5 percent, and real economic growth will come to 3.5 percent.

“People, including government employees, will resort to strikes and protests and the government will be forced to borrow more or impose more taxes. It’s a vicious circle,” he said.

“We are completely dependent on foreign aid and government economic policies have failed, at least in the past three years. I expect a very bad recession in the next stage.”

A government decision in November to raise fuel prices, including household gas, by up to 53 percent, sparked a wave of nationwide protests, with some calling for King Abdullah II to step down, which is punishable by imprisonment.

Unemployment stands at about 14 percent in the country of 6.8 million people where 70 percent of the population is under 30, but other estimates put the jobless figure at between 22 and 30 percent. The minimum wage is $211 (159 euros) a month.

Last month, ratings agency Moody’s cut its sovereign grade for Jordan from “B1” from “Ba2,” in the middle of its category for “speculative” or so-called junk debt, saying government finances had weakened sharply in the past two years.

And in May, Standard & Poor’s lowered Jordan’s long-term credit rating by one notch to “BB-” with a negative outlook due in part to the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

Jordan is home to more than 500,000 Syrian refugees, and Amman has repeatedly complained they are burdening the country’s scarce resources, while calling for international aid.

“Regional instability, including the disruptions in Egypt’s gas supplies and the Syrian refugees, is seriously affecting the budget,” lawmaker Mohammad Dmur, head of parliament’s finance committee, told AFP.

Economics has been the main incentive behind the revolution in Tunisia and the newest one in Egypt. Islamists are poised to take advantage of the Jordanian situation, although the Egyptian coup will make it more difficult.

It seems clear that Israel is poised to replace Egypt as the supplier of gas to Jordan as soon as the Mediterranean fields are operating more steadily, but that is not going to happen immediately and it also won't happen without some backlash from Jordanians who simply hate Israel.

No matter what, Israel's most reliable neighboring ally is in danger.

The real punch line?

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has understood that their complete release is the key for restarting peace talks, and this is what he promised to Abbas, a PLO official said.

Orwell himself couldn't have imagined this.