Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Lebanese politicians rush to blame Israel for Islamist suicide car bombing

From Now Lebanon, in its live coverage of today's massive car bomb in Beirut:

[19:28] A video posted on YouTube shows masked men dubbing themselves the "Aisha the Mother of Believers Brigades for Foreign Missions" claiming responsibility for Thursday's bombing.

“And we address our second message to you and the people like you, and yet you do not understand, therefore we address a message to our brothers and families in Lebanon: We ask you to stay away from all of Iran’s colonies inside and outside Beirut because your blood is dear to us but Hassan Nasrallah is an agent for Iran and Israel and we promise more for him.”

Even after this group accepted responsibility (and called Nasrallah a Zionist!]...

[19:55] LBC: Jumblatt accuses Israel of Dahiyeh blast.

[20:22] Suleiman: Dahiyeh explosion is cowardly, its criminal method has Israel’s prints all over it

[20:37] Amal MP Abdel Majid Saleh: The Israeli enemy and its agents had something to do with the al-Roueiss explosion.

[20:50] Aoun to Al-Manar: The explosion’s timing aims at attacking the victory of the 2006 war and to incite the Lebanese people against each other.

There ya go.

Mondoweiss agrees that released murderers are "freedom fighters"

The last time we spoke about Annie Robbins, Mondoweiss' Editor at Large, she was claiming that there was no evidence that Jewish Temples ever existed on the Temple Mount.

So perhaps it isn't surprising that she agrees that murderers are "freedom fighters."

The PLO sent out a letter to its diplomatic posts ahead of the prisoner release, saying that each one isn't a terrorist but a "Palestinian freedom fighter, who struggles against the occupation and fights in accordance to international law."

Yes, the PLO says that people who axe senior citizens to death are "freedom fighters."

And Mondoweiss agrees.

Here is Robbins' comment to this sickening characterization: "Touche for Palestine doubling down with an injection of truth today."

Annie Robbins believes that according to international law, any Palestinian Arab can stalk and kill any Jew in Israel - man, woman or child.

The woman is beneath contempt.

A Facebook page has been set up to condemn Mondoweiss for this disgusting stand.

(h/t Max S.)

8/15 Links Part 1: Justice for None, PA Honored the Murderers of 238 Israelis during Ramadan

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Justice for none

In effect, we are giving power to a foreign ruler – PA President Mahmoud Abbas – to determine how long the murderers of Israelis would serve. In these circumstances, we might as well close our courts and leave everything up to Abbas.
If the murderers of entire families are arbitrarily set free by his say-so, it is not inconceivable that he would eventually demand the liberation of Amjad Mahmad Awad and Hakim Mazen Awad of Awarta, who in 2011 butchered five members of the Fogel family in Itamar – mother, father and their three children.
The Awads, who decapitated a three-month-old girl, are already celebrated as heroes and role models in the PA-controlled media, schools and mosques.
Those whom Abbas now demands released, to buy his entry into the talks, were guilty of no less bloodcurdling slaughters, even if these took place years earlier.

American Support for Convict Release Betrays Ulterior Motive

Abbas has no public mandate for peace talks because he has consistently told the population that lives under his rule that violence is the path to victory. The popular Arab icons and leaders that are immortalized on murals and billboards across Ramallah and Jenin are not men of peace, they are men of war. They are not idols of reconciliation but of death and destruction.
By insisting on the release of 104 popular symbols of Palestinian terror the United States has strengthened the segments of Arab society that see war with Israel as the only option.

PA honored the killers of 238 Israelis during Ramadan

As a major focus of its Ramadan activities, the Palestinian Authority chose to honor and glorify terrorist murderers.
In all, 22 terrorist murderers who killed 238 Israelis were glorified, along with numerous other terrorists who caused injuries. Those honored included suicide bombers, bomb makers, hijackers, snipers, stabbers, and planners of terror attacks. Palestinian Media Watch has reported that many of them have been honored numerous times in the past for their terror attacks.

Cantor: Only Palestinian ‘mind-shift’ will bring peace

Peace will only emerge when the Palestinians and the Arab world go through a “cultural mind-shift” and accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, US House Majority leader Eric Cantor said on Wednesday.
“Until that point comes, I don’t think that there will be much progress,” the Virginia Republican added during a Jerusalem press conference.

Jewish Home Knesset Chair to Kerry: You Are a Hypocrite

You have forced us into peace talks during a period of time that the entire Middle-East is in chaos, without realizing that by doing so, you have foolishly put us in an impossible situation, in which we cannot and will not make any concessions. By your own hand you have raised expectations to a dangerous level – one that might cause the whole region to spin out of control once those expectations are proven unrealistic, like so many times before.
The past four years in Israel have been as quiet and peaceful as ever. Therefore, I suggest to you that you perform your job in a much more effective and relevant fashion by focusing your attention on Syria and Egypt, where people are actually getting slaughtered.

Royal slams US, EU for excluding Jordan from talks

Prince Hassan, uncle to Jordan’s King Abdullah II, said the Americans and Europeans were treating the issue as a two-sided problem, according to a Channel 10 report. Jordan should be a full partner in negotiations between the sides, said the prince, since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a regional problem, partly because the majority of Palestinians live in Jordan.

Iran: We Are 'Hostile' to Israel-PA Talks

Iran once again blasted the latest round of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, saying it was "hostile" to the negotiations brokered by the United States, AFP reported.
"Iran is hostile to these negotiations and several Palestinian groups are hostile to them," foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi was quoted as having told the ISNA news agency.

BBC’s Knell reports on prisoner release without mentioning their crimes

Quite what Knell and her colleagues ‘consider’ people who have engaged in the premeditated murder of women and pensioners (and who most definitely do have blood on their hands, as proven in a court of law) to be besides terrorists is not a moot question. But critically Knell’s use of language – which is clearly intended to promote the idea of moral equivalence between the perception of these prisoners as “heroes of the Palestinian cause” and the all too obvious fact that they engaged in violent acts of terrorism – is particularly disingenuous – and downright ridiculous – when her words are broadcast against a background of images of masked gunmen and flags of terrorist organisations such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the DFLP.

The Guardian faces stiff competition for most sympathetic depiction of murderers

Question: Can you quickly tell us what all of these photos and captions share in common?
Answer: None of these photos – featuring the perpetrators, their families and supporters – included even a word about the often barbaric crimes committed, nor anything about the victims or their surviving family members.

Nasrallah: Hezbollah deliberately ambushed IDF soldiers on border

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday that militants from his group were behind last week's bombing, which wounded four Israeli soldiers, threatening to "cut off the legs" of any Israeli forces that cross the border into Lebanon.
In a live interview with Lebanese television station Al-Mayadeen this week, Nasrallah said that two remote-control bombs detonated inside Lebanon when the Israeli force crossed the border. He said Hezbollah members knew in advance the Israelis were coming and planted the bombs in a deliberate plan to target them.

Report: Iran, Hamas Trying to Smuggle Syrian Arms into West Bank

While there’s obvious concern about radical Islamists smuggling weapons into Syria as part of the fight against dictator Bashar al-Assad, an intelligence analysis agency says Iran may be funneling dangerous arms in the opposite direction.
A recent analysis from Stratfor cites the arrest of five Syrian arms and drug smugglers in Jordan last Tuesday. They carried anti-tank and surface-to-air missiles and assault rifles. Jordan has been used as a supply route for arms meant for Syrian rebels. But Stratfor notes that the suspects were picked up heading south, away from Syria.

Report: Western Security Officials Confirm Israel, Egypt Armies Battling Terrorists Together in Sinai

The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed Western security officials, confirmed media speculation that this weekend’s onslaught against terrorists in the Sinai came through coordination between Egyptian and Israeli security forces, although neither side would confirm that they work with the other.
“Israel’s intervention in the Sinai Peninsula—which Egyptian officials denied, and which Israeli officials neither confirmed nor denied—would be the clearest manifestation of the high-level interaction between Israeli and Egyptian military and intelligence chiefs, according to the Western officials. Such cooperation between the U.S. allies has increased since last month’s ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, these officials say,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

US weighs canceling military exercise with Egypt

The yearly exercise, called Bright Star, was suspended after the 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak, but US officials were hopeful that it would resume this year. But a violent crackdown on protesters Wednesday left the US reconsidering its relationship with the interim Egyptian government, though not announcing any policy shift.

Brotherhood vows to continue protests as death toll breaks 500

Egypt faced a new phase of uncertainty on Thursday after the bloodiest day since its Arab Spring began, with 525 people reported killed and thousands injured as police smashed two protest camps of supporters of the deposed Islamist president.
Wednesday’s raids touched off day-long street violence that prompted the military-backed interim leaders to impose a state of emergency and curfew, and drew widespread condemnation from the Muslim world and the West, including the United States.

Bloodied Egypt at a dead end

The Muslim Brotherhood is hoping that the public will raise its voice and pressure the army to compromise, perhaps even to fire el-Sissi. But given the widespread disappointment with the movement over the last year, and Egyptians’ weariness from revolution and upheaval, it is possible that the Islamists may have to prepare patiently to better exploit another opportune moment down the road, and, at least temporarily, lower the profile of their protest.

'We Won't Stop Until Morsi Reinstated'

In one video, seen by Arutz Sheva, the body of a man - apparently a member of the security forces - is dragged through through a baying mob as supporters of Morsi hurl insults and physically attacks the body. At the end of the clip, someone off camera points a rifle at the body and opens fire to "confirm the kill."
Islamist supporters of the ousted president are also accused of upping their campaign of violence against the country's indigenous Coptic Christian population.
Since yesterday at least 17 churches and a number of Christian-owned homes and businesses were torched by Muslim mobs. Coptic Christians have been a target for violence - sometimes deadly - since Morsi's ouster, amid fears that they are being scapegoated by frustrated Islamists.

Egyptian Law Professor: U.S. Trying to Instigate Civil War, Chaos in Egypt

Egyptian Association for Change Spokesman: Muslim Brotherhood Implements the Methods of the Jews

The Jews who sneaked into the Cave of the Patriarchs from 1450-1929

In its article on the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Wikipedia notes:

The Mamluks forbade Jews from entering the site, only allowing them as close as the fifth step on a staircase at the southeast, but after some time this was increased to the seventh step....

After the Israeli victory in 1967 in which Israel gained control of Hebron, the first Jew who entered the Cave of Machpelah for about 700 years, was the Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, Major-General Rabbi Shlomo Goren. "About 700 years ago, the Muslim Mamelukes conquered Hebron, declared the structure a mosque and forbade entry to Jews, who were not allowed past the seventh step on a staircase outside the building."

However, it appears that Rabbi Goren was not the first Jew to enter the Cave in 700 years - not by a longshot. Many dedicated, heroic Jews over the centuries were willing to risk their lives to visit the second-holiest spot in Judaism.

The women.

From A Separate People: Jewish Women in Palestine, Syria, and Egypt in the Sixteenth Centur by Rût Lamdān:

This was corroborated centuries later by Israel's future second president, Yitzchak Ben-Zvi, who wrote as he described his banning from entering the Cave in the early 20th century:

The entrance to the Patriarchs’ Cave was prohibited to non-Muslims. Jews were allowed to climb no higher than the seventh step in the courtyard. Only brave-hearted Jewish women dared enter, masquerading in Arab garb and their faces veiled according to Arab custom.

His wife Rachel wrote separately:

Hebron’s Jewish women would sometimes infiltrate the cave veiled and costumed like Arabs. Only by stealth could they pray at our forefathers’ tombs. When Hebron’s Arab fanaticism escalated, Jews were forbidden even to glance into the cave. Hate spewed from the Arab guards’ eyes and from Arab worshipers who brushed against us on their way in. We arrived at the steps and stood silent. I refused to climb the seven permitted stairs. The insult was too searing.

The bravery of these women, risking their very lives to be able to pray at the venerated spot, is awe-inspiring.

This is undoubtedly the best use of a burqa in recorded history.

Fatah/Hamas unity deadline comes and goes

On May 14, Hamas and Fatah agreed that they would have a unity government within three months.

In July, Hamas announced that the deadline was meaningless.

Yesterday, the deadline passed.

Meanwhile, Israel is negotiating with half of a government, with the other half dead-set against the existence of Israel altogether.

And Western governments seem to take no notice of this little problem.

Because when you worship the religion of "peace process," reality is something that must be consciously ignored.

BDS movement lied about TIAA-CREF selling Sodastream

Earlier this month I reported how the BDS movement said that pension fund giant TIAA-CREF had sold their holdings in Israeli company Sodastream, and how the Israel-haters claimed this was a victory for their cause - even if they didn't know the reasons for the sale of the stock.

I noted that it was clear from TIAA-CREF's own statements that any Israeli stock they sell was not because of the BDS movement.

My mistake was that I assumed that the BDSers weren't lying about the sale to begin with!

I just received two PDF documents, showing TIAA-CREF's holdings in their CREF Stock Account and in the TIAA-CREF Growth and Income Fund as of June 30, 2013. They detail their holdings in these funds in full detail, and the documents were generated on July 23.

Why does anyone still give these guys any validity?

(h/t Adam Levick)

Now the Jews are accused of stealing a "Palestinian" dance

From The Blaze:

In the past, pro-Palestinian activists have accused Israel of stealing “indigenous” Palestinian foods such as hummus and falafel.

Now, a small group has its sights on an unlikely target, an Israeli-born choreographer featured this summer at a prestigious Lincoln Center festival in New York.

Their complaint? That Arab culture is being “exploited” and “appropriated” by one of his dances.

“Our cultural heritage is not your natural resource,” dancers from a New York-based troupe say in an online video, wearing green T-shirts emblazoned with the word “Dabke” in Arabic.

Zvi Gotheiner, a New York-based choreographer who grew up on a kibbutz in Israel, directs the modern dance company ZviDance which last year created a piece called “Dabke” based on a dance that he characterizes as the national dance of Syria and Lebanon. He says it’s also performed by Palestinians as an expression of resistance to Israel.

...Choreographer Gotheiner told TheBlaze he “was not surprised and actually was expecting a reaction like that” and said he even understands the protesters.

“DABKE (my work) is a contemporary dance, inspired by the amazing dancers from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine, whom we watch on YouTube and learned the Dabke from. Yes, you could call this ‘cultural appropriation,’ as we borrowed moves from these dancers,” he told TheBlaze in an email.

The work was featured this summer at Lincoln Center’s Out of Doors festival and included no dancers from Israel.

“This act might go unnoticed if Russians would dance the tango or teenagers from Japan would perform hip-hop. But in the Middle East, culture represent authenticity, and being authentic represent a true connection to the land. I was aware of these issues while making DABKE and was aware of the fact that my identity could come to play as an issue in the total perception of the work,” he said.

At no point did I see anyone from ZviDance claim that this was an "Israeli" dance. That seems to be fantasy on the part of people whose own culture is nearly nonexistent.

Here is the group of people complaining about this in an almost-unlistenable video:

I like the phrase "Your cultural appropriation is our cultural loss." Really? If that's true, then you ought to start eating lots of Bamba and matzoh balls to get back at those thieving Israelis.

However, when a group tries to retroactively create a shaky centuries-old culture from scratch, and when they aren't truly confident that they really have a culture to begin with, then they would be understandably sensitive to others adding their own spin to cultural objects they claim..

Here is a relevant post from 2011 about how Palestinian Arabs try desperately to pretend that some tiny regional practices are "Palestinian culture."

Egypt vs. Israel casualty coverage (update)

A few things are notable about the current fighting in Egypt between the government and the supporters of Morsi in comparison to how the media covers Israel.

Firstly, as of this writing, the death toll in less than 24 hours is 281, mostly civilians (no matter what you think of the Muslim Brotherhood, while some of them are armed, most of the protesters were peaceful.)

Last November, Israel and Gaza terror groups fought Pillar of Defense. Israel dropped hundreds of bombs on Gaza and the news coverage was non-stop, as was the vitriol against Israel for supposed wanton killings and disregard for civilian lives.

The one day with the most Arab casualties in Pillar of Defense was November 18. Guess how many were killed by Israel's fearsome war machine on that day?

35.

Either the Egyptian security forces' bullets are far more deadly than Israel's bombs and missiles - or Israel was extraordinarily careful in who they targeted and how.

In fact, in one day, Egypt has killed more Arabs than Israel did since January 2012 - including Pillar of Defense!

Also, the number of civilians killed in the current fighting is much, much higher than the number killed by Israel since the end of 2011.

There is another double standard to the reporting that is important to note as well.

The Muslim Brotherhood claimed at various times during the day a death toll of over 2000. While these huge numbers were quoted, practically no reporter took those claims seriously, knowing that the group would tend to exaggerate to a great degree and because the numbers just didn't seem realistic. The media acted responsibly and reported only the statistics that could be confirmed by more reputable sources.

Yet, the same media swallows the death statistics from Muslim Brotherhood offshoot Hamas and reports them in detail, as fact, without the slightest amount of skepticism.

The only way to explain this is to recognize that the media, by and large, has a false impression of Israel as a brutal regime and is willing to believe the worst about it - no matter how many times the lies are exposed (unfortunately, often days or months later.)

Yet even after seeing the Egyptian security forces machine-gun civilians at point blank range, the media is not willing to believe inflated claims about casualties without further checking.

This encapsulates the problem with media coverage of Israel nicely. Pre-existing biases are assumed true, and fact checking is lacking when the reports fit what the reporter believes.

Watch the coverage from Egypt. The double standards are clear.

UPDATE: The death count for Wednesday now seems to be 535, which is more than the number of Arabs killed by the IDF since the beginning of 2010.

8/14 Links Part 2: Glick on the Future of Latma, Israel Trains Tanzania's First Paediatric Heart Surgeon

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Best of the Tribal Update, part 1

The last two episodes of the Tribal Update, this week's and next week's are a celebration of our accomplishments over the past four years, and a celebration of the values of Zionism that motivate all of our endeavors.
Thank you all so very much for your support for our work. Over the past four years we have proven that the truly cool people in Israel and throughout the world are the Zionists. The most creative, exciting and happening people are the Zionists. It has been an great adventure, and more will follow.

The worst of both worlds

Netanyahu is seeking the best of both worlds — trying to keep the international community onside, and not alienate the Israeli right. But he’s getting the worst of both worlds. He’s lost the EU, and he’s losing control of the Likud. Seeking to curry favor but refusing to make vital strategic choices, this week he has again contrived to subvert Israel’s own interests, and still wound up looking like the bad guy.

Father’s Book Offers Insight into Netanyahu’s Worldview

Although the late Benzion Netanyahu wrote four of the five essays in “The Founding Fathers of Zionism” years before his middle son Benjamin Netanyahu was born, let alone before Benjamin entered politics, Benzion’s insightful volume may very well be the playbook by which the current prime minister governs Israel. As such, it should be mandatory reading for everyone with an interest in the Jewish state.

Teen victim of acid attack in Zanzibar leaves hospital

One of the two British Jewish teenagers injured in an acid attack in Zanzibar was released from the hospital.
Kirstie Trup left the hospital on Sunday night, the Jewish Chronicle reported.

Middle East Christians: Endangered in their ancestral land

The one bright spot is the state of Israel – “the only place in the Middle East [where] Christians are really safe,” according to the Vicar of St George’s Church in Baghdad, Canon Andrew White. Home to Christianity’s holiest sites and to a colorful array of Christian denominations, Israel has the only growing Christian community in the Middle East.
Because Israel is the only non- Muslim state in all of the Middle East and North Africa, it represents a small victory for religious minorities in the region, and serves as the last protector of freedom and security for Jews, Christians, Bahai, Druse and others. Without Israel, how much more vulnerable would Christians in the Middle East become?

Human Rights Groups on Rouhani Justice Minister Nominee: “Minister of Murder”

Rouhani’s pick for justice minister, Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, has been subject to sustained criticism by human rights groups since the mid-2000s:
Purmohammadi, who heads Iran’s General Inspectorate Organization, a body linked to Iran’s judiciary, attracted attention in 2005 when he joined former President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s cabinet as interior minister. Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized that appointment at the time in a report titled “Ministers Of Murder,” which highlighted Purmohammadi’s alleged role in the 1988 executions, the assassination of political figures abroad, and the 1998 killings of intellectuals inside the country while he was a director in the Intelligence Ministry.

German cultural center cancels anti-Israel event with Iran’s embassy

Dr. Ulrich Bleyer, the director of the Berlin-based Urania cultural and educational center, on Monday pulled the plug on a pro-Palestinian symposium with Iran’s embassy because the event legitimizes terrorism and seeks to dismantle Israel’s right to exist.

Toronto Police Investigate Palestinian Leader Who Called for Murder of Israelis

Addressing an Al-Quds Day rally on Aug. 3, Elias Hazineh, former president of Palestine House in suburban Toronto, said “an ultimatum” must be issued to Israelis: “You have to leave Jerusalem. You have to leave Palestine,” he said.
“We say get out or you’re dead! We give them two minutes and then we start shooting. And that’s the only way that they will understand,” Hazineh said to cheers from a crowd of approximately 400 at the annual rally.

Mosques in Canada spew hateful messages, study finds

Local mosque-goers frequently hear hateful messages against Jews and other non-Muslims and are warned against integrating into Canadian society, according to a new study into the causes of Islamic radicalization.
Volunteers with the Canadian Thinkers Forum (CTF), in collaboration with the Canadian Progressive Islamic Centre, sat in on sermons at most of the mosques and Islamic centres in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) over a three-year period, said CTF Director Tahir Gora. They visited each place between one to five times; they also relied on first-hand reports from mosque-going associates and did research using online sources.

Musician Calls Israel ‘Apartheid State’ in BBC Broadcast at Royal Albert Hall

One could dissect the illogic of Kennedy’s argument, that if apartheid did actually exist in Israel, those Palestinian musicians would not have been present, but that would be asking a lot.
One could address the glaring fallacy of his comment, since Israeli law guarantees Arab citizens equal rights and they are well represented in higher offices and political parties; but the simpler point is that an evening of classical music is not the environment for political statements, fallacious or not.

US Rapper Pitbull Performs in Tel Aviv, Despite BDS Efforts to Intimidate International Music Stars Wishing to Tour Israel

Despite calls from the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) organization for US musicians to avoid performing in Israel, rapper Pitbull entertained thousands of fans at a major concert on Monday night in Hall 1 of the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds.

US National Archives Preserves Recovered Iraqi Jewish Objects Ahead of Fall Exhibit

Conservators at the US National Archives have been hard at work restoring a wealth of historic objects from Iraq’s Jewish community, according to The Washington Post, which gained access to the process and documented it in a photo slideshow published Monday.
Found in Saddam Hussein’s flooded basement by U.S. Marines following the dictator’s ouster in 2003, the National Archives undertook the restoration of some of the more than 1,000 books, documents and artifacts recovered. Among the items were a handwritten Passover Haggadah, from 1902, a Viennese Haggadah, from 1930, and school records and personal photographs.

US FDA Approves Use of Latest Israeli Invented PillCam to Monitor Crohn’s Disease

Sufferers of Crohn’s and other diseases, including obscure gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding and iron deficiency anemia, will benefit from the US Food and Drug Administration’s 510(k) clearance Tuesday of the next generation PillCam, SB 3, created by Israeli capsule endoscopy developer Given Imaging, which is listed on the Tel Aviv and Nasdaq stock exchanges. The new cameras will be marketed in the US starting in the fourth quarter of this year.

'Bedouin or Jewish, I am proud to serve my country'

Master Sgt. Marzuk Suaed, 37, a Bedouin father of three residing in northern Israel, sees his job as a recruiter of Bedouin, Arab, Christian and Muslim youths to the Israel Defense Forces as a personal and Zionist mission.
"I really am very proud in what I am doing," says Suaed, who hails from a large family in which everyone enlisted into the IDF, many of them serving in combat units.
"I am a citizen of the state, it doesn't matter whether Bedouin or Jewish, and am proud to lend my country a hand. Yes, this is my country, and I want to serve it; and, on the way, mostly, I want the Bedouin/Arab sector to understand and internalize that service in the army will only do our society good. Social distancing and separation will lead us nowhere," he says.

Mission to mend Tanzanian broken hearts

"The surgeon and his six-member Tanzanian medical team – paediatric cardiologist Naiz Majani, paediatric cardiologist Godfrey Mbawala, paediatric intensive care doctor Josephat Mukama, anesthetist Benard Kanemo, cardiac anesthetist Kimaro Ernestina and perfusionist Thomas Kimani - have come here to learn from the Israel-based charity Save A Child’s Heart (SACH).
Their tuition has been funded entirely by Australia’s high-profile Pratt Foundation, while sponsorship from across the globe allows SACH to fly-in young patients, like Salma, for the medical team to operate on using their state of the art equipment."

Tanzania's first paediatric heart surgeon saving lives

Tanzanian heart surgeon tells his story VIDEO

Iranian city councilor barred from office - because she is too good looking

From Al Arabiya:

Despite promises made by Iran’s new President, Hassan Rowhani, that women’s civil rights will improve under his government, a city councilor has been barred from office for being “too sexy,” British daily The Times reported on Wednesday.

Nina Siakhali Moradi was prevented from taking up a post on the city council in Qazvin, the ancient capital of the Persian Empire, 100 miles north west of Tehran, after her election was overturned by religious conservatives.

Even with more than 10,000 votes in the June election, putting her 14th out of 163 candidates and winning her a council seat, the 27-year-old engineer and website designer had her political career cut short because she was deemed too attractive to take up the post.

“We don’t want a catwalk model on the council,” a senior official in Qazvin told local press.

Moradi ran under the slogan “Young ideas for a young future,” pushing for better women’s rights in Qazvin, the restoration of the old city and greater youth involvement in town planning. She had been vetted and approved as a candidate by Iran’s judiciary and intelligence services. Her liberal views appeared popular with the electorate, The Times reported.

Moradi’s campaign posters showed her wearing strict hijab without a strand of hair on display. Despite this, conservative religious groups launched protests to demand her disqualification as soon as her election was confirmed.

In a letter to the governor of Qazvin, a coalition of religious groups condemned the “vulgar and anti-religious” posters and said they breached Islamic law.

At the risk of eliciting pure animal lust from you guys, here's another photo.

Why peace is impossible - an in depth analysis of Palestinian Arab psyche

The Tower in June published a very important article by Deborah Danan, who is about as left-wing as they come. Excerpts:

A future together will require not only painful concessions, but a willingness of each side to validate the other’s story. But when ordinary Palestinians and Israelis meet, that’s not what happens.

The sit-in was held at a pub in the Hadar neighborhood of Haifa, a common meeting place for Arabs and Jews. The issue at the top of the agenda was how to convey to the world at large that dialogue on the Israeli-Arab conflict still exists and both sides are equally frustrated with the status quo. The vibe in the room was positive, with attendees from both sides encouraged that what the rest of the world calls enemies could sit and drink and talk.

Then, without warning, a stranger intruded. An Arab man had apparently overheard the conversation. He approached the group shouting, “But first you have to let the refugees come home!” An Israeli organizer explained that the meeting wasn’t about solving the refugee crisis—it was about opposing inaction and stasis. But the man wouldn’t have it. Becoming increasingly agitated, he demanded that the issue be addressed. One of the Arab organizers, Mudar, tried to calm him down, telling him in Arabic, “We know it’s not right. We know that the only way is for the refugees to come home, but we aren’t talking about that now.”
The implication, of course, was that one day we will talk about it. In Mudar’s mind, not only will we talk about it, we will make it happen. Like so many of his peers, Mudar—a moderate involved in many coexistence initiatives—is a subscriber to the maximal position on the Palestinian right of return; a position that, if achieved, will effectively put an end to the Jewish state. But the maximal position is a symptom of a far deeper concern, one that is the driving force behind the current impasse in Arab-Israeli relations.

On a cognitive level, Mudar is capable of accepting the fact that it is impossible for Israel to agree to his maximal position. He knows that the return of Palestinian refugees will mean the end of the Jewish state. But Mudar almost certainly does not subscribe to the maximal position out of a desire to harm Israel’s Jewish character. In fact, it probably has little to do with Israel at all. Instead, Mudar is trapped in a psychological construct essential to his identity as a Palestinian—a collectivist identity that dominates the Palestinian mainstream.

One of the more tragic aspects of a collectivist identity is that it stifles those aspects of human behavior associated with the individual. These include critical thinking, accountability for one’s actions and the actions of other members of the collective, the ability to make personal choices, and empathy toward “the other”—particularly an adversarial other. As a result, Palestinian collectivist identity may be one of the most difficult obstacles on the path to peace.

...Palestinian identity is inextricably connected to the naqba. Israeli independence and the resulting war is the seminal event of the Palestinian narrative, turning a group of local tribes, clans, and houses into a nation of refugees. “Palestinian identity is strongly influenced by a sense of victimization, which is evident by displacement and manifested as a collective nationalistic identity,” says University of Nebraska anthropologist Michaela Clemens. Whereas other cultures might see refugee concerns as a temporary issue, the Palestinians’ self-image as refugees creates and molds their identity and, by extension, the conflict itself. Consequently, the right of return has come to be seen as an inalienable right akin to the right to exist.

The extent to which this influences the conflict is pointed out by Phillip Hammack, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Hammack examines identity and politics by studying adolescent participants in Palestinian-Israeli coexistence initiatives like Seeds of Peace and Hands of Peace. According to Hammack, the young people who struggled to integrate the experience of coexistence into their life stories experienced an identity crisis. “Palestinian youth,” he observed, “identify with [an] ideology of struggle and victimhood, providing a sense of solidarity and meaning.” This identity is inextricably connected to their political extremism. “Nearly all of my Palestinian interviewees,” Hammack says, “endorsed the practice of suicide bombing as a legitimate form of resistance against the Israeli occupation, identifying bombers as ‘freedom fighters.’”

Paraphrasing Herbert Kelman, a professor of social ethics at Harvard’s department of psychology, Hammack concluded that “large-scale shifts in collective identity may be necessary prior to any serious curtailment of the conflict, as the conflict relies on the reproduction of negatively interdependent collective narratives.”

...As mentioned above, suicide bombings, while not encouraged and often condemned by participants of peace movements, are nevertheless seen as a legitimate form of resistance to the Israeli occupation. In a collectivist society built on the idea of victimhood, struggle—rather than peace—is the ultimate motivating factor. Peace, moreover, may actually threaten collective identity: If struggle is a prerequisite for peace, then any action that serves the struggle, even terror and incitement, is likely to be perceived as legitimate. Peace is sacrificed to the collective.

Individualization, then, is essential to peace. Economic development, education, and democracy will hopefully contribute to a general change in Palestinian collective identity. But ultimately it is the task of the individual Palestinian to break free from the in-group, achieve psychological autonomy, and become an independent agent and master of his own fate. This is the most important step on the way to reconciliation.

This is imperative for Westerners to understand. The idea of Israel as evil and conflict as community-affirming is entwined into the very identity of Palestinian Arabs. If there is peace, they lose their very identities, which depends on demonizing the other side (even among the "peaceniks".)

I would argue that the collectivist mindset was created by and encouraged by Arab leaders who did not want to allow Palestinian Arabs to integrate into their societies. The Palestinian Arabs were forced against their will to be separated from the rest of the Arab world, and because they were politically powerless in that world they were forced to put their energies into the Naqba myth that gave them a powerful enemy who they could comfortably criticize without fear.

I would also point out that the utter lack of empathy that Palestinian Arabs have for anyone else is not a result of this Palestinian Arab collective mindset so much as it is an Arab attribute altogether. Way before 1967, Martha Gellhorn noticed the same kind of thinking:

"If the position were reversed, if the Jews had started the war and lost it, if you had won the war, would you now accept Partition? Would you give up part of the country and allow the 650,000 Jewish residents of Palestine -who had fled from the war--to come back?"

"Certainly not," he said, without an instant's hesitation. "But there would have been no Jewish refugees. They had no place to go. They would all be dead or in the sea."

....Arabs gorge on hate, they roll in it, they breathe it. Jews top the hate list, but any foreigners are hateful enough. Arabs also hate each other, separately and, en masse. Their politicians change the direction of their hate as they would change their shirts. Their press is vulgarly base with hate-filled cartoons; their reporting describes whatever hate is now uppermost and convenient. Their radio is a long scream of hate, a call to hate. They teach their children hate in school. They must love the taste of hate; it is their daily bread. And what good has it done them?

Here's the answer: Hate gives Arabs a collective identity that is far more important than peace is. The hate is their identity. So even the left-wing, co-existence spouting Arabs really don't want peace with a Jewish state - they want, at best, a state where Jews are a minority and treated as dhimmis, the way they are meant to be.

Read the whole article by Danan, and then re-read the Gellhorn articles from 1961 and 1967, as well as a different interview with Palestinian Arabs in the Aida camp in 2011.

As long as this mindset exists, peace cannot be achieved.

(h/t CiFWatch)