Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, September 16, 2013

Video: Arab attacking Jew, unprovoked, at medical clinic

A Jewish man who came to see a doctor at a health clinic in an Arab town last week was viciously attacked by a local Arab for no apparent reason.

Security camera footage from the incident, at a health clinic in the northern village of Ibillin, shows the Jew sitting in the waiting room, minding his own business and not even looking at the Arab man.

The Arab man gets up, walks toward the Jew and punches him hard in the side of the head. The Jew falls writhing to the floor. Men who were present in the clinic escort the attacker to a seat in the room, and then help the Jewish man out of the room. No one seems overly perturbed.

The Jewish man was taken to a hospital for treatment.

Obviously, the Jew was provoking the Arab by daring to enter the clinic, which is one of the Top 100 Muslim Holy Places the village of Ibillin. It is clear as day that the Zionist Jewish settler (they are all settlers, remember) is at fault and the Arab was exhibiting a natural reaction to Zionist aggression.

You have to understand the first rule of the Israel haters: It is always Israel's fault. Once you internalize that message, you cannot go wrong.

If you want to have fun, link to this video at some Mondoweiss message thread and see how this rule is implemented in real time. (The smarter ones will say "Of course I condemn the attack, BUT you must understand [how it is justified anyway.]")

(h/t OBOZ}

PA, Egypt in war of words with Hamas

From Al Ahram:

Hamas denied Sunday accusations made by the Egyptian army's spokesman who said hand grenades bearing the stamp of the Palestinian Islamist group’s military wing were found in Sinai.

In a statement published on the information office website of the Islamic resistance movement, the group described the claims as “lies and fabrications.”

Earlier Sunday, the army's spokesman, Colonel Ahmed Ali, said that the military confiscated a number of munitions, including hand grenades bearing the stamp of the Ezzeddin Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military arm.

He also said in a press conference there was “cooperation between armed and terrorist organisations and their counterpart in the Gaza Strip.”

Similarly:

Palestinian Authority Ambassador to Egypt Barakat Al-Farra claimed on Sunday the Hamas Islamist group was “unable” to assess the Egyptian situation following president Mohamed Morsi’s ouster.

“Hamas is unable to see the situation correctly and has to review its policies regarding Egypt,” he said in an interview on Egyptian satellite channel Al-Hayat.

Al-Farra added that Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip since 2007, does not “represent the Palestinian people, it only represents itself.”

Seeking to deflate tensions with the Egyptian authorities, the Gaza government released a statement on Sunday saying that "the Palestinian people, and their political factions, stand at equal distance from all the [people of] Egypt." The statement elaborated that out of respected for the "will and sovereignty" of Egypt, it had not interfered in its affairs, rejecting accusations to the contrary against the Gaza Strip.

Hamas has its own accusations against Egypt:

Egyptian authorities refuse to allow entry for dozens of Palestinians arriving from various countries en route to Gaza Strip.

Egyptian security sources told the PIC that the authorities did not show any concern with the condition of those Palestinians, some of whom have residence permits in Egypt.

They said that the airport authorities would not allow them to enter Cairo without giving any reason.

The sources noted that some of those Palestinian citizens had spent several days at the deportation room in the airport, adding that the trapped Palestinians were dismayed at the maltreatment.

Hamas also responded to the PA statement, saying that it was "silly" does not deserve a response - but that the ambassador speaks only for Fatah and not the Palestinian people.

All of this Arab disunity wouldn't t be happening if Israel would just dismantle those settlements, of course. Everyone knows that "the occupation" is the source of all Middle East troubles.

Tottenham football fans defiantly chant "Yid Army" for their team

From the Daily Mail:

Tottenham are planning to ask their fans if they think the time has come to stop chanting the Y-word.

For years Tottenham, who have a strong Jewish following, have been on the receiving end of cruel anti-Semitic abuse from opposition fans.

In an act of defiance, some fans of the north London club have coined the word "Yid" themselves, and chants of "Yids", "Yid Army" and "Yiddos" are regularly sung on the home terraces at White Hart Lane.

Last Monday the Football Association (FA) issued a statement warning supporters that use of such words could result in either a banning order or even criminal prosecution.

Tottenham responded by saying they would consult with their fans on the matter, and it has now emerged they will do so in the form of a questionnaire that will be sent out to all season-ticket holders.

'There is a document that Spurs will be sending out to season-ticket holders in due course,' Tottenham Hotspur Supporters' Trust (THST) chairman Darren Alexander said.

'It's a questionnaire, and basically what the club want to ascertain is do the fans think now is the right time to be stop using this identity.

'If that comes back and a clear majority of fans think: yes, now is the time, then we move forward and we will work actively with the club if they want us to and we will think about how is best to do that.'

Tottenham fans reacted defiantly to the FA's statement on Saturday as they chanted "Yid Army" and "We'll sing what we want" throughout the 2-0 win over Norwich.

The same happened last season after Peter Herbert, the head of the Society of Black Lawyers, threatened to report anyone using the phrase to the police.

Here is JN1's coverage:

I can't say I keep track of nutty soccer fan chants, but if Israel and the IDF didn't exist, is there any chance that any football fans would so proudly identify themselves as "Yids"?

Now, if Tottenham fans really want to go all they way, they should start yelling insults at the other teams - in Yiddish!

9/16 Links Part 1: Anti-Zionist Illusions, Col. Richard Kemp - Syria Plan ‘not realistic’

From Ian:

The Depravity of the Anti-Israeli Left

One is tempted to leave Ian Lustick’s Sunday op-ed “Two-State Illusion,” alone. Its stench is so overwhelming that one might expect it to harm Lustick’s cause without the need for commentary. But because Lustick is a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, one of our most prestigious universities, and because the New York Times has chosen to amplify his view, it is worth considering as a symptom of the depravity of the anti-Israeli left, as what passes for sober commentary in that crowd.

Two States and the Anti-Zionist Illusion

They also understand just how dishonest Lustick’s vision of a post-Zionist Middle East is. The professor claims Israel’s collapse will lead to an alliance between secular Palestinians and post-Zionist Jews (those Haaretz columnists) and others to build a secular democracy. He thinks the large percentage of Israelis whose families fled or were thrown out of Arab and Muslim countries (a refugee population that no one thinks to compensate for their losses) will come to think of themselves as Arabs. He also posits an alliance between anti-Zionist Haredim and Islamists. He claims Jews who want to live in the West Bank can be accommodated in the post-Zionist world. All this is nonsense.
Israeli Jews know the fate of non-Muslim minorities in the Arab and Muslim world. If Israel acknowledges that all Jews would be evacuated from a putative Palestinian state it is not because they agree with the Arab vision of a Judenrein entity but because even those on the left know the Jews there would last as long as the greenhouses left behind in Gaza in 2005. Those “Arab Jews” that Lustick thinks will be at home in the Greater Palestine he envisages know exactly what fate awaits them in a world where they are not protected by a Jewish army.

British Airways apologises over 'Palestinian Territories' marker over Israel on in-flight map

British Airways has apologised for displaying an in-flight map with the words “Palestinian Territories” covering part of Israel.
The image appears on flights between Heathrow and Israel and was brought to the airline’s attention by a Jewish passenger.
British Airways has contacted the manufacturer and requested that the reference be removed as soon as possible.

Jerusalem 'Sheshet HaYamim' Street in 'Palestine'?

While the representatives of Israel and the Palestinian Authority are negotiating intensely in order to draw the final borders, according to "Google Maps", it turns out that the map of Israel's permanent borders has already been plotted.
One user from Arutz Sheva was surprised to find the results on Google Maps for the Jerusalem street called "Sheshet HaYamim" (Six Day War) to be in "Palestine." The Jerusalem street, which is located near Ammunition Hill, was included in the liberated territories established during the Six Day War.
Below each mention of the street, including references as to the street intersections, the word "Palestine" appears prominently instead of Israel.

JPost Editorial: Israel and the Syria deal

It is too early to assess the implications for the Jewish state of an increasingly assertive Russia and a more hesitant US, particularly with regard to Iran.
Is the Russian-led agreement with the United States to do away with Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons good for the Jews?
Taken at face value, the deal appears to serve a major Israeli interest. Under the terms of the six-clause accord, Russia and the US will ensure that the tons of chemical weapons, meticulously gathered and stored by the late Syrian president Hafez Assad, will be located, dismantled and destroyed over the next eight months.

Ex-British army colonel to Post: Russian-US plan on Syria chemical weapons ‘not realistic’

Speaking to the Post by phone, Kemp, who also served in the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee and Cabinet Office Briefing Room, said: “I think it’s extremely difficult to do something like this during an active conflict, during a war. I think it’ll take a very large amount of time, with a significant amount of military protection, so that the inspectors can be as safe as they can be. That aspect will present huge challenges. Which country, first of all, will provide the scientists who will take these risks and the military forces to back them up? It’s a very dangerous situation.”
Kemp observed that there is a wide variety of factions in Syria, including regime forces and jihadists, meaning that it would be difficult to send weapons inspectors to the country.
“Secondly, to get verification in this kind of situation, I would say, is impossible,” he stated. “It would be very easy for President Assad to hide or remove out of the country significant quantities of chemical weapons.

‘Netanyahu backed Russian chemical arms deal in call to Kerry’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US Secretary of State John Kerry last week that he should try to reach a deal with Russia to confiscate Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal as an alternative to a threatened US strike on the Assad regime, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
According to the report, Kerry called Netanyahu on September 11 and the Israeli leader told him that he didn’t think that Russia was bluffing about its plan for Syria.

Kerry, in Israel, says Syria deal ‘sets a marker’ for Iran

In comments aimed at his hosts, Kerry said the deal, if successful, “will have set a marker for the standard of behavior with respect to Iran and with respect to North Korea and any rogue state, [or] group that tries to reach for these kind of weapons.”...
Netanyahu thanked Kerry for his efforts to purge Syria of chemical weapons and linked the agreement with Syria to the ongoing campaign to curb Iran’s controversial nuclear program.
“We have been closely following – and support – your ongoing efforts to rid Syria of its chemical weapons,” Netanyahu said. “The Syrian regime must be stripped of all its chemical weapons, and that would make our entire region a lot safer.

Obama Says Iran ‘Shouldn’t Draw a Lesson’ From U.S. Handling of Syria Chemical Weapons Crisis

U.S. President Barack Obama warned Sunday that his country’s hesitation in carrying out a military strike against Syria has no bearing on how it will address Iran’s push for nuclear weapons.
“My suspicion is that the Iranians recognize they shouldn’t draw a lesson that we haven’t struck– to think we won’t strike Iran. On the other hand, what is– what– they should draw from this lesson is that there is the potential of resolving these issues diplomatically,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview.

US-Russia deal a ‘victory,’ says Syrian minister

Syrian Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar was the first Syrian official to refer to the deal, telling Russian news agency Ria Novosti that “on the one hand, it helps Syria come out of the crisis and, on the other, it helps avoid the war against Syria by depriving those who wanted to launch it of arguments to do so.”
He said it was “a victory for Syria, achieved thanks to our Russian friends.”

Saudi Daily: 'Chemical Weapons Smuggled to Hezbollah'

President Bashar Al-Assad has smuggled part of his chemical weapons arsenal to Hezbollah in a bid to evade international inspection, the Saudi newspaper Al Watan reported Monday.
The report quoted Syrian National Coalition member Kamal al-Labwani as claiming that: "The Syrian regime has transferred some of its chemical weapons arsenal to its ally Hezbollah aboard trucks used to transport vegetables."
The article published Monday, also included a claim that the Assad regime had covertly moved significant parts of its chemical weapons aboard Russian ships docked along the Syrian coastline.

Taking down Hezbollah

The London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat reports that the recommendations were made during a meeting of GCC interior ministers and their advisers in Riyadh yesterday. The recommendations are aimed at not only preventing any “terror-related activities, but also to shut down Hezbollah’s sources of financing.” The list is seen as a followup to a GCC proposal issued in July 2012 to address Hezbollah’s actions.
Most notably, tiny Bahrain has been the main GCC member to take serious action against Hezbollah’s interests in the country, partially due to Hezbollah’s support of Bahraini Shiite dissidents. Other nations have grown increasingly upset by Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian civil war on the side of the government.

Roadside bomb in Sinai hurts nine police recruits

Suspected Islamic militants set off a roadside bomb in the Sinai Peninsula as a bus full of police conscripts was driving by, wounding nine of them, Egyptian security officials said.
Monday’s ambush on the road outside the town of Rafah, on the border with the Gaza Strip, came amid a major counterinsurgency operation by Egypt’s military in the lawless desert region.

Egypt Continues Crackdown on Sinai Militants Near Gaza Border, Finds Anti-Aircraft Missiles and Motorized Paragliders

The army has destroyed 152 smuggling tunnels running from the Sinai into Gaza since June 30, he added.
On Saturday the Egyptian army discovered explosives under a border guard post in Rafah and later found a detonator 800 meters away, Reuters quoted Ali as saying.
Ali also said that during its recent operations the army seized weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles and motorized paragliders, which indicated an effort to develop new methods of attack.

Egyptian Government Defends Al Jazeera Ban

Sherif Shawki told the Wall Street Journal that Al Jazeera Egypt had "violated the law" by operating without the necessary permits. Despite not having the correct permits, the channel had been broadcasting in Egypt since the 2011 popular uprising which ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
Under Mubarak's regime Al Jazeera had been forbidden from broadcasting in Egypt. But the Qatari channel found a friend in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which rose to power in the aftermath of Mubarak's overthrow. Qatar is the leading sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood movement worldwide, and a key supporter of the administration of the Brotherhood's successful presidential candidate Mohammed Morsi.

MEMRI: Editor of Al-Ahram: US Plans Russia Revolution, Supports Iran's Nukes, Provoked Pearl Harbor Attack

Increasingly sectarian protests rock Turkey

The latest street unrest shows the grievances that prompted tens of thousands to protest Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government in June have not faded. And his government has been hurt by those protests — for instance, losing the chance last week to host the 2020 Summer Olympics partly due to Turkey’s damaged international image.
But this round of demonstrations was sparked far from Istanbul and in a very different way — the death of 22-year-old Ahmet Atakan, who died under disputed circumstances following a protest Monday in the southern city of Antakya.

Quarterly appeal: Donate to EoZ!

Every three months, I ask for donations to the blog. (Doing this right after the Jewish holidays, when we are all inundated with requests for money, might not be too smart...)

This quarter was busy as usual.

Some of my articles started appearing in The Jewish Press giving the blog some more exposure.

I was mentioned or quoted in The Algemeiner, Arutz-7, The Jerusalem Post, The Blaze, FrontPage Mag, Commentary, Fox News and others mentioned or quoted me - some 55 times, by my count.

I spearheaded publicizing the dangers of the antisemitic "Khaybar" miniseries that was broadcast in the Arab world during Ramadan. That battle still goes on as we are partnering with others in reaching out to contact Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International to ask why they have never, once, condemned or even acknowledged Arab antisemitism.

Other big stories that I broke or added crucial information was the Roger Waters inflatable pig with the Jewish symbol on it, Hamas mourning Helen Thomas, a film festival that excluded Israelis from attending, Bashar Assad's grandfather's letter (my most popular post this quarter,) and a UNRWA employee quoting Hitler on his social media sites - which prompted an investigation by UNRWA.

In addition, I was featured in a lengthy article on pro-Israel blogs in the current issue of The Jerusalem Report. (Not to mention that last quarter, I forgot to note that I was listed as one of the top 100 people influencing Jewish life at The Algemeiner.

I also continued to make cartoons, posters and other multimedia posts.

Also, co-blogger Ian has been doing a Herculean job putting together the daily linkdumps. It is very rare that he misses a story, and you should read his posts every day to know literally everything that I am not covering that has to do with the situation in Israel. (I share some of the donations with him - something that is not done by HuffPo, BuzzFeed or any of the other major blog sites that benefit from others' postings.)

I'm not aware of any primarily single-person blog, on any topic, that includes the variety of original articles, original research, news scoops, digging up obscure news items, original graphics and videos as this one.

Since this takes a great deal of time - and money - I am asking again for donations. You can click on one of the two PayPal buttons on the upper right of the blog page, or just click this button:

For those who don't like PayPal, I am always happy to accept Amazon(US) gift cards which can be emailed to me.

Thanks as always for your support, for being there and for publicizing my posts via Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and elsewhere. I really appreciate it!

Hizballah continues its takeover of Lebanon, targets Christians, says "We are the state"

A couple of troubling stories from Lebanon indicate that Hizballah, already under pressure because of its support for the Syrian regime, is acting to put more parts of Lebanon under its direct control - especially Christian areas.

Here is the story of a journalist who was assaulted and threatened by Hizballah forces:

A day after Hezbollah detained Journalist Hussein Shamas it assaulted at one of its a checkpoints near Galerie Samaan, a mostly Christian area bordering the Hezbollah stronghold of Dhahieh , Al Anwar newspaper journalist Maha al Rifai , who was beaten , cursed and insulted by the Hezbollah elements that were manning the the checkpoint .

This is all under the pretext of special security measures, that the Iranian backed militant group has been conducting in several parts of Lebanon.

Rifai , who was outraged later told her story to the Future TV. They reportedly demanded her car registration and drivers license but refused to give them back to her. When she asked about the reasons behind holding her documents and asked to contact a Lebanese Internal Security Officer she was told :” We are the state …get into your car you animal” and started cursing her .

When she insisted that a Lebanese internal police officer should attend to the matter one of the Hezbollah elements tried to hit her with an electric cane .

Minutes later a member of the Lebanese Internal security ( intelligence branch) arrived and when she threatened to report this to the media the intelligence officer gave her the car documents.

One of the Hezbollah elements then told her : “Don’t you ever think you can come back to the Dhahieh area” and continued to curse her.

Rifai concluded that Hezbollah is undermining Lebanon’s sovereignty and security, restricting freedom of speech and freedom of movement all under the pretext of special security measure following the bomb attacks in its Dhahieh stronghold

Back in 2008 it was revealed that Hizballah was wiretapping the telecommunications networks of Lebanon. Lebanese officials expressed alarm and denounced the action, but they were powerless to stop it.

Now, it appears that Hizballah's wiretapping is accelerating, especially in Christian areas:

Hezbollah is reportedly expanding its telecommunications network into the mostly Christian city Zahleh in the Beqaa region, Voice of Lebanon (100.5) radio reported on Sunday.

VOL noted that Zahleh “is witnessing an armed presence by Hezbollah members, notably in the industrial area [of the town].”

Hezbollah has been at the center of controversy over the years for the weapons it owns as well as its private communications network .

In another development Radio Free Lebanon reported that the Shiite militant party has established a wiretapping network in several towns along Lebanon’s western mountain range. It added that part of the data Hezbollah collects from this network is immediately sent to Iran.

In 2011 Beqaa’s Tarshish residents protested against the installation of Hezbollah’s network in their town using the state’s network infrastructure. MTV station reported back in October 2011 that Hezbollah threatened residents of Tarshish of a repeat of the May 2008 events after they prevented the party members from installing a telecommunications network in the town which is close to Zahle.

Of the three nominally equal Lebanese religious groups of Shiites, Sunnis and Christians, the Christians are by far the weakest. Their members have been fleeing the country for decades. It seems that Hizballah is now targeting any Christian areas near Shiite strongholds in its attempt to cement its hold on Lebanon itself.

Remember last year when Yasir Arafat's bones were dug up to see if a Swiss laboratory could determine if
he died of polonium poisoning?

Remember how the amount of polonium found on his underwear would have indicated an amount that would have killed a normal person in less than a day, although he was sick for weeks?

Remember how the exhumation of Arafat's body was far from transparent, but only a PA pathologist was allowed to touch it and how the PA insisted that Russian experts be on the scene as well - even though Russia had nothing to do with it?

At the time, we were told that it would take about four months for the Swiss to come to a conclusion about the matter.

Then the Swiss said they'd be finished by late spring. The Spectator thought the report would be released by the first day of summer.

The latest word comes from Xinhua, on August 13:

Test results of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's corpse would be handed to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in the middle of September, a PNA official said Tuesday.

A Swiss lab that examined samples from Arafat's remains would complete the results around the middle of September, said Tawfiq Al-Tirawi, head of the Palestinian committee that follows the investigation into Arafat's death in 2004.

"So far, the Swiss lab did not give us any initial indications or results on the deaths of Arafat's death," Al-Tirawi told Xinhua. However, he added that there were no obstacles preventing the results from being handed down and declared next month.

Well, its the middle of September, and we still haven't heard anything..

I am not a fan of conspiracy theories, but if the PLO asked the Russians for help in planting polonium on the samples while onsite, it might explain the delays. It would be very difficult to plant such tiny amounts in the tissue samples and keep them consistent with each other, as well as with making it look like a slow poisoning death. If the Swiss are seeing inconsistent results they might suspect something, but they are not criminal investigators and any theories about someone purposefully planting polonium would be outside their mandate.

When Israel pays students to post on social media, it's terrible. But what about Turkey?

Last month, the world media breathlessly reported "Students offered grants if they tweet pro-Israeli propaganda." Reaction from the usual suspects was immediate and scathing, as if somehow it sullies the idea of social media to begin with. How dare Israel take advantage of the same tools that every company on the planet is trying to exploit?

Today a story was released that will certainly get no such reactions:

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has launched a massive project to boost the party’s social media presence by hiring over 6,000 new employees for its newly formed social media team, according to daily Star.

Over 900 districts will have its own AKP social media representatives, with a 1,000 staff to be located in Istanbul, 600 in Ankara, and approximately 400 in İzmir.

The team will be responsible for converting AKP sentiments into trending hashtags, Star reported.

The move came soon after the AKP was dealt a clear defeat in social media when Gezi protesters turned websites like Twitter and Facebook into tools for organizing protests, voicing mostly anti-government sentiments.

Do you hear that? It's the sound of a big yawn when someone other than Israel tries to take advantage of Twitter and Facebook.

By the way, there was similar concern when the State of Israel put this infographic on Buzzfeed - even though the article admitted that the UK government also posts on BuzzFeed.

Guardian reviews book on history of Jews, Arabs freak out

Last week, in The Guardian, Tom Holland wrote about a book by Simon Schama called The Story of the Jews, which has also been a recent TV series.

The book appears to be interesting although quite at odds with the rabbinical traditions of how Jewish history unfolded. Nevertheless, it accepts that Jews today are descended from the Jews of Biblical times, who lived in Judea.

This is too much for Arab newspaper Moheet, which blares on its headline that The Guardian is pushing The Big Lie that "Jews are God's Chosen People from their homeland Palestine."

Here's what The Guardian says:

How, though, are "Jews" to be defined: as an ethnic grouping or as the adherents of a god? The Bible, that titanic record of their beginnings, and without which they would surely long since have gone the way of the Moabites, blurs the question by casting them as both. Not merely a people, they are a Chosen People, united by a common line of descent from Abraham and a code of laws inherited, via Moses, directly from YHWH. Simultaneously fantastical and transcendent, this is a narrative that plays directly to one of Schama's greatest strengths. He has always had a genius for celebrating the myths he is simultaneously deconstructing. The methods of analysis he once applied to the Dutch republic and the French revolution are now applied to holy writ. Jews first become Jews, in Schama's telling of their story, by a feat of willpower. Tradition generates its own backstory, which then takes on the cast of reality. "The Hebrew Bible is the imprint of the Jewish mind, the picture of its imagined origins and ancestry."

Through the bizarre filters of the Moheet author's mind, he translates this into "Jews are God's chosen people, according to the Torah, which is why the United States is an advocate for their rights!... [The book] confirms the idea that the Bible was written in Hebrew, which indicates that it represents the imprint of the Jewish mind."

Moheet goes on:

Then the author repeats fanatical Zionist lies: that Jews survived without their Palestine, spread out in different countries governed by various historical, political and cultural laws that helped to preserve their Jewish identity.

Jewish history is now a Zionist lie!

Moheet also says the article states:

It's time to write about the history of the deep faith of the Jews, and the importance of following the Torah and the rabbis to return to their homeland and Jewish identity.

I couldn't find anything close to that quote.

In the end, this hysterical review proves that for Arabs, the threat isn't Zionism - the threat is Judaism. The very existence of Jews, conitnuing to practice a faith that predates Islam by millennia and that indeed Islam stole many of its ideas from, continuing to venerate Israel and its holy places that still exist from before Mohammed was born - that is the scariest idea in the Muslim world that must be fought tooth and nail.

Because the truth indicates that Islam isn't so special, but rather it is a pale derivative of a religion that is still going strong.

9/15 Links: BBC Claims Egypt acted 'pre-emptively' against Israel in '73, Jerusalem’s Etrog Man

From Ian:

BBC’s educational resource website describes Yom Kippur attack by Syria and Egypt as ‘pre-emptive’

Consider then the statement below which appears in the section titled “The Middle East from the 1880s” on the BBC’s ‘Learning Zone’ website: supposedly a resource for secondary school educators.

“During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Syria acted pre-emptively against Israel at the Suez Canal.” [emphasis added]
Beyond the rather obvious fact that Syrian forces were nowhere near the Suez Canal at the time, the description of ‘Operation Badr’ as a pre-emptive action is clearly inaccurate. The Israeli government had not ordered a general mobilization of reserve forces during the build-up to the Egyptian and Syrian surprise attack and the US had received confirmation from Golda Meir that no pre-emptive Israeli strike would take place.

Netanyahu: Actions, not words, will be test for Syria and Iran

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed cautious optimism over the US-Russian deal, which will begin its implementation with Syria reporting on its chemical weapons stock by the end of the week.
However, he said, the commitments had to backed up by actions, not only in Syria but in Iran as well.
“We hope the understandings bear fruit. Those understandings will be judged by the results,” he said, referring to the total destruction of Syria’s chemical arms, which should take place by mid-2014. “The test of the results also applies to the efforts by the international community to stop Iran’s nuclear armaments. There, too, not words but actions will be the deciding factor.”
Netanyahu added that Israel now needed to have the ability to defend itself more than ever.

Israel: We’ve been ‘absolutely certain’ for months Assad using nerve gas

In his April address, Brun showed a photo of a child with narrowed pupils and foam coming out of his mouth. Both of these were indicative of a nerve agent, he said. He repeated those indicators in the Saturday interview, broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 news, while making plain that the IDF had other, more conclusive, sources of information.
Israeli military intelligence reportedly played a key role in providing evidence of Assad’s chemical weapons use in the August 21 attack that sparked the current crisis over Syria. On the Friday after that attack, Channel 2 reported that the weapons were fired by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, a division under the command of the Syrian president’s brother, Maher Assad. The nerve gas shells were fired from a military base in a mountain range to the west of Damascus, the TV report said.

Kerry briefs Israel’s leaders on Syria deal

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier Sunday expressed cautious optimism about the deal.
Officials in Jerusalem said late Saturday Israel would of course be delighted to see the regime of President Bashar Assad stripped of chemical weapons, but that Israel is extremely wary of the unfolding diplomatic framework, concerned that Assad is bent on buying time, and that the optimistic timetable set out in Saturday’s agreement will not be adhered to. Kerry will meet a “skeptical” Israeli leadership.
Kerry was to have met with Netanyahu later this week in Rome, but Netanyahu cancelled his planned trip amid the current regional tensions.

Obama: Military action still on table if Syria diplomacy fails

Obama said the United States will continue working with Russia, the United Kingdom, France, the United Nations and others to "ensure that this process is verifiable, and that there are consequences should the Assad regime not comply with the framework agreed today."
"In part because of the credible threat of US military force, we now have the opportunity to achieve our objectives through diplomacy," he added.
US forces were still positioned for possible military strikes on Syria.
"We haven't made any changes to our force posture to this point," Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement Saturday.

McCain and Graham Slam Syria Agreement

The two called the agreement “meaningless” and said it sends the wrong signal to Iran, which is suspected of building a nuclear weapon.
The Republican senators said the framework agreement reached by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is toothless without the UN Security Council Resolution that threatens the use of force should Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad fail to comply.

Putin Puts International Law Before War

However, Putin now certainly needs to explain the lack of "real leverage" demonstrated by the failure of those same 5 Permanent Members to agree on the terms of a resolution to end the 30 month civil war in Syria that has already claimed over 100000 lives, created 2 million refugees and displaced 5 million Syrians in their own country.
Russia needs to do its own soul searching as it continues to exercise its veto vote to paralyse all efforts by the majority of the other Permanent Members to obtain a Security Council Resolution to try and end this humanitarian outrage.
Russia cannot continue to be the impediment frustrating any resolutions to try and end this conflict - if Putin wants to be taken seriously.

Video Reveals Key Iranian Role in Syrian Civil War

Remarkable footage has emerged of Iranian military forces on the ground in Syria, fighting alongside pro-government militias.
Shia Iran is the Assad regime's closest ally, along with the Hezbollah terrorist group, and Iranian support is nothing new. But whilst Hezbollah has officially acknowledged that its fighters are actively engaged in battle on behalf of the Assad regime, Iranian officials always maintained that any Iranian presence in Syria and support for the Assad regime was limited to logistical support and "military advisers," away from the front lines.

20 trucks with Syrian chemical equipment said sent to Iraq

Twenty trucks laden with equipment used in the manufacture of chemical weapons were driven across the border from Syria into Iraq on Thursday and Friday, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Mustaqbal reported on Sunday.
The trucks were “heavily protected” by security forces, and were not inspected by border guards, the paper reported, adding that its sources confirmed the illicit cargo.

Guardian Jerusalem Syndrome: Giles Fraser fears Judaisation of Temple Mount

Lending polemical support to such an often repeated lie that Israel – which allows freedom of worship for all faiths at holy sites in Jerusalem – represents a threat to the Temple Mount (the holiest site in Judaism), is the Guardian’s Giles Fraser, whose latest piece at ‘Comment is Free’ is titled ‘An Israeli claim to Temple Mount Would Trigger Unimaginable Violence.’

Feiglin Challenges Waqf Control over Temple Mount

In his response, Gordon stated that the policy of Muslim control over the Temple Mount was a government decision taken immediately after the liberation of Jerusalem in 1967.
Feiglin, however, was unimpressed.
"Since I am not aware of any such government decision since 1967 to grant control over the Mount to the Waqf, I request that you supply me with a copy [of the decision," he retorted.
Feiglin went on to point out that - far from deciding to hand the site over the Muslim authorities - a number of ministerial committees clearly stated that the opposite was true.

Israeli Health Care of Palestinians

Once again Israel is coming under attack from a foreign government financed NGO, this time claiming Israel is ignoring its humanitarian obligations with regard to the taking care of the health of the Palestinians.
In spite of the constant calls for Israel’s destruction and the culture of hatred and demonization that permeates Palestinian society at all levels, Israel is, in fact, meeting its humanitarian obligations in respect of the Palestinians, albeit under circumstances fraught with danger.

Border Police Come Under Attack in Anata

A video has been released showing Border Police unit coming under attack during a routine patrol on Yom Kippur. The unit was driving through the Arab town of Anata, near Jerusalem, when local youths attacked with concrete blocks, bottles, and buckets of paint.
A local man filmed the attack and uploaded footage. The video shows the reality of “rock attacks,” which often involve heavy concrete blocks thrown from upper floors of buildings.

Putin to visit Iran for first time in six years

“Putin has been invited to Iran, and he will certainly take advantage of this kind invitation,” the Interfax news agency quoted spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Friday. “The dates of the visit will be agreed upon through diplomatic channels.”
The announcement came on the heels of a report that Russia had agreed to sell to Iran the advanced S-300 air defense system and construct a new nuclear reactor at the Bushehr site.

New IOC head to resign from controversial Arab-German trade group

Thomas Bach, a German sports functionary who was elected Tuesday for an initial eight-year term at the helm of the IOC, is the chairman of Ghorfa, the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Founded in 1976, the organization is accused of helping companies make sure they avoid any trade with Israel. Since Bach’s election last week in Buenos Aires, several Jewish groups have called on Bach to step down from his position at the trade group.
Bach also came under fire from Jewish groups for opposing a minute of silence for the Israeli victims of the Munich 1972 terror attack during last year’s Olympic Games in London.

Tel Aviv University, China’s Tsinghua University to Create XIN Life Sciences Center in China

In a statement reported by Israel’s Globes business daily, the two universities said they plan to create a research center to be called XIN, which means “new” in Chinese. They will dedicate “hundreds of millions of dollars” to set up the research institute which will focus on life sciences and nanotechnology, and co-ordinate frequently with high-tech industry.
The agreement between the two educational institutions comes as China seeks to harness Israeli innovation, in major ways, including establishing a technology incubator in Israel and beefing up the frequency of flights between the two countries to facilitate business interaction.

Sapiens wins 2 financial services contracts for NIS 80m

One contract with Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings Ltd. (TASE: CLIS), which selected Sapiens Life & Pensions software to manage its pensions portfolio, in a multimillion dollar deal.
The second contract is a follow-on deal with that LV= Ltd., the UK's largest friendly society and a leading financial mutual, with more than five million members, which renewed its maintenance and services contract with Sapiens for five years. The contract is worth $10.5 million (NIS 38 million).

Meet Jerusalem’s Etrog Man

If you’ve ever been to the century-old Jerusalem marketplace Machane Yehuda and haven’t stopped by the booth of third-generation Yemenite healer Uzi-Eli Chezi, it’s time for a return visit.
Click below to see how Uzi-Eli has built his citywide reputation on drinks and cosmetic preparations using native plants including the fragrant etrog, or citron, which is better known for its starring role in the Sukkot holiday.

Ian Lustick's science fiction in the New York Times

Science fiction does not only deal with fantasies about the future. It also sometimes includes alternate history, describing how events would have unfolded had something different happened years ago.

Ian Lustick in the New York Times shows his anti-Israel bias by writing both alternate history and a fantasy future in his article against the two-state solution. Not to mention some old-fashioned fiction:

Israeli governments cling to the two-state notion because it seems to reflect the sentiments of the Jewish Israeli majority and it shields the country from international opprobrium, even as it camouflages relentless efforts to expand Israel’s territory into the West Bank.

No, the Israeli government supports a two state solution because of a combination of worries about a mostly mythical demographic time-bomb and because of relentless pressure from the US. These are pretty basic facts. Does Lustick really think, after so many years, that Israel would make decisions like this only to shield itself from criticism? He must have been asleep during 1967, Entebbe, Osirak, and a couple of times in Gaza.

American politicians need the two-state slogan to show they are working toward a diplomatic solution, to keep the pro-Israel lobby from turning against them and to disguise their humiliating inability to allow any daylight between Washington and the Israeli government.

Ah, it's all because of the Jewish Lobby. It isn't the Us driving the current peace talks, but AIPAC controlling, um, the State Department.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't make fun of an "expert."

It is true that the Oslo process is a sham. It is true that the current conventional wisdom that "everyone knows" what an eventual solution will look like has been dead wrong for at least 12 years, ever since the PLO rejected the Clinton parameters and chose to start a terror war instead.

Oh, I'm sorry again. Lustick seems, throughout this entire 2200 word essay, to have ignored the intifada as being something that might be blamed on Palestinian Arabs. Instead, he obliquely blames Israel, starting his alternate history segment with:

Had America blown the whistle on destructive Israeli policies back then it might have greatly enhanced prospects for peace under a different leader. It could have prevented Mr. Begin’s narrow electoral victory in 1981 and brought a government to power that was ready to negotiate seriously with the Palestinians before the first or second intifada and before the construction of massive settlement complexes in the West Bank. We could have had an Oslo process a crucial decade earlier.

He speaks about a "peace process" in 1980 which didn't exist.

Indeed, Lustick seems to be peculiarly one-sided in assigning blame for the failure of Oslo. Terror, incitement, intransigence on the part of the PLO simply is not worth mentioning. Only Jews wanting to live in the homeland of their ancestors is the obstacle.

Lustick then turns to more traditional science fiction, as he describes his hopes and dreams of how shuttering the peace process today will ultimately bring about a better Middle East:

With a status but no role, what remains of the Palestinian Authority will disappear. Israel will face the stark challenge of controlling economic and political activity and all land and water resources from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The stage will be set for ruthless oppression, mass mobilization, riots, brutality, terror, Jewish and Arab emigration and rising tides of international condemnation of Israel. And faced with growing outrage, America will no longer be able to offer unconditional support for Israel. Once the illusion of a neat and palatable solution to the conflict disappears, Israeli leaders may then begin to see, as South Africa’s white leaders saw in the late 1980s, that their behavior is producing isolation, emigration and hopelessness.

Fresh thinking could then begin about Israel’s place in a rapidly changing region. There could be generous compensation for lost property. Negotiating with Arabs and Palestinians based on satisfying their key political requirements, rather than on maximizing Israeli prerogatives, might yield more security and legitimacy. Perhaps publicly acknowledging Israeli mistakes and responsibility for the suffering of Palestinians would enable the Arab side to accept less than what it imagines as full justice. And perhaps Israel’s potent but essentially unusable nuclear weapons arsenal could be sacrificed for a verified and strictly enforced W.M.D.-free zone in the Middle East.

You see? If we just abandon Oslo, then the ugly face of Jewish Israelis can be revealed to the world! Right now, articles like Lustick's in small papers like The New York Times aren't enough to demonize Israel - we need to set the stage for Israel to start killing lots and lots of Arabs, who will naturally and nobly start terrorizing Jews as is their right under oppression. The international pressure can properly blame Israel for its awful apartheid-like policies of trying to defend its civilian population and we can get rid of this ridiculous idea of a Jewish state once and for all.

Palestinian Arab insistence on a capital in Jerusalem, on the 1949 armistice lines and on the "return" of millions of Arabs into Israel are "key political requirements." Israeli insistence on an undivided Jerusalem, defensible borders and a Jewish state are "maximizing Israeli prerogatives."

Lustick's foray into science fiction moves more towards fantasy in his next paragraph:

In such a radically new environment, secular Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank could ally with Tel Aviv’s post-Zionists, non-Jewish Russian-speaking immigrants, foreign workers and global-village Israeli entrepreneurs. Anti-nationalist ultra-Orthodox Jews might find common cause with Muslim traditionalists. Untethered to statist Zionism in a rapidly changing Middle East, Israelis whose families came from Arab countries might find new reasons to think of themselves not as “Eastern,” but as Arab. Masses of downtrodden and exploited Muslim and Arab refugees, in Gaza, the West Bank and in Israel itself could see democracy, not Islam, as the solution for translating what they have (numbers) into what they want (rights and resources). Israeli Jews committed above all to settling throughout the greater Land of Israel may find arrangements based on a confederation, or a regional formula more attractive than narrow Israeli nationalism.

Every one of Lustick's scenarios betrays either a remarkable ability to write speculative fiction or a remarkable blindness to the Arab, Muslim, Zionist and Jewish psyches, all at once.

And so it goes. An extremist position to dismantle Israel and eventually replace it with another Arab state (albeit with a large Jewish minority), spiced up with wishful thinking of a bizarre utopian fantasy where Jew-hatred is not an inherent part of the Arab and Muslim mindset so the resultant state will treat Jews as honored citizens with equal rights, is published in the New York Times.

The fantasy fiction of Ian Lustick will be discussed over brunch this morning in New York and Washington as if it makes all the sense in the world.

Arabic Jew-news roundup

Al Wafd, newspaper of a secular Egyptian party, accuses Hamas of being behind a lot of the Sinai jihadist "Instead of fighting the Jews, Hamas turned to fight the Egyptians."

This was the illustration fot that article

attacks, which is a usual motif in the Egyptian press lately. (I have seen very little verifiable evidence of this, although there is evidence that some Gaza groups are helping Sinai jihadists.) It chastises Hamas by saying that the organization spout slogans but doesn't do anything about the Jews.

The Jordanzad news site has an op-ed saying that the current talks between Israel and the PLO is really a talk between Jews...and Jews. Mahmoud Abbas, the writer says, has turned his job into doing whatever the Israelis tell him to do.

Al Hadath News reports on the recent Washington Post interview with Brigitte Hoss, daughter of Rudolf Höss, Kommandant of Auschwitz who was found to be living in a Washington, DC suburb. While the WaPo article described the horrors of Auschwitz along with the interview, this Arab paper quoted only the parts of the interview that could be used to cast doubt on the Holocaust:

She questions that millions were killed. “How can there be so many survivors if so many had been killed?” she asks.

When I point out that her father confessed to being responsible for the death of more than a million Jews, she says the British “took it out of him with torture.”

The article also quotes her saying “I am still scared here in Washington. There are a lot Jewish people, and they still hate the Germans. It never ends.”

Another JordanZad piece adds a wrinkle on an old conspiracy theory. You see, Israel installed cameras on the Temple Mount, and they allow Jews to visit "al-Aqsa." The reason is that they are planning an earthquake, and they want to bury Jews in the rubble, to make the world sympathetic with the dead Jews and no one will think about the destruction of the Al Aqsa Mosque.

The Christian-Muslim Commission for support of Jerusalem, one of the many anti-Jewish groups out there, came out with a press release that was published verbatim in some Arab media outlets. It warns that Jews plan to march in the streets of Jerusalem during the upcoming Sukkot holiday and calls for Arabs to wake up and take action against it. This has been a motif that has been increasing lately in the Arab press, as organizations such as this one and the Al Aqsa Foundation are desperately trying to incite Arabs to revolt.

Al Quds Educational TV notes that Yom Kippur brought Jerusalem to a standstil as thousands gathered for prayers at the Kotel, another unforgivable crime. The organization described Yom Kippur as the "anniversary of the 1973 October war."