Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Weak Kofi: Annan delivers lame apology for map incident

An interesting followup to the story about the UN wiping Israel off the map:

The particular event in question was organized by the Palestinian delegation in the U.N. and the Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa, and hosted all of the organization's high ranking officials.

During preparations for the event, the flags of the U.N. and Palestine were placed on the central stage, and a map depicting the territory of Israel was hung on the wall behind it.

However, the map was titled 'Palestine' instead of 'Israel', and all Israeli communities have been curiously erased from it.

Annan, who during the event sat on stage under the map and addressed the audience, apparently failed to notice its peculiarity.

The U.N. Spokesman Stephane Dujarric told Yedioth Ahronoth on Monday that 'the map that was displayed at the event is not an official U.N. map. Secretary General Annan believes it was regretful that the map was in the room during his speech. We have informed the event's organizers that such an incident should be prevented from repeating in the future.'

So, according to the UN, the problem is that Kofi Annan was embarrassed by an inaccurate map hung behind him.

The fact that the Palestinian leadership today explicitly denies Israel's right to exist, despite their lies at Oslo, is not worth mentioning.

What exactly is the difference between what Nasser al-Kidwa did and what Iran's lunatic president says? Both negate Israel's existence in no uncertain terms.

But Palestinians are still the world's darlings and therefore need to be rewarded for lying more and more about pretending to want a peaceful solution. Iran is a bit more of a pariah so the UN can afford to criticize its president (while refusing to do anything beyond words.)

HH #49 Anniversary Post

The next edition of Haveil Havalim (hosted next week at the fantastic SerandEz blog) will mark its first anniversary. The tireless Soccer Dad is asking that JBloggers submit a post from about a year ago, to show how our blogs have changed in the past year, or alternatively to write an article about why we started blogging and linking to that.

This blog started in August of 2004, but for many months it was meant to be a compilation of news concerning Israel, terrorism and anti-semitism with very little comment from me. It was still useful and I still often see people finding an old article I posted that is no longer available from the original link.

Other bloggers also started much more complete Israel-news blogs, like News for Members of the Tribe and the excellent Iris, so I started adding commentary and eventually original pieces.

Almost exactly one year ago, one of my earliest commentary posts was tearing apart Reuters' obvious anti-Israel bias in one of its articles.

Since then I have been trying to carve out my own niche in the J-Blogosphere (as SoccerDad put it in a recent comment) .

While I get most of the articles I comment on from Daily Alert and similar sources, I also now will do a regular Google News search on terms like "Zionist." Using this I can often discover interesting articles in the Muslim world, which even when translated into English shows incredible bigotry and hate. Iranian news sources are particularly likely to use the term "Zionist" as an epithet. (For example, now I know that Iran's foreign minister blames Zionists for the assassination of the anti-Syrian Lebanese journalist yesterday.) Much outrageous anti-semitism can also be found this way, helpfully masqueraded as "news" sources by Google.

I also spend time looking through old Palestine Post articles and finding parallels between what Israel went through during its birth and today. I spun off an entire separate blog just to re-post the articles based on that research, and, who knows? Maybe someone will offer me a book deal! For some reason I have blogged a lot from the Palestine Post recently, and even though it is only Monday I think I will nominate my latest article on the Arab League boycott of Jewish goods in 1946-47, which has relevance today.

Anyway, a big מזל טוב to Haveil Havalim on its anniversary, and to Soccer Dad for having created such a successful and important venue for the Jewish Blogosphere!

Since taking office in August, Ahmadinejad has spoken out frequently against Israel in terms which were almost unheard of under his reformist predecessor Mohammad Khatami.

European diplomats say his anti-Israel comments, which have included calling the Jewish state a 'tumor' that should be 'wiped off the map', may cause a delay in planned talks between the European Union and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program.

What a strong response! Delaying talks is sure to make Iran's insane president think twice about his nuclear program.

Good thing we have the EU to protect the world from nuclear proliferation.

Fatah is a reverse acronym from the complete Arabic name: HArakat al-TAhrir al-Watani al-Filastini, becoming "HATAF", which, since it means "death" in Arabic, was reversed to become "FATAH" meaning "conquest" in Arabic.
The Fatah official emblem shows two fists holding rifles and a hand grenade superimposed on a map of the land they claim as Palestine: present-day Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Fatah joined and began to dominate the PLO in 1969.
The "Palestinian National Authority" is formally delegated its power by the PLO. In other words, the PA is officially run by a terrorist organization.
While there is some controversy about whether the PLO ever modified its charter to recognize Israel (a modified charter has never been published, to my knowledge), Fatah's "constitution" still explicitly calls for Israel's destruction by "armed struggle."
It appears that every major member of the PA is a member of Fatah (including such "moderates" as Saeb Erekat), and not one is known to have said that they do not subscribe to the Fatah "constitution."
Mahmoud Abbas and Farouk Qaddoumi have been in a power struggle over leadership of Fatah and the PLO. Qaddumi, who lives in Tunisia and is adamantly against any compromise with Israel, is the head of the PLO Central Committee and as such, the PA reports to him. Abbas disputes this, and some call him the President of Fatah. Some ugly incidents have occurred as a result.
Either way, it appears that Abbas holds the purse-strings for Fatah in "Palestine" and the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade terror group gets its funding from Fatah.
Qaddoumi wants to move to Gaza.

1946-1947 Arab boycott of Jewish goods hurts Pal Arabs much more than Jews

One of the recurring themes in the history of Palestinian Arabs is the incredible number of times they've been screwed - by their fellow Arabs. From at least the 1940's, the Palestinian Arab leadership and especially the leaders of other Arab countries have not hesitated to use Palestinian Arabs as pawns in their maniacal desire to rid the Middle East of Jews in non-dhimmi roles.

The earliest example of this that I have found occured in late 1945. The Arab League, alarmed at the acceleration of the movement towards Zionist statehood, hit upon a formula that they have repeated many times since then - the boycott of Jewish products (sometimes called "Zionist" products, but as can be seen below, the word "Jewish" was used interchangably with "Zionist" at the time.)

Ain't Arab solidarity grand?

Almost immediately, there were concerns among Palestinian Arabs about the impending boycott and how it would affect their livelihoods:

Notice the outspokeness of the real Arab street about how this would hurt them. "Those in the Arab League who decided on a strike don't worry about us."

Of course, this doesn't stop the Arab leaders, who always know best. On January 1, 1946, the boycott starts as planned. Immediately, there are problems with compliance.

So, the wise Arab leaders decided to extend the boycott to not only Jewish goods but also to Jewish services. No longer could Palestinian Arabs go to Jewish doctors or Jewish-owned movie theaters! That will teach those uppity Jews! (Notice that here is one case where the boycott is explicitly called against "Jews", not "Zionists." The almost inescapable conclusion is that the Arabs were reading from the Nazi playbook, where boycotts of Jewish goods preceded the Holocaust.)

It is also interesting to note that the non-compliance by Palestinian Arabs here in late January is becoming more of a concern to the leaders of the boycott. Not that they were consulted or anything.

The months flew by and the boycott became less and less relevant. Palestinian Arab leaders passed yet another of their many anti-Jewish resolutions at yet another meaningless meeting in August, and called again for their people to abide by the boycott that was still being roundly ignored.

Meanwhile, the Jewish economy was booming as never before! As this October article shows, the Zionists adjusted their economic models to sell more to non-Arab countries. Any effect that the boycott may have had was more than offset by their business in new markets.

As 1946 became 1947, and as Israel became closer to becoming a reality, the Arab leaders refused to believe that the boycott was an abysmal failure. Someone had to be at fault - and that someone was, of course, the Palestinian Arab businessman who refused to go along.

The solution was simple. Bomb the Palestinian Arab businessmen!

Just bombing them in Jerusalem was not enough. This had to become a national event.

It appears that dozens of bombs were set off in Arab businesses by other Arabs as 1947 wore on, putting Palestinian Arabs in the position of either losing their businesses by adhering to a bizarre failure of a boycott, or losing their businesses to the bombs of their leaders who couldn't possibly be at fault themselves.

One at least one occasion, the targeted businessmen had had enough of this.

A "cycle of violence" was now established! But even with the thuggish tactics of the terrorist Arab "leaders," the boycott was still ignored and Jewish businesses were not hurt at all.

The only ones hurt were the ones that the boycott was officially supposed to benefit.

I don't know if this is the first time that Palestinian Arabs were treated like dirt by the people who pretend to champion their cause, but it was certainly far from the last.

Crossposted to Palestine Post-ings.

Hey-hey, Haveil Havalim #48 is out

A Whispering Soul does an outstanding job of finding a ton of cool links in the J-Blogosphere in this week's Haveil Havalim. It appears that the number of links hits triple digits. There is a lot of quality out there in the Jewish blog world and it is nice to see it all in one spot. (Finding the time to check all these links out is a whole 'nother story.)

Yours truly was mentioned as well, and it was for the post I was most proud of this week. So many thanks to whoever nominated me!

(I am working on another major Palestine Post-ings article this week as well, so far I have about 5 articles on a theme and a few more coming. We'll see how much time I get to put it together. )
(UPDATE: I finished it. )

Doctor, I need help. I just can't self-nominate!

I admit I like to be mentioned in the weekly Haveil Havalim, and I admit I like getting the extra hits that mentions like that generate. But I can't nominate myself for these things!

I thought I had a lot of good posts this week, especially the Palestine Post-ings articles on Kiryat Gat/Intel, December 9 1947, and the aborted Palestinian Arab state of 1948. Beyond those, my article on the Palestinian Arab "peace" soccer game got picked up by the Cuanas blog, people seemed to like the Saeb Erekat morality post, and many read the UN map post. And SoccerDad thought I should nominate my post on Paradise Now.

Not to mention that the second annual JIB awards are coming and I also can't bring myself to nominate this blog. It just feels wrong - if people like a blog, it seems to me that they should nominate what they like, not the bloggers themselves. Not that I look down at those who do. It just doesn't feel right to me.

I actually started trying to compose a self-nomination to A Whispering Soul, who is compiling HH this week. I simply couldn't do it.

I think I may need an on-line shrink to help me work through these issues!

The Intellectual Corruption of Academia

Usually, Nobel Prizes for economics aren't controversial. But if one of the winners has the chutzpah to actually think that Jews have the right to live beyond the 1967 borders, well, he becomes a "warmonger" and his theories become "controversial."

Prof. Israel Aumann received the Nobel Prize for economics in Stockholm Saturday evening. Several hundred academics, charging that his theory supports Yesha communities, want the prize revoked.

Prof. Aumann, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, received the honor jointly, shortly after the end of the Sabbath, with American Prof. Thomas Schelling, for their work on understanding conflict through game theory. Aumann brought his entire extended family to the ceremony, where Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf presented the prize.

The Israeli scholar, the eighth Israeli to win a Nobel prize, moved to Israel from Germany in 1956 and is chairman of Hebrew University's Center for Rationality. Prof. Aumann said that war is not irrational and must be studied 'like cancer' in order to defeat it.

Almost 1,000 intellectuals and academics submitted to the Royal Swedish Academy of Science a petition to protest the 'monstrous' act of awarding Prof. Aumann. They charged that he is using game theory to 'justify the Israeli occupation and the oppression of the Palestinians.' They also want the award to be taken back from Prof. Schelling, whom they blamed for inspiring American military strategy that includes bombing civilians.

The British newspaper The Guardian stated that Prof. Aumann, in an interview with an American website, said that Israel made a mistake in expelling Jewish residents from the Gaza and northern Samaria regions.

'From a game theory point of view it was a very bad move. But if I didn't study game theory, I would also say the same thing,' according to the professor.

"It was a bad move because it sends a signal to the other side that if you apply enough pressure, then we will respond in a way that you are applying pressure. It's a bad move theoretically. It sends the wrong signal," he said. In another interview, he said the Arab-Israeli conflict has been "been going on for at least 80 years and as far as I can see it is going to go on for at least another 80 years. I don't see any end to this one, I'm sorry to say."

Notice that the "academics and intellectuals" aren't protesting that his science or math is wrong - but that they believe (undoubtedly most of them are not familiar with game theory) that these theories are being used to justify wars they don't like.

In other words, math and science and true intellectual pursuits are far less important to these self-appointed guardians of knowledge than doing what they feel is politically correct. These so-called "intellectuals" are against true research and acquiring knowledge, which is beyond ironic.

It is ironic that "academics" are so clueless as to how they are damaging their own reputations as thinkers and seekers of knowledge. It is funny how hysterical these supposedly dispassionate observers become when they disagree with someone's politics. It is sad that many Israeli professors seem to have joined in this farce.

The awarding of Nobel Peace prizes is often controversial, but it is rare for the scientific laureates to generate significant opposition. However, a petition to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences signed by about 1 000 intellectuals and academics from Israel, Europe and America describes the awarding of this year's prize to the two professors as "monstrous".

The critics accuse Aumann -- a member of the hawkish think tank Professors for a Strong Israel, which believes the Jewish state should retain the occupied territories -- of using his mathematical theories to promote his political views.

"Aumann uses his analysis to justify the Israeli occupation and the oppression of the Palestinians," the petition says.

It describes Schelling's theories as directly inspiring the United States military strategy in Vietnam, including the indiscriminate bombing of civilians.

"This strategy resulted in two million civilian deaths and was a complete failure in realising its objectives," the petition says. "Neither of these individuals has contributed anything that improves the human condition; rather, they have contributed to the misery of millions."

The petition is signed by Israeli peace campaigners, economists, academics, Holocaust survivors and left-wing politicians. Signatories from about 50 other countries, including the US and several Arab states, have also supported it. Those from Britain include academics at several universities, members of groups such as Jews against Zionism, and activists in the Respect party.

Shraga Elam, an Israeli writer among those behind the petition, concedes that his objection is to Aumann's political views and not to the quality of the analysis on game theory.

"Every person, including a Nobel Prize laureate, is entitled to his political views," he said. "But ... it is not enough to say that politics does not enter in to it.

"Can a racist or a Holocaust denier receive the Nobel Prize even if he is very talented in his scientific field? Political views are relevant."

There you have it - a self-proclaimed "intellectual" who likes to compare Jews who believe that Gaza shouldn't be Judenrein with neo-Nazis.

What an intelligent, academic argument!

And the sad thing is, these so-called intellectuals have no reason to fear that they will not get tenure or prestigious positions at other universities because of their profoundly censorious views. The left-leaning academic world is an entire culture built on self-congratulatory closemindedness that is the exact opposite of what true knowledge seekers should be.

The war already began: Palestine Post, December 9, 1947

Here is a snapshot of the first page of the December 9, 1947 Palestine Post:

Israel's friends like to say that the combined Arab nations all attacked Israel as soon as she declared her independence. But it is not quite true: they attacked much earlier than that, and the between the time of the UN Partition decision and May, 1948, the Arabs already started attacking Jews all the while gearing up for the much larger war to come. And the British pretty much gave up on any pretense of protecting the Jewish citizens of Palestine.

Iraq wanted to position it's troops in Transjordan:

Arabs attacked and burned Jewish homes, murdering women and kidnapping babies:

Jews lived together with the enemy - no wall, no security, and no interest by the British to keep the peace. At any moment there could be sniper fire, and many Jews were killed just doing their normal day-to-day activities.

The Arab countries continued to criticize the Partition plan but were confident of their ability to kill the Jews who actually thought they had a right to live in peace in the land of Israel - making it a religious obligation to join the war against the Jews: (page 2)

So the time period between Partition and independence was hardly peaceful. The war already started, and it was by no means clear (within a few years of the Holocaust) that any Jews would survive, let alone that Israel would win.

Bush ignoring Israel in "war on terror" speeches

A disturbing op-ed from Sidney Zion. I believe his conclusions are spot-on - the genteel anti-semites and Israel-haters have managed to separate Israel's war against Islamic terror from that of the rest of the world, giving rise to the thought process that somehow the Palestinian terror is more acceptable and legitimate than the Islamic terror in the rest of the world.

The President's omission of Israel as a country affected by Islamic terror strengthens the positions of the fundamentalist Hamas and Islamic Jihad immensely - any distancing between Israel and America is a huge victory for the Islamofascist propaganda machine. And there is no doubt that this omission is noted and celebrated in Ramallah and Gaza City.

Repeat a lie enough times and people will start to believe it. This has certainly worked here.

Bush's radar skips Israel

President Bush, in back-to-back speeches defending the Iraq war, has crossed Israel off the list of countries hit by Islamic terrorists.

In his address yesterday to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Bush said: "The terrorists in Iraq share the same ideology as the terrorists who struck the United States on Sept. 11, blew up commuters in London and Madrid, murdered tourists in Bali, killed workers in Riyadh and slaughtered guests at a wedding in Amman, Jordan."

In Annapolis last week, he listed the same countries, adding the massacre of Iraqi children and their parents, who had just been hit outside an Iraqi hospital.

How could Israel fail to make the President's cut? Especially yesterday, after a suicide bomber killed five and wounded 60 in Netanya on Monday. Not to mention that Israel has been the prime target of terror forever.

Is this an oversight by Israel's greatest friend in the White House? Or could it be an effort to appease the Arab world?

Certainly no oversight. In 11 speeches over the past three months in which Bush has talked about terror, he only mentioned Israel three times - once before Jewish Republicans. Yesterday, he left them out again. "The enemy must be defeated on every battle front, from the streets of Western cities to the mountains of Afghanistan to the tribal regions of Pakistan to the islands of Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa."

If he forgot them last week, he was reminded by the Zionist Organization of America, in a tough press release that was cited by a reporter in the White House briefing the day after the Annapolis speech.

Q. "Why did the President do this, given 1,700 Israel citizens murdered by Islamo-fascists, and 10,000 more maimed by them since 1993?"

Scott McClellan, Bush's spokesman: "There's no stronger friend and supporter of Israel."

Q. "Why did he not mention that with all those other countries?"

McClellan: "I don't think that's the way to look at it."

I think Bush put a blue pencil through Israel, and I think he did it because he's in big trouble with the war and all he can think about is appeasing the Arabs.

He likes to compare himself to Winston Churchill. The President should keep these words of his in mind: "If you feed the crocodiles, you'll be his last meal."

UN wipes Israel off the map

Arutz Sheva reports:

The United Nations held a "Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" last week. A large map of “Palestine,” with Israel literally wiped off the map, featured prominently in the festivities.

The ceremony was held at the UN headquarters in New York and was attended by Secretary General Kofi Annan and the Presidents of the UN Security Council and the General Assembly.

Map of "Palestine" from the Jordan River to the sea, with no mention of the Jewish State.

During the festivities, a map labeled a "map of Palestine” was displayed prominently between UN and PLO flags. The map, with “Palestine” written in Arabic atop it, does not include Israel, a member of the UN for 56 years. The map does not even demarcate the partition lines of November 29, 1947, marking a Jewish state alongside an Arab state. The partition was dictated by the UN General Assembly itself.

Map surrounded by the flags of the UN and PLO.

With the map hanging behind him, Secretary-General Annan addressed the public meeting at UN Headquarters.

Kofi Annan sits at the dais with the map negating the Jewish State's existence in the background (lower left side of photo)

I have yet to hear about any world outrage, or even protest from Israel.

Oy! I've been tagged!

The J-Blogosphere has been buzzing with the "meme" asking people to write what random songs show up on their iPod. WHen I saw it, I didn't expect to be tagged (no one has ever tagged me for anything anyway) but I had it in the back of my mind, wondering if I would embarrass myself by revealing what songs would come up on my iPod Nano that I got as a gift from work and have been playing with for a month or so.

Then Ze'ev from Israel Perspectives raised the stakes and changed the meme into 15 books people have read recently, are currently reading or really like. And then he tagged me, as if I was a literate person!

If he would have asked for 5 books, maybe I could have scraped something together quickly. But, here goes, in no particular order:

Contemporary Halakhic Problems, volumes 1-3, J. David Bleich - I love the subject of halacha in today's society, moral and ethical perspectives. This was the series that started it all. Other similar books by Basil Herring and Fred Rosner are good. I have not yet read the more recent volumes, though.
Six Days of War, Michael Oren - the definitive history of the 1967 Six Day War, with a very good overview of 1948-67 as well in the first chapter.
Bringing Down the House, Ben Mezrich - a fun true story of some MIT kids who beat the system in Las Vegas playing blackjack.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, JK Rowling - My review was here. The entire series really is great.
Year's Best SF 10, Hartwell and Cramer - I don't have the patience for long SF stories but I love anthologies, and this is one of many I have read, usually on planes during business trips. But if I recall correctly, it included the novella "Sergeant Chip" which was a fantastic story, one of the best SF stories I ever read.
New Voices in Science Fiction, Resnick - Similar to the other SF anthologies but much more variety, and at least two Jewish themed stories including a very cool ba'al teshuva/vampire story called "Lifeblood" by Michael Burstein.
Artscroll Eruvin volumes 1 and 2 - I am trying to make time to at least do the English of the Daf Yomi this cycle, and so far (bli ayin hora" I've been mostly successful. Eruvin is hard though and needs more time than I am giving it. (I know Ze'ev wasn't including sifrei kodesh, but, he didn't explicitly exclude them.)
Bodyguard of Lies, Anthony Cave Brown - an exhaustive yet mostly entertaining description of the British use of deception in World War II, climaxing in the amazing story of how they fooled Hitler into misplacing his troops for D-Day.
Secrets and Lies, Bruce Schneier - a good book to place the problems of computer security in context, with applications beyond the digital world.

This is all I have time for right now, and I am not going to burden anyone else with this meme (since Ze'ev already tagged many others.) I can also claim that if you add the many volumes of books I mentioned it is way more than 15.

Perhaps I'll try to add more later.

Palestinian soccer players to be punished for heinous crime

This article is telling not only for how it shows that Palestinian Arabs have no interest in peace, but also in how Israelis do.

The situation hasn't changed for a hundred years and it will not change in the next hundred, without a significant change in the mindset of the Palestinian Arab leaders.

The naivete of the Peres Center is also interesting.

Sports and politics are two sides of the same coin.

The Palestinian FA plans to punish players under its jurisdiction for participating alongside Israelis in a 'Peace Match' in Barcelona, an official said on Wednesday.

A 'Peace Team' of Israeli and Palestinian players lost 2-1 to Barcelona at the Nou Camp last week in front of 31,820 spectators, including many dignitaries.

'The Palestinian FA will form a committee to investigate the players who participated in the match ... everyone involved will be punished,' senior FA official Jamal Zaqout told Reuters.

'We act in accordance with the attitude of our people who are against normalisation (of relations with Israel) before the end of the occupation,' Zaqout said, referring to Israel's hold over lands captured in the 1967 Middle East war. (And Reuters of course can read his mind that he was only referring to the '67 borders. - EoZ)

Fifteen Israelis, including many internationals and 12 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank joined up for the match sponsored by Israeli statesman Shimon Peres's Centre for Peace foundation.

A Peres Centre spokeswoman said the Palestinian FA's reaction was 'irresponsible and annoying'.

'The Peres Centre together with its Palestinian partner, the Abu Sukar Centre, received the blessing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and (his senior security adviser) Jibril Rajoub for the match,' spokeswoman Michal Eldar said.

'The match in Barcelona was an unprecedented event in which we managed to convey to the world the message of peace and cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians,' she said.

A spokesman for the Israel FA (IFA) said it had approved the participation of its players.

Israel's FA has been generally supportive of its Palestinian counterpart, which became a full FIFA member in 1998.

The IFA helped Palestinian players receive permits to leave Gaza for overseas matches when Israel controlled the coastal territory before pulling out last September.

Pro terror "art" in Berkeley

I missed this classic photo essay from Zombie last month about this art exhibition in the city-funded Berkeley Art Center. It still runs through next week, though. A small sample:

The first painting to catch my eye was this one of what is apparently a young suicide bomber wearing a mask made out of a kaffiyeh. The Arabic words behind him say, over and over, "I will not accept a little" or "I will not accept a pittance," apparently referring to the desire for a Palestinian state that occupies all of modern-day Israel, and not just the West Bank and Gaza. In other words, it is a call for the elimination of Israel, seemingly with suicide bombing as the means for achieving this. (Thanks to evariste for the translation.)

Here's a close-up of the central figure, with the bomb attached to his waist more clearly visible (which is reminiscent of this photograph of a young Palestinian being groomed to become a suicide bomber).

Next up was this photograph of two mannequin-hands holding a "blood"-soaked globe. You might wonder: what does this have to do with Palestine or Israel? The answer: everything. Because the image of greedy hands grasping a (frequently bloody) globe is one of the most notorious anti-Semitic illustrative themes of the last century. This motif was (and is) often used as an illustration for covers of the anti-Semitic tract The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

(Click on the image to enlarge.)
Here is a classic example from a 1930s-era French-language edition (provided here as a comparison -- it was not part of the exhibit). In most reditions, the hands grasping the bloody globe belong to a greedy Jew who wants to take over the world. I suppose this is the message -- which is widely believed among Palestinian militants -- that the artist who took the photograph wanted to communicate. (Notice also how the position of the continents is identical in both images. Coincidence?)

Read the whole thing.

Iranian president: Islam seeks peace for humanity

This is one of the more unintentionally hilarious news stories around (Hat tip: Judeopundit)

TEHRAN, Dec. 6 (MNA) -- President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said here on Tuesday that Islam seeks peace, calm and justice for humanity.

Speaking to reporters before leaving for Saudi Arabia to attend an extraordinary summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Mecca, Ahmadinejad stressed that leaders of Islamic states are tasked with envisaging a hopeful future for the current world which suffers from injustice and tension, development of chemical and biological arsenals and aggression. (He didn't mention nuclear weapons. Must have been an oversight. -EoZ)

He said that the OIC could play a significant role in world developments, expressing hope that the upcoming meeting would have positive results for the Islamic and the entire world.

Ahmadinejad added that studying challenges and problems encountered by Muslims worldwide will be high on the agenda of talks.

He noted that the talks should also focus on the decisive role the Islamic world can play in the international community.

Ah yes, a world divided into Muslims with nukes, dhimmis and infidels. How peaceful it would be!