Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, December 31, 2005

The planets are aligned. Daughter of Ziyon has a new post.

The always beautiful and talented Daughter of Ziyon has decided to grace the JBlogosphere with her description of my nephew's wedding last month.

Take the racism test!

I was going through some old posts of mine when I used to waste my time frequenting Yahoo Message Boards before I discovered how much fun it is to instead waste my time blogging. Here's an oldie but goodie:

Do you consider Israel's policies racist? Take the Racism Test to see if you are racist too!

Do you believe that:

Jews should be able to live in a Palestinian state?
Jews should be able to own land in Palestine?
Jews should be able to build their own communities in Palestine?
Jews should be able to vote in Palestinian elections?
Jews should be able to freely immigrate to Palestine; no discrimination in immigration policies?
Jews should be able to freely worship at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and Rachel's Tomb outside Bethlehem?
Jews should be able to worship on the Temple Mount?
Jews should be able to be elected in a Palestinian parliament?
A Jew should be able to be elected President of Palestine?

Answer only one "no", and - congratulations! You must be a racist!

Today's Egyptian Police Phunnies

One of today's bottom stories. After all, Arabs killing people is not a big deal.

CAIRO (Reuters) - At least 10 Sudanese refugees died and around 50 were injured on Friday when Egyptian police dispersed a three-month sit-in by thousands of Sudanese demanding to be moved to another country, officials said.

The head of the local ambulance service, who did not want to be named, said 20 bodies had been taken to medical centres, but the number could not immediately be confirmed.

The Interior Ministry said 10 people had died in what it said was a stampede among the protesting refugees, who have been camped at the site in an affluent part of Cairo. It said 75 police officers were also injured when they tried to move them.

Witnesses said about 2,000 riot police stormed the camp site early on Friday and beat those inside with truncheons and sticks after officials had failed to persuade them to board buses waiting to take them to another site.

Pools of blood were visible on the pavement as men in the camp fought back with sticks and hurled bottles at the riot police, who also fired water cannon to try to disperse them.

About 4,000 police in total ringed the site, near the offices of the U.N. refugee agency, where the Sudanese had set up camp in squalid conditions in protest against what they said was poor treatment since they fled Sudan's lengthy civil war.

'The security forces were present to ensure a process of transporting those mentioned (Sudanese) and to prevent squatting,' the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Reuters witnesses said there were about six unconscious Sudanese, some of them young children, lying on the ground.

A doctor who examined a girl aged about four who was brought to him after being found unconscious said: 'She's dead.'

Just another day in a country that gets $2 billion annually from the US.

Poll: Arabs lose interest in the Palestinian issue

A poll released by the Arab American Institute looked at attitudes of the Arab people throughout the Middle East towards various issues:

Arab American Institute: Arab Attitudes Poll 2005:
1. The most important political issues facing the Arab world are largely the same in 2005 as they were in 2004: expanding employment, improving health care, and education ranking first, second, and fourth. In third place is an issue we did not include in our 2004 poll: ending corruption and nepotism. It is noteworthy that “resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” has dropped from second place in 2004 to seventh place in this year’s survey.

I have a theory about this.

In years past, the Arab governments had a monopoly on information that the Arab public could see, and from the middle of the 20th century until a couple of years ago, they had no problem using that monopoly to manipulate public opinion for their own purposes. This was clearly not the case in the earlier part of the 1900s; the Palestine Post articles I've been researching from the 40's shows that the Arab people were far more independent and outspoken than they had been in the 60's or 90's. They had no problem criticizing their government, and the divide between them and their supposed leaders was apparent.

The Arab people of the early 20th century were far more concerned with their personal family welfare than with any geopolitical issues. National boundaries were meaningless, as Arabs freely moved between areas to where ever they could best provide for their families. In fact, most "Palestinian Arabs" moved to the area after the Jews started moving in en masse for purely economic reasons - a large percentage in the 20's and 30's.

Not to say that they were all happy with Jews taking power in Israel; the Arab mental block against "losing" land that was once Muslim is strong. But to the average Palestinian Arab the Jews brought more prosperity and they co-existed fine. It was the leadership that felt threatened by Jews in power.

As Israel was restored, the neighboring Arab nations wanted to fight it by any means possible, and one very effective way was to manipulate Arab public opinion. The West has always had an irrational fear of the mythical "Arab street," and the Arab leaders used this fact as a weapon, threatening the West constantly with unleashing the power of their angry citizens. It was of course a joke - they were pulling the strings all along, and their citizens had little freedom to protest anything against their governments.

The best example of public opinion whiplash occured in Egypt during Camp David. The Egyptian press praised Israel for dismantling towns in the Sinai, showing TV footage and making Egyptians sympathetic towards peace. As soon as the Sinai was in Egyptian control again, the press did a quick 180 and the incitement started anew.

The Arab governmental control of their media had other consequences, of course. They could limit world coverage of their own atrocities, such as the Syrian massacre of 20,000 in Hama, and they could distract their people from their own corruption by playing up imagined Jewish crimes.

In the new century, things started changing. Three trends are funadmentally changing the ability that Arab governments have to manipulate public opinion: Satellite TV, the Internet, and the US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now ordinary Arabs can see what is going on from different perspectives. Self-criticism is increasing. People want more freedom. They are no longer dependent on the government line. Even though the Arab countries are still far from democratic, the leaders are clearly reacting to their citizens, rather than just pushing them.

And the Arab people, when armed with real information, tend to see that the importance of the Palestinian issue is nothing compared to the problems they have in their daily lives. Blaming Israel for the problems of someone in Kuwait or Bahrain or even Egypt makes no sense. The Arabs are now feeling more free to express themselves, and freedom is a hard thing to give up once you have had it.

There were other interesting parts of the poll, some unexpected:

2. The most important concerns in personal life are matters close to home; family, quality of work, marriage, and religion. The significance of religion has declined in most countries and is in 5th place among younger Arabs.

3. Overall, Arabs appear to be satisfied with their present situation and optimistic about their future. Most significant changes occurred in Lebanon where both optimism and satisfaction doubled since 2002.

4. Significant majorities of Arabs in all countries accept women in the work place, especially if the reason is to provide financial support for their families, and smaller majorities also support women working for other reasons: “to find a fulfilling career” or “because she wants to work.”

5. In 2005, more Arabs prefer to self-identify with their country of origin, than with their religion, or “being Arab.” In 2002, religion and sect were principle self-identifiers.

6. Overall, favorable attitudes toward the U.S. have rebounded since 2004, but are still slightly lower than the already low 2002 ratings. Negative attitudes toward the U.S. have hardened due largely to Iraq and “American treatment of Arabs and Muslims.”

7. There is a growing pessimism toward “the likelihood of peace.” Positive attitudes have dropped in most countries, most notably in Egypt and Jordan.

8. Only in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates do Arabs report optimism in the promise of finding a job in their own country. Majorities, in the other four countries polled, report that they would relocate to another country to find work.

Each of these are worth an essay in themselves, but much of it is very encouraging and, I would argue, that much of it (acceptance of women in the workplace, less emphasis on religion) is also a result of the freer flow of information to the Arab world.

UPDATE: Daled Amos notices something else interesting about this poll.

PA TV's latest message of peace and co-existence

Palestinian Media Watch captured this:

PA TV program on Jaffa (Tel Aviv):

"It is time for you [Israelis] to be gone. Live wherever you like, but don't live among us. It is time for you to be gone. Die wherever you like, but don't die among us. We have the past here. We have the present, the present and the future. So leave our country, our land, our sea, our wheat, our salt, our wounds. Everything. And leave the memories."

These words of hate are the parting moments of yet another program on Palestinian Authority television calling for the destruction of Israel. The words, calling for the expulsion of every last Israeli from Israel, are spoken while the screen is showing Jaffa-Tel Aviv, Israelis and Israeli flags. Official PA TV has aired this twice in recent months.

To view this clip, click here

The "Roadmap" says:

At the outset of Phase I:

Palestinian leadership issues unequivocal statement reiterating Israel’s right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere. All official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel.

Has any pressure ever been put on the PA to stop incitement in their official media?

The Quartet of Cluelessness

The United States and three international supporters of the Middle East peace process said Wednesday that the next Palestinian Cabinet should not include members of Hamas or other militant groups committed to violence.

A statement by the four parties, known as the Quartet, did not name Hamas, but said a future Palestinian Cabinet 'should include no member who has not committed to the principles of Israel's right to exist in peace and security and an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism.'

If the Quartet was serious about this statement, it just ruled out every single member of the PA from running in the election, not just Hamas.

There has not been any unequivocal desire to stop terror by any PA leader. Every terror attack is "condemned" because of its adverse effects on the Palestinian Arabs, not because it is wrong. All current PA ministers are members of Fatah, which expresses its explicit desire to destroy Israel. The fact that the PA maps of the region do not show Israel makes it very clear that they have no long-term desire to accept Israel's existence.

There is no difference between the Fatah members of the PA and the terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, except that Fatah is more secular and slightly more willing to make a temporary truce with Israel en route to destroying it. If the Quartet thinks that its statement excludes Hamas only, it is showing only that it still does not have a clue.

Today's PA "condemnations"

Referring to today's terror attack:

Deputy Palestinian Prime Minister Nabil Shaath denounced the bombing, and said that it was a particular tragedy that Palestinians had been killed. 'We want such operations stopped,' he said."

"We only want operations that kill Jews exclusively," he added.

Elsewhere in condemnation news:

Concerning the Israeli newest military escalation, President Abbas condemned enforcing the off-limit zone northern Gaza Strip.

"Israel had no right to reoccupy the Gaza Strip under any pretexts." Abbas said.

And for the trifecta:

Palestinian security forces set up roadblocks throughout the southern Gaza Strip today as they stepped up a search for three British citizens abducted by Palestinian gunmen, the latest in a wave of kidnappings of foreigners in the chaotic area.

"We have contacted all Palestinian official armed organisations, who all condemned this and are helping us search for her from door to door.”

"Palestinian official armed organizations"? So Hamas murderers have some sort of membership card that allows them to blow up Jews but not to kidnap other Westerners?

After a few tense days of anticipation, the 2005 Jewish and Israeli Blog Award page sponsored by the Jerusalem Post and Israellycool is finally up, and I am honored to be nominated in three categories!

For each of those categories, to be honest, I wouldn't vote for myself. There are much better blogs than this one in every respect. Specfically, these are who I believe should win my categories:

Best Designed Blog: Jewlicious is a fantastically designed site. Even my designer, the beautiful and talented Daughter of Ziyon, agrees that it is better than the job she did here.

Honorable mentions to The View From Here and Oceanguy.

Best Israel Advocacy Blog: Very tough category. Iris was not nominated and it is my current favorite just for its sheer completeness - I now go there as often as Daily Alert to get the latest news on topics I write about.

Of those nominated, I like IsraPundit, Soccer Dad, the Muqata and Smooth Stone, but I have to admit that I am not yet familiar with many of the nominated blogs. Which is one of the reasons I love these awards - to get a chance to see blogs I missed this year.

Best series: I have to go with Aaron's Story at Elie's Expositions. Brilliantly written, absorbing, terrifying and heartbreaking. It is the single best piece of writing I have yet seen on the web.

I was disappointed not to see Rose's Story nominated - it is well worth reading and very well done.

I am looking forward to checking out many more of the nominated sites. It is a shame that many fine blogs were not nominated or did not properly get nominated; perhaps next year a nomination form would make more sense. This is not to take away from the amazing job that Dave at Israellycool has done in getting this organized - yasher koach and thank you! Thanks also to the Jerusalem Post for hosting the awards this year, adding much visibility to the still-young JBlogosphere. And, again, thanks to those who nominated me.

Preliminary voting starts January 9th, so there is plenty of time to check out all the great blogs listed.

Iran's Mehr News obsessed with Holocaust denial

No fewer than seven articles have been printed in the Iranian Mehr "News" site denying the Holocaust in the past month.

Interestingly, the first one came before Ahmadenijad made his remarks - it was an article by an author upset that the UN decided to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Then they added articles where they interview Holocaust deniers and then claim that Palestinians are the real victims of genocide.

But - don't call them anti-semites!

The German state of Bavaria banned a radical Islamist group on Wednesday, saying materials seized from its offices urged Muslims to murder Jews and Christians.

'With today's ban of the Multi-Kultur-Haus (MKH) association, Bavaria is making the limits clear to supporters of foreign extremist organisations,' the state's interior minister, Guenther Beckstein, said in a statement.

Bavarian authorities had been watching the MHK (sic) in the town of Neu-Ulm for some time. Security officials had previously seized textbooks and other publications, materials Beckstein said clearly showed the group's radical nature.

One book seized from the MHK (sic) library called on Sunni Muslims to 'execute Jews and Christians as infidels,' the statement said.

An audio cassette said: 'Oh worthy ones, oh friends of love, send us bombs to kill the Jews with. No to the Jews, no to the Jews!'

I'm just posting this story because I love the name of the banned group: Multi-Kultur-Haus
.

Western multiculturalism and Muslim supremacism are two sides of the same coin, so it is not surprising that an Islamist supremacist group would hide behind that innocuous sounding name.

Shmendrik Award winners announced!

The eagerly-anticipated first annual Shmendrik Awards were given out by Dry Bones. As Yaakov Kirschen says:

The 1st Annual Shmendrik Award "winners" have been chosen! The annual awards “honor” those who most distinguished themselves by their seemingly unwitting support of anti-Semitism.

MEMRI's top 10 Muslim conspiracy theories in 2005

A fun read.

By STEVEN STALINSKY - The MEMRI Report

A Saudi journalist, Mshari Al-Zaydi, wrote about the "disease" of the Arab press blaming others for the Arab world's misfortunes in a London-based newspaper, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, on November 20. "This huge obsession among some Arabs and Muslims regarding conspiracy theories and the belief that the world is lurking in wait to pounce on us, as if the world has no worries other than cooking up plans, policies, and moves in order to realize one objective only: to eliminate Islam, Muslims, and Arabs," Mr. Al-Zaydi wrote.

The following are the top 10 conspiracy theories of 2005:

10. An Iraqi Shiite imam, Jalal Al-Din Al-Saghir, gave a sermon on December 16 that was broadcast on Al-Furat TV. He called Al-Jazeera "a TV channel known to be guided by the Mossad and ... whose purpose is to damage ... Islamic interests."

9. On a program that aired September 30 on Hezbollah-backed Al-Manar TV, the director of Sweden's Radio Islam, Ahmad Rami, (who was found guilty of incitement against Jews and served time in prison) discussed Jews in the West who "have 100% complete control of the media, political parties, trade unions, and publishing houses."

8. Saudi Arabia's Al-Majd TV interviewed a Jordanian lecturer, Sheik Ahmad Nawfal, about Jewish history on November 13. "David and Solomon were among our [Muslim] ranks. If Solomon had a temple, we would be worshipping Allah in it. We would not be worshipping idols and polytheism in it, like they do," he said. "There is no indication that a temple existed there."

7. Following the December 6 C-130 plane crash in Iran, the Iranian Student News Agency quoted the secretary-general of the Association of Muslim Journalists, Parviz Esmaeili, blaming, "U.S. state terrorism." Rambling about American sanctions on Iran, Mr. Esmaeili called on, "all the heads of state in the world" to discuss at international meetings this "plane crash and similar incidents over the past two decades [in Iran] as evidence of the U.S. technological crimes."

6. Mr. Esmaeili went on to tell ISNA that if the attacks of September 11, 2001, were investigated, the probe would show that the perpetrators were "the U.S. government and not phantom players like Al Qaeda." Other programs on Iranian TV devoted to the attacks included French author Thierry Meyssan's August 30 interview with Jaame-Jam2 TV and a November 17 interview with an Iranian filmmaker, Nader Talebzadeh, on IRINN TV.

5. Arab TV has also been rampant with September 11 conspiracies, including Al Jazeera's series "The Truth Behind 9-11," which was widely viewed throughout September, and a retired Egyptian general, Muhammad Khalaf, on Al-Mihwar TV on September 11 of this year detailing the American government's "secret plan" first developed in 1999 by "Bush senior."

4. Books on conspiracies continue to be popular throughout the Middle East. One devoted to the Bush family was the topic of a November 11 interview on Syrian TV featuring Syrian cleric Mohammad Said Ramadhan Al-Bouti: "Bush ... the grandfather of the current American president ... wrote a book about the life of the Prophet Mohammed. In this book, which was published in 1831, he says: 'As long as the Muslims' empire is not destroyed, God will not allow the return of the Jews to the homes of their fathers.'"

3. On December 14, the Syrian state owned daily Teshreen wrote about a book called "The Balance of Horror in an Open War," by Abdul Majid Ammar. It includes an analysis of the "Zionist entity and the conspiracies it hatched against the Arab nation in order to achieve its sinister expansionist plans."

2. Following the December 12 assassination of a Lebanese member of parliament and a leading anti-Syrian writer, Gibran Tueni, Iran's foreign minister, Hamid Reza Asefi, was quoted as saying it was "in line with ... the Zionist regime." A Teshreen headline on the story read, "Israeli Factor Should Not Be Dropped." On December 18, Al-Seyassah quoted Syria's information minister, Mahdi Dakhlallah, as saying, "Tueni was in debt and was killed by his debtors."

1. Many Arab writers have attacked Detlev Mehlis, the lead U.N. investigator of the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Mr. Mehlis's mother has been accused of being a prominent Zionist, as the Syrian judicial Web site Al-Nazaha reported on November 17. The deputy editor of the Egyptian government daily Al-Gumhouriyya, Abd Al-Wahhab 'Adas, reported November 12 on his mother's "major role in bringing Jews from Germany to Palestine" and that "Mehlis's mother was killed on the Golan Heights by Syrian sniper fire."

September 1943: No Jewish children left in Poland

In response to the new fashion of Holocaust denial sweeping the world, I have here a tiny article buried in the September 3, 1943 Palestine Post, one of hundreds of contemporaneous articles that documented the methodical murder of European Jewry.

Speaking of Munich - The Mahmoud Abbas connection

Now that the world is looking at the Munich terror attack again thanks to Steven Spielberg, this Sports Illustrated article from 2002 has some details that are relevant today.

Following the Oslo Accords of 1993, the mastermind of Black September's Munich attack enjoyed a certain respectability. Mohammed Daoud Oudeh, a.k.a. Abu Daoud, sat on the Palestinian National Council, where in 1996 he joined a majority in voting to revoke the clause in the PLO charter calling for Israel's destruction. Though Israel had long known of his role at Munich -- Mossad was believed to have been involved in a 1981 assassination attempt in which he was shot six times -- he even carried an Israeli-issued VIP pass that allowed him to shuttle between his home in Amman, Jordan, and the occupied territories.

All that changed in 1999 after Abu Daoud openly acknowledged his role in the Olympic attack, both in his memoir, Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich, published in Paris, and in an interview with the Arab TV network al-Jazeera. Germany issued an international arrest warrant on Abu Daoud, and Israel canceled his travel credentials, barring him from the Palestinian lands he had spent his adult life trying to liberate....

"At the time, it was the correct thing to do for our cause," Abu Daoud told SI. AP
In late July, SI's Don Yaeger went to the Middle East to find the 72-year-old Abu Daoud. After five days in Syria, where he met with leaders of several Palestinian groups, including the Palestinian Authority, PA president Yasir Arafat's Fatah faction and the militant Hamas, Yaeger received a call from Abu Daoud, who said he was in Cyprus. Abu Daoud, who would not reveal where he resides -- saying only that he lives with his wife on a pension provided by the PA -- agreed to answer written questions. Among his claims, in his memoir and to SI, are these:

# Though he wasn't involved in conceiving or implementing it, "the [Munich] operation had the endorsement of Arafat." Arafat is not known to have responded to the allegations in Abu Daoud's book. In May 1972 four Black Septembrists hijacked a Sabena flight from Brussels to Tel Aviv, hoping to free comrades from Israeli jails. But Israeli special forces stormed the plane, killing or capturing all the terrorists and freeing every passenger, leaving Arafat, by Abu Daoud's account, desperate to boost morale in the refugee camps by showing that Israel was vulnerable.

# Though he didn't know what the money was being spent for, longtime Fatah official Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen, was responsible for the financing of the Munich attack. Abu Mazen could not be reached for comment regarding Abu Daoud's allegation. After Oslo in 1993, Abu Mazen went to the White House Rose Garden for a photo op with Arafat, President Bill Clinton and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. "Do you think that ... would have been possible if the Israelis had known that Abu Mazen was the financier of our operation?" Abu Daoud writes. "I doubt it." Today the Bush Administration seeks a Palestinian negotiating partner "uncompromised by terror," yet last year Abu Mazen met in Washington with Secretary of State Colin Powell.
[...]

# While he doesn't regret his role in the operation, Abu Daoud told SI, "I would be against any operation like Munich ever again. At the time, it was the correct thing to do for our cause. ... The operation brought the Palestinian issue into the homes of 500 million people who never previously cared about Palestinian victims at the hands of the Israelis." Today, he says, an attack on an event like the Olympics would only damage the Palestinians' image.

Dead Jews - to the Palestinians, it is both a strategy and a tactic!

Another detail about the moderate Palestinian leader:

Daoud also was interviewed about the Munich massacre for a film called "One Day in September," produced by John Battsek and Arthur Cohn for Sony Pictures Classics. Director Kevin Macdonald said Abu Daoud admitted Black September was merely the cover name adopted by Fatah members when they wanted to carry out terrorist attacks.

The PLO operative recalled how Arafat and Abu Mazen both wished him luck and kissed him when he set about organizing the Munich attack.

Spain is "occupied territory"

Hamas has a children's newspaper that describes the Spanish city of Seville, calling on Muslims to liberate it as well as the rest of Spain.

This is not surprising; Bin Laden himself mentioned "the tragedy of Andalusia" in his videotaped message right after 9/11, referring to the Muslim loss of sovreignty over Spain in the 15th century. And the phrase "tragedy of Andalusia" is not particular to Bin Laden; other Islamist websites use it freely, sometimes as veiled threats.

Here is an excellent Muslim analysis of how mainstream Muslims think of "al-Andalus." Many feel that Madrid was the target of Islamic terror more because of Andalusia rather than Iraq.

It seems that most Muslims feel that once some territory is Muslim, it is Muslim forever and needs to be taken back forcefully. In other words, there is no difference between the West Bank, Israel and Spain; it is more a matter of where to focus first.

And it is instructive that Muslims are teaching this to their children, today.