Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Mother of all work accidents watch

Iran continues to get regular earthquakes. Just today there were three!

1. Quake hits eastern Iran

According to the seismological base of Birjand affiliated to the Geophysics Institute of Tehran University, the quake occurred at 10:49 hours local time (07:19 GMT).
The quake was felt in an area measuring 59.49 degrees in longitude and 32.49 degrees in latitude, the report added.

Saturday May 20, 2006 2. Quake hits southern Iran

Iran-Firouzabad-Quake
According to the seismological base of the Geophysics Institute of Tehran University, the quake occurred at 01:29 hours local time (21:59 GMT Friday).
The quake was felt in an area measuring 52.28 degrees in longitude and 28.6 degrees in latitude, the report added.

Saturday May 20, 2006 3. Quake jolts Dehdasht in midsouthern province

An earthquake measuring 3.5 degrees in the Richter scale jolted surrounding areas of Dehdasht in midsouthern province of Kohgilouyeh & Boyer Ahmad on Saturday.

As I mentioned before, building nuclear power plants in the most earthquake-prone region of the world is not the brightest idea. But on the bright side, it may end up that Iran's genocidal desires end up being foiled by a literal act of God.

Who wants a Palestinian Arab state?

One of the assumptions that have been made since at least Oslo is that it would be a Good Thing for Palestinian Arabs have their own state. Israel has subscribed to this idea, as has the US, and of course all of Europe.

Now that the Muslim-Brotherhood affiliated Hamas is running the show in the territories, it appears that the countries that are most against a Palestinian Arab state are its Arab neighbors!

Egypt has already had problems of its own with religious extremism in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood, which started there. And since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, the Sinai has become a much more hospitable place for Al Qaeda and other sister groups that advocate a worldwide Islamic 'ummah. Not to mention Hamas shielding terrorists from Egypt.
Jordan has already acted against its local Hamas members. It has always straddled the line between Islam and the West, and it stands to lose a lot should it suddnly become neighbors with Hamas. In 1970 it showed the world how sympathetic it was to Palestinian nationalism, and the newer religious component is turning into a greater threat than the PLO was then.
Lebanon is still trying to get rid of its Hezbollah albatross, and Hezbollah is essentially the same as Hamas - and it has assisted Al Qaeda as well. Hamas would strengthen Hezbollah significantly.

So, interestingly, Israel's Arab neighbors are much less sympathetic and much more realistic about Hamastan than most of the West. While they will mumble platitudes of support for the Palestinian Arab people, they aren't actually acting as if they want to see a Palestine emerge anytime soon.

They see the lessons of Gaza, where any vacuum in the Middle East will be filled by the most radical elements who hate non-religious Arab regimes as much as they hate America.

It would behoove the West to take a second look at the desirability of the success of the Oslo experiment. Inertia is not a reason to continue to go forward towards supporting what would inevitably become the next chaotic center of international terror.

Canonical list of reasons idiots give to fund Palestinian Arabs

Humanitarian reasons: (EU)
If the reason is purely humanitarian, then why do Palestinian Arabs deserve millions of dollars more than starving kids in sub-Saharan Africa? It is not like they do not have resources to grow crops or provide medical care - and they received state-of-the-art greenhouses giftwrapped. At what point does the world say that Palestinian Arabs need to show some level of responsibility for themselves rather than being bailed out by the West?

Political influence: (Arab states)
The fear is that if we don't give money to Hamas, Iran will, thus increasing Iran's influence in the conflict. Of course, Hamas has made it clear that it wants money with no preconditions and it will not be influenced easily. And what is the difference between Arab goals for Palestine and Persian goals?

Hamas was elected democratically (loony leftists and Arabs who support Saudi Arabia):
So the people that elected murderers should have no responsibility for electing murderers?

Withholding money is "collective punishment" for the majority of peace-loving Palestinians (loony leftists and Arabs)
This one directly contradicts the one before. And since when is receiving money from the West a human right?

The PA is owed money due to prior agreements: (loony leftists and Arabs)
Since the current PA government does not recognize any prior agreements, it is a bit hypocritical to insist that other parties continue to abide by theirs. An agreement is two way; a concept that does not seem to have permeated the average Palestinian Arab mind yet.

If money isn't given to Palestinian Arabs, they will start terrorizing each other/Israel/the world: (Hamas spokesman)
This is the standard blackmail/Mafia argument. Just because it is couched in other words does not make it any less of a threat. And history shows that giving in to threats is the best way to ensure that more will be coming.

Besides the fact that they terrorize each other/Israel/the world anyway, whether they get money or not.

We will only fund hospitals [and maybe schools] (Israel and the US):
No one is saying that Arabs should starve or sicken, but shouldn't the primary responsibility for funding Palestinian Arabs come from the Fatah money squirreled away worldwide and from other Arab nations?

Guns or butter?

I'm sure that he was planning to distribute the money to hospitals and food banks. He just forgot to declare it at the border.

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- European monitors at a crossing between Gaza and Egypt caught a Hamas official Friday carrying about 900,000 euros, Palestinian officials said.

That amount is worth more than a million dollars.

The Associated Press identified the official as Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.

This is the same guy who swears up and down that Hamas is nothing like Al Qaeda, no-sir-ee-bob.

Commenting on bin Laden's message shortly afterwards, Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, said the group's ideology was "totally different" from that of bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

"What Osama bin Laden said is his opinion, but Hamas has its own positions which are different to the ones expressed by bin Laden," he said.

However, he said that what he called the "international siege on the Palestinian people" would inevitably lead to tensions in the Arab and Islamic world.

"It's natural that this tension is going to create an impression that there is a Western-Israeli alliance working against the Palestinians," Abu Zuhri said.

He added that Hamas was "very keen to have good relations with the West" but said that Western policies were inflaming tensions.

Hamas is very keen to have good relationships with people who give it money for free, with no preconditions, and who look the other way when they smuggle some in themselves.

Must-have equipment for every police force

Rocket-propelled grenades are an essential part of every police force. After all, what better way is there to combat crime? You can be sure that a shoplifter will think twice knowing that this is what he is up against when the police patrol the streets with RPGs.

A Palestinian militant of the Islamic group Hamas, carrying a RPG (Rocket propelled grenade) launcher, patrolls a street in the Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip Wednesday, May 17, 2006. The Palestinian interior minister declared a new Hamas-dominated police force operational on Wednesday, defying President Mahmoud Abbas in a powerful challenge that could stoke more internal bloodshed.

A Palestinian militant from the Hamas movement patrols the street of Gaza city May 17, 2006. The Palestinian interior minister declared a new Hamas-dominated police force operational on Wednesday, defying President Mahmoud Abbas in a powerful challenge that could stoke more internal bloodshed.

Palestinian militants from the Hamas movement patrol the streets of Gaza city May 17, 2006.

Palestinian militants that are part of a new security force of the Hamas-led Palestinian government patrol the street after deploying in the Nusseirat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip Wednesday May 17, 2006.

Terrorist Yankee fan

I always knew the Yankees were evil...

They tie for first and the Palestinian Arabs go wild, shouting "We're Number One!"

Tehran lies and Israeli morality

An article in both MehrNews and the Tehran Times pretty much makes up facts to describe the "naqba":

TEHRAN, May 16 (MNA) -- When the sun descended behind the Al Khalil mountains on May 15, 1948, the inhabitants of the verdant village of Kafar Qasem in Palestine were once again waiting for the men to return from the fields.

Reports then began trickling in of a massacre of Palestinians carried out by members of the terrorist organizations the Hagana and the Stern Gang in a nearby village.

The family of Mahmud al-Natsha, one of the poor farmers of Kafar Qasem, was waiting for him to return, but suddenly a terrible sound descended over the entire village.

The Zionist terrorists, backed by British colonial forces, entered the village and massacred innocent women and children.

Hagana’s leader at the time was none other than Menachem Begin, who later went on to become prime minister of the Zionist regime, despite his terrorist past.

The Hagana’s terrorist attack left over 200 dead just in Kafar Qasem, all of whom were innocent women and children.

Say what? A massacre on the very day of Israel's independence? And Begin heading the Haganah?

Of course, the author, Hassan Hanizadeh, is a bald-faced liar, but he knows that his normal readership at MehrNews and Al-Jazeerah.info and far-left Western media outlets will be even more ignorant than he is.

There was a bad incident at Kafr Qassem - in 1956, not 1948. And that incident, as unfortunate as it was, underscores the differences between a fundamentally moral nation and a fundamentally immoral one:

On October 29, 1956, on the eve of the Sinai Campaign, the Israeli army ordered all Israeli Arab villages near the Jordanian border placed under a wartime curfew that was to apply from 5 p.m. until 6 a.m. the next day. Any Arab on the streets was to be shot. The order was given to Israeli Border Police units at 3:30 before most of the Arabs from the villages could be notified. Many of them were at work at the time.

At Kfar Kassem, villagers began to arrive from work to their homes after the curfew. Israeli Border Police opened fire on them. A total of 47 Israeli Arabs were killed (some sources say 51 dead). The news of the killings was censored and the general Israeli public did not learn what happened until several weeks later when Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announced the findings of a secret inquiry.

There are the facts. And the aftermath of that event shows the difference between Israel and Palestinian Arabs:

The event was shocking to the Israeli public who demanded, and got, a full investigation. Prime Minister Ben Gurion said the act, "struck at the holiest principles of human morality", perhaps reminded of Nazis who claimed they were "just following orders".

The extensive investigation revealed that the local commander had issued an illegal order. As a result, about two years after the event, eleven border policemen were charged with crimes and eight were convicted of murder on the grounds that it is immoral to fire on unarmed civilians and no possible military order could justify that act. Among the convicted were the unit’s commander who had instructed his soldiers to "kill anyone who violated the curfew." ...

The Israeli Supreme Court made a new ruling on the right and duty of soldiers to disobey unlawful orders. That ruling has been incorporated into Israeli martial law. On the 43rd anniversary of the incident (1999), Israeli civics teachers were instructed to lead a one-hour discussion on Kafr Kassem in their classes. Israel wants its future soldiers to understand the need to identify and disobey an illegal order in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling.

So there was a crime that occurred there, and the Israeli public was stunned.

No handing out candies, no dancing, no celebrations. No annual holidays to commemorate the deaths of Arabs. They displayed deep shame rather than the deep pride that accompanies Arab murderers.

The lesson from Kafr Qassem is the exact opposite that the lying author is trying to convey. The real lesson is that while Israel is far from perfect (and indeed the murderers even got out of jail much earlier than they should have), the Israeli psyche is the polar opposite of the Arab psyche that celebrates the deaths of innocents and idolizes the murderers.

So I must thank the propagandist Hassan Hanizadeh for allowing me to learn once again how utterly immoral his society is compared to Israel's.

My letter to Reuters (Hamas "truce")

In your article on Mahmoud Abbas, you say:

Hamas is formally committed to destroying Israel, though it has observed a truce for more than a year.

This is simply a lie. There have been many documented attacks by Hamas during the so-called "truce", including rocket attacks, although they have not been all successful. In addition, it is clear that many attacks that used to be "joint efforts" of Hamas and other terror groups now still happen, just without Hamas taking credit.

For example, see this blog article that refers to US terror statistics from 2005:
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2006/04/that-hamas-truce.html

Since you claim that you quickly correct mistakes,

Reuters news operations are based on the company's Trust Principles which stipulate that the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Reuters must be upheld at all times.
Reuters has strict policies in place to ensure adherence to these principles. We are committed to accurate and balanced reporting. Errors of fact are always promptly corrected and clearly published.

I would appreciate if you can point me to where you correct this one.

(The feedback form is buried way deep in the Reuters website. Here is the form I used.)

Mahmoud Abbas: Terrorist

It is time for the world to stop buying into the charade of "good cop, bad cop" being played by Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas. Abbas is just as bad as Hamas, and maybe more so because he hides his support for terror and genocide against Jews.

For example: Abbas is the nominal head of Fatah, which has never dissociated itself from its own Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, responsible for countless terror attacks. The most charitable interpretation of this relationship is that Abbas is a bumbling figurehead with no real power to stop his own (paid!) people from terror attacks; the worst is that he approves everything that they do. As the heir to notoriously two-faced Yasir Arafat, one tends to believe the latter explanation.

His own Al Aqsa leader was just quoted as celebrating the death of 16-tear old American Daniel Wultz:

Abu Nasser, a senior leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades in the West Bank, rejoiced in Wultz's death. Abu Nasser is part of the Brigades leadership in the Balata refugee camp suspected of plotting the attack.

"This is a gift from Allah. We wish this young dog will go directly with no transit to hell," Abu Nasser said.

Terror group Islamic Jihad commented on the idea that they might try to assassinate Abbas:

"There is no difference between us and President Mahmoud Abbas that would make anybody even think of throwing a stone on him," said Khaled al-Batsh, an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza.

His pals at Al-Aqsa also threatened Europe and America for withholding their welfare checks:

"We won't remain idle in the face of the siege imposed on the Palestinian people by Israel, the US and other countries," said a leaflet issued by the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the Gaza Strip. "We will strike at the economic and civilian interests of these countries, here and abroad."

At a Naqba celebration, Abbas said:

"Our first priority is to lift the economic and political siege, then to end the occupation of our land once and for all, and to establish our independent Palestinian state."

Any question as to which land he is referring to? The Fatah logo answers that nicely:

Also notice the priorities: the state is the last of his list, even though he could declare an independent state today.

Of course, we cannot forget that Abbas was one of the first Arabs to jump on the Holocaust-denial bandwagon, back in 1983:

In 1983, in an early public example of denial from an indigenous Middle Eastern source, a Palestinian named Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) wrote The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Nazism and the Zionist Movement. In the book, Abbas suggested that the six million figure was "peddled" by the Jews but that in fact "the Jewish victims may number six million or be far fewer, even fewer than one million." In 1995, reports of the book's existence reached the Western press, largely because of the public prominence that Abbas had attained as the chief PLO architect of the Oslo peace accords and cosigner of the 1993 Declaration of Principles in Washington. The California-based Simon Wiesenthal Center publicly called for Abbas to clarify his position on the Holocaust, but no clear statement was forthcoming. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv, Abbas tried to frame the issue in terms of realpolitik. "When I wrote The Other Side...we were at war with Israel," Abbas said. "Today I would not have made such remarks...Today there is peace and what I write from now on must help advance the peace process."

In other words, my words do not necessarily reflect my reality.

Abbas is also less than forthcoming as he circles the globe trying to extort money from Western governments, money that history has shown goes towards terror - either by paying PA "policemen" who moonlight as terrorists, or by freeing up money for terror, or that is laundered through UN agencies and NGOs towards terror.

Contacts with solid information – all speaking off the record – describe the current PA fiscal crisis as political or “artificial” in nature. There are other PLO holdings – of considerable magnitude – Abbas would be able to draw upon.

So while Abbas may not brandish a gun like his predecessor, and while he may wear suits, his goals and methods are indistinguishable from Arafat, the godfather of modern terror. And an Abbas-led PA is no more peaceful in its goals than Hamas. Anyone who tries to prop up Abbas is acting according to the terror playbook, and a West panicked by Hamas needs to remember that the alternative is no more peaceful and considerably less honest.

Happy Naqba!

I just wanted to wish all of my readers a Happy Naqba!

As Hossam Ezzedine, the terror apologist for AFP, describes it:

Palestinians marked the worst day in their history, determined to lift damaging economic sanctions and warning that Israeli unilateralism could kill off a two-state solution.

Indeed, it was the worst day of their history. (Notwithstanding that they weren't called "Palestinians" for at least 15 years afterwards...)

Because what exactly happened in May of 1948? Instead of accepting a Palestinian Arab state that the UN offered, they decided to try to wipe out the Jews.

Of course it was a disaster! They chose wrong and lost!

In 1948 there could have been a Palestinian Arab state with its own flag, currency, and international legitimacy. If they would have chosen peace with Israel they would have jobs, a good economy, oceanfront property, and an incredibly tiny Jewish state next door.

So, in commemoration of the incredibly bigoted and stupid move that their forefathers chose, they celebrate the annual event of the disaster of their own making. They wave flags and shout empty slogans and threaten the West and make friends with Iran and Syria and support terrorists.

And here's the funniest part - they could have a state today! They could declare a Palestinian Arab state in Gaza and easily get more than half the UN to recognize them as a legitimate state - any hour of any day they choose. They could invite the gigantic Palestinian "diaspora" to help them build their country in the areas that Israel no longer enters. They could be preparing the institutions needed to run their state. It is all there for the asking.

After all, the very day that Britain left Palestine was the day the Israel declared itself independent. It isn't that hard.

But evidently it is preferable to complain about a naqba rather than do anything about it.

Because they do have a currency today - and that currency is whining.

They have learned that they get more attention by whining to the world about their self-imposed catastrophe than by doing something about it. They whine about occupation, they whine about having no money, they whine about Israelis defending themselves, they whine about a Jewish mom in Samaria building a new bathroom on her house. They love when their kids get killed, because a funeral is worth many, many whines.

Complaining is its own reward. It gets results - nations throw money at the whiners, at least at whiners about Israel.

So we will be seeing many, many more decades of Naqba celebrations. You can whine more easily about catastrophes that you pretend happened to you than about the hard work you refuse to do. And it is hard to teach an entire generation how to work when they have been raised to whine.

Humanitarian crisis, part 9 - Isn't it strange?

Our friends the Palestinian Arabs are showing yet again how much they value their economy:

Several greenhouses belonging to the former settlement of Morag in the Gaza Strip were destroyed over the weekend during an attempt by dozens of gunmen to take control of the area.
The Palestinian Company for Economic Development, which is in charge of thousands of greenhouses that used to belong to Morag and other settlements in Gush Katif, said the attack, which took place on Friday, was the latest in a series that began almost immediately after the settlements were evacuated.
The company revealed that hundreds of greenhouses and other agricultural installations have been sabotaged over the past few months, expressing its outrage over the recurring phenomenon. The company issued an urgent appeal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Interior Minister Said Siam to intervene to halt the attacks on the lands belonging to the former settlements.
"These greenhouses and other installations and projects provide a source of income for over 4,500 families," company officials said. "We are very disturbed by the recurring attacks and thefts. Such actions jeopardize the largest agricultural project carried by the Palestinian Authority after the Israeli withdrawal."

Isn't it strange that 90,000 policemen can't guard a few hundred greenhouses?
Isn't it strange that the Gaza Arabs who are the subject of so many sympathetic newspaper sob stories about how rough they have it can tolerate the destruction of their economy?
Isn't it strange that the world nations (including Israel) are tripping over themselves to help people who have a history of wasting every penny they ever received?
Isn't it strange that a people who pretend to want a state so much cannot expend any effort on actual state-building?
Isn't it strange that the bulk of the money that these emotional infants receive come from the West that they hate with a passion, and not from their own Arab brethren?

Another American victim of Arab terror dies

Daniel Wultz, HY"D, the 16 year old victim of last month's Tel Aviv bombing from Miami, died today.

It is mystifying how any American can continue to support the terrorist Arab side of this conflict when in fact Americans are just as much targets as Israelis. What strange psychological illness makes people so willing to identify with their would-be murderers?

Forget the fact that by any rational argument, Israel is in the right in essentially every important aspect of the war. But just normal human self-preservation should allow every single American and Westerner to be able to clearly see that one side is on our side and the other is against us. One is an expert in building, the other an expert in destroying. One wants to help Americans and the other celebrates their deaths. One wants to build a better world and the other wants to conquer it.

An American boy died today at the hands of an evil and depraved culture. Where is the spontaneous anger? Where is the outrage?

It is way past time to wake up, because the longer it takes, the more Daniel Wultzes will be murdered.

Greetings to The Great Jamahiriya

One good benchmark of how politically isolated a nation is comes from its state-run media. It is fun to read Iran's websites, for example, for their daily articles about how some former EU diplomat agrees with a narrow part of their policies, or how a minor parliament member in Pakistan or Lebanon praises their leader. When you read that you know they are grasping at straws, despite their bravado.

Here's a great example of a country hitting rock bottom, and it is instructive as to who, exactly, is singing its praises.

The Palestinian President Mohmmoud Abbas praised the Leader of the Revolution and the Libyan people expressing his profound thanks and appreciation for the support and assistance made and still being by Great Jamahiriya to the Palestinian people in these difficult and harsh conditions wishing further progress and prosperity to the Libyan people.
This came in a cable sent by the Palestinian President to the participants in the 1st session of the Permanent Bureau of the Arab Bar Union which began Saturday morning in Sert He referred in his cable to the situation experienced by the Palestinian people due to the escalating aggression by the Zionist army terrorist organization against the Palestinian people.

With all due respect to the Great Jamahiriya and the Arab Bar Union, this has got to be one of the funniest press releases I've seen this year.

But it is nice to know that Abbas is keeping himself busy as he continues his long slide into irrelevance.

Humanitarian Crisis, part 7

Apparently, the PA has access to a lot more money then they are letting on.

But if by lying they can get free money from the EU, US and Israel, why argue with what works?

Israel Matzav blog is superb

Carl in Jerusalem, who runs the Israel Matzav blog, follows things much more closely than I do, and he has none of the reluctance to criticize the Olmert government that I do.

(I always feel that it is a bit unfair for someone like myself in the Diaspora to criticize the Israeli government publicly, for a number of reasons: there may be nuances I am not aware of, I aim at Jewish unity in this blog, and I try as hard as I can to give benefit of the doubt to those whose lives are directly at risk based on their own decisions. This doesn't mean that I haven't been very disappointed and upset at various actions taken by the leaders of Israel, but this is not the venue to tackle those topics. Israeli bloggers don't have the same constraints that I impose on myself.)

Here are three in a row that are must reads: