Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Today's staged Hezbollah photo

At least, for once, Reuters sort of admits that it is staged, or at least that the weddimg was orchestrated by Hezbollah. One must conclude that the overwhelming evidence of staged photos shown by the blogosphere is slightly affecting the way wire services are reporting the news.

I wonder what the captions in print media will say, though.

Abdallah Amhaz (L) and his bride Mona stand in the rubble of a destroyed building before their wedding, organized by Hizbollah, in a district that was damaged during the conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbollah in Beirut's southern suburbs, August 27,2006. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi (LEBANON)

Now, why would Hezbollah stage a wedding in a bombed out neighborhood if not so the press can take this very picture anf show it worldwide?

UPDATE: Here's a somewhat more accurate picture of the happy bride and groom:

"I hope that this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover the story because the Palestinian people are very beautiful and kindhearted," said Steve Centanni, a 60-year-old American reporter who was released along with cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, of New Zealand. "The world needs to know more about them."
...
"My biggest concern really is that as a result of what happened to us, foreign journalists will be discouraged from coming to tell the story and that would be a great tragedy for the people of Palestine," Wiig said. "You guys need us on the streets, and you need people to be aware of the story."
...
The two journalists headed to Israel and were spending the night at the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem.

It is interesting that kidnapped journalists always seem to have the nicest things to say about their captors and Palestinian Arabs in general, but when push comes to shove, they always seem to feel safer with the "Zionist entity."

Overheard at a retirement community shul

I spent the past week in Florida in a sprawling retirement community. The men at daily minyan always crack me up, sometimes on purpose and sometimes unwittingly. Here are some of the things I overheard, mostly this past week but a couple from previous trips.
--
Catching the end of a joke:
"He says, 'Estelle! Where are you going?' Estelle answers, 'My father told me that on my wedding night I could go to town!'"
--
"Don't yell at me, I'm an old man!"
--
"In Boca Raton, they have minyan at 6:30, 7, 8 and 9 in the summer. Why don't we have so many minyanim here?"
"If we had that many, people would think we were retired!"
--
To a mostly bald man:: "Why do you have clips on your yarmulka? Are they clipping on to your skin?"
--
"Moshe one day had hagbah, and he dropped the Torah! He was so embarrassed that he ran out of the shul, and for the next six months he went to a club and worked out for hours every day. Finally he had a good set of muscles and walked back into the shul. They called him up and he picked up the Torah, threw it in the air with one hand, did two backflips, caught it again and then asked the gabbai, 'How do you like that?' The gabbai answered, 'That was very nice, but we gave you chamishi!'"
--
"Is anybody important sitting here?"
--
To one man: "Dovid, I don't care what they say about you, you're all right." To the next man: "Sam, I don't care what they say about you, you're all right."
--
"In shul, some of the ladies complain they're too hot, some are too cold."

"It's menopause! The New England Journal of Medicine should send some experts down here because our ladies have the longest change of life of anyone in history!"
--
Announcement at the bima. "Gentlemen, today is Mother's Day. Everybody take your mothers out to a nice dinner tonight."
--
"We noticed Sol didn't show up in shul for a couple of weeks. I started getting concerned, and called him - no answer. I was ready to call the police when I saw him at the store. I asked him, 'Are you OK?' He said 'Sure, I just got back from a two week cruise!'"
--
Posted from my Blackberry at the airport.

Hezbollah owns Lebanon. Lebanon owns UNIFIL. 3 Armies against Israel.

This is a follow-up and expansion of this post, suggesting that Lebanon made a deal with Hezbollah before accepting 1701.

UN Resolution 1701 includes a couple of interesting sections:

3. Emphasises the importance of the extension of the control of the government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory in accordance with the provisions of resolution 1559 (2004) and resolution 1680 (2006), and of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, for it to exercise its full sovereignty, so that there will be no weapons without the consent of the government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the government of Lebanon;

Meaning that if Lebanon wants Hezbollah to continue to have weapons in the south, they can.

8. Calls for Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:

* Full respect for the Blue Line by both parties;
* security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL as authorised in paragraph 11, deployed in this area;
* Full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of July 27, 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state;
* No foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its government;
* No sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government;

Here it sounds like Lebanon may not allow Hezbollah to have weapons, nor to import weapons but again there are caveats that make it sound like the government may allow Hezbollah to purchase weapons if it wants to. Given the support that the Lebanese government showed Hezbollah during the war, it looks like Hezbollah will indeed become an autonomous unit of the Lebanese army, with a big wink from the government, and do whatever the hell it wants.

What are UNIFIL's responsibilities?

11. Decides, in order to supplement and enhance the force in numbers, equipment, mandate and scope of operations, to authorize an increase in the force strength of Unifil to a maximum of 15,000 troops, and that the force shall, in addition to carrying out its mandate under resolutions 425 and 426 (1978):

* a. Monitor the cessation of hostilities;

* b. Accompany and support the Lebanese armed forces as they deploy throughout the South, including along the Blue Line, as Israel withdraws its armed forces from Lebanon as provided in paragraph 2;

* c. Coordinate its activities related to paragraph 11 (b) with the government of Lebanon and the government of Israel;

* d. Extend its assistance to help ensure humanitarian access to civilian populations and the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons;

* e. Assist the Lebanese armed forces in taking steps towards the establishment of the area as referred to in paragraph 8;

* f. Assist the government of Lebanon, at its request, to implement paragraph 14;

12. Acting in support of a request from the government of Lebanon to deploy an international force to assist it to exercise its authority throughout the territory, authorizes Unifil to take all necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces and as it deems within its capabilities, to ensure that its area of operations is not utilised for hostile activities of any kind, to resist attempts by forceful means to prevent it from discharging its duties under the mandate of the Security Council, and to protect United Nations personnel, facilities, installations and equipment, ensure the security and freedom of movement of United Nations personnel, humanitarian workers, and, without prejudice to the responsibility of the government of Lebanon, to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence;
13. Requests the secretary general urgently to put in place measures to ensure Unifil is able to carry out the functions envisaged in this resolution, urges member states to consider making appropriate contributions to Unifil and to respond positively to requests for assistance from the Force, and expresses its strong appreciation to those who have contributed to Unifil in the past;
14. Calls upon the government of Lebanon to secure its borders and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or related materiel and requests Unifil as authorised in paragraph 11 to assist the government of Lebanon at its request;

Now, keeping in mind the idea of a Hezbollah that is an official part of the Lebanese army just as it is an official part of the Lebanese government, what can one make of this:

Annan said that the U.N. force would be able to deploy along the Lebanese-Syrian border to help prevent weapons shipments to Hezbollah, but only if the Lebanese government asked for such help. Lebanon, to date, as neither asked for this nor ruled it out — but Syrian President Bashar Assad has strongly objected.

"It is generally accepted that the disarmament of Hezbollah cannot be done by force," Annan told reporters. "The troops are not going there to disarm Hezbollah, let's be clear on that."

And this:

Lebanon is against the deployment of United Nations peacekeeping forces along its border with Syria, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi has told AFP.

"Only the Lebanese army is in charge of controlling the borders with Syria and it is out of the question to deploy the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)," he said Friday.

"These are ideas put forward by Israel and the United States, but Lebanon does not take orders from anyone, neither the United States, nor Israel, nor Syria, nor
Iran," he said.

Putting it all together, assuming that Hezbollah will indeed become a part of the Lebanese army, we have three effective armies in Lebanon all ostensibly doing the same job - to defend "Lebanon" against Israel.

The Lebanese army will not do anything to stop Hezbollah, and in the past it never did. The UN is under specific mandate to only do things that the Lebanese government requests, with the notable exception of protecting Lebanese civilians from attack (but not to protect Israeli civilians from attacks that originate in Lebanon!)

This is not a "peacekeeping" force - this is outsourcing!

As we've already seen, the new UNIFIL is happy to monitor and report on Israeli violations of the cease fire, but it ignores Hezbollah violations. So UNIFIL is essentially providing the Hezbonese army with manpower and equipment to fight the Zionist enemy. The Lebanese government will not do anything to upset Hezbollah or Syria, and the UN will not do anything to upset the Lebanese government.

This is the real legacy of 1701. Kofi already knows this as he emphasizes that UNIFIL will not stop arms smuggling not will it disarm Hezbollah - the two most important parts of 1701 from the free world's perspective.

Today's Palestinian Police Phunnies XXVII

It's been a while, but the tens of thousands of Palestinian Arab "security forces" keep on doing what they do best:

Another top Hamas activist told the Post that his movement's investigations have shown that the two journalists were initially kidnapped by members of one of the PA's security forces. "The kidnappers, who wanted to put pressure on the Palestinian leadership to pay them their salaries, later handed the two over to Fatah gunmen," he said. "They are now being held in one of the refugee camps near Gaza City."
PA security sources said they did not rule out the possibility that Fatah gunmen were holding the two journalists. "There are many rumors in the Gaza Strip and we are checking them," the sources said. "In the past, we've had several cases where Fatah-affiliated gunmen and disgruntled security officers kidnapped foreigners."

Sounds like the solution is to pay these poor disgruntled policemen a salary, so they can magically transform from criminals into respected upholders of the peace again!

Another glimpse of Hezbywood

From The New Republic:

...For Hezbollah, the ruins of this once-bustling neighborhood have become a tourist attraction--and an invaluable propaganda tool.
Hezbollah began offering tours of Haret Hreik during the war, assembling every morning at eleven o'clock. I went on the first of these excursions on July 20, along with the bulk of the international press corps--about 100 correspondents, from well-known TV anchors to grubby freelancers. Longtime Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Naboulsi showed up with his entourage and delivered a running patter of outrage. "On a daily basis, they come here and turn buildings into rubble, as you see," he shouted, in his frantic, high-pitched voice. "This is where we live! If the Israelis dare to confront us face to face, let them do it on the border, not come with jet fighters from high above in the sky, and just hit civilian targets!" He strode off into the wreckage, still shouting, and we scrambled to keep up.

Every once in a while, as we marched through the rubble, a man (never a woman) would pop out of a destroyed building to shout with carefully rehearsed rage. All of these appearances were orchestrated by Hezbollah for our benefit.

This was during the war. The media saw everything described here but purposefully ignored the theatrical aspects and dutifully photographed and quoted the actors as if they were real victims. With a few exceptions, no one in the media mentioned the staging, and even today they downplay it - because they perceive that they are reporting the Greater Truth, fake but accurate, and the consumers of the media back home are too unsophisticated to understand that the reporters are allowed to tilt the news towards their own preconceived ends.

Another "honor killing" in Gaza, plus a few more Arabs killing Arabs

The poor, downtrodden Palestinian Arabs who, everyone agrees, deserve their own state, keep on killing - each other.

But not to worry - the latest murderer was a policeman, so it was all OK.

On Tuesday noon, 22 August 2006, a woman was killed in the central Gaza Strip allegedly to protect family honor.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 13:00 on Tuesday, 22 August 2006, Faiza ‘Eid Abu Sawawin, 35, from al-Hasaina area in the west of Nusairat refugee camp, was brought dead to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. She was hit by several live bullets throughout the body. According to sources of the Attorney-General office in the central Gaza Strip, the victim’s brother, who is a member of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service and lives in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, shot her dead allegedly to protect his family honor.

It is so good to see that the rule of law reigns supreme in Gaza after Israeli withdrawal.

Since my last PalArab death count posting, we can add the unfortunately late Ms. Sawawin, as well as:

One more death from the "work accident" I mentioned last time; (I am not including the accidental self-inflicted shooting mentioned in this same link)
One dead in a clan shooting; and
Three people shot in the head over a land dispute, although only one has died so far.

So our running total of Palestinian Arabs dead since the Israeli incursion in late June now stands at: 62. (I am certain that others have died from injuries mentioned in PCHR, but they never update the totals, so the number is definitely higher.)

More than the number of civilians killed in Jenin and Qana combined!

Is all Arab life equally sacred? Apparently not - those Arabs killed by Jews in a defensive war are "martyrs" and worth a fortune in propaganda, as well as a literal fortune in compensation to their families from other Arab countries.

And those Arabs murdered by other Arabs are worthless, not even worthy of being mentioned in local Palestinian Arab English-language newspapers.

Fisking an Arab News editorial

Normally, I see articles like this drivel in the op-ed sections of Al-Jazeerah.info or similar sites that pretty much publish anything anyone wants to say as long as it fits their agenda, facts be damned. But this is slightly more interesting because it was written by the Editor-in-Chief of the Arab News, which styles itself as a real news source. As such, it is important to, yet again, point out the half truths and outright falsehoods that characterize reasoned debate in the Arab world.

Arabs Can’t Be Anti-Semites
Khaled Almaeena, almaeena@arabnews.com
Last week I wrote about the phone call from an Italian friend who asked me whether Islam and Muslims were characterized by fascist tendencies or beliefs. His query came as a result of US President George W. Bush’s unfortunate and ill-considered use of the phrase “Islamic fascists.”

Inaccurate and incorrect as the phrase is, it was not born from the brain of Bush — or even from the brains of his speechwriters. It was first used soon after Sept. 11, 2001, by Christopher Hitchens, a former diehard Marxist who is now a mainstay of the American neocons.

As anyone with a passing familiarity with English knows, saying that a group of terrorists are "Islamic fascists" does not mean that all Muslims are fascists. calling the phrase "inaccurate and incorrect" is nonsensical, unless the author is saying that the terrorists themselves have no desire to subjugate the world to Islam.

Also, the phrase was not first used by Hitchens, but was used as early as 1990 by historian Malise Ruthven and also before 9/11 by Muslim historian Khalid Duran who was criticizing extremist clerics and was in turn denounced by Muslims for that.

As a neocon, Hitchens enjoys great privileges and is a member in good standing of the media group which regularly attacks Muslims and Islam. His popularity is great in both neocon and Zionist circles. Included among those he is close to are Daniel Pipes, Richard Perle, David Horowitz — all closely associated with the American administration and its destructive and internationally unpopular policies over the last few years.

By sheer coincidence, I'm sure, Almaeena only mentions "neocons" who happen to be Jewish.

The word “fascist” seems to have been used because the Bush administration and its sycophants (the neocons, evangelists, extreme right-wingers and the Zionist lobby) have this false and preposterous idea that Islam wants to take over the world. They are convinced that Muslims want to conquer the entire world by force and convert everyone to Islam by the sword!

Have they drawn this conclusion based on what they know of the terrorists’ beliefs and practices or on the beliefs and practices of the 99.99 percent of Muslims who are not terrorists? And while, as always, our Arab media focuses on trivialities, their media is slowly and insidiously planting negative ideas about Arabs and their alleged anti-Semitism.

The author says that 99.99% of Muslims are not terrorists. That may be true - there may be only 160,000 real, active Muslim terrorists on the planet out of 1.6 billion total. Perhaps he does not think that is a problem for Islam.

However, what Almaeeda is purposefully ignoring is the fact that a significant number of Muslims do support terror. One in four British Muslims felt that the 7/7 bombings were justified. If that is the number in a Western nation that was the victim of terror, it is not too hard to imagine that the numbers in Muslim nations go over 50% (or much higher.)

And, finally, can the author honestly say that the idea of re-establishing an Islamic caliphate is not seen as desirable in most of the Muslim world? Perhaps this caliphate would not take over the entire world, but the idea that people who support terror and have nuclear weapons want such sweeping political power is indeed a clear threat to the entire world.

Now we get from the naive to the stupid:

How, I wonder, can Arabs be anti-Semitic? They are in fact themselves Semites; the word derives from one of the sons of Noah — in English Shem — who was the ancestor of both Jews and Arabs. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Semite” as “people who speak a Semitic language, including in particular the Jews and Arabs.” In other words, it would be highly unusual for Arabs to be anti-Semites though they might well be anti-Zionists. But that is not the same thing.

It is a pity that this editor could not trouble himself to look up the meaning of "anti-semite" in the same Oxford English Dictionary:

anti-'Semite,

one who is hostile or opposed to the Jews;
anti-Se'mitic a.

Other dictionaries say (since the author apparently believes in proof by dictionary definition):

Random House Dictionary:
an‧ti-Sem‧ite , -ˈsi

maɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[an-tee-sem-ahyt, an-tahy- or, especially Brit., -see-mahyt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun

a person who discriminates against or is prejudiced or hostile toward Jews.

[Origin: 1880–85]
American Heritage Dictionary:
an·ti-Sem·ite (

-s

-)
n.

Since the real-world definition of anti-semitism has nothing to do with the definition of Semite, this entire section is a crock. However, it brings up a favorite topic of Jew-haters, namely, the theory that most Ashkenazic Jews are descended from Khazars, not Israelites.

There are many ways to debunk this, but I will choose two that are usually not mentioned: One is that traditional Jews have been very protective of their Kohanic/Levite status and the idea that a bunch of converts declared themselves to be Levites is absurd. The other one is that rabbinic literature, especially Jewish legal literature, is pretty comprehensive throughout the time period of the Khazar conversion to Judaism, and a mass immigration of Jews of questionable legal status would have resulted in a flood of responsa literature which simply doesn't exist. Every Jewish marriage and death in Europe would have been affected!

This is not to say that there hasn't been discrimination against Sephardim in Israel, and it is shameful. But to call it anti-semitism is a classic magician's redirection trick to distract from the serious amount of Jew-hatred in Muslim lands throughout the centuries, including their own versions of blood libels.

Also, Ashkenazim do not take up the "great majority" of Jews in Israel, though it is probably the majority. Up until the mass Russian immigration, I believe the Sephardim had a slight majority.

After World War II, the Ashkenazi Jews poured into Palestine, dreaming of a new life and brainwashed by traditional myths and legends; it was of no importance to them that the land they poured into was populated by Arab Semites who had lived there for thousands of years. At one point, during the British Mandate in Palestine, there was surprisingly only one Jewish family in Jerusalem.

This is simply a bald-faced lie. Jews lived in Jerusalem by the thousands continuously until Jordan made the Old City Judenrein in 1948. Jerusalem was majority Jewish since 1896.

Not surprisingly, he brings no source.

A British researcher, Tanya Hsu, who has done a great deal of work in this field and has suffered a lot in the process, believes that an approach using accurate information would go a long way toward opening people’s minds. “I am always surprised when talking with people in the West who do not understand that one cannot become Semitic by merely learning Hebrew,” she says. “If I speak Arabic, am I now a Semite also? Until the late 20th century, Hebrew was a dead language, revived by Zionists seeking to claim the land of Israel. Most Israeli Jews do not even appear to understand this fundamental flaw in their arguments.”

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, Arab Hero

You can tell a lot about people from who they regard as heroes.

Here is an account of the death of the hero that the Qassam rocket and the "military wing" of Hamas is named after....

Notice his job in the "Young Men's Association of Haifa."

Among the British he was relatively unknown, just a gang leader. His gang managed to murder a single Jewish policeman before this final battle where a British constable was also killed.

But among the Arabs at the time, he turned very quickly into a martyr, as a large funeral procession accompanied him the next day:

Has anything changed since 1935? A murderer who claims to be a sheikh turns into a hero and martyr, the Arab world as a whole supports his terror group without question, his funeral becomes a political event, and there are reports that he tried to use the rules of war to his advantage.

Other points of interest: this nationalist hero was not born in Palestine but Syria. He first murdered during an uprising in 1921 and he ran away to Haifa. Arab newspapers and politicians closed ranks behind the murderer:

As his legend grew, his supporters tried hard to rewrite history instantly to ensure his hero status. And the gullible Arab world was more that ready to accept the lies.

The aim of the group becomes clear during the indictment of the surviving members - they wanted nothing less than to murder Jews.

Most members pleaded guilty for murder and were sentenced to hard labor, two were acquitted in November 1936.

Interestingly, as their fame spread throughout the Arab world, their reluctance to be known as people who shoot other Arabs disappeared. Here we see that the remnants of the gang in 1937 decided to go after any Arabs who they felt either cooperated with the British or who they just didn't like:

In fact, by that time they already killed their first "collaborator" a few weeks earlier:

The gang's illustrious career continued on as they joined the many Arabs who terrorized other Arabs:

Terror gang whose goal is to kill Jews and others? Check.
Heroes to the Palestinian Arabs? Check.
Heroes to Arabs in other countries? Check.
Dead members lionized as martyrs? Check.
Hiding behind respected local institutions? Check.
Hiding behind religious motives? Check.
No compunction in murdering other Arabs who aren't as extreme as they are? Check.
Greatly exaggerated stories of their exploits? Check.

No wonder these guys are heroes in the Arab world!

Egyptian fatwa and counter-fatwa about whether to kill Jews

LGF found this gem from AFP:

CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt's Muslim authorities have stepped in to keep a wave of anti-Semitic sentiment from getting out of control, disowning an edict by a firebrand cleric calling for Israeli Jews to be killed.
On the eve of last week's truce in the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah, cleric Safwat al-Higazi issued an edict calling on worshippers to kill "any Zionist anywhere in wartime".

Speaking on the religious satellite network Al-Nas, the Cairo imam specified that the use of "fire arms, knives and poison" should be preferred to suicide bombings "in order to spare innocents".

Higazi later limited the edict to Israeli Jews, whom he said were all reservists in the army and therefore legitimate targets.

"I myself am ready to slash the throat of any Israeli I meet," he told the Sawt al-Umma newspaper.

Al-Azhar mosque, the leading theological authority for many Sunni Muslims, had to step in with a counter-fatwa and banned Higazi from preaching at Friday prayers.

"Killing Jews on the Egyptian territory would be a terrorist act," said the edict, issued three days after Higazi's.

However, the Al-Azhar fatwa said nothing about killing Jews in other countries.

In Tuesday's edition of the independent Al-Masri Al-Yom daily, Egypt's government-appointed grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, explained that any Israeli who has been granted a visa should be spared.

"A visa is a 'safe-conduct pass' granted by the authorities to civilians and travellers wishing to enter a country, which bans his killing even if there is a war between us and his country," the sheikh told the newspaper.

Gomaa had initially reacted to Israel's offensive in Lebanon by praising the resistance of Hassan Nasrallah's Hezbollah guerrilla against the "blood-thirsty murderers" and condemning the "lies" of the Israeli government.

"These lies have exposed the true and hideous face of the blood-suckers," he had told the state-owned Al-Ahram daily, referring to a 19th century anti-Semitic book alleging that Jews used human blood to make Passover bread.

Mohammed Raafat Othman, a professor of Islamic law at Al-Azhar -- whose grand imam is also government-appointed -- echoed Gomaa's views by stressing that killing a Jew or anyone else holding a valid visa "would be considered a major criminal act in Islam."

Al-Masri Al-Yom editorialist Magdi Mehanna argued that too much attention is being given to Higazi and that the country's religious authorities should close the file.

While the story itself is amazing, what makes it even worse is that this happened over a week ago and essentially no one noticed or decided it was newsworthy. Even now, it barely registers on Google News. Moreover, AP reported most of the same facts last week, and only one newspaper I could find (in China) printed it - letting us know that the fatwa against Jews was declared on July 13!

For a solid month the fatwa was publicly known in Egypt, having been broadcast on a Muslim TV channel, and no one thought it was newsworthy!

It's a good day to incite hate against Jews

Like clockwork, whenever Arab leaders want to get some attention and incite some bigoted hatred, they will accuse Jews of trying to attack and destroy the "Al Aqsa Mosque", the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the site of the two Jewish Temples.

Let's look at a couple of the recent hysterical press releases and the "evidence" of an imminent attack that was behind them:

The first one was when Israel's Supreme Court allowed a Jewish group to peacefully visit the Temple Mount on Tisha B'Av, something which has been allowed many times in the past without incident:

Palestinian Minister of Information Yousef Rezqah on Wednesday condemned the Israeli Supreme Court's ruling to grant Jewish extremists' entry to the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque on Thursday.

Rezqah condemned the media campaigns executed by Jewish extremists, which threaten to invade and attack Al-Aqsa Mosque, holding the Israeli government responsible for such court ruling.

He accused the Israeli authorities of keeping their eyes closed against extremists' attempts to attack the mosque, noting that the ruling is issued during a period of time that coincides an Israeli war against the Palestinians and Lebanese people and the anniversary of the Islamic Al-Isra' and Al-Me'raj event.

A number of Palestinian sides warned of allowing Jewish extremists entry into Al-Aqsa Mosque, holding the Israeli government responsible for the results of such act.

Palestine Scholars League also warned the Israeli occupation government of allowing Jewish extremists from attacking the mosque.

The league called on all Palestinians to gather at the mosque and prevent the extremist attack.

The Fatah Movement also called on all Palestinians to take action and protect Al-Aqsa Mosque from the Jewish extremists' invasion, noting that the court ruling shows the Israeli bad intention towards Al-Aqsa Mosque and Islamic properties.

Yes, peacefully visiting a site is, in Islamic parlance, an "attack" and an "invasion."

But even more disturbing is that after the court ruling, the Israeli police prohibited Jews from entering the Temple Mount anyway, allowing Islamic bigots to effectively veto any act they consider offensive, which means any behavior they feel like.

More recently comes this nonsensical press release from the Muslim World Association via the Bahraini News Agency:

Makkah. Aug. 22 (BNA) The Muslim World League (MWL) has drawn the attention of the international community to the importance of Al Aqsa Mosque, and warned against the Zionist plots to demolish the Mosque which has a great value in the hearts of the muslims.

Notice how the news agency has to mention that the mosque is important to Muslims. One would think that they would know that already.

So what was the event that caused Muslims to panic?

A statement issued here today by the MWL's Secretary General Dr Abdullah Al-Turki said setting Al-Aqsa mosque on fire by the terrorist and extremist Mickel Rohan on August 29, 1969, had demonstrated the plots hatched by the Zionists to demolish the mosque for building the alleged Skeleton in its place. Dr. Al-Turki drew attention to the menace of the Zionist plots, and said they are terror plots which aim at fomenting sedition and Provocation against 1.5 billion Muslims in the world.

Ah. A Christian fundamentalist who set fire to the mosque 37 years ago is causing a panicked warning now by the head of the Muslim World League about Jews building something called an alleged Skeleton.

It seems that when Muslims want to incite hate against Jews, facts just get in the way.

Iran threatening America since 2004

Last year, there was a quite justified international outcry over the Iranian president's repeated stated desire to see Israel destroyed.

The most blatant incident occurred during the "World Without Zionism" conference in Tehran last October. Many of us saw this image of Ahmadinejad:

What we didn't see was, as I mentioned at the time, this was the second of a series of annual conferences. The first one was called "A World Without America" held in the autumn of 2004. MEMRI shows the music video commissioned for that first conference, showing video of 9/11 attacks as a symbol for the fall of America.

Iran's problem with Israel is not the same as the Arabs' problem. Iran sees Israel as representing America, which is its primary enemy.

The full poster of the 2005 anti-Israel conference shows this clearly, but I had never seen it until now:

Notice that the American sphere has already fallen at the bottom of the hourglass, broken.

And it is not like the audience was not aware of this symbolism - it was part of a huge backdrop:

(H/T Regime Change Iran)

Iran is not trying to hide its agenda as it speeds towards nuclear weapons capability. The question is, why does the West keep pretending that the threat is not real nor imminent?

UNIFIL completely in Hezbollah's pocket

As I mentioned yesterday, Hezbollah forced their way into the main UN compound in Naquora yesterday for a funeral rally, shoving aside UN barricades. After it was clear the UN couldn't stop them, they opened the gates for them to celebrate their funeral, complete with their yellow flags and anti-Israel and anti-American slogans, in UN-controlled territory.

Almost every day, UNIFIL puts out a press release describing in minute detail every incident that happened the previous day. Neither today's not yesterday's press releases mentioned a word about this event.

And it is not like they are not aware of it - the dateline for the press releases is Naquora itself!

It seems that despite all the diplomacy and focus nowadays on the new role that UNIFIL is supposed to play, the UN is still effectively an ally of Hezbollah, or at best a frightened servant of the terrorists.

Nothing has changed since this picture was taken:

Saudi terrorists arming US Islamists?

This report, buried deeply in the Washington Times and a couple of other newspapers, seems to me to be a wee bit more important than it is being treated: (H/T Daily Alert)

ROME -- Italian authorities seized a container full of weapons including Kalashnikov assault rifles and plastic explosives bound for the United States from Saudi Arabia in May, press reports said yesterday.
Il Mattino newspaper said the "arsenal" was discovered during a search of a ship registered to an unidentified ex-Soviet republic which was traveling from Saudi Arabia to the U.S. East Coast.
Customs officials in the port of Gioia Tauro in the southern Calabria region discovered more than 70 AK-47 assault rifles, plastics used in explosives and launch pads for rockets in the container, the daily said.
The Ansa news agency later reported that "the shipment was permitted, but certain papers were missing from the accompanying documents."

Hezbollah's CIA: The Lebanese Army

A not surprising but depressing piece of reporting from the Guardian:

Retired general Nizar Abdel-Kader, a former deputy chief of staff for army personnel who is in close communication with the army command, told the Guardian: "The army knows there is a gun in every household, they are not going to go out and look for them ... What we are concerned about is the launchers. There is an agreement with Hizbullah that any weapons that are found will be handed over." A mutual respect and cooperation exists between the army and Hizbullah, according to Gen Kader. "They are two very separate entities but they cooperate on security issues," he said, adding that many of the army's troops were from southern Lebanon.
One defence analyst who asked not to be named said that, in the south, the army often acted as a subordinate to Hizbullah's military apparatus. "All intelligence gathered by the army is put at the disposal of Hizbullah but Hizbullah does not offer the same transparency to the army," he said. "In a sense, military intelligence in the south is operating on Hizbullah's behalf."
Another retired general, Amin Hoteit, now a professor at the Lebanese University, said: "The army sees Hizbullah as a group that is defending the country and so assists them as best it can."
Speaking last year, the Lebanese army chief of staff, General Michel Suleiman, said: "Support for the resistance is one of the fundamental national principles in Lebanon and one of the foundations on which the military doctrine is based. Protection of the resistance is the army's basic task."
The relationship had been strong for many years, Gen Kader said. "From 1996 onwards there has been a consensus in the army command that Hizbullah was a legitimate national defence force and that the government should extend its umbrella to protect the resistance." He said most army officials viewed the deployment primarily as a "counter-penetration force" working to prevent the infiltration of Israeli intelligence and military patrols.
Hizbullah's top official in south Lebanon, Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, told reporters in Tyre this week that the group welcomed the Lebanese army's additional deployment in the south. "Just like in the past, Hizbullah had no visible military presence and there will not be any visible presence now," he said. "We are helping them with our experience by advising them on the best strategic areas to deploy and the best means of protecting this land from Israeli and US violations."
The UN's expected deployment of 15,000 troops is seen as an additional force to assist in Lebanon's defence against Israel. "We are happy with such a large force to provide sufficient deterrent to Israeli aggression," said Gen Kader.
Reinforcing the fears of many in Israel that Hizbullah would continue to pose a threat, Amal Saad Ghorayeb, a Hizbullah specialist, said the arrival of the army and Hizbullah's redeployment further north was a largely superficial transformation. "The fact they have insisted on retaining their weapons in that area suggests that they intend to use them if and when the time comes."
Suggestions from Washington that the Lebanese army should forcibly disarm Hizbullah have been met with alarm by the army command. "If the mission of the army is to defend the people then the whole country will be behind it, but if it is to act against the resistance, it puts a big question mark over the future of the country," Gen Hoteit said.

Apparently, when Islamist radicals talk about "Lebanese unity," they are referring to a country united behind terror and radical Islam.