Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Yad Vashem preparing to honor Arab hero

I've mentioned Arabs who saved Jews from the Holocaust before. Now Yad Vashem is set to honor one of them:

An Arab who saved the lives of two dozen Jews during the Holocaust is about to receive an unprecedented honour from Israel. Khaled Abdelwahhab, a wealthy Tunisian landowner, is poised to become the first Arab to be celebrated as a Righteous Gentile.

The award, presented by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance authority, is granted to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust in which six million died.

More than 21,000 people have been granted the title of Righteous Among the Nations since it was established in 1963, with Oskar Schindler probably the best known. But, in spite of stories of heroism and friendship recorded by members of North Africa’s once-large Jewish community, no candidate has emerged from the Arab Muslim world.

The story of Khaled Abdelwahhab was uncovered by an American Jewish expert on Arab and Islamic politics who was researching for a book.

A survivor told Robert Satloff that Abdelwahhab had rescued 23 Jews, including her family, as they sheltered in an olive oil factory after being thrown out of their homes by German soldiers. He feared that the women were going to be put to work in a brothel and gave them sanctuary for the remaining six months of the German occupation.

Interviewed at her home in Los Angeles a few weeks before her death, Anny Boukris said that Abdelwahhab had discovered that German officers were planning to take her mother, Odette, to work in the brothel they had set up in Mahdia, on the east coast of Tunisia.

Abdelwahhab’s father was a good friend of the Boukris family, so he drove straight to the olive oil factory and told all the Jews sheltering there that their lives were in danger and that they must go with him immediately.

He settled them all at his family farm in the village of Tlelsa, 20 miles from Mahdia, and they remained there until British troops ended the German occupation in April 1943.
...
Estee Yaari, of Yad Vashem, told The Times that a file on Abdelwahhab had been opened and would be considered by a commission of experts led by a supreme court judge. “It looks as if there is enough material to move this forward and he would be the first Arab to become a Righteous Among the Nations,” she said.

Dr Satloff, executive director of the Institute for Near East studies in Washington, uncovered the story of Abdelwahhab’s heroism while working on a book that he hoped would break “the conspiracy of silence” in the Arab world surrounding the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust.

Dr Satloff, who flew to Israel to meet Yad Vashem officials yesterday, said: “These stories are only coming to light now because we haven’t looked too hard before at the Holocaust experience in Arab countries. But another reason is that Arabs who did save Jews didn’t want to be found. They are reluctant to admit that they saved Jews.”

As I wrote in October: "As with the Europeans, there were evil Arabs, indifferent Arabs and a small amount of heroic Arabs. We must not forget the good ones just as we must not forget the evil ones."

Same old same old

One of the truisms about the PalArab media is that if there is the slightest chance that Israel was involved in the death of an Arab, Israel will be blamed immediately and without any second thought.

But if there is no way to blame Israel, then the person will have died under "mysterious circumstances."

Here's a good example, where a man arrested by Hamas three days ago somehow died. Hamas says it was a heart attack.

Contrast this with this report of a PalArab girl that was said to have been shot by Israel (not only by Maan but by Western news agencies as well).

Now, who really killed her?

For the purposes of my death count, the first example is pretty clear-cut to me so I will include it, the second one is still unclear (although she was not shot) so I will not assume for now that she was a self-death. Which brings the counts up to 241 and 36.

Meanwhile, terror rocket fire continues unabated from Gaza to Israel (well, Jimmy Carter doesn't consider bombs raining from the air randomly in residential neighborhoods to be terror) with five rockets over the past day. As Maan says:

The two brigades assured in separate statements that these operations came in response to Israel's continuous aggression against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They also vowed their continued resistance and jihad.

I wonder if the word "jihad" in this statement is the inner kind?

Blogging will be light

Sorry, but given a choice of blogging or touring the Holy Land, I gotta go with the Eretz Option.

The Elders are staying in the beautiful Jerusalem neighborhood of Bakah, which isn't touristy at all but is very charming, if a bit out of the way. So I won't have time for too much over the next couple of weeks.

Another failed anti-Israel boycott

The Socialist Party in Norway announced a boycott of Israel last year.

Since then, imports have increased by 15%.

This sort of thing seems to happen a lot.

Arabs seethe over Israeli vodka bottle

It appears that an Israeli company is selling vodka with a picture of Jerusalem on it.

And in the picture of Jerusalem one of the buildings has a large dome.

This seems to be a problem, according to Maan News Arabic (autotranslated):

The Aqsa Institution for Reconstructing Islamic sanctities strongly condemned an Israeli firm marketing wine bottles bearing the image of the Dome of the Rock mosque and the city of Jerusalem and is considered a violation of the sanctity of Al Aqsa Mosque and violation of sacrosanct, and disregard for the feelings of millions of Muslims and their sanctities.

(A man saw it while visiting Rehovot and reacted...)

"As soon as my vision for the pictures on bottles of wine I Petkserha and kept one of Publish and circulate it, asking all the officials to act to stop this violation which shook the depths of my feelings."

The Foundation Far Jeroboam, which carries the picture of the Dome of the Rock of the type of vodka bearing the symbol "Afraizrkia" and the name of an Israeli company, "Pouloina of import and export in 2000. Z ", based in the city of Ashdod water, while shows on the back of the bottle being manufactured in the city Vzelia in the State of Ukraine," and that the highest religious body which Jewish rabbis "Rabanut major" has licensed the marketing in addition to Jewish religious schools in Britain.

Commenting on the case lawyer said Zahi Ngidat spokesman for the Islamic movement : "This is a horrendous act of demons company, and that this del, it shows that the craftiness of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa is as a result of Israeli institutional and popular."

For its part, the Aqsa Foundation stated: "It has become clear that the Zionist alliance crazier sinned development agenda in the daily work of the violation of the sanctity of al-Aqsa mosque Quds Fund and its Waqf all buildings and there is no doubt that the marketing of wine bottles carrying posters of the image of the Dome of the Rock and the city of Jerusalem is a violation of the sanctity of Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock mosque, which is one of the holiest Islamic sanctities of Muslims, and that he found and disregard for the feelings of one and a half billion Muslims."

I suppose that one solution would be to move that building elsewhere where it wouldn't pollute the photographs and artwork depicting Jerusalem, so that a half-billion Muslims wouldn't be so offended whenever something like this happens.

After all, this isn't the first time:

Palestinians denounce putting photo of Jerusalem mosque on Israeli wine bottles
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 9/29/1999

The Palestinian Ministry of Information denounced the procedure taken by an Israeli company putting a photo of Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque on wine bottles named "Jerusalem 2000," saying, "Starting such a procedure hurts the Moslems' feelings in Jerusalem, Palestine and the whole world."

Amazingly, in the 1999 case the Israeli company caved in:

An Israeli wine maker has agreed to change the design of one of its labels which depicted holy Islamic shrines on the label.

Al-Aqsa Mosque and the adjacent Dome of the Rock - both prominent features of the Jerusalem skyline - appeared on the label of the "Jerusalem 2000" brand produced to mark the coming millennium.

The association between alcohol, which is forbidden in Islam, and religious sites has proved highly offensive to Muslims around the world.

The owner of Baron Wine Cellars, Yonathan Tishbi, said his company had never intended the label to offend anyone, but it has been changed in response to complaints.

Officials at the winery said new labels would come out next week, but would not say what they will look like. Bottles already distributed will not be recalled.

Protests were led by the Secretary General of the Arab League, Esmat Abdel-Meguid, who said the issue illustrated Israeli disdain for Muslim feelings.

As well as religous sensibilities, the label touched on the ultra-sensitive question of the future of Jerusalem, whose future status is due to be discussed by Palestinians and Israelis in the coming months.

"This insolence is consistent with Israeli policies of Judaizing Jerusalem," Yasser Arafat's Palestinain Authority said.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry called for a strong response from the Islamic world to confront what it saw as ridicule.

The action "once again proved that (Israel) will not miss any opportunity to affront and insult the cultural heritage of the Islamic civilization," a spokesman in Tehran said.

(People interested in media bias should not miss the last paragraph of the 1999 BBC story linked here.)

Christian proto-Zionism redux

I started reading "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present" by Michael Oren. It will be a while before I finish it and review it completely, but so far it seems to be an incredible book, meticulously researched, describing America's involvement in the Middle East.

From an early article about this book I was inspired to look up George Bush, an early proto-Zionist, professor of Hebrew and Christian scholar, to see which of his writings I could find on-line. I found a number of scholarly commentaries on the Old Testament as well as a biography of Mohammed that he wrote, but I wasn't able to find the book Oren refers to about the "restoration of the Jews" to Zion (and their conversion.)

Today I did, as a part of a much larger book of Christian pamphlets:

From skimming through it one can see his undeniable scholarship, as he takes apart Ezekiel in English, Hebrew and Greek and spins it towards his thesis.

While I can't tell how influential Bush was compared to the other proto-Zionists I discovered in that same era, I am very much looking forward to reading the rest of Oren's book.

Peretz in dreamland

Israel's defense minister Amir Peretz said two interesting, and utterly embarrassing, things at the Herzliya conference:

"Every Palestinian contact that recognizes Israel, I see as a partner in negotiations - even if we're speaking of Hamas."

The naivete and wishful thinking that is revealed in this statement is overwhelming.

The idea of "recognition" is becoming as popular as the idea of a "peace process," a castle in the clouds. Just because Abbas nominally "recognizes" Israel doesn't mean that he does not want to see it destroyed as soon as possible by Palestinian Arab arms.

And Hamas, by ideology, cannot possibly recognize Israel in any meaningful way and still remain Hamas, so to think that if they mouth the words "recognize" that some magic will occur and they can be dealt with as negotiating partners is too stupid for words.

"In spite of the mistakes, there were important achievements during the war. In the end, we changed the reality in southern Lebanon. We proved that the threats of rockets, the kidnappings, and the terror are not capable of leaving us paralyzed and helpless - and furthermore, we exposed the plans of Iran and Syria."

So, how has the reality in Southern Lebanon changed? Apparently not very much, as the border is now filled with Hezbollah flags again and Hezbollah has already replenished all that it had lost. And if it took a war to expose the plans of Iran and Syria vis a vis Hezbollah, then something is seriously wrong with Israel's ability to tell its side of the story, as everybody knew about Iran's involvement with Hezbollah before the war.

Yemenite Jews threatened, flee homes in fear

From Ha'aretz:

Some 45 Jews of Sa'ada county in Yemen left their homes after being threatened by radical Muslims, the Saudi daily Al Wattan reported on Monday.

According to the report, the extremists told the Jews to leave their homes within ten days, after which time they will be exposed to abductions and looting.

The Jews moved into a hotel in the town of Sa'ada, north of the Yemenite capital Sana. A formal complaint was submitted to the Yemenite President Abdullah Salah, the report said.

The threat message - attributed to disciples of Shiite-inclined religious leader Hossein Bader a-Din al-Khouty - said that the Jews are acting in a manner that "primarily serves global Zionism, which is acting persistently to disseminate decay amongst the people and to cut them off from their principles, values, their morals and religion."

The message also said that the threats are based on surveillance conducted on the Jews, and that "Islam calls upon us to fight against the disseminators of decay."

Israel Radio on Monday interviewed a recently-arrived immigrant from Yemen, who identified himself only as Masoud, who managed to contact one of the women forced out of their homes.

The man was told that the Jewish community received letters last Friday, saying "whoever remains at his home, will be killed or his children will be taken away."

According to Masoud, the Jews who fled their homes told him "their condition has worsened, they are staying in a hotel, and they are scared." He said that the members of the Jewish community are not interested in immigrating to Israel, and wish to keep living in Yemen.

They blame their strife on the oblivious Yemenite government, which refuses to offer them assistance. The Jewish community, say its members, does not have efficient communication channels with the regime that would allow it to influence its actions.

The Jews under threat contacted local authorities and demanded fair treatment as ordinary Yemenite citizens. They told the authorities among other things that Islam imposes taxes on Jews in return for protection and security.

The Al Watan report said also that last week four masked men approached Yehie Moussa Merhavi, member of the Jewish community, to emphasize the will act on their threats. Merhavi said he was told that if the Jews do not leave their homes in two days, "they will only have themselves to blame" for the consequences, which will include abductions and looting.

Following the incident, the community was forced to evacuate the homes in which they lived for generations, and leave their home town under the protection of tolerant local sheikhs.

"We have been taken out of our homes, our money is lost, we cannot provide for our children. We came to the county's capital (Sada) to plea before the president and the government to treat us fairly, because we are Yemenites," Merhavi told Al Watan.

The Jewish community in Yemen consists of several hundred members, who are not interested in leaving it. The Jews maintain a community life, including a cheder for children's torah instruction and regularly pray.

The original al-Watan autotranslated article is here.

The last paragraph of the al-Watan article says:

A complaint filed by Jews to the Governor of the province, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh appealed for Muslims to protect them from the threat of massacre, especially as they *mion, imposed by the tributes to Islam and give them the right to protection and security, in addition to the pocket of the rights guaranteed to them by the constitution and the law like all other citizens.

Evidently the Jizya poll-tax on Jews that are meant to protect them isn't quite as effective as Muslims may have you think.

To its credit, al-Watan seems to be on the Jews' side, and includes a couple of pictures of the community:

More on the remaining Yemenite Jewish community can be found in the Jewish Virtual Library.

PalArab weddings are a blast!

At the El-Bashiti wedding in Khan Younis, Gaza last Thursday, one of the happy celebrants lost control of his assault rifle. He killed the groom's brother and injured three others, including one of those ubiqitous "security officers" and two teenage boys.

This is of course not unusual in the peaceful land of Palestan: I have documented a few other wedding manslaughters. But it is no big deal - because these people weren't killed by Israelis, no one really cares.

Meanwhile, on Friday a 51-year old was also assassinated in Khan Younis by gunfire from a car as he was going to the mosque, so our counts of Palestinian Arabs violently killed by Palestinian Arabs are now at 238 since Summer Rains and 33 so far in 2007.

UPDATE: Dead body found in Hebron, evidently "criminal activity." 239 and 34.

UPDATE 2: Man in his 30's shot and killed in the Bureij camp in a clan clash. 240 and 35.

HH CIII

The 103rd Haveil Havalim is out.

As they say in the old country: mamesh brilliant.

I'm not certain if it is the same one, but apparently the synagogue that the Arabs are so upset about is being built 100 meters away from the Dome of the Rock, in the Cotton Market. So the "extremist Jews" will have to expand it through a few dozen businesses before getting close to the mosque, but it is enough for the PalArabs to make a worldwide call to stop the construction and claim that it will cause "structural damage" to the mosque.

Islamic Jihad announced that they shot 8 rockets at Israel in recent days, including one today to Sderot and two towards Ashkelon.

Two shops, a pharmacy and a cafeteria were blown up in Gaza by rival fighting PalArab families.

We mentioned last week about a Tel Aviv trade show, sponsored by the Peres Center for Peace, to help Palestinian Arab high-tech companies do business in Israel. Well, a prominent Nablus official isn't happy about it and wants the Palestinian Arabs to boycott any companies that participate. Sami Al-Sadr wants to publish a blacklist of the names of the companies and will lobby the PA to launch an investigation of this terrible crime of cooperating with Israelis.

EoZ News Headlines:

Mahmoud Abbas is meeting with Islamic Jihad terror leaders in Damascus.
Fatah accuses Hamas of building a "tunnels republic" under Gaza - with American money.
The PA Interior Minister confirmed that half of a $120 million donation delivered to the PA is simply missing.

All this and more on EoZ News!

That great moderate, Mahmoud Abbas, traveled to Syria to meet with that other great moderate, Bashir Assad. But while there he also paid a respectful visit to Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, the Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad movement. But not to worry - I'm sure he's a moderate also.

Meanwhile...

The spokesperson of the Fatah movement in the West bank, Jamal Nazzal, on Saturday accused the Hamas movement and government of spending millions of US dollars on the excavation of tunnels between the Gaza Strip's cities. He compared the network of tunnels in Gaza to that which Al-Qaeda established in Kabul.

Nazzal said that the tunnels, which have been discovered, indicate a huge project aimed at establishing an underground structure which he called, the "tunnels' republic," to which press and law can have no access.

According to the spokesperson, Palestinian minister of interior Dr Mahmoud Zahhar had recently confirmed that $120 million was delivered to the Palestinians, yet only $60 million entered the treasury. Fatah has demanded that the finance ministry reveal the whereabouts of those millions.

We already mentioned Friday how the chaos in Gaza is ensuring that there is no accounting oversight, but even we are surprised at the audacity of just taking $60 million.

Not that this little incident will dissuade Europe and the US from giving more and more to the "moderate" Abbas, or to pressure Israel to give millions more of "tax revenue" to be earmarked for killing Israelis.

Palestinian Arabs forging Israeli money

But the forged coins are so bad, the victims seem to be their own people, not Israel.

From Maan News:

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Many Palestinian merchants and store keepers have confirmed that the Israeli five shekel coin is easily forged and is widespread in the Palestinian territories. However, it can be easily identified.

Ma'an News Agency has acquired one of these forged pieces, which are now spreading throughout the occupied Palestinian territories. The coin can be identified easily because, although it appears almost perfectly shaped, it seems to be made from copper which is apparent when scratched.

This phenomenon of forged 5 shekel coins is going to mainly affect those Palestinians of low income as better off Palestinians and businessmen do not require such small change. Five Israeli shekels is a little over one US dollar.

A 15-year-old boy told Ma'an that he felt so ashamed when he went to buy something from a shop and he was told by the shopkeeper that the coin was forged.

Another local man told Ma'an that a Palestinian criminal gang travelled to China and asked a local factory to fabricate a large quantity of these coins. They then brought these forged coins to the Palestinian territories, the man said. However, no official source has been able to confirm this.

Ma'an News Agency is endeavouring to obtain official answers from the relevant official departments, especially in regards to advice for ordinary people who acquire such coins.

Iran's state-run prostitution and slavery ring

Here is an amazing article about what is really going on in that enlightened nation that aims to be the model of Islamic morality and integrity in the world:

...Iran's new Islamic-guided government has established a system of legalized prostitution, through the practice of "sigheh" or "temporary marriages," by which a mullah arranges a "legal union" between a man and a girl (some as young as nine years old) for a fee. The so-called marriage can last anywhere from one hour to 99 years. Under this system, men are free to enter into as many temporary marriages as they so desire, without having any legal obligation or responsibility toward the women and children that they "marry" only to use as sexual objects and slaves.

Not surprisingly, this legalized system of slavery and oppression has led to a growing sex-trafficking industry that is partially operated by government officials and mullahs themselves. The girls who are forced into this system of sexual and economic slavery are typically transported to various countries in the Persian Gulf and are sold to individuals as well as to established brothels. The budding industry of sexual trafficking of Iranian girls has led to growing concerns about the spread of AIDS/HIV and other sexually-transmitted diseases throughout the region.

The article goes into much more detail on other abuses of women and children in Iran, including the death penalty against children. Read the whole thing.

Secondary effects of Gaza chaos

Reuters' terror apologist, Nidal al-Mughrabi, has an interesting article on how people are staying away from Gaza because of the danger there. While he spins it in the patented Reuters way, there are some facts that he buries and whose implications he ignores completely.

Simon McGregor-Wood, chairman of the Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Israel, said fewer foreign journalists have been going to Gaza due to the uncertain security situation.

This means that not too many people are reporting on how truly bad things are in Gaza. When an attack with multiple deaths occurs between Fatah and Hamas, it makes the news; when people get killed from gunfire at weddings or "work accidents" or clan clashes it never does. The hourly threats and rhetoric between Hamas and Fatah get ignored as well, not to mention the lower-level non-fatal attacks between them as well as between prominent families and the militias. The irony is that reporters are leaving Gaza because of the daily insecurity but they aren't reporting it!

This also means that in a strange kind of way, amateurs like me are better reporters about what is happening in Gaza than real reporters on the ground there. They are clearly afraid for their lives and of being kidnapped, and the terrorists do not care about a free press and routinely will go after anyone who happens to piss them off that day, including reporters. While most Palestinian Arab newspapers are mouthpieces for one movement or another, and there is certainly some self-censorship, they do more reporting that the foreign media does and it is easier to discern the truth of what is happening in Gaza from the original Arabic sources than from a foreign reporter in an armored car with a police escort who knows that if he reports something upsetting he may die.

Khalil Abu Shammala, director of Ad-Dameer Association for Human Rights, said foreign donors to some of his group's projects no longer visit Gaza to follow up on activities they finance.

This is the very last sentence in the story, and is probably the most important. Remember how all the donors from Europe were saying how careful they are now to make sure that there is transparency and accountability to ensure that their aid would make it to the people who need it? Well, throw all that out the window. Some or most of the aid ends up going to buy guns and RPGs and giant posters of whatever terror leader is popular in a specific area.

Gaza is run by thieves, thugs and murderers.

And Gaza is the model of what a Palestinian Arab state would look like.