Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Ha-Kotel Ha-Katan (updated)

Today I had the opportunity to visit the Kotel Katan, a small part of the Western Wall that can be reached only by walking through the labyrith of streets in the Muslim Quarter. At no point did I feel unsafe walking there with my family.

There were two bored Israeli guards watching the area, and absolutely no one else was there. Since it appears that the Kotel Katan is even closer to the Kodesh K'dashim (Holy of Holies) than the main Kotel, this was surprising and puzzling to me.

Here are two shots of the Kotel Ha-Katan:

Right nearby is a small gate that leads to the Temple Mount itself, also guarded by the same guards to not allow Jews to enter. I did manage to snap a shot through the open door:

Civil war isn't what bothers PalArabs.

A very revealing insight in an op-ed in Arabic Maan News (autotranslated):

The words of the need Umm Khalil are identical to the words of journalist Ashraf the Marsh, Group in the newspaper "Jerusalem Arabi", which emphasized that what is happening now is a real tragedy and a national disaster, "not because there is internecine killings, between brothers, but because that constitutes a real threat to the Palestinian issue, whilst Israel is free to persists in the Judaization of the city of Jerusalem and building synagogues and driving local Arab citizens and is now building settlements, and exercise all forms of hooliganism and of assassination operations, and the incursions into Palestinian cities, in the time that the factions of which he of committing massacres and to engage in combat against innocent civilians who do not misdeed them in all that is happening."

There is an amazing psyche at work that regards civil war as only a secondary concern, but because Jews still manage to want to live in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria where they have lived almost continuously for millenia - that is the real problem!

Normal people would call this idea barbaric and bigoted. Normal people would be aghast at how unconcerned Palestinian Arab intelligentsia is at the fact that their own people are murdering each others by the dozens in the streets. A normal nation or tribe would place solving a civil war at the very top of their priority lists because of the value of human life.

But the world remains blind.

I'm sure it's all the Joooooz fault

I haven't been able to blog much, but as the headlines show, the PalArabs are back to their normal state of killing each other.

Given the JPost's numbers of 25 killed since Thursday, plus one killed Sunday in Beit Hanoun, our counts of PalArabs violently killed by each other has soared to 267 since Summer Rains and an astonishing 62 since the beginning of this year.

One of my dumber commenters accused me of celebrating whenever PalArabs are killed in this way. While this is categorically false, and I am not the least bit happy when innocents get killed in the crossfire or by false accusations or by gunshots at weddings and the like, I do admit to being quite satisfied when people who belong to terror groups are killing each other. So on the whole, with the exception of people like the 2-year old Bader Abu Qaraya who was killed by the bloodthirsty savages of Hamas (and is therefore called a "martyr" by Fatah), this has been a good weekend.

Hamas/Fatah resume killing each other

After a couple of weeks of barely controlled violence between them, Hamas and Fatah have gone back to their normal ways of killing each other.

Gaza - Ma'an - Renewed clashes between the rival Fatah and Hamas movements broke out in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday morning. In the last 24 hours, three Palestinians have been killed in internal fighting (one from Fatah and two from Hamas), seven injured - including two children - and fourteen Palestinians have been abducted (nine from Hamas and five from Fatah) in tit-for-tat kidnappings.

Fatah has accused the Hamas movement and its Executive Force of besieging the house of Nabil Al Jarir, an Al-Aqsa Brigades member, which is the main military wing of Fatah, in Jabalia, in the north of the Gaza. Fatah say that Executive Force members shot at him, killing him, and in addition, they abducted his aide.

This came after an explosion targeted the car of an Executive Force member last night, killing one member, Husam Abu Mteir, and injuring another five force members in the car.

The Executive Force spokesman, Islam Shahwan, told Ma'an that the explosion targeted an Executive Force patrol. He told Ma'an on Thursday night, "the explosive device was planned to target an Executive Force patrol and resulted in the serious injury of two members. At the same time, a number of bystanders including two children were also injured."

In another development, fire was shot at a car belonging to 'Ad Dawa' radio station, which is affiliated to Hamas, and two people were injured. One of the injured, Ra'ed Subuh, 22, later died.

So while I haven't been able to research all the deaths as much as normal the past few days, my PalArab violent self-death counts are now at 244 since Operation Summer Rains and 39 since the beginning of the year.

Guess who's stealing land?

Palestinian Arabs have so far been guilty, as far as I can tell, of 100% of the crimes that they routinely falsely accuse Jews of committing. This is what is known as "projection" and it happens a lot.

The latest example is that the Palestinian Muslims are stealing Palestinian Christians' land. (Sorry, Jonathan Cook, you have been proven a moron yet again.)

A number of Christian families have finally decided to break their silence and talk openly about what they describe as Muslim persecution of the Christian minority in this city.
The move comes as a result of increased attacks on Christians by Muslims over the past few months. The families said they wrote letters to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the Vatican, Church leaders and European governments complaining about the attacks, but their appeals have fallen on deaf ears.
According to the families, many Christians have long been afraid to complain in public about the campaign of "intimidation" for fear of retaliation by their Muslim neighbors and being branded "collaborators" with Israel.
But following an increase in attacks on Christian-owned property in the city over the past few months, some Christians are no longer afraid to talk about the ultra-sensitive issue. And they are talking openly about leaving the city.
"The situation is very dangerous," said Samir Qumsiyeh, owner of the Beit Sahur-based private Al-Mahd (Nativity) TV station. "I believe that 15 years from now there will be no Christians left in Bethlehem. Then you will need a torch to find a Christian here. This is a very sad situation."
Qumsiyeh, one of the few Christians willing to speak about the harsh conditions of their community, has been the subject of numerous death threats. His house was recently attacked with fire-bombs, but no one was hurt.
Qumsiyeh said he has documented more than 160 incidents of attacks on Christians in the area in recent years.
He said a monk was recently roughed up for trying to prevent a group of Muslim men from seizing lands owned by Christians in Beit Sahur. Thieves have targeted the homes of many Christian families and a "land mafia" has succeeded in laying its hands on vast areas of land belonging to Christians, he added.
Fuad and Georgette Lama woke up one morning last September to discover that Muslims from a nearby village had fenced off their family's six-dunam plot in the Karkafa suburb south of Bethlehem. "A lawyer and an official with the Palestinian Authority just came and took our land," said 69-year-old Georgette Lama.
The couple was later approached by senior PA security officers who offered to help them kick out the intruders from the land. "We paid them $1,000 so they could help us regain our land," she said, almost in tears. "Instead of giving us back our land, they simply decided to keep it for themselves. They even destroyed all the olive trees and divided the land into small plots, apparently so that they could offer each for sale." When her 72-year-old husband, Fuad, went to the land to ask the intruders to leave, he was severely beaten and threatened with guns.
"My husband is after heart surgery and they still beat him," Georgette Lama said. "These people have no heart. We're afraid to go to our land because they will shoot at us. Ever since the beating, my husband is in a state of trauma and has difficulties talking."
The Lamas have since knocked on the doors of scores of PA officials in Bethlehem seeking their intervention, but to no avail. At one stage, they sent a letter to Abbas, who promised to launch an investigation.
"We heard that President Mahmoud Abbas is taking our case very seriously," said Georgette Lama. "But until now he hasn't done anything to help us get our land back. We are very concerned because we're not the only ones suffering from this phenomenon. Most Christians are afraid to speak, but I don't care because we have nothing more to lose."
A Christian businessman who asked not to be identified said the conditions of Christians in Bethlehem and its surroundings had deteriorated ever since the area was handed over to the PA in 1995.
"Every day we hear of another Christian family that has immigrated to the US, Canada or Latin America," he said.

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.