Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Palestinian Arabs depressed - but not over "occupation"

Near East Consulting recently polled Palestinian Arabs on their attitudes, as they do every month.

A whopping 70% described themselves as "extremely depressed" or "depressed." So obviously they must be depressed over that insidious Israeli occupation, right?

Well, not quite:

Main issue that makes you feel concerned:
	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent
The economic hardship of my household	338	34.7	35.4
The absence of security for me and my family	193	19.8	20.2
The internal power struggle	216	22.2	22.6
The Israeli occupation	76	7.8	8.0
Family problems	48	4.9	5.0
I have no concerns	83	8.5	8.7
Total	954	97.8	100.0

There has always been a major disconnect between the attitudes of real Palestinian Arabs and those of the people who pretend to speak for them - often their power-hungry so-called leaders, but also people of Palestinian Arab descent who moved to the West and and gained positions in academia or other professions where they can trumpet their extreme anti-Israel opinions that are increasingly divorced from how real Palestinian Arabs think. (The same poll in August showed that only 2.6 percent mentioned the Israeli "occupation" as their major concern.)

This has been a consistent pattern over recent decades - the Palestinian Arabs who have enough ambition to get the hell away from the territories are the ones who claim that they can speak for those who have stayed. They live privileged lives in the West as they rail against the Western countries that treat them best. Above all, they are complicit in the crime that allows Arab countries to keep up their apartheid uniquely against Palestinian Arabs, not allowing them to become citizens like any other Arabs.

Not only are Palestinian Arabs being betrayed by their own elected leaders, but they are being kept in misery by their own cousins who left them behind and pretend to speak for them. Because of them, the amount of pressure on Palestinian Arab leaders to truly reform in minimal while they spin their wheels railing against Israel, who the real Palestinian Arabs do not seem to have nearly as much of a problem with.
(h/t IMRA)

Chag Sameach yet again

Time to gear up for another long Jewish holiday weekend. Have a good Yom Tov, everyone!

Qods Day celebrations continue: Jerusalem prayers

Here is a list of all Muslim prayers that mention Jerusalem:

Once again, there are none.

As far as Jewish prayers that mention Jerusalem, here are a small sample:

3 times a day: "And to Jerusalem, Your city, may You return in compassion and may You rest within it, as You have spoken. May you rebuild it soon in our days as an eternal structure, and may you speedily establish the throne of David upon it. Blessed are You, Builder of Jerusalem."

After every meal: "Rebuild Jerusalem, the holy city, soon in our days. Blessed are You, Who rebuilds Jerusalem in His mercy, Amen."

At the end of the Passover Seder and at the end of Yom Kippur prayers: "Next year in Jerusalem!"

So now we have seen that there is no mention of Jerusalem in Islamic numismatics, art, poetry, and prayer that predate Zionism. The Muslim claim that Jerusalem is holy seems not to be evident from how Muslims have treated it throughout the centuries. The relatively recent innovation of Qods Day appears to have been created for purely political purposes, because Muslims, historically, have ignored the Holy City.

Qods Day has been moved up to this Friday, so I don't have the time I wanted to research Jerusalem being mentioned or ignored in Islamic folksongs or literature and compare them to Jewish mentions of Jerusalem throughout the centuries. I'm pretty sure that we would see the exact same results that we've seen so far. (We already know that Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran, as opposed to the hundreds of times it is mentioned in the Jewish Bible.)

So I want to once again thank Iran for giving me this opportunity to celebrate the city that is holy to Jews as well as Christians, and has been treated like garbage by Islam through most of its history.

UK Muslims freaking over Israeli dates

First it was Morocco, then Egypt. Now the Muslims of the UK are freaking out over the fact that some Muslim-owned stores are selling Israeli dates that people are eating during Ramadan.

The pro-terror MPACUK website has at least 4 articles about this horrible crime, complete with liberal use of exclamation points:

Ramadan has come, a time when Muslims around the world focus on all that is good and just. All Muslims come closer to Allah in this period except those who are truly cursed. It seems many Muslim shop-keepers fall into that category. Putting the money God before the One true God that created them. For years some Muslim shop-keepers have been selling dates soaked in the blood of Palestinian children. Can you believe the parasites who are selling Muslims dates from Israel to open their fasts with during Ramadan?!

A group of MPACers decided to spend one afternoon during Ramadan ascertaining the general consensus amongst these shop managers in Manchester and we gained a fascinating insight into the psyche of some Muslim businessmen!...
The most concerning meeting was in a store, where the man whom we were informed was the manager proceeded to lecture us on how he used to think like us when he was our age…

“but it is useless…you can’t do anything!”

“The Palestinians deserve it.”

“Arabs are so and so…”

Shocking! And they were happy to continue selling Israeli dates. How worrying that we give business to such nonchalant people with no sense of responsibility and a terrible streak of racism ingrained in them.

A Muslim sister writes in desperately seeking help:

“In a nutshell Sabar Brothers in Slough are selling Israeli dates - last time I got screamed at when I complained. When MPACUK helped with an Action Alert the shop-owners were abusive to others who called in and then went to the Jewish Chronicle to defend themselves.

This year they are selling big boxes of Israeli Carmel dates for £9.99 each also Jordan River dates (which they have purposely labeled Jordan River dates on a piece of cardboard to mislead people to think they come from Jordan) - even though I looked closely and I saw a little sticker that said 'product of Israel' in French on the box.

So, just like in 1947, Muslims are boycotting other Muslims when they just want to make a living, and they end up hurting their "brethren" while Israel hardly notices. Way to go!

PalArab "ambassador" shows his colors

An ambassador, by definition, is only supposed to speak to his "country"'s official positions, right?

Get a load of the "Palestinian" ambassador to Tehran:

Palestinian ambassador to Tehran Salah Zawawi here in Tehran on Tuesday dismissed any compromise with the Zionist regime in the so-called peace conference in the US, stressing that Palestinians want the Holy Qods back as their capital.

Zawawi noted the oppressions of the Zionist regime and the national resistance of the Palestinian people, and said, "There is no family in Palestine which has not dedicated a martyr or a handicapped member" to the national resistance against Israeli occupation.

He further assured that the "Zionist regime, this enemy of mankind, will be defeated soon and Palestine will eventually return to the Islamic Ummah (nation)."

The envoy also underlined unity and solidarity of Palestinian groups, and said all Jihadi groups in Palestine contribute a role in the struggle against Zionists' oppression, occupation and usurpation.

"We will not be satisfied with anything less than having the Holy Qods as our capital city; the one who forgets his country does not have the right to live. Palestine belongs to all Islamic countries and everyone has the right to express his/her views about the fate of Palestine," the Palestinian ambassador underscored.

He also assured that Palestinians' national resistance would continue until liberation of Palestine and achievement of freedom and victory.

So he is saying that terror is A-OK, that an eventual Palestine will encompass all of Israel and that after it gets established it will become part of a Muslim 'ummah - which shows yet again that the point isn't a Palestinian Arab state but the destruction of the Jewish state. He is negating every single Palestinian Arab "concession" ever made - all the paper declarations of desire for peace, against terror, for living side by side with Israel.

Now, it is of course possible that Zawawi is not saying the official Fatah line. But if that is true, wouldn't his comments start a firestorm of controversy and his forced resignation?

Don't hold your breath.

Tunnel meant to attack Israelis collapses

Ma'an (Arabic) reports that a Hamas terrorist was killed when the tunnel he was helping to build collapsed.

The tunnel was in Beit Hanoun, by the Gaza border with Israel.

There have been other terror tunnels built in the area - in 2004, PalArab terrorists killed an Israeli after digging a tunnel under the Erez industrial zone.

So far, no English-language news source has reported this.

The 2007 PalArab self-death count is now at 532.

UPDATE: A "work accident" in Rafah as an RPG accidentally gets fired and kills a 20-year old Hamas terrorist. 533.

"Do what we want or we'll kill you" - the moderate Fatah mafia

From reading the statements given by a senior member of Mahmoud Abbas' government, you can see how much the "moderate" Palestinian Arabs are just itching for peace:

A failure in the upcoming US-sponsored Middle East peace conference would have more dangerous repercussions than the botched Camp David summit in 2000, Fatah officials warned on Tuesday.

This was the first time senior Fatah officials hinted at a possible wave of violence if the conference - expected to be held in Annapolis, Maryland, next month - did not meet the Palestinians' demands.

"If we don't prepare well for the conference so that it will result in something positive, the repercussions will be more dangerous than what happened after the failure of Camp David," said Azzam al-Ahmed, head of the Fatah parliamentary list. He is closely associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Another top Fatah official warned against raising expectations on the eve of the conference. He pointed out that the second intifada erupted a few months after the Camp David summit.

"People then had high expectations," the official told The Jerusalem Post. "But then they realized that Israel was not serious about achieving peace with the Palestinians. The failure of next month's conference could bring another catastrophe upon us."

Hafez Barghouti, editor of the Fatah-controlled Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda daily, said pent-up frustration among the Palestinians could be vented if the US-sponsored event failed.

"Those who want the conference to succeed know the conditions for success," he said. "But those who want this fall's conference to be followed by a fall of wrath know the size of the accumulated anger [among Palestinians]."

Once again, it is time for the old mind game: How would the world react if Israeli officials said "Palestinian Arabs must accept our demands or we will wage war against their civilians"? This is what the moderate, Abbas-oriented Fatah says explicitly, and their desire for peace is nonexistent unless they dictate 100% of the terms on Israel.

Israel does not help its cause by being wishy-washy on its own red lines, which seem to move wildly every week. The Palestinian Arab "bargaining" position has not changed one bit since Camp David, which means that they still regard the intifada as a great victory for themselves and they feel that they are in the driver's seat. Meanwhile, Israel already gave up some of its best bargaining chips (Gaza and some settlements) unilaterally - and now we see how that "goodwill" is being repaid.

Qods Day celebrations continue: Numismatic edition

As I've mentioned, the late Ayatollah Khomeini had declared the last Friday of Ramadan to be "Qods Day" where he urges Muslims to celebrate Jerusalem. This is because for the vast majority of the years that Islam has been in existence, Jerusalem did not even show up on Islamic radar.

Today's online celebration centers around ancient coins. Here are all of the Islamic coins I could find from before the 20th century that mention Jerusalem:

That's right - none. The only sort-of exceptions were the coins issued by Christians when the Crusaders controlled Jerusalem, written in Arabic but with Christian themes.

Now, here are the earliest known Jewish coins to depict Jerusalem:

From the Bar Kochba revolt, roughly 135 CE:

A depiction of the Temple and the Ark. And on the other side:

The words, written in the old Hebrew script, says "For the freedom of Jerusalem" with a lulav and etrog (appropriate for Ramadan/Tishrei this year.)

The Jewish attachment to Jerusalem, as can be seen by these coins, predates Islam itself by centuries. As we have seen so far, (and any Muslim readers are free to correct me if I am wrong), there were no Islamic references to Jerusalem in Islamic coins, Islamic art or Islamic poetry before the rise of the Zionist movement.

We still have some other avenues to explore in comparing Islamic and Jewish interest in Jerusalem, as "Qods Day" approaches.

Another peaceful week in Palestan

It is eerie how peaceful things are now among Palestinian Arabs. Here are a few of the more peaceful events of the last few days.

- 3 Hamas "police officers" were killed by a car explosion at Hamas headquarters in Gaza City, in what appears to be infighting. Hamas originally blamed Israel but has since backed off of that particular lie.

- One of the prisoners released by Israel saw his home attacked by Hamas.

- A Gaza clan clash injured "several."

- Seven injured in Khan Younis as Hamas attempted to arrest some Fatah members.

- The PFLP claims that one of its members was abducted and tortured.

- A 13-year old boy was kidnapped for ransom in a financial dispute between families in Nablus. He has now been released with some bruises.

- A riot erupted after a basketball game in Gaza with people hitting each other with chairs and sticks. 4 injured.

They are so peaceful with each other we can be certain that they will be fantastic partners for peace with Israel.

The 2007 Palestinian Arab self-death count is now up to 530.

UPDATE: A fourth has died. 531.

A Bethlehem shop owner was stabbed and customers in his shop attacked by a gang of eight more peaceful men.

PalArab writer: "Who cares how al-Dura was killed?"

The mindset of the Palestinian Arabs becomes even more apparent in an Arabic editorial written for Ma'an, which includes this (autotranslated):

And I say to you Siimann what business and the results of the investigation? اWhat business if the child Durra cited Israeli soldier shot or a stray Palestinian bullet? Is that prevents him crime was on the air immediately shook the conscience of the world and notified leaders and generals occupation shame?

He is directing his words towards Israel's Government Press Office Director Daniel Seamann, who just finally publicly said (sevenyears too late) that Israel has determined that the death was staged.

It appears that the Palestinian Arab position is that even if it was staged, or even if al-Dura was murdered by Palestinian Arabs, it doesn't matter - it's Israel's fault anyway! And the dozens of terror attacks that followed, fueled by this lie, are all justified anyway!

The legendary Palestinian Arab disregard for truth shines brightly again.

Qods Day is coming! Jerusalem Poetry edition

Last year I celebrated Qods Day with a series of posts showing that the Muslim attachment to Jerusalem was essentially nonexistent before Zionism. (The third post, contrasting Jewish art depicting Jerusalem with the nonexistence of Islamic art concerning the "third holiest city in Islam," has lost most of its links to the pictures. I will try to reproduce it this year.)

Well, it's that time again, so continuing the theme:

Here is every Islamic poem I could find about Jerusalem before the 20th century:

Not a single one.

And here is one from a Jewish source, written in the 12th century:

In Remembrance of Jerusalem
A poem by Yehudah ha-Levi
Beautiful land,
Delight of the world,
City of Kings,
My heart longs for you from the far-off west.
I am very sad when I remember how you were.
Now your glory is gone, your homes destroyed.
If I could fly to you on the wings of eagles,
I would soak your soil with my tears.

Remember, the word "Qods" itself is a variant of the Hebrew "Qodesh" which means "holy." Another popular Muslim name for Jerusalem, "Beit ul-Moqaddas," comes from the Hebrew "Beit ha-Miqdash" which means "Holy Temple" that predates Islam by centuries. In other words, any holiness that Islam claims for Jerusalem is derivative of Judaism's claims. See this posting from 2005 for more details.

So, have a happy Qods Day! Because it is impossible to celebrate Jerusalem honestly without coming to the conclusion that its primary significance is to Jews, and it has been that way for millennia.

Islamic hate literature distributed in suburban Detroit

From the Macomb Daily (h/t Eye on the World)

Police said anti-Jewish and anti-Christian fliers were found on cars parked in a lot on the northwest corner of 15 Mile and Ryan roads.

Sterling Heights police Detective Sgt. Paul Jesperson said three separate complaints were filed by residents Tuesday who found the fliers on their windshields.

He said the flier said: "Kill Jews and Christians if they don't believe in Allah and Mohammad."

It further advises people to "Fight those who do not believe."

"I really don't know what it means other than suggesting violence to Jews and Christians," Jesperson said. ...
Sam Richardson, who was shopping at the Kroger store on Tuesday, saw the flier on his windshield while walking to his car and asked his 11-year-old daughter to remove it.

He said she walked toward him while she was reading the flier and then she started crying.

"She asked me what the flier was all about," said Richardson, an electrician at General Motors. "I tried to explain to her what it meant and I then had to explain it to my 7-year-old son."

Isn't it striking that these incidents seem to happen in the places that are most hospitable to Muslims? I mean, from listening to how self-hating American liberals think, one would venture to say that Muslim hate would be proportional to the hatred they feel, rather than inversely proportional, right? If they are in a community that is well established, like Detroit, one would expect that they would be the most loyal of Americans to have had the opportunity to live as they wish in freedom.

Unless, of course, there is something about how Islam is practiced nowadays that encourages violence. If that were the case, then one would expect hate crimes by Muslims to be higher in areas where there are more Muslims living.

And for what it's worth, less than a mile from where this occurred there is a store called "The New Arabic Town."

One other interesting fact about this story: it simply does not exist anywhere else in the news media besides this one tiny newspaper. A hate crime that was clearly done by Muslims against Christians and Jews is not considered newsworthy at all.

The Benetton Zionist menace

Those scary smart Iranians have uncovered yet another Zionist conspiracy. Their extra diligence is paying off!

Iran's pro-government Fardanews has described as a "Zionist" Luciano Benetton, main stakeholder in Italian clothing conglomerate Benetton as a "Zionist who is about to open a chain of stores in the Islamic Republic."

“Benetton is not liked by the world's Muslims, either for his publicity campaigns, for his links with international zionism."

That happened three days ago, so the Iranian MPs had to jump on a new anti-Zionist bandwagon. AFP adds:

A group of prominent MPs have warned over the presence of Italian clothing retailer Benetton in Iran, saying its fashions are a bad influence on female consumers, newspapers said Monday.

The protest comes amid a crackdown by Iranian police on dress deemed to be un-Islamic, which has already seen warnings handed out to over-100,000 women.

"The MPs Sunday made a warning about preventing the influence of the Benetton investor in fashion and women's clothing design," the newspaper said.

It added that parliament speaker Gholam Ali Hadad-Adel received their protest by himself, protesting that Benetton was not using Farsi language or script on its shop signs in the Islamic republic.

"The two shops that I have seen did not use Farsi inscriptions, and all signs were in English, this must be prevented in line with the law," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

...
Over the past year, several Benetton stores have been opened in Iran, mainly selling its casual line of products for men, women, and children - not the outer garments women have to wear on the streets in Iran.

According to the retailer's Web site, it now has four stores in the capital, two in Iran's second city of Mashhad, and one in the central town of Yazd.

In 2006 Iran's parliament passed a bill to promote Iranian-and-Islamic fashion to combat the "cultural invasion" of the West, and has encouraged fashion shows and exhibitions to show the right trends.

After the Islamic revolution ousted the pro-US shah, it was made obligatory for all women, including non-Muslims, to cover their heads and all bodily contours in public.

Police have also shut down stores selling skimpy clothing, and arrested men whose hairstyles were seen as too Western or clothing judged to be promoting satanism.

These people are so obsessed with women's contours and Satanism that it is amazing that they can run a country.

Followup on Egypt's illegal release of terrorists to Gaza - and the EU's complicity

As I mentioned yesterday, Egypt transfered 85 terrorists, many senior Hamas terrorists, through the Rafah crossing. More details emerged today:

Hamas transferred a fugitive al Qaida member to Egypt on Sunday, in return for Egypt's opening the Rafah Crossing to dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad members, Israel Radio quoted Palestinian news agency Ma'an as reporting on Monday.

On Sunday, Israel was taken by surprise when Egypt abruptly allowed 85 Palestinians, most of them Hamas members, who had been stranded in Egypt since the Islamist group seized control of the Gaza Strip in mid-June to return home.

The unexpected move contradicted agreements Israel had with Egypt regarding the Rafah Crossing.

Sources in the defense establishment estimated that many of the group had undergone training in Iran and Syria.

The EU observer mission that oversees crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip was not alerted to the Rafah Crossing's opening and none of the observers were in position when the Palestinians returned to Gaza.

There was still no information on whether the returning Palestinians smuggled any arms or money into the Gaza Strip.

The EUBAM Rafah website has not mentioned this gross violation of existing agreements, even as it pretends to still be responsible for the Rafah crossing.

Once again, an agreement hammered out between Israel and Palestinian Arabs has been shattered by the PalArabs and abetted by the EU. And Israeli security is jeopardized because the world allows the Arabs to do what they want while they criticize Israel for attempting to protect her citizens.

If the EU does not assert their control over Rafah immediately, Israel has every right to take over the Philadelphi corridor to stop the consistent smuggling of weapons and terrorists through Rafah. Every hour that the EU refuses to address this issue shows that the EU is less and less relevant in trying to involve itself in the Middle East.

UPDATE: Both Hamas and Egypt deny the report. Which doesn't affect its believability one iota.

Palestinian Arabs missing Nasser

Omar Helmi Ghoul, in an editorial in Al Hayat al-Jadida in Arabic, mourns the death of Gamal Abdul Nasser as perhaps the most important September anniversary for Palestinian Arabs, more than Black September and more than the beginning of the current war against Israel. As he lovingly describes it:

The departure of President Gamal Nasser also immortal 1970, who passed away a result of the tremendous efforts made to address the Jordanian-Palestinian clashes, then, what happened to his heart delicate and sensitive breach, which led to myocardial infraction, and the absence of one of the greatest symbols of the nation in modern history.
...The value is in alerting the Palestinians in particular and Arabs in general that the sword of history is not merciful, even if assumed rights, to turn the pages of history without interruption, yes, is the turn spin in successive simple arithmetic, but it leaves an impact in the lives of peoples and nations.

The departure of President Arabi was coming back and collapse that struck the Arab nation in the wake of the defeat of June 1967, and lost dies compass, and lost the national standards and national, has been the stage of disintegration and fragmentation, and falling values.

When the late leader, in spite of all the flaws, which accompanied the stage and its political, but it was the most important Arab leader in the life of the Egyptian Arab people and the peoples of the Arab nation, and best able to represent the interests of the nation and to express them.

The Arab nation needs to be a real awakening at the current stage, to defend the interests of their peoples, and such seemingly awakening in fact difficult or can not foreseeable in the foreseeable future, with the great events in the life of nations has touched history doors without warning, as they now also Peoples a sudden earthquake. ...
(We need) to defend the image and standing regulations Arab peoples and interests in the markets seek foreign invasions, especially the Israeli-American, which seeks diligently to crush any shred of dignity Arab atoms, and dispel Arab interests, and payment of the Arab region to the laboratories sectarian division, sectarian and security, to establish the Middle East the new leadership or large Jewish state and, unfortunately, what can these scenarios move forward one step forward if halt Arab rulers, and stopped one man in the face of the American-Israeli bulldozer.

By any reasonable standard, Nasser was a disastrous leader, leading the Arab world into their most spectacular military defeat in history. It is instructive that this writer feels that the best Arab leader is not one who pursued peace with Israel but one who pursued war.

The reason is simple - to Arabs, pride is more important than anything else, and Nasser instilled a huge amount of pan-Arab pride. His failure is not important because in the end the Arabs care more about honor and dignity (see his perception of the US and Israeli role in Arab history as to "to crush any shred of dignity" in the Arab world) than any real, concrete accomplishments. And by extension, dignity in Arab thought is closely affiliated with warfare, not peace.

It would be impossible to imagine an Arab eulogy for Mubarak in thirty years praising him as a man of peace for his role in Camp David. Peace is not the goal in the Arab world - it is domination and the honor that accompanies it.

Here is an educated columnist in what would be considered a moderate Arab newspaper and he is bemoaning the death of a failed warmonger. To him, the pride that Nasser instilled trumps all of his failures to the Arab people. He, and most Arabs like him, do not think the way we do.

This point cannot be overemphasized - as long as the West treats Arabs as if they think the way we do, we are doomed to fail.The Western desire for peace will be the recipe for losing the inevitable war.