Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Israeli flag stolen from U. of Michigan twice

From the Michigan Journal (College newspaper, Dearborn):

During last week's Global Fest, the Israeli flag was stolen twice from the University Center.

Student Activities Office (SAO) hung between 55 and 60 different flags around the UC representing different nations.

These flags were hung earlier in the week before Global Fest. According to SAO, the Israeli flag was ripped down early Tuesday morning.

SAO then filled the missing space with another 3 x 5 ft. Israeli flag.

This second flag was then stolen again the next day on Wednesday.

None of the other flags were touched.

A mass e-mail from Vice Chancellor of Enrollment and Student Life Stanley E. Henderson went out to all registered students on Thursday.

The e-mail explained the "Expect Respect" program, informed students of what had happened and also encouraged students to attend today's Difficult Dialogues series.

The e-mail stated that the administration considers the stealing of the flag "more than just a theft," and "it is a violation of who we are as a university."

The administration rejects the notion that any nation could be singled out for such disrespect on our campus.

As for punishment, the e-mail states, "As a university we must condemn this action in the strongest tears and be clear that his cannot be tolerated."

Henderson confirmed that the Israel flag disappeared last year as well. "Last year the flag went missing went they were being taken down. It was up during Global Fest. This year the flag went missing before Global Fest even started," said Henderson.

Seems pretty clear-cut that this was a political act meant to intimidate any Zionist students, right? Three times over two years, only the Israeli flag, and Dearborn being the home to the largest Arab community in America -can anyone reasonably think this was other than a hate crime?

Well, the student editors managed to figure out a way to insult their own intelligence:

Reaction to flag theft overblown

...In this case, it seems that the administration is more concerned with punishing the motivation, not the crime itself.

If someone stole any country's flag from the UC, would the crime be treated similarly? Or if someone stole food from McKinley Café and said their motive was that they were starving due to a lack of money after purchasing this semester's books, would the school let them get away with it? Doubtful. Both would be treated as thefts and dealt with based on the values of the items stolen.

We don't condone the theft, but we think that the university should be consistent in its punishment and that the motive should play a less central role in deciding how to deal with the thief. The school has no proof that this was a hate crime, only an assumption. Without hard evidence, its presumptious [sic] to treat it as such.

Is it any wonder that these rocket scientists on the editorial board don't even know how to use spell-check?
(h/t Anti-Racist Blog)

November 11, 1947: State Dept. hedges on partition

As we continue to go through the Palestine Post archives from sixty years ago, there were four notable article on the front page that once again seem to come from today's headlines.

Firstly, the US State Department, even then tilting towards the Arab viewpoint, was showing more public resistance to the idea of partition:

I mentioned that at that time there was a terrible cholera epidemic in Egypt (and it was now starting to spread through the rest of the Middle East.) Even so, Egypt has refused to accept help from Hebrew University in the early stages of the epidemic. The Times of London noticed that Egypt instead waited to get vaccines from the Haffkine Institute in Bombay, and it mentioned a fact that the Egyptians probably didn't realize: Dr. Haffikine was a Jewish Zionist.

Meanwhile, the Post made fun of Egyptians and their Zion-phobia:

And yet another Muslim country pledged to help Arab Palestine by killing all the Jews - this time, Iraq:

The deja vu continues...

The miracle Allah-ear

Remember a couple of years ago a British ice-cream company had to replace its logo because some Muslims felt that it resembled the Arabic word "Allah"?

Then we heard about the "Allah-fish", where the same swirls were seen:

Well, there's a regular Allahpalooza going on, because now Muslims are seeing things in their babies' ears. In Ramallah, a baby was born a few weeks ago with an ear deformity that makes it appear like the word Allah.

From Palestine Today, in auto-translation:

Often heard about an oddity in the universe and anecdotal talked with the people in their lives, a child born Pracejn or Unsoder twin, or a child born with three legs ...

The city of Ramallah in the West Bank weeks ago saw the birth of a child wrote Majesty the word "God" in his ear, in Arabic, so that anyone can read easily, and without careful consideration.

The grandmother discovered the child Houcih ordered the Divine in dignity authorized her grandson after five weeks of birth.

Says the father of the child who is an officer in place to sell the clothing city of Ramallah that this label that has characterized the order, and leaves a message from God ", and expressed the hope that the best Fall him and his family.

In the view of the child's mother that this Mecca addressed by God created is a miracle requires reflection, and increasing closer to God, and from what anger.

15-year old killed by Hamas

Hamas got into an argument with the Ayad family east of Gaza City. Apparently, Hamas wanted to use their home to store explosives or fire rockets, and the Awads disagreed. This resulted in a gun-battle, killing the Ayad's 15-year old son, Mohammed Jawad.

This has only been reported in the Palestine Press Agency website. Other news sources are either pro-Hamas or cannot get press passes to report news from Gaza without harassment; PPA seems to rely more on underground pro-Fatah reporters and citizens, so it is somewhat less reliable. A number of readers in the comments section confirmed this incident.

My count of Palestinian Arabs violently killed by each other this year is now at 573, with 40 of them women and 42 of them children.

UPDATE: PCHR reports that two were killed and four wounded in those clashes. 574.

Another inconvenient bump on the road to Annapolis

Reuters reports:

Hamas Islamists, who seized control of the Gaza Strip in June, would take over the West Bank if Israel pulled out of the territory, a senior Hamas leader said on Friday.

The comments by Mahmoud al-Zahar contrasted with remarks by Ismail Haniyeh, who serves as prime minister of a Hamas-led government dismissed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"Israel says the party in Ramallah (Fatah) serves Israel, and if Israel quits the West Bank, Hamas will take it over. And we say this is true," Zahar said at a rally for Hamas supporters in Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza.

"We say to those in the West Bank take a lesson from what happened in Gaza," Zahar said, an indirect reference to the fierce violence that led to Hamas's takeover of the coastal strip.

So if Israel gives up territory, Hamas is poised to take over the vacuum that would result as the PA "security forces" do not have the motivation or the ability to stop the Islamists.

Last week the scope of Hamas' organization and financial power in the West Bank started to become apparent:

...The initial examination of the seemingly innocent material, which was mostly confiscated at charity foundations and mosques, produces a scary picture: A giant octopus that controls hundreds of millions of dollars coming in from all over the world – an apparatus that looks exactly like the one that led to Hamas’ Gaza takeover within several days is also up and running in the West Bank.

The US is pretending that spending money will solve the problem but the PA's problems run much deeper - starting with a base of citizens who have a pathological hatred for Israel.

This little inconvenient fact won't slow down the Annapolis train, though. Too many egos are too highly invested in that folly to care that rather than bringing peace it will be a step closer to major conflict.

Freedom of the press, PalArab style (IX)

The moderate PA "security" forces have arrested the director of Al-Amal TV today. The Ma'an News website has shut down in solidarity and shows this message:

Palestinian security arrests Mu'taz Al-Kurdi, member of Ma'an's board of directors and director of Al-Amal TV in Hebron

Ma'an News Agency expresses its deep disappointment and indignation at arrests of journalists.

Al-Amal TV suspended it's broadcast on Friday in protest of the detention of their director.

Ma'an also announces the suspension of its work in protest. Several of Ma'an's local partners in TV and radio will also halt their broadcasts today in protest and solidarity with our colleague Mu'taz Al-Kurdi and Al-Amal TV.

Things are right on schedule for creating a Palestinian Arab state in Annapolis!

More déjà vu from November 10, 1947

The November 10, 1947 Palestine Post has a few more headlines that are eerily familiar.

Then, as now, there was much high-level discussion on how exactly to divide up Jerusalem:

Notice that Jerusalem had a solid Jewish majority in 1947.

Note also that (as now) clearly this committee was advocating "transfer"of Jews away from their homes in the "Arab section." Then, as now, the word "transfer" is considered tantamount to ethnic cleansing only when it is Arabs being transferred, never when it is Jews.

In November 1947, as now, feuding Palestinian Arab factions managed to start talks between them to try to stop killing each other and more effectively fight the Jews:

Then, as now, there was overt anti-semitism in Great Britain:

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Fun Fatwa Friday: Jesus never drank wine

From Islam Online's fatwa section:

Q: How would you respond to someone who says, "I don't see the wrong in drinking as Jesus himself drank, when he turned water into wine?"

A: Salam, dear questioner.

Thank you for your question.

Argument Based on Assumptions

As with many such arguments, it is based on the assumption that something is true, in order for the argument to make sense.

In other words, it is assumed as fact that Jesus drank wine because it says in the Christian Gospels that he did so.

If, however, such a thing is not accepted as a fact, then the whole argument falls down. There is no mention in the Qur'an of Jesus (peace be upon him) drinking wine, so Muslims have no belief that he did so.

Christians, for example, will tell us that Jesus died on the Cross. In the Qur'an we are told that:

*{… of a certainty they crucified him not.}* (An-Nisaa' 4: 157)

The Qur'an does not contradict itself. How could Almighty Allah make mistakes? If we read in many places that it is forbidden to drink alcohol and any intoxicants, then it would be a contradiction to believe that Jesus, one of the Prophets of Islam, did something which was forbidden.

...In other words, neither the Torah nor the Gospel can be relied upon as reliable sources. Why is this? It is because both the Torah and the Gospel were revealed to a specific people at a specific time in their history.

The Qur'an, though, was revealed for all people and for all time and that is why Allah has not allowed it to be corrupted through translation or any other means.

To say to a Muslim, then, that Jesus says such and such, because it is recorded that he says it in the Gospels, is not an argument that will convince them. Muslims believe that the only reliable record of anything Jesus said or did is to be found in the Qur'an.

Nice to know that Muslims don't fall into the trap of making assumptions the way Jews and Christians do.

Pity the poor Hamas "moderate"

Ahmed Yousef, advisor to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, is the West's point man when trying to make Hamas look more moderate.

He's the one who wrote the Washington Post op-ed last June trying to convince Americans that Hamas was the same as Fatah and deserved a chance. He's the one who the New York Times honored with another op-ed where he asks the world to give the "hudna" a chance ("Pause for Peace.") He was glowingly depicted in the Christian Science Monitor as "moderate and cooperative."

Earlier this week, Asharq al-Awsat wrote about the divisions in Fatah and Hamas, and it wrote "Some sources within the movement had severely criticized Yousef for his declared statements and positions, some going further to describe them as 'Fatah-inclined'."

Oooh, that's gotta hurt.

But he lived up to his reputation on Wednesday when he told reporters that the Hamas charter is obsolete, that Hamas would attend the Annapolis conference if invited and that being friendly with the United States is in Hamas' interests.

Predictably, today Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahhar denied everything Yousef said, saying that Hamas was against the Annapolis meeting and that its charter calling for the destruction of Israel is still in effect.

It certainly isn't easy trying to show Hamas' moderate side when that side is nonexistent.

November 9, 1947: "Arab threats are empty"

As the UN partition of Palestine loomed, a team of American "experts" opined that there is no way that the combined Arab armies would attack the Jewish state. As printed in the November 9, 1947 Palestine Post:

It is instructive to read this article now and see where these experts were wrong.

Militarily, they were quite correct. Although they ignored Egypt's army (as well as Iraq's), their estimation of the weaknesses of the Arabs besides Jordan were pretty accurate.

They were experts as far as facts on the ground as well as the relative capabilities of the armies. Their failure was in making assumptions as to how the Arab side thinks. Like countless other "experts" before and since, they assume that the Arab side would be logical when deciding whether to attack the Jewish state. They took no consideration of the importance of pride and honor to the Arab mind, which is often the exact opposite of logic.

The idea of a Jewish state in their midst was simply unacceptable, and the thought of defeat as not entertained. Making the assumption that the Arab side thinks the same way as Westerners would when weighing starting a battle is a major, and literally fatal, mistake.

Similar "experts" are still endemic throughout the world, where they predict with confidence that the Arab side will certainly make certain compromises because it makes the most sense. As with these 1947 experts, they almost always know more about current factual circumstances than they do about history, and they fail to draw the proper conclusions from the correct facts.

al-Ha'aretz admits it will ignore scandals against people it likes

In an scathing op-ed in the Jerusalem Post yesterday, Isi Liebler slams Ha'aretz:

CURRENT EDITOR David Landau is an observant Jew wearing a black kippa. He made aliya from London and is a highly talented writer....
Since he assumed the role of editor at Haaretz, the newspaper's traditional bias relating to the Israel-Palestinian conflict has intensified.
Landau concentrates much of his wrath on religious Zionists, regarding those who settled across the Green Line as messianic lunatics and the greatest threat to Israel. This obviously makes him a darling of the ultra-Left.
Today Landau allegedly even refuses to correct articles containing blatantly false information if they conflict with his political agenda. According to the Web site of the highly respected American Jewish media watchdog organization CAMERA, not only did Landau decline to consider its complaints regarding alleged falsehoods published in Haaretz, he even went on record informing the JTA that "as a matter of principle" he had instructed his staff not to respond to criticism from CAMERA because they were a "McCarthyite" organization.
NEEDLESS to say, this casts an ugly shadow on a daily newspaper purporting to represent the highest levels of journalistic integrity. It is now widely accepted that many policies promoted by Haaretz are effectively supportive of Israel's adversaries.
In fact, Nahum Barnea, the distinguished Yediot Aharonot columnist, went so far as to describe senior Haaretz journalists Gideon Levy, Amira Haas and Akiva Eldar as failing to pass the "lynch test" - i.e., even failing to condemn Palestinians when they murdered two Israelis in a lynch mob in Ramallah at the onset of the second intifada.
More recently, consistent with frequent Haaretz depictions of Israel as a racist entity, the paper's chief Arab affairs expert, Danny Rubinstein, told a UN body that Israel was indeed an apartheid state.
...BUT IT was only recently that Landau threw away all semblance of journalistic integrity and publicly confessed to crossing the ultimate red line that distinguishes reputable journalism from propaganda.
According to The Jerusalem Post, at the recent Russian Limmud Conference in Moscow, Landau, one of the few non-Russian-speaking participants, dropped a bombshell. He stunned those present by boasting that his newspaper had "wittingly soft-pedalled" alleged corruption by Israeli political leaders including prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, when, in the opinion of Haaretz, the policies of those leaders were advancing the peace process.
When participants challenged him concerning the morality of such an approach, Landau responded with the extraordinary assertion that "more immorality happens every day at a single roadblock [in Judea and Samaria] than in all the scandals put together."
He then unashamedly assured those present that Haaretz was ready to repeat the process in order "to ensure that Olmert goes to Annapolis."
...THE ISRAELI Press Council code of ethics contains clauses explicitly condemning such practices. Article 40 (and 16a): "A newspaper or a journalist shall not refrain from publishing information where there is a public interest in its publication, including for reasons of political, economic or other pressures."
Article 7: "Mistakes, omissions or inaccuracies which are in the publication of facts must be corrected speedily…."
If in the face of such violations of their charter by the editor of one of their most prestigious newspapers the Press Council fails to publicly condemn such behavior, it should be dissolved and the public must demand an accounting.
Exploiting a newspaper as a propaganda vehicle for a clique of leftist ideologues willing to do anything, including suppressing or "soft-pedalling" information about potentially criminal actions in order to pursue a private agenda must not be tolerated in a country which purports to adhere to ethical and democratic norms of conduct.

Israel Matzav asks if even the most left-wing American publications would do something like this.

Yisrael Medad wrote a letter to the Jerusalem Post saying that this is old news:

Isi Leibler's drubbing of Haaretz editor David Landau for his remarks at a recent Limmud Conference in Moscow comes, unfortunately, two years late ("Shame on 'Haaretz,'" November 7). Landau's admission that he ordered the low-keying of corruption by Israeli political leaders in order to protect the peace process - known as the "etrog behavior" of left-wing journalists, a phrase coined by Amnon Abromovitch - was first uttered at a Limmud conference in Nottingham, England. It was proudly declared in response to a question I had put to him from the last rows of a lecture hall filled with almost 300 people about the journalistic ethics of the absence of criticism of political corruption.

Like now, also then: When challenged, Landau declared that the "peccadilloes" of Ariel Sharon were minor compared to the greater damage, in his opinion, caused by revenant Jewish residents in the communities throughout Judea and Samaria.

His remarks were generally accepted, which caused me disappointment in the morality of the participating British Jews.

Augean Stables comments:

Landau’s boast that he had intentionally “soft-pedaled” allegations of corruption against Prime Ministers Sharon and Olmert in order not to weaken their support as they worked toward a peace process should jolt any observer who understands the value of a responsible free press in a democratic society. The fact that Landau felt comfortable airing such a transgression is perhaps more alarming. It suggests an atmosphere among journalists in Israel, indeed across the West, that condones the promotion of a certain ideology at the expense of the standards that should serve as a guide to Western media.

Everyone has biases, of course, and it is perhaps too much to ask for journalists to banish all their biases when they report. It is literally impossible. Decisions must be made not only in the writing but also in how much prominence to give a story, which photos to publish, how the headline is phrased - it is not an enviable job to be objective when working under such limitations.

But there is a huge difference between the subconscious bias, mostly left-leaning, that most journalists have and a de facto policy of bias that Ha'aretz is not only admitting but boasting about. Landau is bragging about his own immorality in the pursuit of his version of "the higher good," which he is deciding for the benefit of his reading public and of Israel itself. This is not just another case of media bias - this is a scandal that should shake the foundations of Israeli journalism.

When Edmund Burke, referring to the press, said "Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all," he was making the assumption that there is at least a pretense of objectivity that underpins journalism. Ha'aretz is succeeding making the Fourth Estate irrelevant, as those members of the press who consciously try to exercise power will be the ones who lose it.

Egyptian intelligence minister blames Israel for Gaza weapons smuggling

Palestine Press Agency writes that Egyptian Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman blames Israel for the smuggling of weapons into Gaza (autotranslated, cleaned up):

Egypt says that one of the main sources [from which] Hamas receives arms and ammunition are Israeli army soldiers who sell them weapons and ammunition. Suleiman added that most of the smuggling of arms and explosive materials for the Gaza Strip are by sea and soldiers of the Israeli Navy failed to stop them.

Remember that Egypt stands to lose some $200 million in US handouts if it does not do more to stop the huge smuggling operations into Gaza, and any doubts they can plant about the reality would help their case.

Just yesterday, one of those mythical smuggling tunnels from Gaza to Egypt collapsed, injuring 3.

1977 Israeli law: Attempting to give away land a capital crime

Martin Sherman in YNet notices:

The following is a verbatim quotation from the existing law in Israel:

A person who, with intent that any area be withdrawn from the sovereignty of the State or placed under the sovereignty of a foreign state, commits an act calculated to bring this about, is liable to life imprisonment or the death penalty.

Israeli Penal Code – 1977, Section 97(b)

Read the whole article.

Interpol:arrest Iranians involved in Argentina bombings

From AFP:

Interpol's decision to uphold arrest warrants against five Iranian suspects in a deadly 1994 bombing against a Jewish organization in Argentina was welcomed by Israel Thursday, but slammed by Iran.

"It sends the following message to the terrorists - that even if takes time, they need to know that they will eventually be brought to book," Israel's ambassador to Argentina Raphael Eldad told public radio.

Iran, which had fought hard to have the arrest warrants lifted, reacted angrily to the decision taken by a two-thirds majority at the world police body's annual general assembly in the Moroccan city of Marrakech.

"Iran strongly denounces the decision of Interpol to uphold the warrants requested by the Argentine judiciary," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in a statement issued in Tehran.

"Although the issuing of such warrants by Interpol does not amount to a confirmation of Argentina's claims of Iranian involvement in the AIMA [Argentine Israeli Mutual Association] bombing, we were not expecting this professional body to tarnish its legal status by accepting the political will of the Zionist regime," he said.

"Transferring the pressures from the Argentine government to Interpol in order to fulfil political aims is a matter of great sorrow, and is contrary to international law and utterly rejected and unacceptable," said Hosseini.

He added that Iran would continue "to fight through legal channels for the rights of its citizens" facing the arrest warrants, who include former intelligence minister Ali Fallahian and former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rezaei, as well as three diplomats.

Arrest warrants were initially issued against three other senior Iranians, including former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, in November last year, but they were lifted by Interpol's executive committee in March.

The Israeli ambassador acknowledged that there was no immediate prospect of any arrest being made in connection with the July 1994 bombing, which leveled the seven-floor AIMA building in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people.

"I hope that the arrest warrants will be carried out, but I am not very optimistic, as Iran is not in the habit of cooperation in this sort of affair," Eldad said.

In a statement after Wednesday's meeting, Interpol president Jackie Selebi insisted that the agency had treated both sides "fairly and impartially" in reviewing the arrest warrants.

Argentina's chief prosecutor Alberto Nisman rejected any suggestion that the warrants were politically motivated, and also acknowledged that it was unlikely that Iran would extradite the suspects.