Friday, November 16, 2007
Elder of Ziyon
Thursday, November 15, 2007Elder of Ziyon
self-deathPresse said Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip this evening that the citizen was killed bottleneck effect of the collapse of one of expenditure which is used for smuggling on the Egyptian border with the southern Gaza Strip. "Still not sure what "bottleneck" is supposed to mean, but Mr. Abdul Nabi is most sincerely dead.
According to Dr. Hassanein Maaouya director of emergency ambulance and the Ministry of Health death citizen Mohammed Abdul Nabi 34 years bottleneck in one spending Rafah governorate.
Abdul Nabi arrived this evening to Abu Yousef Najjar Hospital Rafah Governorate dead.
Thursday, November 15, 2007Elder of ZiyonTemple Mount
Thursday, November 15, 2007Elder of Ziyon
Thursday, November 15, 2007Elder of Ziyonunrwa
Wednesday, November 14, 2007Elder of ZiyonThe Palestinian Deputy Minister for Foreign Affirs [sic], Dr. Ahmad Subuh, on Wednesday announced that the amount of aid donated to the Palestinian Authority (PA) by the European Union (EU) over the past year had reached approximately one billion and eighty million U.S. Dollars.Last month, the White House requested some $435 million in additional aid for Palestinian Arabs, on top of the $137 million it gives to UNRWA annually (out of a budget of some $505 million) and the $77 million requested earlier this year.
Speaking during a joint press conference between the European Commission in the West Bank and the Palestinian ministry of Foreign Affairs in the central West Bank city of Ramallah, Dr. Subuh thanked the EU for the aid, adding that the amount donated had increased significantly from last year's total of 980 million US$, and the previous year's total of 880 million US$.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007Elder of Ziyonblood libel, Charles Enderlin, Muhammad al-Durrah, Palestinian propaganda, pallywood, Richard LandesHonestReporting together with Take-A-Pen covered this afternoon's hearing in France where raw footage of the Mohammed Dura was publicly screened for the first time. HonestReporting/Take-A-Pen's Alain Benjamin, who saw the video in court, discussed by phone the proceedings with MediaBackspin editor Pesach Benson.For background, see Honest Reporting's summary.What did the raw footage show?
We can definitely say that nobody can say who was shooting at who. Charles Enderlin said in court that the Palestinians started shooting first, but in the end, there's no way we can say what happened that day. You can't tell who did what. The assertion from Charles Enderlin, that the Israeli army killed the boy, is totally wrong. The least he could've said was that the boy was killed--but we don't know by who.
There was a dispute over how much footage was to be screened. Was the full video shown?
Charles Enderlin submitted 18 minutes of footage. The judge, without any prompting from Philippe's lawyers, asked what happened to the 27 minutes. Enderlin said on record in court that he had to manipulate some footage that was not relevant to that day. He said he transferred the footage onto DVD for the court. That was amazing.
So she asked if anyone in attendance had seen the full footage. Luc Rosenzweig was there, stood up , and said he saw a tape that was more than 20 minutes long. Richard Landes also stood up. He saw the footage at Enderlin's office. He said the timer he saw was at least 21 minutes long. The judge basically let that issue rest, but there was serious doubt hanging over the room that the footage was tampered or doctored.
After the hearing ended, how did people react to what they saw?
Not one person believed that the version of France 2 was right. Some people maintained that the footage was staged. Others think the footage was real. Clearly, nobody believed that anybody died.
Does the footage vindicate Karsenty?
Everyone was going, "Wow" and talking about whether he'll take action against France 2 for trying to swindle the court. He can wait for the verdict, or sue France 2 for tampering with the tape. He has quite a few options. Clearly, the judge wasn't convinced by France 2's version. The judge's verdict is to be given on February 27.
For exhaustive analysis, see Augean Stables.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007Elder of ZiyonThe Knesset passed the first reading of a bill initiated by Likud Knesset Member Gideon Sa'ar, which requires a two-thirds majority of Knesset Members (MKs) to change the status of Jerusalem.The bad news? This bill still has a ways to go before becoming law.
Currently, it would take 61 of the 120 MKs to change the Basic Law: Jerusalem, which annexed Jerusalem's eastern neighborhoods and the Old City to the capital.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has floated the idea of surrendering parts of the capital to the Palestinian Authority (PA), which demands the entire area of Jerusalem liberated in the 1967 Six-Day War.
The vote in favor of the bill was 54-24, but it must be approved by a committee and pass two more Knesset votes before becoming law. A growing number of Knesset members in Prime Minister Olmert's own Kadima party are against his plan to split Jerusalem. Olmert's close confidant and aide Vice Prime Minister Chaim Ramon has openly promoted handing over parts of the capital to the PA.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007Elder of ZiyonHellish covetous power seeking to weaken Islamic Revolution
Head of Assembly of Experts and Chairman of the Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said here Wednesday that a hellish power in the region is determined to loot Iran's rich natural resources by weakening the Islamic Republic of Iran.Given the goals behind the US masterminded greater Middle East plan, he said the plot was to bolster Zionist regime and weaken Iran but this was to no avail, Rafsanjani said.
Devoted Iranian nation are the bastion in the campaign against enemies and it is the duty of the officials to be at their services by all means, Rafsanjani said.
See how pragmatic this Iranian "moderate" is?
Wednesday, November 14, 2007Elder of ZiyonI am coming from the angle that Zionism is a colonial, imperial, and facist ideology. (And I do not mean to insult you personally). This does not mean that I am calling you a pro-colonialist/imperialist/fascist - afterall, there may be other sub-facets of Zionist that you like, perhaps like community, sense of purpose, or what not. But at its core, I believe that this is what it is, but at the same time, this is why I wanted to discuss this matter with another Zionist. To be blunt, I want to sell you on my logic, as I am sure you want to sell me on yours. I think this needs to happen somewhat.As his questions are broad and they cut to the very core of the differing viewpoints between Zionists and anti-Zionists, I agreed to address them.
A policy by which a nation maintains or extends its control over foreign dependencies.
Colonialism is the extension of a nation's sovereignty over territory beyond its borders by the establishment of either settler colonies or administrative dependencies in which indigenous populations are directly ruled or displaced. Colonising nations generally dominate the resources, labor, and markets of the colonial territory, and may also impose socio-cultural, religious and linguistic structures on the conquered population (see also cultural imperialism). It is essentially a system of direct political, economic and cultural intervention by a powerful country in a weaker one. Though the word colonialism is often used interchangeably with imperialism, the latter is sometimes used more broadly as it covers control exercised informally (via influence) as well as formal military control or economic leverage.In both these definitions, a colonial project is one that is imposed by a powerful nation onto a less-powerful territory.
Zionism is the national revival movement of the Jews. It holds that the Jews are a people and therefore have the right to self-determination in their own national home. It aims to secure and support a legally recognized national home for the Jews in their historical homeland, and to initiate and stimulate a revival of Jewish national life, culture and language.From the Arab viewpoint it is easy to conflate Zionism with the colonialism (and imperialism). The Zionist movement started at the same time that European powers were heavily involved in colonizing many parts of the world, including the Arab world. To make matters worse from the Arab viewpoint, the colonialist mindset of the British is certainly a large reason why Zionism succeeded politically - they felt that Zionism would be a way to gain a foothold in a critical part of the world without having to colonize it themselves. And it would be folly to deny that there was an element of bigotry in play here as the Western world uniformly looked at Arabs as untamed savages.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007Elder of ZiyonGERSHON KEDAR ( Israel) said it was ironic that the Committee would spend three days debating the report of the “misnamed” Special Committee, for the work of that Committee was “superfluous” and “replete with duplication bordering on plagiarism and one-sided propaganda”. It was no wonder that barely one half of the entire membership supported the renewal of the Special Committee’s mandate. Its lack of relevance had been recognized as “charades” by at least some. ...Nice job, Mr. Kedar!He said that, when the resolution relating to the question was passed later in the week, the Palestinian representative should not suffer the delusion that the Palestinian people were receiving real support or even empathy. The resolution was little more than “lip service”. Israel’s legitimate security policies could not be changed by those resolutions; indeed, all those who supported peace should be concerned by such one-sided resolutions that blindly and routinely supported one party to the conflict. They poisoned the atmosphere, created false hopes and encouraged unrealistic demands. Such was the context under which the Fourth Committee was conducting its discussion today, and its discussion on any resolutions that might emerge as a result.
Israel was willing to cooperate with all legitimate human rights organs, bodies and rapporteurs whose mandates did not pre-determine the results of their investigations, he said. Israel had received and cooperated with rapporteurs concerning housing, “arbitrary killings”, displaced persons and health. It had also cooperated with the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Special Committee, however, was “a relic from a bygone era”, whose existence could not be justified morally, intellectually or politically. Its real agenda was not to help the Palestinians, but to harm Israel.He added that, in principle and in practice, the Committee allowed itself to ignore reality and flagrantly refrained from dealing with human rights violations of Palestinians, which was a taboo subject because it contradicted the Committee’s raison d’etre. Also, the Hamas military takeover of Gaza had been dealt with in the report in two sentences. In addition, the Committee did not refer to the numerous cruel and vindictive human rights violations during the intra-Palestinian fighting, which meant that Member States were not informed about wounded Palestinians being shot to death while being treated in hospitals, or Palestinians being thrown to their deaths from high-rise buildings in Gaza. Nor were they told of the numerous and deliberate maiming of political and military rivals and their families, often by being shot in the knees. Negative statements about Palestinians were “beyond the pale” for the Special Committee for one reason –- that Israel could honestly not be blamed.
Yet the Special Committee had still managed to concoct a fanciful connection, he said. Although Israel had completely left Gaza in 2005 and was not involved in the intra-Palestinian fighting, the report blamed Israel and referred to the situation as “a direct consequence of the Israeli occupation”. Such political and intellectual bankruptcy should not be tolerated in the United Nations system.Although the Special Committee claimed its report reflected the substance of the information that had been gathered, it was replete with lies, false claims and uncorroborated accusations, and patently ignored any information that did not fit its one-sided ideological agenda, he said. Thus, while Israel’s anti-terror measures were widely covered, it never mentioned Palestinian terrorism against Israel despite that information being widely known. Worse still, an earlier report of the Special Committee (document A/61/500) issued after last year’s general debate in the Fourth Committee, included accusations that could only be described as tantamount to the worst type of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories common in the Middle Ages. It included an allegation that “drugs and prostitution were allowed, if not encouraged, in the Occupied Syrian Golan” to infect clients with HIV. Insinuating deliberate malpractice, it also reported that a sick child had died in the hospital after receiving such an injection.
The parallels between such baseless claims and insinuations about Jews poisoning the wells of non-Jews and killing non-Jewish children for religious purposes were clear to all, he said. Those modern-day blood libels were outrageous and disgraceful from any source, but much more so when they came from an organ of the United Nations. His country found consolation in the fact that, because the Special Committee was such a marginal and even trivial body, it was unlikely that many people outside this room had ever heard of it, much less had or would read its reports.He said that notwithstanding the Special Committee’s malicious attempts to de-legitimize Israel, the United Nations potentially had much to offer both Israel and the Palestinians in their renewed efforts to resolve their differences. Its potentially heightened relevance, however, was mitigated by the continued existence of the Special Committee and other United Nations organs and mandates, whose sole purposes were anti-Israeli propaganda apparatuses. He called on Member States to reject the report of the Special Committee and end its ill-conceived and ill-managed mandate.
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Tuesday, November 13, 2007Elder of Ziyonfreedom of press palestinian style"I was arrested by Hamas"Of course, this intrepid reporter didn't bother to ask the obvious question: if a British journalist is treated this way, how is Hamas treating Arab journalists?
Today I was detained while watching a demonstration by female students Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip.
They had gone on strike at noon in protest against the killings in the rally yesterday, and they had made their way to a nearby police station where they were singing and chanting. In particular, they yelled: 'Shia, Shia, Shia,' which is a reference to Hamas being funded by Iran.
Within a few minutes, baton-wielding police laid into the girls. Some fell to the ground, but most ran away.
As this was happening, some other members of the police force grabbed me and dragged me into a cell. They pushed me against the wall, and one of the officers shouted: 'Hit him, hit him, hit him' in Arabic.
They snatched the camera from me, and one of the police officers urged his colleagues to break my camera. Then, my cameraman was dragged into the room too.
Another police officer, more senior than the others, eventually arrived and insisted on viewing the videotape that my cameraman had. I kept telling them that I was a journalist and that I would telephone the chief of police unless I was released, and eventually they did so.
Today's incident follows two previous incidents yesterday, in which my activities as a journalist were deliberately curtailed.
The first took place just as gunfire erupted at the Gaza City demonstration yesterday. We were filming police officers standing by their station, when several officers rushed over, fired shots in the air, snatched my camera and dragged me into the police station, where they threatened to smash my camera and hit me.
When I convinced them that I was a British journalist they let me go, but only after telling me to leave the area.
The second incident took place shortly afterwards when I went to the Shifa Hospital where those wounded in the fighting were being taken.
While we were filming, the police arrived at the hospital. They had orders to clear the hospital of all cameramen, and they took my camera. The officer who seized my equipment was very polite to me. He told me that I would be able to get the camera back only if I went to the police station in an hour and a half's time.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for the press to operate in the Gaza Strip. This is very much a reflection of the high level of tension that exists at the moment.
But by comparison with some of the treatment I've had in other parts of the world, this was relatively mild.
A correspondent for the Ramallah-based Palestine radio was attacked and beaten by the de facto government's police in Gaza City while he was covering the Fatah-organized rally in Gaza City marking the third anniversary of the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in which seven people were killed and scores injured, he told Ma'an via telephone.PCHR adds:
Thirty-year-old Tamim Abu Mu'ammar told Ma'an that he was trying to send a report by telephone to the Palestine radio in Ramallah about the attacks on the rally when the de facto government's police beat him with clubs and rifle butts.
He said they searched his cell phone and ordered him to leave the scene, threatening to attack him if they saw him again.
Mu'ammar said his whole body was covered in bruises.
The police also chased rally participants and beat them with batons and sticks. In the meantime, several journalists were attacked, including:Palestine Press Agency reports that more journalists were arrested last night by Hamas.
- Khaled Jamal Bolbol, a photographer for Zoom Press. He was beaten and his camera was broken and confiscated.
- Mohammad Sawalha, a photographer for Abu Dhabi Satellite Station. He was detained and his camera tape was confiscated.
- Mowafaq Matar, a journalist for Al-Hayat Newspaper. He was detained and pictures were erased from his camera.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007Elder of Ziyon
Tuesday, November 13, 2007Elder of ZiyonCAIRO, EGYPT - Citing a long list of chilling testimonials, human rights groups Monday called on the Egyptian government to stop discriminating against converts from Islam and members of some religious minorities who want their faiths reflected on their national identity cards.Egyptians must list their religion on their ID cards, which are required for enrolling in a university, starting a job, opening a bank account and most other aspects of public life. But authorities, drawing on Islamic law, essentially refuse to acknowledge Muslims who convert to other faiths and recognize only the three "revealed religions": Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Egyptians who belong to minority groups such as the Baha'i often find themselves stateless if they refuse to list "Muslim" or "Christian" on their IDs.
Two advocacy groups, Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, spent two years documenting such cases and released their joint report Monday in Cairo.
The report's authors stressed that they weren't seeking new laws or provoking a debate on Islamic doctrine. They say they merely want authorities to apply existing civil law, which permits Egyptians to change or correct information on their ID cards. As it stands, the activists said, many Egyptian officials take it upon themselves to refuse the changes. In several cases presented in the report, Egyptians faced harassment, job termination and detention for challenging the authorities.
The report is filled with examples such as elderly Baha'i retirees unable to receive their pensions, Baha'i parents unable to get their babies immunized, mixed-faith couples prevented from marrying, and the children of Christian converts being forced to study Islam in public schools. In some cases, families paid for bogus documents in order to conduct their lives and later were prosecuted for forgery.
Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
