Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, November 26, 2007

Some Annapolis reading

History News Network: The Annapolis Conference: A Chance to Right an Historical Wrong?
- Decent overview if an overly sunny conclusion

Shrinkwrapped: Peace will come
- Some relevant observations from my favorite online shrink.

Bernard Lewis, On the Jewish Question
- Always nice when a real scholar stands up and tells the truth.

Soccer Dad: Sieg-speak
- Fisking Henry Seigman is easy but Soccer Dad goes above and beyond. The fact that he links to two of my postings is an extra bonus...

Today's Sharia news: A teddy bear named Mohammed

From the Times (UK):

A British primary school teacher arrested in Sudan faces up to 40 lashes for blasphemy after letting her class of 7-year-olds name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was arrested at her lodgings at Khartoum's Unity High School yesterday, accused of insulting the Prophet of Islam.

Her colleagues said that they feared for her safety after reports that groups of young men had gathered outside the Khartoum police station where she was taken and were shouting death threats.

The Unity school is a Christian-run but multi-racial and co-educational private school that is popular with Sudanese professionals and expatriate workers.

Teachers at the school, in central Khartoum only a mile from the River Nile, said that Ms Gibbons had made an innocent mistake by letting her pupils choose their favourite name for the toy as part of a school project.

Robert Boulos, the Unity director, said that Mrs Gibbons was following a British National Curriculum course designed to teach young pupils about animals and their habitats. This year’s animal was the bear.

In September, she asked a girl to bring in her teddy bear to help the Year 2 class to focus and then asked the class to name the toy.

“They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad. Then she explained what it meant to vote and asked them to choose the name,” Mr Boulos said.

Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad. Each child was allowed to take the bear home at weekends and asked to write a diary about what they did with the toy. Each entry was collected in a book with a picture of the bear on the cover, next to the message "My name is Muhammad".

Mr Boulos said that the bear itself was not marked or labelled with the name in any way, he added, saying Sudanese police had now seized the book and had asked to interview the 7-year-old girl.

He said that he had decided to close down the school until January for fear of reprisals in Sudan’s predominantly Muslim capital.

“This is a very sensitive issue. We are very worried about her safety,” he said. “This was a completely innocent mistake. Miss Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam.”

Of course not. Why would she want to insult a religion whose members would call for her death for naming a teddy bear the same name that huge numbers of Muslims name their kids?

Notice also the Times' dhimmified use of capitalization when referring to Mohammed as "the Prophet of Islam." Like poor Miss Gibbons, they wouldn't want to insult Islam either by not publicly pretending that they believe in it.

Saudi Arabia frees 1500 al-Qaeda prisoners after they "repent"

See the power of repentance? It gets you out of jail!

Saudi authorities have released more than 1,500 reformed extremists, who were detained on charges of embracing and spreading takfeer (the ideology that brands other Muslims who disagree with them as infidels).

The extremists, under the guidance of the Ministry of Interior, had undergone lengthy counseling, according to Muhammad Al-Nujaimi, a member of the Counseling Committee and professor of comparative jurisprudence at the King Fahd Security College.

Al-Nujaimi told Al-Watan newspaper that the Counseling Committee, which is the brainchild of Prince Muhammad ibn Naif, assistant minister of interior for security affairs, was established in 2004 with the approval of Interior Minister Prince Naif. The Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Call and Guidance jointly supervise activities of the committee comprising 100 members. Members include religious scholars, preachers, specialists in religious doctrine and law, psychologists and social workers.

The committee is tasked with the duty of reforming youths in an intellectual and rational manner on the basis of Shariah. “The committee has met around 5,000 times to offer counseling to 3,200 people, who were accused of embracing the takfeer ideology. The committee has successfully completed reforming 1,500 people,” Al-Nujaimi said.

The suspects were largely confused about the meaning of jihad, which led to their believing in committing blind violence. They also viewed that the present Muslim rulers, scholars and public were infidels, and therefore demanded the establishment of a single Islamic state, said Al-Nujaimi.

“After several graded sessions with the committee, and having been convinced of their misguided vision, they renounced their erroneous ideologies, including the concept of driving out all infidels from the Arabian Peninsula,” he said.

The committee first evaluates the personality and the ideological crisis suffered by the suspect, and then decides on how to clean his mind of the mistaken impressions, said Al-Nujaimi.

It would be easy to make fun of this from many different angles, but then again Israel releases hundreds of terrorists without even any meaningless prerequisites.

Hamas rocket manufacturer dead

It's been over a week since the last reported PalArab death at the hands of PalArabs, but the streak has ended. Hamas has announced that one of their engineers dedicated to building terror rockets has died from injuries inflicted a few weeks ago, and they did not blame Israel, so it sounds like a work accident or a Fatah bomb.

His name is autotranslated as "Abdel Hadi Abu forehead".

Our count of Palestinian Arabs violently killed by each other this year is now at 584.

Tzipi is a dirty, dirty girl

From Gulf Daily News:

MPs demanded an apology yesterday after Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa accused them of having Palestinian blood on their hands.
An MP, who urged the minister to wash his hands after meeting Israel Foreign Minister Tzipora "Tzipi" Livni, later backtracked saying he was only suggesting that Ms Livni was "dirty".

"I meant Tzipi is dirty and Shaikh Khalid, who is clean, should purify his hands," said MP Nasser Al Fadhala in a statement.

But I thought Arabs liked their Jewish girls dirty:

What was supposed to be just a night out for two young girls turned into a brutal nightmare. Six young men from the Arab-Israeli towns of Qalansawa, Lod and Taybe stand accused of raping an intoxicated 16-year-old girl in Netanya two weeks ago. Throughout the rape they swore "dirty Jew" and beat her.

h/t Gateway Pundit via News for Members of the Tribe

UPDATE: An Israeli Arab college student working at a pharmacy in Tel Aviv refused to serve Tzipi Livni. He was fired, according to Palestine Today.

Elder's law of unintended consequences

Every major diplomatic push for "peace" in the Middle East will result in consequences that are not close to the original intentions of the would-be peacemakers.

These consequences are, more often than not, very far from peaceful.

PalArabs now blame Israel for every medical death in Gaza

A new, fashionable way to blame Israel for, well, everything is sweeping throughout the PalArab media and it is only a matter of time before the Western blame-Israel crowd jumps on the bandwagon.

According to PalArab Gaza sources, we are now up to 20 people who have died in the past few weeks from not being allowed to travel to Israel to get medical treatment. The rate of these deaths has skyrocketed in the past few weeks though, beforehand you would only read about one every couple of weeks or so.

Apparently, the PalArabs have latched onto these deaths as a great propaganda weapon against Israel. So now, all deaths in Gaza for any reason, no matter how far-fetched, is being blamed on Israel.

Number 19 is especially telling. Palestine Press Agency (Arabic) reports that a 46-year old man who had gone to Egypt 6 months ago for medical treatment got stuck there when Hamas took over and as a result the EU was not able, by their own rules, to open the Rafah crossing. (It will be recalled that Israel did let the people stranded in Rafah to arrive through Keren Shalom crossing, against Hamas wishes. I am not certain why this man did not return then.)

Anyway, this man, Abdul Kader Salih Abu Amer, decided two days ago to go back using an illegal weapons smugging tunnel from Egypt to Gaza.

He made it, but the trip was so strenuous that he died this morning.

So, if you need a scorecard: Amer went to Egypt to get medical treatment, couldn't come back because of the Hamas takeover , went through an illegal tunnel by his own choice, and died in Gaza.

And it is Israel's fault!

The other deaths are more along the lines of people who could not get dialysis and the like. Notice that no one (even the Fatah-supporters) is blaming Hamas for these deaths even though Hamas has looted hospitals in Gaza; and no one is blaming Egypt even though they could let people through Rafah. And certainly no one is invoking the story of Wafa al-Biss, the Gaza woman who was being treated in Israel's Soroka hospital and tried to blow it up, specifically wanting to kill women and children.

But blaming Israel is easy!

Shari'a Sunday, part 2: Major banks go Islamic

From NYT:

Rising oil wealth is lifting Islamic banking -- banking that adheres to the laws of the Koran and its prohibition against charging interest -- into the financial mainstream.
Big banks, including Citigroup, HSBC and Deutsche Bank, as well as financial capitals like London, Tokyo and Hong Kong, are all going into the Islamic banking business. An estimated 300 Islamic financial institutions hold at least US$500 billion in assets, and deposits are increasing more than 10 percent a year.
In addition to Islamic loans, there are Islamic bonds, Islamic credit cards and even Islamic derivatives. Loans and bonds that conform to the Koran are already available in the US. And Britain, Japan and Thailand are contemplating issuing Islamic bonds of their own.
... Islamic finance also avoids practices prohibited under Shariah: Islamic bankers cannot receive or provide funds for anything involving alcohol, gambling, pornography, tobacco, weapons or pork.

Leave it to the New York Times to not bother asking about the rich history of Islamic banks bankrolling suicide bombings.

...Islamic financial institutions have to depend on their own boards of Shariah scholars to approve every product. Shariah scholars are rare, and those with financial understanding even rarer, so many scholars sit on several boards, earning up to US$100,000 in retainers. "If they're complaining there is a shortage, what are they doing to solve this problem?" asked Sheikh Nizam Yaquby, a scholar based in Bahrain who sits on the boards of Citigroup, AIG and HSBC, among others.

...In the early 1990s, Malaysia devised the first Islamic bond, or sukuk, an accomplishment it expanded on in 2002 by issuing the first global sukuk, raising US$600 million. Now the global sukuk market totals US$82.2 billion, with Malaysia accounting for two-thirds of it....
Britain, which licensed its first Islamic bank in 2004, plans to issue its own sukuk. Japan's Bank for International Cooperation is planning a US$300 million sukuk. And in July, a Texas-based oil firm, East Cameron Partners, issued the first US sukuk, raising US$165.7 million.

For a slightly less gushing viewpoint of Islamic finance, see this FrontPage article.

For much more detail, see the Terror Finance Blog.

Shari'a Sunday, part 1: Update on Saudi rape case

From AFP:

A woman in Saudi Arabia sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes despite being gang raped has confessed to adultery, the justice ministry said on Saturday as it tried to fend off mounting criticism.

Despite being sexually assaulted by seven men who kidnapped her with a male companion at knife-point, the unidentified 19 year-old woman was sentenced in November 2006 to 90 lashes.

The judge sentenced her for being in a car with a man who was not her relative, a taboo in the conservative Muslim kingdom which imposes strict segregation of the sexes.

But her story hit international headlines last week when her sentence was increased to six months in jail and 200 lashes after she spoke to the media.

The justice ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency that the woman had owned up to having an extramarital affair with the man in the car.

"She admitted to ... exchanging sinful relations," the statement said, adding the woman was in state of undress with the man in the car before the attack took place.

The woman and her alleged lover remained quiet about the attack, which was only reported to the authorities several months later when the woman's husband received an e-mail from an unidentified source informing him of the affair.

"She admitted to what happened and the husband then reported the incident three months after it happened," the justice ministry said, adding it wanted to correct the "largely incorrect" details published in the media about the case.

The ministry also stressed the Saudi judicial system was based on Islamic law derived from the holy Koran and that a court ruling in the kingdom was only made after both sides in a case are given a fair and balanced hearing.

The men were initially sentenced to one to five years in jail, but those terms were also toughened on appeal to between two and nine years.

A rape conviction carries the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, but the court did not impose it due to the "lack of witnesses" and the "absence of confessions," the justice ministry said on Tuesday.

The woman's husband told local media that they would appeal, even though the judge had warned that the sentence could be increased again if she loses the appeal.

The justice ministry noted that the law gives the right of appeal, but warned that "resorting to the media" could have "a negative effect on the other parties in the case."

AFP seems to have some details wrong. From Arab News:

“She went out with him without a mahram, a legal guardian, and exchanged forbidden affairs through the illegal khalwa,” the statement said. “They both confessed to doing what God forbids.”

The statement went on to accuse the woman and the man of causing the crime.

“They are the main cause of what happened, the woman and her companion, as they exposed themselves to this horrible crime and violated the rule of Shariah,” the statement said. “That’s why the sentences were increased for everyone due to the dangerous nature of the crime.”

The ministry also claimed that the woman violated the sanctity of marriage.

“She knows that ‘khalwa’ with an unrelated man is forbidden by Shariah and by doing this she has broken the sacred matrimonial contract,” the statement said.

“The woman mentioned in her signed confession that she called from her husband’s house using her cell phone asking for a forbidden ‘khalwa’ in front of a shopping center,” the statement said.

So what is "khalwa" and was this woman really married?

The matrimonial contract that the ministry refers to is known as “qiran”. In Saudi Arabia the “qiran” is viewed as a contract of betrothal, similar to marriage except that the woman and man must live with their families until they come out to society with an official wedding ceremony.

Arab News learned yesterday that the rape victim and her betrothed had signed a “qiran” contract; they have never lived together as husband and wife.

The sentence of the two rape victims is based on the Saudi interpretation of “khalwa”, the principle that an unrelated man and woman cannot be in seclusion together. The interpretation of “khalwa” under Saudi law — which judges say is the proper interpretation of the Sunnah — includes unrelated men and women being together even in public. The judicial interpretation of “khalwa” in Saudi Arabia also includes an unrelated man and woman inside a vehicle.

The ministry claimed the woman was “in a state of indecency, having thrown off her clothes” and the two were abducted in a “dark side of the (Qatif) corniche” by the attackers after they saw the couple in this alleged state of indecency.

The woman’s lawyer, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, had said in a previous interview with Arab News that the police investigation records states that the two victims were abducted in a public place, in front of a shopping mall.

The statement claimed that the two victims of the gang rape hid the incident for three months until an e-mail was sent to the woman’s betrothed “informing him what happened to his wife, and her betrayal.”

A source close to the case that wishes to remain anonymous told Arab News that no e-mail was sent and that the woman’s betrothed didn’t find out about the crime until he was told by his friends that the rapists were bragging about the crime in the small community of Qatif.

This is a great introduction to how Shari'a law works as a basis for a modern legal system. Two victims of a crime are not valid witnesses against the rapists because one of them is a woman; appealing a sentence while talking to the media will make your sentence more severe; and the police and judicial system can lie to cover up their own embarrassment.

And Saudi Arabia's isn't the only shari'a-based legal system:

Kuwait, as a state and people, views the Holy Book the Koran as the reference of guidelines for managing and maintaining the homeland, a senior official affirms.

Undersecretary of Awqaf Adel Al-Falah underscored the fact that the commitment to the holy book helps in maintaining social security and stability for the homeland and the whole Islamic nation, noting the Koranic guidelines for moderation and positive manners.

Freedom of the press, PalArab-style (XI)

From Ma'an:

Ma'an journalist Hafith Asakra was kidnapped on Saturday evening by five masked gunmen as he headed to work at Ma'an's main office in Bethlehem.

The abductors bound his hands and legs, detaining him for 12 hours.

They demanded to use his Ma'an password to post a fictitious news story, aimed at stirring up trouble between Ma'an and the Palestinian factions and security services.

He refused to give in to his abductors' demands.

Keep in mind, this isn't Gaza. This is the "safe" section of the PA-controlled territories.

News headlines

Lots of interesting links on today's JCPA Daily Alert:

- Palestinian Arabs have been systematically attacking and damaging West Bank Jewish farms and agricultural gear. That's not surprising - what is surprising is that Ha'aretz actually covers the story.

- Also from Ha'aretz: news about the links between German companies and Iranian nukes.

- Articles on the looming Annapolis debacle from Natan Sharansky, WSJ, Emmanuel Sivan, Dore Gold.

- A cool Esquire article on Gal Luft, an Israeli who has concrete ideas on how to get away from dependence on Arab oil.

Unsportsmanlike behavior

From PCHR:

In the past 10 days, 3 sports clubs in the Gaza Strip have been attacked in the context of the state of security chaos prevailing in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 03:00 on Thursday, 22 November 2007, unknown persons attacked Deir al-Balah Sports Club in Deir al-Balah refugee camp and set fire to the office of the administration, heavily damaging it.

At approximately 01:00 on Wednesday, 21 November 2007, unknown persons attacked Gaza Sports club in al-Remal neighborhood in Gaza City. They stole two computer sets from the offices of the board and the accountant.

On Sunday, 11 November 2007, militants from Hamas seized al-Tuffah Sports Club in al-Tuffah neighborhood in the east of Gaza City, and prevented its staff from entering it.

PCHR is deeply concerned over these attacks, which constitute an assault on the right to association, and are part of the state of security chaos prevailing in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Sports clubs? Are these teams, or community centers, or gyms? Either way, it looks like Hamas' paranoia is increasing.

About that Gaza humanitarian crisis....

From Ma'an (Arabic):

The commander of the [Fatah-based] Ahmed Abu Rish Martyr Brigades yesterday claimed responsibility for the bombing of the Sufa three military-type missiles Amr 2.

The battalions in a press release wrote: "This operation came in a series Covenant and fulfill the spirit of the martyr leader Yasser Arafat, the symbol, stressing adherence to the approach of resistance as a strategic choice".

There are multiple daily bombing and rocket attacks attacks against crossings between Gaza and Israel, so this would hardly be noteworthy if it wasn't for this:

Israel will allow the opening of the Sufa crossing for the passage of agricultural produce, beginning with strawberries and flowers and then expanding to include other produce, [Agriculture Minister Shalom] Simchon told Israel Radio.

For the first time in weeks, the crossing was opened Tuesday for two hours to allow the passage into the Gaza Strip of 200 calves, the radio said.

So the "militants" are doing everything necessary to shut down Gaza's lifeline.

In the unparalleled logic of Palestinian Arab leaders and their apologists, hurting thousands of PalArabs is a strategic long-term goal because the perceived benefit - that forcing their people to suffer helps their public relations - far outweighs the misery that they inflict on their own people.

The funny thing is that events like this gain next to no coverage in the Western media, and Hamas certainly doesn't dare condemn such acts of "resistance," so in a perverse way it works. People see Gaza suffering, no one sees how much of it is inflicted by Gazan "leaders" themselves.

Hajj becomes a political tool for Hamas/Fatah

Hajj, the obligatory pilgrimage that Muslims make to Mecca and one of the most important Islamic precepts, has been turned into a political farce by the Palestinian Arab "leaders."

In early November, Hamas accused Fatah of conspiring to stop Gaza Muslims from performing Hajj:

Speaking during a 90-minute speech in downtown Gaza, Haneyya blamed the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority for colluding with the Zionist regime for the purpose of starving, impoverishing and tormenting the Palestinian people.

"They (the American-backed PA) collaborated with Israel at the UN to scrap an international resolution condemning Israel . This happened for the first time in history. They conspired to close all the border crossings, they conspired to prevent all raw material from entering into Gaza…even in matters of pilgrimage, they are conspiring to bar our people from carrying out their religious duties such as Umra (minor pilgrimage) and Hajj (pilgrimage)."

Apparently, this is not entirely true. Pro-Fatah Palestine Press Agency reports (autotranslated):

threatened visited Awqaf and Religious Affairs article, which send out Hamas militias outside the law in the Gaza Strip today, the pilgrims who are trying to send their passports to the Palestinian government in Ramallah to coordinate them to perform Hajj in the occupied Alhijazih imprisonment and prosecution. "

The ministry said it would prevent pilgrims from the Gaza Strip who approved by the government in Ramallah on the exit and completed their coordination to perform the Hajj to emerge verbally pursued. "

She said in a press statement that "every citizen passport sent to the Ministry of Ramallah government will not be allowed to travel and will be legal and judicial prosecution him."

This statement is a clear recognition of the Hamas movement and the government as the article is the reason to prevent the completion of the pilgrimage season for the people of the Gaza Strip which hinder the process of facilitating travel for their own partisan and narrow. "

I have no idea what the truth is, but what is clear is that the commitment to Islam seems to fade from the radar of their "leaders" as they jockey for political points.

And, as has historically been the case, the Palestinian Arabs themselves get screwed by their supposed leaders. But never fear - they are only doing it for the greater good.

Arab economic benefit from Zionism, 1933

Here's another article from the Palestine Post that shows how Arabs benefited from Jewish investment in Palestine. The issue was October 10, 1933. Even if one argues that the source is biased, the figures are precise.

It shows that the number of dunams of land planted by Arabs skyrocketed, unemployment dropped sharply, and that the major beneficiaries of agriculture tax were Arabs.

The editorial in that issue expands upon the findings and compares them to the awful economic conditions in Palestine's Arab neighbors:

This continued to be the case until the 1936-39 Arab "revolt," meant as a strike to cripple the Jewish economy, instead it only retarded the Arab economy in Palestine. As we've seen countless times since, the Arab leaders directly caused their own people to suffer in their vain pursuit of destroying the Jewish national movement.