Monday, December 03, 2007

  • Monday, December 03, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
Over the past couple of weeks Hamas has been insisting that Hajj pilgrims go to Egypt via the Rafah crossing, while Abbas' government arranged for safe passage through Israel. Hamas' intentions is to assert authority over the Rafah border, only negotiate with Egypt concerning its operations, and bypass the EU and Israel as per the Rafah agreement brokered Apparently, Hamas has won:
The Egyptian authorities on Monday allowed the passage of 700 Hajj pilgrims from the Gaza Strip into the Egyptian territories en route to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

... Now, the Gazan pilgrims will head to Saudi Arabia in tandem with the West Bank pilgrims.

The first group of pilgrims crossed the Rafah crossing on foot, standing in line up as the Egyptian security called them by name individually as they crossed.

Hamas leader, Sheikh Salim Salamah, says he hopes the rest of the pilgrims will be permitted to cross through the Egyptian border.

Over the past few days, there has been disagreement between the Gaza-based de facto government, and the West Bank-based caretaker government over which crossing the Gaza pilgrims should leave through. The caretaker government was insisting that the pilgrims leave through the Erez and Al-Uja crossings.

As I have mentioned in the past, the Rafah crossing is supposed to be closed. Only the EU-BAM observers in Rafah are supposed to be able to facilitate opening that border, and it must be operated by the PA, not Hamas. Egypt knows this and so does Hamas. Most importantly, so does the EU.

They are once again complicit in strengthening Hamas politically and weakening Abbas.
  • Monday, December 03, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
A little-noticed political fight in the PA is the one between supporters of "prime minister" Salaam Fayyad and the Fatah leadership:

The Palestinian Authority security forces here have launched an investigation to determine who is behind leaflets that were distributed over the weekend and which describe PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayad and his cabinet ministers as "traitors."

Many of the leaflets, which were distributed on the streets of several West Bank cities, were collected by Palestinian policemen loyal to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Despite the fact that the Aksa Martyrs Brigades denied any connection to the leaflets, PA officials here told The Jerusalem Post that they have no doubt that some members of the group were behind the latest threat.

The officials added that they also did not rule out the possibility that top Fatah operatives who were strongly opposed to Fayad's government and Abbas's policies were also linked to the leaflets.

The threats against Fayad have prompted the PA to beef up security around him and other senior members of his cabinet. "We are taking these threats very seriously," a PA security official told the Post. "We have launched an investigation and soon we will discover who's behind the leaflets."

The leaflets accused the Fayad government of collaboration with the Israelis and Americans against armed Palestinian groups that are operating against Israel. They also lashed out at Fayad for allegedly ordering the PA security forces to use force to disperse demonstrations in protest against last week's peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland.

Abbas, who still hasn't returned to Ramallah after the Annapolis conference, is expected to meet with senior Fatah officials later this week to discuss their demands regarding the Fayad government.

Some of the officials, including a number of Abbas's closest aides, have expressed concern over Fayad's growing influence and the possibility that he might challenge Abbas's authority. Fayad has also come under fire for refusing to channel funds to many Fatah supporters.

Meanwhile...
...PA officials confirmed that Hamas and Fatah representatives were scheduled to meet in Cairo soon for talks on ways of ending their differences.

So Hamas and Fatah are trying again to unify even while Fatah is breaking with Abbas, their leader, over Fayyad who actually sometimes tries to reduce the support that the PA gives to Fatah terrorists (who are usually PA policemen anyway.)

Sounds like these guys are perfectly ready to implement their roadmap obligations!

This article by James Kirchick is too funny:
Of all the absurd claims expressed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his recent address at Columbia University, his assertion that homosexuality does not exist in his country is the most ridiculous....
Yet while the audience in the Roone Arledge Auditorium and millions of television viewers laughed and booed at the Islamist rube, there was one man--ensconced at Columbia University, no less--who was likely nodding along in agreement. His name is Joseph Massad, Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History, and he legitimizes, with a complex academic posture, the deservedly reviled views on homosexuality espoused by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
According to Massad, a Palestinian Christian and disciple of the late Columbia professor Edward Said, the case for gay rights in the Middle East is an elaborate scheme hatched by activists in the West. Massad posited this thesis in a 2002 article, "Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World," for the academic journal Public Culture, and he has expanded it into a book, Desiring Arabs, published this year by the University of Chicago Press. In it, he writes that such activists constitute the "Gay International" whose "discourse ... produces homosexuals as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist." The "missionary tasks" of this worldwide conspiracy are part of a broader attempt to legitimize American and Israeli global conquest by undermining the very moral basis of Muslim societies, as the "Orientalist impulse ... continues to guide all branches of the human rights community." Massad's intellectual project is a not-so-tacit apology for the oppression of people who identify openly as homosexual. In so doing, he sides with Islamist regimes over Islamic liberals.
...Massad's thesis rests largely on Queer Theory, a voguish academic theory from the 1990s that stipulates that homosexuality is merely a "social construction" and not an inherent state of being. Massad writes that, "The categories gay and lesbian are not universal at all and can only be universalized by the epistemic, ethical, and political violence unleashed on the rest of the world by the very international human rights advocates whose aim is to defend the very people their intervention is creating (emphasis mine)." Thus, not only are gay rights activists unleashing "epistemic... violence" on Arabs and Muslims who have same-sex relations by claiming them to be homosexual, they are responsible for the "political violence" of the regimes that oppress them. As one illustration of his thesis, Massad chooses the "Queen Boat" incident of May 11, 2001, when a horde of truncheon-wielding Egyptian police officers boarded a Nile River cruise known as the Queen Boat, a floating disco for gay men. Fifty-two men were arrested, and many of them were tortured and sexually humiliated in prison.
...Massad claims that those Arabs who do accept a Western-style homosexual identity "remain a miniscule minority among those men who engage in same-sex relations and who do not identify as 'gay' nor express a need for gay politics." He makes this sweeping assertion--upon which his entire, 418-page book is predicated--without any statistical evidence. Furthermore, he does not consider that the reason why Arab homosexuals may not "express a need for gay politics" might be because they would be killed if they did.
Yes, the academic Left's darling misozionistic Joseph Massad has opinions about gays that are decidedly anti-liberal, so much so that he's written an entire book denying that homosexual Arabs are...gay. They are just another Western imperialistic tool, you see.

The author of the piece above goes further today:
[The phrase “Muslim fags don’t exist”] is attributed to a neighbor of Azedine Berkane, a Muslim immigrant who, in 2002, stabbed Bertrand Delanoe, the gay mayor of Paris. The neighbor justified the attack on the grounds that because Islam is perfect, impure things --- like gays --- don't exist within it. Therefore, by this logic, it is appropriate to kill those who mock Allah's law.

The above quote could also be attributed to Joseph Massad, the very learned, very cosmopolitan, very scholarly professor of Arab politics at Columbia University. He was a hero of that campus's "progressive" community, who championed him as a victim of the right-wing Zionist campaign to "silence" criticism of Israel, during the controversies several years ago about the school's department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC). As I've explained before, his latest opus -- the book that he hopes will get him tenure -- purports to expose gay rights activists as part of a dreaded, imperialist "Gay International," and, to my knowledge, might just be the most pernicious book ever published by a respectable academic press. The writer and political activist Wayne Besen aptly states that Massad is "mainstreaming murder" with his overwrought, cynical theories. One wonders if the ostensibly "progressive" students who rushed to Massad's defense several years ago when the evil Zionists attacked him will warm up to him now that he's written a volume attacking and justifying the oppression of one of the Left's protected victim classes: gays.
It appears that Massad's "scholarship" is not only suspect when talking about Israel.

Massad's tenure review is becoming much more interesting....
  • Monday, December 03, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
Israel and the US support the PA buying more weapons and hiring more policemen for Nablus.

Three Nablus policemen murder an Israeli.

Even after this is known, Israel goes ahead and frees 429 more PalArab terror prisoners.

Prisoner terror leader Marwan Barghouti says "thanks!" by calling this release "a joke." (He's right - some 177 Israelis have been murdered since Oslo by terrorists released from Israeli prisons.)

Once again, the "peace process" is bearing fruit.

If you agree with the Arabs that the goal of the process is to destroy Israel.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

  • Sunday, December 02, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
69 checkpoints are being constructed right now, specifically to stop religious Muslims from "illegally" visiting their holy shrine.

Of course, this is being done by Saudi Arabia:
Makkah police have set up 69 checkpoints on various roads leading to the holy city with the aim of closing every likely entry routes used by the unlicensed and illegally arriving pilgrims.

The Ministry of Haj has discovered 20 dirt roads that provide cover for the illegal and unlicensed pilgrims to sneak into Makkah unnoticed.

The Saudi Geological Survey helped the Haj Ministry and Public Security supplying them with detailed maps to locate the secret entry points and the dirt roads so that the police may set up checkpoints there as well.

  • Sunday, December 02, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Xinhua (identical item in Arabic in Palestine Press Agency):
Palestinian petrol distribution companies refused to receive the amount of fuel from Israel's Dor company as a form of protesting the Israeli reduced its fuel supplies to Gaza.

Palestinian said on Sunday that most of the service stations in Gaza Strip have run out of fuel, especially the diesel as Israel started to reduce Gaza fuel deliveries.

The Union of petrol stations owners said in a statement that the Gaza Strip needs 350 thousand liters of diesel everyday while Israel wants to allow only 90 thousand liters in.

As for the gasoline, the coastal Strip, where 1.5 million lives, needs 120 thousand liters and Israel wants to send 20 thousand liters. The 350 tons of gas were reduced to 80 tons, the statement added.

"The reduction of fuel is unjustifiable and irresponsible," the union said. "It causes negative effects on all sectors of life, especially on the health and education systems."

The union said the local petrol companies have refused to receive what Israel is sending "in order not to be partners in punishing the Palestinian people because these quantities are insufficient."

A small fact that Xinhua doesn't mention is that the fuel reduction from Israel amounts to only 15% less than usual, not the 75% implied by the Gaza union.

So rather than direct all the fuel they can get to, say, hospitals, the Gaza fuel companies would prefer to see patients die!

Ya think it might be because dead Gaza hospital patients are a potential embarrassment to Israel? Is it even remotely possible that Gaza Arabs prefer to see their own people die rather than pass up a great PR opportunity?

Nah...there must be come other explanation.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

  • Saturday, December 01, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
Maariv (Hebrew only) reports that Baron Rothschild purchased thousands of acres of Syrian land in the 1920s that may today legally belong to the Jewish National Fund.

Rothschild's real estate company, named Pika or Pekka, bought the lands and the ownership of most of that land was transfered in 1957 to the JNF. About 59,000 dunams (15,000 acres) were purchased - 6,000 in the Golan Heights and 53,000 in the plains of Haran, 35 kilometers from Damascus and near Bashir Assad's palace (according to Palestine Today's report.) Taxes were paid on the land at least until 1942. If I am reading the article correctly, the Syrian Waqf in the 1940s tried to claim that this was Islamic land that was not legally allowed to be sold, and now Israeli lawyers are studying the matter to see if they still have any legal claim on the land.

Friday, November 30, 2007

  • Friday, November 30, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
The centerpiece of the Palestinian Authority's facade of bringing law and order to the West Bank was it's much heralded crackdown on crime in Nablus. A measure of how successful it was came two weeks ago:
US consul general Jacob Wallace on Wednesday praised the Palestinians for restoring security to the streets of Nablus, and announced a 1.3-million-dollar aid package to the West Bank city.

"The recent actions by the Palestinian Authority have resulted in significant improvements on the streets of Nablus," the consulate in Jerusalem quoted Wallace as saying during a visit to the flashpoint city.

It is no exaggeration to say that Nablus was one of the reasons that the meeting in Annapolis managed to occur, as it appeared that the PA was following the Roadmap in its responsibilities to dismantle all terror organizations (which was an Oslo requirement way before it was on the roadmap.)

Now that Annapolis is over, what does Nablus look like today?

Palestinian children peer at militants from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades during a rally, commemorating killed comrades in the West Bank city of Nablus, November 30, 2007.

The militants were allowed to hold the demonstration by the security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the condition they did not fire their weapons.

You see- Abbas did put his foot down!

And don't worry...it's safe enough for a baby!
So have no fear - Nablus is as safe as it ever was, and now it is up to the Israelis to happily give up strategic land to the courageous leaders of the PA who cannot even dismantle the terror organization that they nominally lead - and who tolerate a rally of terrorists in their showpiece town only two weeks after pretending they had cleaned it up.
  • Friday, November 30, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
The Volokh Conspiracy has a magazine-length article about the history of UNRWA. (h/t Soccer Dad)

Jewish Current Issues on Sharansky and Annapolis (h/t Atlas)

Meryl Yourish on Hamas and PA's intentions towards Israel

Athens, Jerusalem and Auschwitz at Commentary (h/t Daled Amos)


  • Friday, November 30, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
From BBC:
Thousands of people have marched in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to call for UK teacher Gillian Gibbons to be shot.

Mrs Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was jailed by a court on Thursday after children in her class named a teddy bear Muhammad.

She was sentenced to 15 days for insulting religion, and she will then be deported.

The Foreign Office was in contact with Sudan's government overnight and is due to repeat demands for her release.

The marchers took to the streets after Friday prayers to denounce the sentence as too lenient.

The protesters gathered in Martyrs Square, outside the presidential palace in the capital, many of them carrying knives and sticks.

Marchers chanted "Shame, shame on the UK", "No tolerance - execution" and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad".
Sharia law - the model of tolerance.

(For those wondering, the word under "Mohammed" on the bear is Mohammed in Arabic.)
  • Friday, November 30, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
One of early Zionism's slogans that took hold of the imagination of the proponents of a Jewish state was "A land without a people for a people without a land." Coined by Israel Zangwill, it evoked a desolate, empty desert where the industrious Jews could build a modern state.

Israel-bashers are fond of using this quote as proof of early Zionist mendacity, ignoring the 400,000 Arabs that lived in Palestine at the beginning of modern Zionism. To an extent they are right - certainly there were people there - but the slogan was more accurate than they claim.

Firstly, while there were people there, they weren't "a people" - Arabs at the time identified with the Arab people as a whole, or often as a part of southern Syria, but Palestinian Arab nationalism did not appear until after the phrase was coined, in no small part as a direct reaction to Zionism itself.

Secondly, it is hard to claim that the land was anything but sparsely populated, considering that today some ten million people manage to fit in that same space. In other words, the claim that pre-state Zionism was displacing the existing Arab population is simply a lie, as the aim of Zionism was to build and grow in places where no one was living.

And thirdly, it is patently obvious that the Jews were a people without a land, except for those bigots who deny Jewish peoplehood to begin with.

For all the outrage that the slogan causes in Arab circles for being immoral and inflammatory, though, it was used by the Arab League delegate to the UN yesterday trying to give it a PalArab twist:
YAHYA A. MAHMASSANI, Permanent Observer for the League of Arab States, reading out a message from the Secretary-General of the League, Amre Moussa, stressed the Committee’s vital role. The International Day of Solidarity coincided with the ninetieth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which had paved the way for the expansionist Zionist policy, thereby creating a land without people and people without a land -– the source of the conflict that lasted to the current day.
The bigotry and hypocrisy of the Arab states is neatly on display here:

* He dismisses millions of Jews living in Israel nowadays as being effectively nonexistent, invisibly living in a "land without people." Similarly, he denies the fact of Jewish peoplehood.

* He dates the beginnings of the Palestinian Arab refugee problem as 1917, not 1948, showing that in the Arab League's opinion it is the very existence of Jewish national aspiration that is the problem, not the establishment of the State nor the flight of the original refugees.

* He defines the "source" of the conflict to 1917, ignoring that the Arab violence against Jews predated Balfour and that practically all of the attacks would be one-way for decades after that. In other words, in his mind the existence of Jews in Palestine was inherently provocative to the extent that the poor Arabs, who seem to exist without free will, had no choice but to start massacring them.

And, without intending to,

* He subconsciously admits that there were no Palestinian Arab people existing before 1917.

In this case of Arabs attempting to turn the tables on Zionists by using their language, it only proves their own hypocrisy and bigotry.
  • Friday, November 30, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
Aussie Dave at Israellycool, where I guest-blog, has dug up the transcript and video (starting at 1:35) of Dan Gillerman's speech to the UN yesterday on the occasion of the Annual Day of Solidarity for the Haters of Jewish Nationalism. (It certainly isn't a day of solidarity with Palestinian Arabs because none of the nations celebrating have any interest in allowing Palestinian Arabs the right to become full citizens of any other nation.)

Here's the speech, with Dave's highlights in red (I could not find the original UN transcript):

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

I know these words evoke a different voice and a different precedent. But with all seriousness, Happy Birthday. On this day, 60 years ago, the Jewish State was born out of the historic 1947 General Assembly session, where two extraordinary gifts were given to humanity: the gift of a modern state for the Jewish people and the gift of Israel to the world.

I have just come from a commemorative ceremony at Lake Success, where that United Nations, met 60 years ago. You see, throughout history, nations traditionally have been created through war and conquest. Israel, however, was created by UN decree and by the nations of the world. To be there today – representing my Government and my People – was indeed a joyous occasion. So, I wish you all, a Happy Birthday.

Mr. President,

Late last night, I returned from Annapolis. It was a memorable occasion, with representatives from over 40 nations – chiefly among them moderate states of the Arab and Muslim world – committed to supporting the bilateral process between Israel and the Palestinians. The air in Annapolis was filled with the hope that by working together we can realize a peaceful and better tomorrow. I have no doubt that this sense of optimism was felt by all those in attendance.

Yet, back here in New York, standing before this august Assembly – in a place so distant from Annapolis in body, mind, and soul – I cannot help but wonder whether today’s debate will contribute to the spirit, promise, and hope of Annapolis.

After all, this Assembly hall is also the birthplace of the annual 21 resolutions defaming Israel – with a litany of predetermined, impractical, and completely biased conclusions – that have only given the Palestinians a fictitious sense of reality and a discourse of rights without responsibilities, both of which render the United Nations completely incapable of playing a meaningful role in addressing the conflict.

Today – 29 of November – is perhaps the greatest example of how this Assembly continues to stifle hope and faith for peace in our region. According to the calendar of the United Nations, today is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which by definition precludes Israel.

Let me be clear: Palestinian self-determination is a cause Israel wholeheartedly supports. Indeed, at the Annapolis meeting, just two days ago, my Prime Minister, Mr. Ehud Olmert said “we will find the right way, as part of an international effort in which we will participate, to assist these Palestinians in finding a proper framework for their future, in the Palestinian state which will be established in the territories agreed upon between us”.

Over the years, however, the proceedings held in this Hall and at UN centers around the world have corrupted the cause of Palestinian self-determination and transformed it into a denigration and defamation of the Jewish state.

I have been listening carefully to the statements delivered this afternoon. They all focused on Israel, and I know many will focus on Israel later.

The narrative is the same: it is unjust, draining, grossly erroneous, misleading, and – I dare say – viciously boring. It is sadly, yet again, déjà vu, all over again.

The penchant for blaming Israel for the repeated Palestinian failures is so widespread and contagious that the absurdity of it goes completely unnoticed. And today reminds us why: the Palestinian addiction to the culture of victimhood is fed by this world body and specifically many of its Member States – as we just witnessed – who day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, use this international forum for their rhetorical theatrics. Broadway might have been on strike, but the theater on the East River is always open for business.

It is time to close the gap between the reality on the ground and the rhetoric in this Hall now, forever, once and for all.

For us – for Jews and for Israelis – today is not a bitter day at all. We are not downtrodden or haunted by vanquished dreams. Today is a day of great victory and success – victory over oppression and tyranny, and success over the painful tragedies and suffering of Jewish history. Today, we celebrate the resilience of the Jewish people and our eternal bond to the land of Israel, where after so many years of yearning and longing in exile we merited the return to our homeland.

The joy felt on 29 November 1947 is recounted by Amos Oz, one of Israel’s most celebrated writers, and a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature:

“There was dancing and weeping … Bottles of fruit drink, beer and wine passed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth, strangers hugged each other in streets and kissed each other with tears, … frenzied revelers … waved the flag of the state that had not been established yet, but tonight, over there in Lake Success, it had been decided that it had the right to be established”.

Travel to any city in Israel, and you will no doubt find a street named for this very day – כ”ט בנובמבר – the 29th of November – a testament to its importance and significance to our people.

In fact, I live in Tel-Aviv, just yards from a street named after the 29th of November, and my eldest grandson, Ron, as born on this very day nine years ago. It is on his behalf and on behalf of all children of Israel and the children of the region that I stand before you here today.

Distinguished Excellencies, think of the past 60 years, and consider Israel’s many contributions to the world in the fields of science and technology, medicine, art, and culture. A country that has discovered ways to stop deserts from receding; a country that has engineered critical advancements in medicine, cures for illnesses and limbs for the disabled; a country that has endowed the world with rich treasures of art and culture, through its Nobel Laureates, poets, artists, and writers.

Think about where the world would be today without the State of Israel – and I know some in this Hall perversely dream about such a question. But Israel is here to stay, to flourish, and to continue contributing to the advancement of man, progress, and human civilization.

It is then the greatest insult to us, to history, and to this Assembly that while Israel celebrates, others at the United Nations mourn.

Some Member States will note my delegation’s absence from past 29th of November proceedings. We stopped addressing this session because some Member States hijacked and abused the forum for their own political interests and turned it into yet another venue to demonize Israel. We cannot allow that to happen any longer. Today is our day.

It is high time for Israel and for all those committed to peace in our region, to reclaim this day for what it truly means: the peaceful coexistence of two independent states in the region, a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, living side-by-side in peace and security, each fulfilling the national aspirations of its respective people.

Mr. President,

In this regard, it is all the more bewildering that of late the Jewish character of the State of Israel has been called into question. Last week, as Israelis and Palestinians set out for Annapolis, a veteran Palestinian negotiator said “the Palestinians will never acknowledge Israel’s Jewish identity”.

The resolution that gives the 29th of November significance – General Assembly resolution 181 – speaks of the creation of the “Jewish State” no less than 25 times. Even before that, the notion of a Jewish state in the land of Israel was cemented in the 1922 League of Nations British Mandate on Palestine, which put into effect the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to establish a national home for the Jewish people.

The Arab refusal to recognize the existence of our Jewish state has been at the core of the Palestinians’ inability to achieve a state of their own. When the Jews accepted the UN partition plan, the Arabs made a fateful – and indeed fatal – choice to reject it and invade the newly borne Jewish state, rather than coexist with it.

Had the Arabs accepted the UN’s decision, there would have been two states, one Jewish and one Arab, all this time, for the past 60 years. Had the Arabs not rejected the decision, my Palestinian colleague who spoke earlier would have represented a Member State, not just as an Observer entity.

The wrong choices did not end in 1947. We saw them again in 1967, 1973, 2000, and 2005, when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip only to have the Palestinians bring the Hamas terrorists to power. The wrong choices of the Palestinians continue until this very day, when, on average, Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip fire rockets at Israel every three hours.

For their brutal violence, arrogance, and intransigence, Israel has paid an enormous price: with the lives of our people – the Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism: men, women, and children, young and old, doctors and lawyers, artists and scientists, all who would have contributed so greatly to life in Israel and to the betterment of the entire world.

The terrorism we still see today stems from an innate refusal to recognize Israel, a refusal to recognize the Jewish state, and a refusal to recognize the value of our lives. So long as there is a denial of the existential issues, I fear, there can never be an agreement on the territorial ones.

Mr. President,

Annapolis – I hope and believe – represents a new wind of change. Moderate Arab and Muslim states today recognize that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the cause of instability in our region and that the conflict can and will end. They also recognize that the real dangers come directly from Islamic extremism and its champion Iran, who sponsors terrorism around the globe, tries to attain nuclear weapons, denies the Holocaust while preparing for the next one, relentlessly defying the will of the international community.

The Coalition for Peace, which the world saw assembled in Annapolis just two days ago, will support the process between Israel and the Palestinians. But it is also a coalition that will hopefully counter and confront the extremists in Teheran.

I hope that the winds of Annapolis will blow to the north, to this very Hall. For there could be no better time for the nations of the world – and in particular the moderate Arab and Muslim states in this Hall today – to show their commitment to the Israeli-Palestinian process. And there could be no better place than here at the United Nations –where for decades Israel has been discriminated against and singled out, contrary to the fundamental principles of the UN Charter – for Members States to tell Israel and the Palestinians that they support our dialogue.

Mr. President,

Allow me to take you back once more to sixty years ago, to 2 October 1947, when David Ben-Gurion, founding father and first Prime Minister of the State of Israel, two months prior to the General Assembly’s historic vote, said in Jerusalem:

“We will not surrender our right to free Aliyah, to rebuild our shattered Homeland, to claim statehood. If we are attacked, we will fight back. But we will do everything in our power to maintain peace, and establish cooperation gainful to both. It is now, here and now, from Jerusalem itself, that a call must go out to the Arab nations to join forces with Jewry and the destined Jewish State and work shoulder to shoulder for the common good, for the peace and progress of sovereign equals”.

Mr. President, sixty years later, today here, Israel’s message to the Arab nations and the Palestinians has not changed. Shoulder to shoulder for the common good. Now, more than ever, with the winds of change blowing strong from Annapolis, to New York, to the Middle East, to all corners of the earth.

Thank You.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

  • Thursday, November 29, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
In the weeks leading up to the UN Partition vote, the Arabs of Palestine were on their best behavior. There were very few terror attacks against Jews in November, and the last major attack I could find was in late August.

But immediately after they lost the partition vote, it was like the pent-up hatred all exploded at once.

The first victims were on a bus to Jerusalem. Some were killed instantly from a grenade hurled into the bus; one of the injured passengers was murdered as he tried to tend to his injured wife. Another victim was on her way to Jerusalem to get married.



Others were killed that day as well, and many hundreds more - men, women and children - were to be brutally murdered in the coming months.

The reasons for the hate have not changed a bit from then to today. They were not murdered because of "occupation" or "refugees" or any of the dozens of other justifications that have been since used to minimize the horror of these unabashed terror attacks.

Their "crimes" were simply because they were Jews with the desire to live in their own nation, at peace with their neighbors. What the world recognized instinctively in 1947 - that Jews deserve the right to self-determination - was to be tested by a massive temper tantrum of Arab supremacists who were willing to attempt a second genocide against the Jews rather than face what they consider "humiliation."

And, yes, the proper word for someone who considers another people's lives less important than Arab honor is an Arab supremacist.
  • Thursday, November 29, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
As I have previously blogged, the PA and Israel arranged for thousands of Gaza Hajj pilgrims to travel in buses through Israel to the West Bank where they will go on to perform Hajj in the apartheid-like Muslim-only city of Mecca. Hamas seems to be blocking the pilgrims, saying that they will open the Rafah crossing to Egypt and have the pilgrims go that way, so Israel wouldn't be involved.

The only problem is, Egypt does not open the Rafah crossings without the EU's permission, and the EU cannot open it while Hamas is in charge. (The EU's Rafah mission remains on the EU payroll, doing absolutely nothing, and it hasn't even updated its website with any news about the Rafah crossing.)

Now, Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas is planning to embarrass Egypt into opening Rafah by demolishing the wall near the crossing and forcing Egypt to directly stop the pilgrims from going to Egypt - or forcing Egypt to let them through. PPA says that Hamas plans to demonstrate on Friday and demolish the wall on Saturday. Whether this is true or not, Hamas is clearly playing political games with their devout Muslim population.

I have no idea why the English-language media has not picked up on this story even though it is over a week old now.
  • Thursday, November 29, 2007
  • Elder of Ziyon
From AP:
British teacher Gillian Gibbons was convicted of insulting Islam for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Muhammad and sentenced to 15 days in prison and deportation from Sudan, one of her defense lawyers said Thursday.

Ali Mohammed Ajab, of Gibbons' defense team, said she was found guilty of "insulting the faith of Muslims in Sudan" under Article 125 of the Sudanese criminal code, a lighter conviction than the original charge of inciting religious hatred. ...

"It's a very fair verdict, she could have had six months and lashes and a fine, and she only got 15 days and deportation," said Robert Boulos of the Unity High School, confirming there would be no appeal. He noted that she would only spend 10 days in prison, having already served five.

"We are very sad about her deportation because she was such a good teacher," he said, adding that with the current tension over the case it was probably safer for her to leave the country.
You mean, Shari'a law cannot protect a middle-aged woman?

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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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