Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, February 01, 2008

Recent keywords that end up at the Elder

Here's a representative group of recent keywords that people type into search engines that end up finding me. I highlighted the ones that are especially interesting:

mahmoud al-khaznadar, the vice president of the federa
sumaya al khashab xxx (from Saudi Arabia, he looked at this and this)
blow up doll video (I get a lot of these)
damascus 1860
damascus massacre 1860
qatar religious conflict
palestinians female idf std
falaka
kill the jews (always a classic, this time from England)
chumash quotes star of david
elder porn (I get lots of these too)
un estimates of gaza egypt spending
un vehicles
pictures of terrorists
gaza ma'an school
bene israelis love india
the elder of ziyon
gaza greenhouses
porn arabs (from Australia)
elders egypt killed biblical
teen slave in eu
moderate israeli arabs
subliminal rapper
rabin salem proctologist
life in saudi arabia
september 11 arab celebration middle east conspiracy
bin laden's hate for the jews
the story about the fish and the shark by gilad schalit
duty free zone, cairo
arab comedian (this is also a favorite, but people are disappointed in what they find here)
child deaths in israel
82 year old blind man hits hole in one
more arabian porn
daily life in saudi arabia
rambam chador
what is bin laden's haplogroup?

Watch out for those bunnies

Pearls Before Swine:

Arab women's liberation news

In Saudi Arabia, they are considering creating women-only hospitals:

Would having hospitals run exclusively by women — from doctors to janitors — be a better environment for women? This is a proposition that the Ministry of Health is currently studying.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, recently proposed the establishment of women-only hospitals during a symposium in Riyadh entitled “Applying religion in medical issues.” Describing intermingling of sexes at hospitals as a “disaster” that infringes upon the modesty of Muslim societies, the mufti said medical professionals should only treat patients of the same gender except in time of emergencies.
Dr. Khaled Mirghalani, official spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said the ministry was considering the establishment of such hospitals, but he added that the move has nothing to do with the mufti’s recommendation.
“The ministry has been considering women-only hospitals for a long time. Such hospitals would be for specialties related to women, such as gynecology and obstetrics, but would have male staff. However, women employees will have preference,” he said.
Mirghalani said the Kingdom was not self-sufficient in terms of the number of Saudi doctors it needs. Only 20 percent of total doctors in the Kingdom are Saudi. “Having women-only hospitals is still being studied. More girls might consider going to medical schools when they are guaranteed that they can work in a women-only environment. But this is not a necessity now as there are already a large number of girls enrolling in medical schools, especially at the King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah. Medicine is after all a humane job and it must be thought of in that way,” he added.
The idea of having single-gender hospitals has attracted mixed reactions from women. Some women feel such hospitals would be convenient, while others are against them.
Amani Henaidi said she would prefer using a women’s only hospital. “It would be more practical and easier. Since it is possible, then why not?” she said. “Of course it would be more private, because I don’t have to worry about hijab while I’m in pain and all of those things,” she said.
Fatima said such hospitals would “only serve those conservative close-minded people who would leave their wives to die because there is no woman doctor on the night shift.”
Samia asks whether other women-only establishments have been successful. She said that women-only shopping centers in Jeddah have been unsuccessful in attracting women. The idea of employing saleswomen in lingerie shops has also been unsuccessful. “Hospitals include maintenance team, engineers, and other staff other than doctors and nurses. How would the minister of health tour women-only hospitals? How could that be possible? What would the situation in case of a fire or other emergencies when the interference of men is necessary?” she asked.

One field where women are gaining prestige in the Arab world was highlighted today as twin suicide bombings in Iraq were both done by women.

Perhaps the reason that women are underrepresented in medical professions, and gaining in non-technical pursuits such as suicide bombings, is because they are illiterate:

Nearly one in three people in the Arab world is illiterate, including nearly half of all women in the region, the Tunis-based Arab League Educational Cultural and Scientific Organisation said Monday. Three-quarters of the 100 million people unable to read or write in the 21 Arab countries are aged between 15 and 45 years old, the Arab League group, known by its acronym ALECSO, said in a statement, cited by AFP.

The first phrase of that article proves the point nicely!

The Great Jordanian Shoe Caper

Jordanian newspapers are reporting a daring case of theft.

Muslim worshippers who went to their prayers in an Amman mosque were surprised upon leaving to find that their shoes had all been stolen.

To add insult to injury, the thief chose to do his caper on the day of a freak snowstorm - forcing the worshippers to walk home, barefoot, in the snow.

The worshippers expressed revulsion at the brazen act.

Colonization vs. colonialism - the Jewish Colonization Association

In November I wrote a posting discussing why Zionism is not colonialist - and in fact it is anti-colonialism, as it is a national liberation movement.

Another way to look at this would be to understand the difference between colonialism and colonization. Nowhere is this illustrated better than with a look back at a prominent organization founded in 1891 called the Jewish Colonization Association.

The JCA was founded by Baron de Hirsch in 1891 and was headquartered for most of its existence in Paris. Its purpose, according to its charter, was:

"To assist and promote the emigration of Jews from any parts of Europe or Asia, and principally from countries in which they may for the time being be subjected to any special taxes or political or other disabilities, to any other parts of the world, and to form and establish colonies in various parts of North and South America and other countries for agricultural, commercial, and other purposes." "To establish and maintain or contribute to the establishment and maintenance in any part of the world of educational and training institutions, model farms, loan-banks, industries, factories, and any other institutions or associations which in the judgment of the council may be calculated to fit Jews for emigration and assist their settlement in various parts of the world, except in Europe, with power to contribute to the funds of any association or society already existing or hereafter formed and having objects which in the opinion of the council may assist or promote the carrying out of the objects of the association."

Some of these colonies were in Palestine, but most weren't. They were all over - in Turkey, Cyprus, Canada, the US, Brazil and above all in Argentina.

The impetus behind this organization was roughly the same as early political Zionism - to find places where oppressed Jews could live in freedom. At its height there were thousands of Jews who lived in these colonies established on land purchased by the JCA worldwide.

There were other organizations with roughly the same goals, for example the
Alliance Israélite Universelle founded in 1860, which received land as a gift from the Ottoman emperor in 1870 and started the first modern Jewish agricultural settlement in Palestine. But the AIU also donated money to Jewish schools and other organizations worldwide.

The intent for these early ventures was colonization, not colonialism. The means and goals were strikingly the same as for classic modern Zionism, to buy land for Jews to live in freedom.

The fact that the JCA didn't distinguish between its Palestine colonies and its Argentine and Canadian colonies shows that the accusations of "colonialism" from those who purchased land in Palestine are groundless. And as the pogroms in Europe continued through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the prescience of these organizations and their founders is nothing less than amazing.

Gaza/Egypt update

Palestine Press quotes Israel Radio as saying that Egypt arrested 15 Hamas terrorists in its territory.

Al-Ahram (Arabic) says that Egypt is prepared to seal the border with new, sophisticated equipment. It estimates that Gazans spent 1.2 billion Egyptian pounds (roughly $210 million) and sums up the week this way (autotranslated):

Under the rule of the spirit of the market was the sale of corrupt goods and the use of counterfeit dollars, and the banks suffered a severe shortage of liquidity, and Egyptian traders responded to the request of the closure of their shops business, the inability of citizens to obtain their living conditions, and suffered economic life for the people of Rafah into something like complete paralysis, Some were enriched, while others have gone bankrupt.

This was the first confirmation I've seen of my earlier report of counterfeit currency.

200K

Today this blog received its 200,000th visitor.

It has been ten months since number 100,000 and the number of average daily visits has been climbing steadily since I started this in 2004. The last few days saw a huge influx of visitors thanks to a link from Little Green Footballs - roughly 5000 readers of just that story.

The average reader visits about 1.4 pages; so far I have some 273,000 page hits total.

Number 200,000 apparently lives in Toronto; he or she came from Bell Canada on a wide-screen monitor running Internet Explorer. This visitor has been here at least 32 times before.

Thanks to number 200K and to all my readers for coming by!

Qassams resume after lull - Gazans injured

After a break of four days without Qassams, two were fired into Israel today, with no injuries.

A third rocket fell short and hit a house in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, injuring a woman and child, according to the Palestine Press Agency.

January 31, 1948: Jewish woman killed by mosque sniper

People forget what life was like for the Jews in Palestine in the months that followed the UN partition vote. Until the Haganah took the offensive, Jews were sitting ducks for Palestinian Arab terror attacks, which occurred all the time.

The following story was on page 3 of the four-page Palestine Post for February 1, 1948. At that point these types of attacks were so routine that they were no longer front page news. Notice how many of the victims were women (click to enlarge):

This is a taste of what life would be like in an Israel where millions of hostile Arabs would "return", as so many demand.

Sir Moses Montefiore's visit to Morocco, 1863

In October of 1863, a Spaniard in Morocco died, and naturally the community found a Jewish scapegoat(from Sir Moses Montefiore: a centennial biography, published in 1884):

At Saffi, a seaport on the West coast of Morocco, a
Spaniard had died suddenly, and suspicions of foul
play, probably poisoning, had been aroused in the
mind of the Spanish Consul. In his official capacity
he called upon the Moorish authorities to investigate
the case, and they, in great trepidation, cast about for
a convenient scapegoat. The procedure was singular.
No steps were taken to ascertain whether there were
any facts to establish the cause of death, or to show
that it had a connection with crime; but the most
convenient person was forthwith arrested and examined
under the scourge and other kinds of torture.
Israelites being the least protected of the population,
the culprit was sought among their body, and it being
discovered that a Jewish lad, about fourteen years of
age, Jacob Wizeman by name, had resided in the
family of the deceased, he was seized and "examined."

The fourteen year old boy was tortured and finally confessed to this "crime" and he gave the names of eleven other Jews as co-conspirators.

The lad, when released, re-asserted his innocence ; this, however, did not save him. His confession being on record, he was condemned to death by the Moorish authorities and publicly executed, the Spanish Consul acquiescing in the sentence, notwithstanding the irregular manner in which the conviction had been obtained.

Eight of the other eleven were sentenced to prison and one other was tortured and executed.

Anti-Jewish riots broke out, described here in Appletons' Annual Cyclopædia and Register of Important Events of the Year, 1863:

The most notahle case of persecution of Jews occurred, in 1863, in Morocco, a country in which as in Mohammedan countries in general they have often been taxed, fined, beaten with " khoorbashes," bastinadoed with maize canes; in which they have been torn from their shops by agas and emirs to work for nothing, laughed at in the law courts, derided in public, oppressed in private, their complaints disregarded, their rights ignored, and their adopted home made for.them a place of misery and shame.

The account of their sufferings induced that celebrated Jewish philanthropist, Sir Moses Montefiore, to undertake a journey to the sultan of Morocco, to implore justice for his co-religionists.

Sir Moses was resolved to sec the sultan, and ask justice in the name of God and man. He pushed up the country by marches of fifteen miles a day, in the horse litter used by women «nd the sick—his name and the nature of his errand going before him....[The sultan] welcomed his generous visitor; admired the spirit and fortitude which had brought his silver hairs so far at such a season ; praised the well-known exertions of the baronet for others, not of his race only, but of all creeds in other countries; finally, he received very graciously the petition for justice. A few days afterward a firman appeared:

"In the name of God the merciful and gracious," granting to his Jewish subjects perfect equality of right and of protection under the law. " For," says the sultan, with truth, not the less sound or welcome because it is tardy, " injustice here is injustice in Heaven, and we cannot countenance it in any matter affecting either the Jews' rights or the rights of others, our own dignity being itself opposed to such a course. All persons in our regard have an equal claim to justice, and, if any person should wrong or injure one of the Jews, we will, with the help of God, punish him."

Montefiore not only managed to get this proclamation to protect the Jewish minority in Morocco, but he got the sultan to extend similar protection to Christians. In addition, he got the prisoners released. He also interceded for a Moorish man who was unjustly accused of killing two Jews:

Sir Moses did not confine his attention to the Jews.
During his stay at Tangier he was one day visited by
a large deputation of Moors, about fifty in number,
who, with their chiefs, had come from a distant part
of the country to appeal to him. to intercede for the
release of one of their tribe, who had been imprisoned
during two years and a half on suspicion of having
murdered two Israelties, but had not been brought to
trial. Gratified at this display of confidence in his
sense of justice on the part of the native population,
generally so hostile to Jews, Sir Moses made careful
inquiries into the case, and, finding that the man's
guilt had not been proved, promptly interceded with
the authorities. In a few hours the prisoner's chains
were removed, and he was brought by the members of
his tribe to return thanks to his deliverer. Sir Moses
availed himself of the opportunity to urge the grateful
Moors to show kindness and afford protection to his
co-religionists; and they readily gave their solemn
promise that all Jews travelling in their district should
be safe.

And finally he donated money to establish a Jewish girls' school in Tangiers.

He accomplished all of this in eight days, traveling throughout Morocco on camel, covering sixteen miles a day.

Montefiore was eighty years old.

Hamas kills some dude in Khan Younis

It has been a slow month for Palestinian Arab self-deaths, but that may only appear to be so because the reporting out of Gaza is essentially self-censored by every Palestinian Arab news source save for Palestine Press Agency, which doesn't seem to have real credentialed reporters there. It has been fairly accurate in many of its scoops, though.

It makes the count a bit difficult.

Anyway, PalPress reports that Hamas has killed someone named Mohammed Awad Abu Latifa in Khan Younis, bringing this year's self-death count to 12.

UPDATE: Clan Clash in Khan Younis, one 28 year old killed. 13.

Real slow ethnic cleansing

One of the mantras of the Arab world and their useful leftist idiots is that Israel is engaging in an "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinian Arabs, or Arabs altogether. Gaza is always trotted out as the supreme example of Israeli genocide/ethnic cleansing.

A consistent recent theme among these propagandists and morons is their utter conviction that Israel planned the entire Rafah wall breach in order to get hundreds of thousands of Gazans to leave - and then Israel would seal up the wall and maroon them in Egypt. For example, from the ultra-left Pacific Free Press from last week:

So the fleeing Palestinians just fell into a trap. Now they've been banished to Egypt by their own volition. We'll have to wait and see how many are allowed to return.

Similarly, a columnist in Palestine Press today was mystified as to why exactly Israel didn't implement this nefarious - and oh-so-obvious - plan.

But even without this smoking gun, there are no shortage of mental midgets who have latched onto their latest catchphrase, "slow-motion genocide" in Gaza. A few recent examples:

Uruknet: "There is no doubt that Israel is effecting a slow-motion genocide in Gaza."
Al-Ahram: "Samira Al-Halayka, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (one of two Hamas lawmakers -- both women -- who has not been arrested by Israel), called on Arabs and Muslims all over the world to oppose proactively the 'slow-motion genocide' in Gaza."
Dissident Voice: "Zionism is irrefutably racist. The proof is the dispossession of and slow-motion genocide that Israel is waging against the Palestinians in the Middle East."

Let's look at the numbers!

According to the CIA Factbook, there are 1,482,405 people in Gaza. The mortality rate is 3.74 deaths/1,000 population and the birth rate is 38.9 births/1,000.

This means that this year one can expect some 5500 Gazans to die, and over 57,000 to be born.

The upshot is that even if 50,000 additional Gazans died this year - ten times their normal rate - their population would still be higher next year.

To kill that many Arabs, Israel would have to adopt the methods of Syria or Saddam's Iraq or Jordan or Iran or Egypt (with that nice chemical weapon touch in Yemen) or....

Nope, when it comes to killing Arabs, Israel is out of its league.

Egypt arrested 5 Gazans with bomb belts; 36 injured in Rafah clashes

Al-Ahram, Egypt's semi-official newspaper, reports on the latest from Hamastan's invasion: (autotranslated)

Informed sources announced that over the past few days in Taba (authorities) arrested five Palestinians who were carrying explosive belts and were targeted to conduct suicide operations inside Israel, and is currently being investigated by a security body. These sources said that security forces seized another group that entered the country and possession charges Croquet (maps?) containing precise details of some outlets on the Egyptian-Israeli border, and includes details on the numbers of troops and concentration. has been seized sophisticated weapons with these elements, including weapons snipers and bombs.

The sources said: that some Palestinian elements offered large sums to members of the Guard assigned to secure the border, to allow them to enter without searched shipments, or the application of the legal requirements on them.

I don't quite understand this dispatch but it doesn't sound too good for Egypt:

Eyewitnesses said that the Rafah crossing Some Palestinians tried to force one of the feeder roads into the city, and opened fire on a house guard dogs, Afqatloha to everyone, which angered many parents, and Vtdechloa abducted to Gaza , and the incident led to the injury of more than 36 security men, some of them serious situation.

Hamas seems to have no compunction about angering the Egyptian government. Perhaps it thinks that it can cause enough instability to join forces with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Egyptian Islamists.

Al-Ahram also bragged about Egypt sending 4 truckfuls of food to Gaza. If the Egyptian citizens of Rafah and al-Arish are out of food because of the invasion, this might not go over well.

Hamas claiming some Egyptian land

Palestine Press Agency reports of a TV interview with Hamas advisor Amhad Yousef.

Yousef is saying that some 13,000 acres of Egyptian territory are really "Palestinian" and he wants an open border with Arab countries: (autotranslated)

Ahmed Yousef, political adviser to Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, called for the "demolition and removal of the border between Palestinian Rafah and the Egyptian territory and the seizure of thousands of acres built on the border" claiming that the ownership back to the Palestinians.

Youssef claimed in an interview with the Arab channel tonight that "Hamas' destruction of the wall was intended to restore to the Palestinians their land allegedly taken to build a border wall is about 13 thousand acres" and said: "We do not want the continuation of the wall because we do not prefer the existence of any wall between us and deepened Arab" as he said.

Yousef described the demolition of the border as a first stage of what he called the third intifada, pointing out that the second stage will be moves towards crossing "Beit Hanoun" Erez north of the Gaza Strip.

In response to a question that by Hamas refusing European presence on the Rafah crossing the Palestinians could lose financial support from the EU, which is in a new Europe based on the formulation in support of the Palestinians and the construction of infrastructure and development plans, in the long run Yousef replied: "Europeans at the crossing were always part of the problem," suggesting that his movement does not want the Europeans' financial support, saying: "There are Arab parties prepared to offer assistance to us and we heard news of these reassuring Arab parties."

This should go over well in Egypt.

UPDATE: From JPost:

The Egyptians have also foiled an attempt by Hamas members to raise Palestinian and Hamas flags on top of several government institutions in Sinai's Rafah and el-Arish.

The semi-official Al-Ahram newspaper reported that the attempt to place the flags was seen as a serious "provocation" by many Egyptians.

Hassan Issa, a member of the Egyptian parliament, accused Hamas of jeopardizing his country's security. "Hamas has violated our sovereignty and this is totally unacceptable," he said. "This move poses a real threat to Egypt's national security."

Arab diplomats in Cairo estimated that around 10,000 Palestinians were still in Sinai, six days after the barrier separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt was destroyed.

One diplomat told the Post that Hamas supporters were trying to create the impression that they had succeeded in "liberating" Egyptian territory.

"The Hamas people apparently forgot that they had invaded Egypt, and not Israel," he said. "The Egyptians are running out patience."

Poverty-stricken Gaza spending spree close to a half billion dollars

The FilBalad News reports that as of Monday, the poor besieged unemployed desperate Gazans had spent $250 million and the Egyptian Chamber of Commerce estimates a total of $480 million spent by the end of the week.

Sandmonkey has a great roundup of the problems that the Gazans are causing the average Egyptian, especially in the Sinai.