Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Hate taught in British Muslim school

A prestigious Islamic school in London was forced to shred 2,000 textbooks used to poison pupils' minds with lessons of hate, a former teacher claimed yesterday.
Colin Cook, who taught English at the King Fahad Academy for 18 years, told a tribunal how "incompetent" Ofsted inspectors reported that the school's teaching of Islamic studies was "mostly good".
But their report was wildly inaccurate, he said, because pupils as young as five were being taught by rote from Arabic textbooks describing Jews as "monkeys" and Christians as "pigs".

Colin Cook outside the Saudi school which sacked him for misconduct
Mr Cook said that when he exposed the racist teaching, the school's head Dr Sumaya Alyusuf lied on television, insisting that hateful passages had never been taught.
Under public pressure the Academy eventually agreed to destroy 2,000 books but photocopied them first for future use, he told the tribunal.
The school, in Acton, West London, opened in 1985 for the children of Saudi diplomats and is funded and controlled by the Saudi government.
Its 1,250 pupils have included the five children of jailed claw-handed cleric Abu Hamza and those of Abu Qatada, who was said to be Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe.
Mr Cook, 58, said that when he queried how the preachers could be paying school fees when they were said to be on state benefits, he was told to mind his own business.
Giving evidence to the hearing in Watford, Mr Cook claimed the school was seen as an extension of the Saudi Embassy rather than part of the UK, with Saudi teachers even enjoying diplomatic immunity.
He said some pupils made "inappropriate" remarks about killing Americans and praised the 9/11 attacks.
"When I heard such nonsense I challenged and tried to reason it through with the pupils," he added.
He said that misbehaviour by Saudi pupils was sometimes overlooked.
A school trip to Arsenal Football Club's museum in December 2005 ended in chaos when some King Fahad pupils chanted "Saudi, Saudi, Saudi" and fought with non-Saudi pupils, Mr Cook told the hearing.
"Apparently we were the first school ever to be thrown out of the museum, which was humiliating. None of the Saudi pupils was challenged over their behaviour by management."
Mr Cook, of Feltham, South London, is claiming unfair dismissal, race discrimination and victimisation, which the school denies.
He was earning £35,000 a year and is seeking £135,000 in compensation for lost earnings, injury to feelings and aggravated damages.
The school has vigorously denied encouraging any form of racial hatred. It insists that the offending passages in the books were "misinterpreted".
After Mr Cook's allegations in February last year, Dr Alyusuf went on BBC2's Newsnight and told presenter Jeremy Paxman that she was aware of the books but refused to withdraw them because they had "good chapters that can be used by the teachers".
Mr Cook told the hearing: "Dr Alyusuf simply lied about her knowledge of the contents of the books and tried to pretend that the books were not taught in the school. She failed to repudiate the racist views expressed in the books.
"The truth is she cannot go against the Saudi ministry of education. She is their puppet."
Mr Cook said the Ofsted inspection in March 2006 failed to identify major issues including parental complaints, unqualified teachers and indiscipline.
He added: "The Ofsted report was very inadequate. This is partly due to what the Academy did not tell the inspectors and partly due to, at best, incompetence by Ofsted."
He says he was sacked on trumpedup grounds in 2006 after he blew the whistle on the school for covering up cheating by pupils in a GCSE exam.
"In any normal workplace, an employee would not be sacked for whistle-blowing or indeed treated as a second-class citizen for not being Saudi Arabian," he said.
"However, as the head of human resources put it, 'This is not England. It is Saudi Arabia'."
He said he had to teach 28 lessons a week when Saudi colleagues had between three and 12. He said that when he realised the school was not going to carry out a proper inquiry into the alleged GCSE cheating, he took his complaints to exam board Edexcel.
The school claimed Mr Cook failed to observe proper procedure and fired him for gross misconduct.
The hearing continues.

Maan (Arabic) has a story about a ring of counterfeiters making Israeli 10-shekel coins. They can be identified by the sound they make when clanged together.

Since they are not worth much, the main victims have been the poorer Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, and children, who get paid with these coins and then find out that they are worthless.

Ma'an notes that Hamas had counterfeited other currencies to pay Egyptians for products when Rafah was breached last month, and beyond that some sources say that the Gazans paid the Egyptians literally with Monopoly versions of Israeli currency that the Egyptians were not familiar with.

Wow, do Iranian leaders have one-track minds

Yesterday, the eminent President Ahmadinejad made a series of colorful statements about Israel:

* He called it a "dirty bacteria"
* He compared it to a "wild beast"
* He called it "a scarecrow, (meant) to keep the people of this area under control."

The last one implies that he considers Israel's Arab neighbors to be like stupid, frightened birds.

Anyway, the over-the-top insults just keep on coming:

Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel said here on Wednesday that the establishment of the Zionist regime was the greatest catastrophe for the Islamic world.

“At a time when industrial, scientific, and military development was arrested in the Islamic world and Islamic states were dismembered, Muslims suffered huge losses from the enemies’ conspiracies, the greatest of which was the establishment of the Zionist regime.”

The word "obsession" comes to mind.

Not to mention "psychotic."

Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami had this to say about the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh:

“The fire of malicious rage, which sees its existence in the demise of others, this time entangled a dear person whose faith in God and whose love for human freedom and glory had made him famous in the history of mankind and Islam,” Khatami wrote.

He added that Mughniyeh “was martyred to flow blood in the veins of the 'storm-hit Middle East’, especially Lebanon and Palestine, through a death only deserved by a great man like him.”

At least one Iranian leader thinks that Mughniyeh deserved to die!

Egypt's violent reaction to idea of expanding Gaza into Sinai

A few weeks go, Israel's Ashkenazi chief rabbi Yona Metzger called on a Palestinian state to be established in an expanded Gaza that would extend into the practically-empty Sinai desert:

According to Metzger, the plan would be to "take all the poor people from Gaza to move them to a wonderful new modern country with trains, buses, cars, like in Arizona - we are now in a generation where you can take a desert and build a city. This will be a solution... they will have a nice county, and we shall have our country and we shall live in peace."

Of course, the reaction has been furious, saying that Metzger is calling for "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinian Arabs (although no one quite offers an alternate solution for Gazans who are always being characterized by these same people as bursting at the seams.)

Egypt's reaction is telling. Palestine Today reports (autotranslated):

Egyptian circles rejected a proposal aimed to transfer the population of Gaza as a first step to the Sinai in preparation for the transfer of Palestine to the West Bank and Jerusalem, in an area of a thousand square kilometers by the extreme view of the insane, insane one in the Jewish state.

The official spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Hossam Zaki, said that "The rumors about setting up an alternative homeland for the Palestinians in the Egyptian territories is a sick imagination of the people who are not responsible and not holding the decision or call for decision, the only decision-makers in Egypt alone as the Egyptian Sinai ground no one can be forced to waive a single Egyptian grain of sand."

The Chairman of the Committee for Arab Affairs Egyptian People's Assembly (parliament), Major General Saad beauty, said that "Egyptian national security is a red line that can not be crossed. The Sinai is critical to Egyptian national security... If we proceed in dealing with the Palestinian issue from our national pillars to belong to Arabism and Islam and the Arabs, it does not give a justification for the claim that the compromise on our national security and our lands for the sole purpose of helping others to seize the territory of others unjustly...

"If the Arabs and Palestinians have made concessions to Israel by allowing them to live on land seized by the year 48 and earlier, compared with the territories it occupied in 67, including Jerusalem the capital of the Palestinian state, this does not give the right of the Zionist entity to ask for more concessions from the Arab states and Palestinians."

Strategic expert Major General Ahmed Abdel Halim stressed that the importance of the separation of emotional issues and feelings of nationalism in dealing with the Palestinian issue as a national focus defend nor waiver by pointing out that "talk on the establishment of a homeland for the Palestinians in the Sinai is Jewish nonsense; we do not agree to it ...President Hosni Mubarak reiterated more than once that Egypt will not give up one grain of sand of the Sinai."

No one seriously expects Egypt to invite one and a half million Palestinian Arabs into the Sinai, but the vehemence of the reaction shows yet again that Egypt's commitment to help the lives of ordinary Palestinian Arabs is nonexistent.

Egypt may spout rhetoric about solidarity with Palestinian Arabs but in reality it, along with most other Arab countries, doesn't want to actually do anything concrete to help them. On the contrary - these statements prove that Egypt views Palestinian Arabs as their enemy, people who would compromise their national security.

And indeed, Egypt indeed treats Palestinian Arabs more as enemies than as brothers. Their support for PalArabs extends only to the amount that they can inflict damage on Israel.

Who says that Olmert doesn't protect his people?

From Ma'an (Arabic):

Sderot residents might not be protected from falling objects, but at least Abbas is.

Mahomet, 1869

Since the Danish cartoons are in the news again, I stumbled upon the controversial Wikipedia article on "Depictions of Mohammed" and from there to the excellent Zombietime Mohammed Image Archive.

But being the person I am, I wanted to find a heretofore unknown depiction of Mohammed from older times.

I found him in an illustration of a biography of Mohammed by famous American writer Washington Irving, called Mahomet and his Successors. The books seems to have been written in 1849; this edition was published in 1869:

Google Books hasn't yet censored this one.

Syrian army kills Lebanese kid; no one cares

From Naharnet (Lebanon):

Syrian border guards on Tuesday opened fire at a Lebanese child killing him, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The short report said Abbas Abbas, 13, was shot and seriously wounded by Syrian border guards at the Grand River borderline in north Lebanon. He died later at hospital.

The development is the second of its kind in about a week.

AP refers to the victim as a "farmer" even though it notes that he is a minor.

But, luckily, the dead kid is an Arab who wasn't killed by Jews so this story will get no traction whatsoever and a potential international incident will be swept under the rug.

UN has no idea who is responsible for Qassams

The UN seemed to have a "flying pig" moment last Saturday when a top humanitarian representative condemned rocket attacks against Israel:

The United Nations humanitarian chief today voiced his concern at the impact of indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israel during a visit to the town of Sderot, an area severely affected by bombardments from the Gaza Strip.

“The people of Sderot and the surrounding area have had to live with these unacceptable and indiscriminate rocket attacks for seven years now. There is no doubt about the physical and psychological suffering these attacks are causing,” said John Holmes, who is on a five-day trip to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, his first as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

“I condemn them utterly and call on those responsible to stop them now without conditions,” added Mr. Holmes, who is also UN Emergency Relief Coordinator.

While in Sderot, Mr. Holmes met with the city officials, including the Mayor, who briefed him on the difficulties faced by local civilians as a result of almost daily rocket attacks. Over the past seven years, a number of houses in the area have been damaged, the local economy has suffered, and some 12 per cent of the city's 22,000 residents have left.

“There are no military targets in this city. These victims here are innocent civilians. There is no time to lose in putting an end to this vicious circle of violence. More violence will not bring peace to the people of Sderot,” Mr. Holmes said.

A couple of things are interesting about this UN press release.

Firstly, it didn't bother to mention that many residents of the Negev have been injured or killed by Qassams - only that there has been property and economic damage. Even as Holmes condemns the rockets, he is minimizing their actual effect.

Secondly, notice what is missing from this - and essentially all - UN statements on Gaza?

There is no mention of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, the Al Aqsa Brigades, or any of the other groups who actually fire them. The UN just mouths words condemning the attacks themselves without saying a single critical word about any specific group.

The UN has no problem condemning Israel explicitly, but when it comes to criticizing any Palestinian Arab group by name, the UN becomes mute. It is as if the United Nations is either too stupid to know who is responsible or too scared to say their names in fear of retribution.

The mere mention of Hamas would guarantee that UN statements get taken seriously by Hamas and the other terror groups as they would be forced to respond and show their own hypocrisy to the world. As it is, the UN seems to be only placating its critics with a worthless "condemnation" while staying away from any real criticism of the groups who take explicit responsibility - and pride - in shooting these rockets at civilians.

Internal Hamas coup plot against Haniyeh?

The anti-Hamas Palestinian Press Agency is reporting that internal Hamas divisions are so bad that the radical members headed by Mahmoud Zahhar are planning to assassinate "prime minister" Ismail Haniyeh.

According to the Arabic article, Zahhar and one other extremist head (autotranslated as Siam Said, and I don't know who it really refers to) hate Haniyeh for betraying Hamas principles. The article claims that the plan has six steps:

1. Kill Haniyeh sooner rather than later so as not to expose internal Hamas divisions publicly.
2. Blame Fatah for the assassination, thus killing off the remaining Fatah opposition in Gaza.
3. Start a defamation campaign against Abbas in the West Bank as being against Palestinian Arab unity by ordering the hit.
4. Make it appear that Hamas is the victim and Fatah the aggressors to weaken international support for Fatah.
5. Regaining support from the Muslim Brotherhood which has been critical of Hamas for going away from core principles.
6. Any remote chance of negotiating with Israel on any topic like a long-term truce will be scuttled forever.

While the article is fairly long and detailed, and PPA has been pretty accurate lately, one cannot discount the possibility that this article is really meant to deflect last weekend's news that Hamas accused two Fatah members of plotting to assassinate Haniyeh, along with "confessions" aired on Hamas TV.

Adar I 13

A rabbi and a priest are driving one day and, by a freak accident, have a head-on collision. Both cars are totally demolished, but amazingly, neither of the clerics has a scratch on him.

After they crawl out of their cars, the rabbi sees the priest's collar and says, "So you're a priest. I'm a rabbi. Just look at our cars. There is nothing left, yet we are here, unhurt. This must be a sign from God!"

Pointing to the sky, the rabbi continues, "God must have meant that we should meet and share our lives in peace and friendship for the rest of our days on earth."

The priest replies, "I agree with you completely. This must surely be a sign from God!"

The rabbi is looking at his car and exclaims, "And look at this! Here's another miracle! My car is completely demolished, but this bottle of Mogen David wine did not break. Surely, God wants us to drink this wine and to celebrate our good fortune."

The priest nods in agreement.

The rabbi hands the bottle to the priest, who drinks half the bottle and hands the bottle back to the rabbi.

The rabbi takes the bottle and immediately puts the cap on, then hands it back to the priest. The priest, baffled, asks, "Aren't you having any, Rabbi?"

The rabbi replies, "Nah... I think I'll wait for the police."

Another letter in Bahrain paper against gays

As a follow-up to the story about Bahrain's anti-gay campaign comes this letter in the Bahrain Gulf Daily News:

I AM encouraged to read in your pages that MPs will be stopping homosexuals from entering Bahrain from other countries.

Homosexuality is a foreign disease that Arabs fortunately neither suffer from or wish to see.

I recently saw a homosexual in a mall and do not wish to see another ever again. Well done MPs.

F O

Well, there you have it, then. Problem solved!

Followup on last Friday's "work accident"

PCHR came out with a preliminary report about the explosion last week that killed 8 in the Bureij camp:

At approximately 20:50 on Friday, 15 February, a huge explosion rocked El-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The explosion occurred in the house of Ayman Atallah Ahmad Fayed (41), an activist in Al-Quds Battalions, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad. The explosion destroyed the ground-floor concrete house completely, killing the activist, his wife Marwa Azzam Fayed (39), and three of his children: Basma (12), Ali (17), and Ayyoub (5). A fourth son, Adam (15) was seriously injured. In addition, three of Fayed’s neighbors were killed: Zakaria Nabil El-Kefafi (17) who was in Fayed’s house at the time, Talal Salah Sa’id Abu El-Oun (16), and Atallah Samir Mohammad Ismail (24). Approximately 60 people were injured, including 23 women and 20 children. Among the injured are 14 people suffering serious injuries. The explosion destroyed 6 nearby houses completely, and caused extensive destruction in 10 other houses. Dozens of houses suffered damages.

Over the past three days, PCHR and Al-Mezan have conducted a preliminary investigation in this tragedy. The Center’s fieldworkers and lawyer gathered field information and eyewitness testimonies from the scene of the tragedy. The preliminary findings point to the following:

- There is no evidence to confirm that the explosion was caused by rocket or aerial bombardment by Israeli occupation forces (IOF), as mentioned in some media outlets. It is more likely that it was an internal explosion the circumstances of which are unclear as of yet. Eyewitnesses confirmed seeing smoke and fire issue from Fayed’s house seconds before the explosion. According to similar incidents in the past, this indicates that it may have been an internal explosion.

Not only "some" media outlets, but every single Palestinian Arab "news" outlet reported this as an Israeli bomb (usually being shot as a rocket from an F-16) and not one even mentioned the possibility of a "work accident."

Of course, PCHR still holds out the hope that it might have been an Israeli booby-trapped bomb that killed and injured all those people - a highly unlikely possibility, and even if it was true the majority of the damage would have been from the secondary explosions caused by the possibly hundreds of rockets in Mr. Fayed's basement.

I adjusted the death count to account for the large number of minors killed, meaning that out of the 25 Palestinian Arab self-deaths this year, fully 10 of them are women or children.

Meanwhile, in the Negev...

At least 16 Qassam rockets were shot at Israeli civilians by Arab terrorists on Monday, as well as at least 5 mortars. 10 people suffered shock and there was one injury in the evening when a rocket hit Sderot, and earlier 4 kibbutz residents suffered from shock from a rocket landing near a medical clinic.

This is the worst day for Qassams since February 8. Of course, for many people, this is considered a cause for celebration and glory.

"Bahrain's growing gay problem"

From Gulf Daily News:

A NATIONWIDE crackdown on homosexuals could be launched in Bahrain, including tougher immigration checks to stop foreign gays entering the country. It would include a study to determine how widespread homosexuality is in Bahrain.
Parliament's foreign affairs, defence and national security committee has already backed the proposal, which would force the government to carry out the study.
It is in response to what MPs see as Bahrain's growing gay problem and foreigners found to be gay face deportation, said committee secretary Jalal Fairooz.

He said the study was being carried out despite the fact that the Education Ministry claims there are no homosexuals in schools.

"The Interior Ministry has told us that it already bans suspected homosexuals as they try entering the country from Bahrain International Airport," said committee secretary Jalal Fairooz.

However, he claimed the ministry said homosexuals pretend not to be gay by posing "manly" until they make it past immigration.

"They look manly as they come to the airport, but when they get in they return back to their unaccepted homosexual attitude," said Mr Fairooz.

"Homosexuals are found in huge numbers at hairdressing salons and beauty and massage spas, which the ministry regularly inspects."

However, he said many homosexuals were slipping through the net because the ministry was having problems determining if they were gay or not.

"Those who look homosexual or offer customers personal services are being caught by police and taken to the Public Prosecution," he said.

He described gays as "dangerous" and a "threat to our society and Islamic values".

"That's why the proposal asks the government to come up with a study on the problem and eliminate it before it increases and becomes hard to control, as more gays enter the country," he added.

Columnists and letter-writers have been having a field day:

That pink shirt of mine is definitely going in the bin, in light of Bahrain's new crackdown on gay men.

The next time I travel and return via Bahrain International Airport, I shall be speaking in the deepest voice I can muster, walking like John Wayne and keeping Sara and the kids as close to me as possible.

For, apparently, immigration officials keep an eye out for anyone they think may be gay, with a view to putting them back on the plane!

Bahrain is cracking down on what MPs say is a growing number of gays, chiefly to be found in male hair salons and in massage parlours.

I can understand the country's concern at what it sees as an increasing influx, but it also has to ask itself why this is proving such a popular destination for gays!

When I first arrived here I was 20 years younger, had a full head of hair and was much prettier than I am today, with the result that I got a great deal of unwelcome attention from the gay fraternity.

Each evening I would stand waiting for a taxi near my flat and could guarantee at least two or three offers from passing drivers, in the five to 10 minutes I would be at the kerbside - all of which, I hasten to add, were politely declined.

I have images of an airport full of overtly-masculine immigration officers making men parade up and down a white line to see if they swing their hips, or maybe they have devised some kind of wrist-o-meter, which gauges limpness?

For a nation that is populated almost exclusively by men who sport mustaches and haircuts modeled on the late Sir Freddie Mercury (of Queen fame) and who wear skirts, it is a pretty bold statement to 'Clampdown on gays'.

It sounds like Bahrain might be on the verge of becoming a new Key West!\

UPDATE: Another letter writer is a bit more supportive of the government's campaign.

Egypt discovers another 100 kg of TNT

A drop in the bucket, but better than nothing....

Egyptian security forces on Monday uncovered an explosives cache containing 100 kilograms (220.5 pounds) of TNT hidden in sacks near the country's volatile border with the Gaza Strip, a police officer said.
The cache, found buried a few feet deep in the soil in a deserted area of the northern Sinai peninsula, came after police acted on a tip from local Bedouins, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media.

The find took place near Sheik Zuwiyed town, some 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

The Bedouins led the authorities to the location of the explosives. A total of three sacks of TNT were found, the official said.

Smuggling across the border into Gaza or Israel has long provided a livelihood for some Bedouin. Weapons, cigarettes and foreigners seeking jobs in Israel are all taken surreptitiously across the border.

Last week Egypt discovered 250 kg of TNT, and two weeks ago arrested a Palestinian Arab with an unknown quantity of TNT as well.

Of course, Gaza is awash in TNT. A recent Der Speigel article interviews a Qassam rocket maker as he says that they have enough material to keep producing rockets for years:

The team can make up to 100 rockets per night shift, but today it won't be more than 10. Instead of the usual 12, only three of Abdul's men have turned up tonight. "The other guys are over in Egypt, shopping," he says, adding that the militants are just ordinary people who want to experience the open border with the neighboring country. Will they be looking for ingredients for building the Qassams? "Hardly," the oldest of the group laughs. "They are buying potato chips. We have enough raw materials to last for a few years."
The presence of smuggling tunnels under the Egyptian border have ensured that there is never a lack of supplies. "The TNT comes to us from Sudan via Egypt." Other elements arrive by boat across the sea to Gaza. "We get some from Eastern Europe." The raw materials for one large rocket cost up to €500. The money to finance the operation comes the same route as the materials.