Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Terror attack in Jerusalem yesterday?

Palestinian Arab press is reporting that the "Galilee Freedom Brigades" that claimed responsibility for the Mercaz HaRav massacre is claiming to have killed an Israeli in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem in his apartment.

I cannot find any stories about a murder in Jerusalem yesterday.

Hamas contines to arrest and harass journalists

From Reporters Without Borders:

A TV crew working for the German television station ARD was detained on 15 May in Jabaliya, in the north of the Gaza Strip, by Hamas security forces after covering a demonstration organised by members of Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Cameraman Mohammed Al-Arabid and soundman Mwatasam Rashid were questioned for an hour and their equipment was confiscated.
Two journalists working for the Sudanese satellite television station Sudan TV were detained on 24 May in Gaza City while doing a report on what life is like for the city’s population. Reporter Samir Khalifa and cameraman Ahmed Al-Ras were questioned about their employer’s identity. They were suspected for working for the state-owned Palestine Broadcasting Corporation, which is controlled by the Palestinian Authority and has been banned in the Gaza Strip since June 2007. Khalifa used to work for the PBC but had to sever all contact with the station, which now operates out of the West Bank city of Ramallah.

It has been obvious for nearly a year that Hamas does not allow journalists to operate freely in Gaza and that it is now impossible to get objective news out of that area. Hamas harassment and threats of journalists is well documented. Western journalists have all but gone; all that is left are Arabs who fear, justifiably, for their lives.

The biggest example is Ma'an News, which was the single best source for reporting a year ago. Now its reports out of Gaza are carefully designed not to offend anyone in Hamas, to the point where they will continue to report on "work accidents" as being from Israeli missiles even after the terror groups themselves admit that it wasn't.

How can the casual reader know that they simply cannot trust any news that comes out of Gaza as being objective? It is all carefully scrubbed to make a group of murderers happy, yet even the major news agencies don't put caveats in their stories (as they do whenever the Israeli censor slightly limits their reporting.)

It is yet another example of how media bias is sometimes not only from within.

I smell a fatwa coming

Last month, a book was published named "Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out". Some predicted that Muslims would get very upset over the cover, which depicts a picture of Mohammed being ripped in half:

Even so, it seems to have sailed under the Muslim radar - until now.

I just saw a story about this book, and especially the cover, in the Palestinian Arab Firas Press.

So it is possible that this issue will percolate up in the Muslim world in the coming weeks.

Gaza crossing roundup

Since my last round-up on May 19, here are some of the things that have happened at Gaza crossings:

May 22 - massive truck bomb at the Erez crossing, killing the suicide bomber but no one else.
May 23: One mortar shot at Sufa.
May 24-25: Several mortars shot at Nahal Oz, three shot at Sufa.

But Hamas and Jimmy Carter want the crossings opened.

Jimmy betraying national secrets?

Once upon a time, strange as it may sound now, Jimmy Carter was the President of the United States. As president, he was privy to a great deal of secret information that he was honor-bound to keep private.

Now, everyone assumes that Israel has nuclear weapons. No one really knows how many, though. Chances are that the United States government does have a much clearer idea of how many such weapons Israel has, and, as Israel is an ally of the US, it keeps mum.

What does one do with a president who, after he leaves office, decides to betray the trust that Americans and their allies placed in him?

Israel has 150 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, former President Jimmy Carter said yesterday, while arguing that the US should talk directly to Iran to persuade it to drop its nuclear ambitions.

This is not some investigative reporter coming up with these numbers, this is an ex-president. As such, they appear to have more inside information behind them.

If a former Israeli prime minister would tell a public venue about US spies found in Israel, or perhaps about US military capabilities and weaknesses discovered during joint exercises, what would be the US reaction? If Tony Blair announced the exact location of US submarines when he was prime minister, what kind of an uproar would that cause? Because this is exactly what Jimmy Carter just did to Israel.

He just gave priceless information to Iran about Israel's nuclear arsenal.

Does this make him a spy? A turncoat? I don't know, but at the very least it should mean that whatever little credibility he still has as a decent human being is now utterly lost.

Hamas mirroring Hezbollah's fiber optic network

Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas is building its own communications network similar to the private one that Hezbollah built in Lebanon. The network uses a fiber-optic backbone.

A fiber optic network has two major advantages to the terrorists: it cannot be jammed electromagnetically, and it is very difficult to tap. Any attempts to tap fiber optics require a physical presence on the ground, and they are easily noticed and isolated by the network infrastructure.

The Hezbollah and Hamas networks use Chinese components with features (and presumably architecture) built by Iran.

Academic terror supporter update

A couple of stories from this morning from the rarified world of academia....

The British University and College Union (UCU) is slated to debate once again whether they should boycott all things Israeli next week (h/t Global_Freezing). The very existence of Israeli universities - most of whom churn out people whose hatred of Israel rivals some of their British colleagues - is deeply offensive to some British academics, because of the "occupation" or "ethnic cleansing" or perhaps the fact that they are a bit too top-heavy with Jews. Last year the motion was handily defeated but they are back this year, with specific motions considering the "greylisting" of Ariel College, saying that all Israeli universities are "complicit" in murdering Palestinian Arabs, and calling for "twinning" and increased ties with Palestinian Arab institutions.
Not surprisingly, there are also motions for solidarity with Cuba and its "socialist revolution." British academia is still enthralled with the long-discredited positions of the Soviet Union of half a century ago, which could be why they like to call themselves "progressive."

US academics are not immune from their tunnel vision where all things Israeli are evil and all things "Palestinian" are good. David Mumford, a far left academic (who is a donor to MoveOn and ultra-liberal politicians) at Brown University, gained the prestigious Wolf Prize for mathematics given by Israel - and promptly pledged his share of the money to Bir Zeit University and Palestinian Arab causes.

Mumford had previously lectured at Bir Zeit and must have been impressed with how many terrorists that university has generated, including the prestigious "Engineer" who used his chemistry training at BZU to build bombs to kill as many Jews as possible. This is, of course, a very progressive liberal position nowadays.

Carter to EU: Stop being wimps. Defy the US. Support Hamas

Jimmy just takes every opportunity he can to prop up his Hamas pals:

Britain and other European governments should break from the US over the international embargo on Gaza, former US president Jimmy Carter told the Guardian yesterday. Carter, visiting the Welsh border town of Hay for the Guardian literary festival, described the EU's position on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as "supine" and its failure to criticise the Israeli blockade of Gaza as "embarrassing".
Referring to the possibility of Europe breaking with the US in an interview with the Guardian, he said: "Why not? They're not our vassals. They occupy an equal position with the US."
The blockade on Hamas-ruled Gaza, imposed by the US, EU, UN and Russia - the so-called Quartet - after the organisation's election victory in 2006, was "one of the greatest human rights crimes on Earth," since it meant the "imprisonment of 1.6 million people, 1 million of whom are refugees". "Most families in Gaza are eating only one meal per day. To see Europeans going along with this is embarrassing," Carter said.
While being scrupulously polite to the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and prime minister, Salam Fayyad, who represent the Fatah movement, he was scathing about their exclusion of Hamas. He described the Fatah-only government as a "subterfuge" aimed at getting round Hamas's election victory two years ago. "The top opinion pollster in Ramallah told me the other day that opinion on the West Bank is shifting to Hamas, because people [i.e., Jimmy - EoZ] believe Fatah has sold out to Israel and the US," he said.
Carter said the Quartet's policy of not talking to Hamas unless it recognised Israel and fulfilled two other conditions had been drafted by Elliot Abrams, an official in the national security council at the White House. He called Abrams "a very militant supporter of Israel". The ex-president, whose election-monitoring Carter Centre had just certified Hamas's election victory as free and fair, addressed the Quartet for 12 minutes at its session in London in 2006. He urged it to talk to Hamas, which had offered to form a unity government with Fatah, the losers.
"The Quartet's final document had been drafted in Washington in advance, and not a line was changed," he said. [Nah, he doesn't sound like a bitter old man who gets ignored by the young whippersnappers who replaced him. - EoZ]
Last night, before a packed crowd at Hay, Carter spoke of his "horror" at America's involvement in torturing prisoners, saying he wanted the next US president to promise never to do so again.
He left an intriguing hint that George Bush might even face prosecution on war crimes charges once he left office.
When pressed by Philippe Sands QC on Bush's recent admission that he had authorised interrogation procedures widely seen as amounting to torture, Carter replied that he was sure Bush would be able to live a peaceful, "productive life - in our country".
Sands, an international legal expert, said afterwards that he understood that to be "clear confirmation" that while Bush would face no challenge in his own country, "what happened outside the country was another matter entirely"

Women screaming at mosque. Helpful Imam prays faster.

From Arab News:

Worshippers at the Imam Malik Mosque in the Al-Rawdah district of Jeddah had their attention drawn to the screaming of women in the mosque’s women section during Isha prayers on Saturday.
The commotion was caused after two men entered the women’s part of the mosque to rob women worshippers, while two of their accomplices stood guard outside. According to eyewitnesses the four men then fled in a blue car.
“My mom went out with two of our maids, my siblings and our driver,” said the 17-year-old daughter of a woman who was robbed. “At prayer time the women and children went to the women’s section, whereas the driver and my teenage brother went to the men’s section,” she added.
“Toward the end of the prayer a youth entered the mosque. He told one of the maids who was taking care of the young daughter that he was looking for his mother,” said the daughter, who asked her name not be published.
She added that the youth then stole some handbags and other belongings.
“When the maid started screaming, a man came in and held her mouth from the back to prevent her from screaming. The gang then fled before anyone could come and help from the men’s section,” she said, adding that handbags containing cash, credit cards and mobile phones were stolen.
Meanwhile, hearing the screams the imam hastened the prayer. However, by the end of the prayer, the four men had fled.

Now, here's an Islamic hero - someone who knows that his prayers are more important than women screaming in your own mosque, and they must be finished no matter what. It doesn't matter why the women were screaming - they might have been stabbed, too - all that matters is that the prayers get done properly.

But, in extenuating circumstances, they may be rushed a bit.

Poll: Iran inching toward collapse

A recent poll suggests that, nearly thirty years after the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Iranian regime is moving toward collapse.

Over 99.8% percent of the 2672 votes in an Elder of Ziyon online poll are of the belief that after the Islamic revolution in 1979, which started an Islamic regime responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the regime's power is nearing collapse.

(For more exposition, see my previous entry.)

Utterly unscientific poll

I saw the Iran's PressTV had a poll that they reported on in this way:

A recent poll suggests that after 60 years of the Zionist occupation of the Palestinian territories, Israel is moving toward collapse.

Over 50 percent of the 2255 respondents to a Press TV online poll are of the belief that after 60 years of the establishment of Israel, the regime's power is nearing collapse.

The only people who participated in this poll are the ones who look to gain their news from a censored Iranian news site online.

So, in the interests of fairness, I am placing a similar poll on my site. Feel free to vote multiple times because it is all meant for pure propaganda anyway.

Enjoy!

Utterly Unscientific Poll
Do you think that the Iranian regime will collapse?

Yes
No
I don't know

view results

UPDATE: At the moment, the 352 votes say that Iran is doomed, and zero say otherwise. I will make the results "official" when we get 2255 votes, to make it exactly as authoritative as Press TV's poll.

Bahrain making overtures to Jews they kicked out?

Firas Press quotes Bahrain's quasi-governmental Al-Watan newspaper as saying that over the past six months, Bahrain has been quietly contacting the families of Jews who left Bahrain in the 1950s and offering to restore their citizenship.

Notably, one of the very few Jews left in Bahrain was expected to become Bahrain's ambassador to the US earlier this month.

More Palestinian Arab news you won't read anywhere else

The Palestinian press is buzzing over a package sent to Palestinian "prime minister" Salam Fayad which contained a powdered substance. His guards opened it and went to the hospital for treatment. It is being called an assassination attempt by at least one newspaper. One of the guards was sent abroad for treatment.

Egypt is reported to have discovered and sealed 12 more smuggling tunnels.

Iran pledged to increase support for Hamas and to send it more sophisticated weapons, even if there is an Israeli/Syrian peace treaty.

Iraqi mothers refuse to let Jews save their children's lives

Here is a follow-up of last week's story about Iraqi opposition to Israelis saving their children's lives - for free. From the Sunday Times:

The parents of Iraqi babies with congenital heart problems are facing a dilemma: should they allow their children to be treated in Israeli hospitals when they have been brought up to believe that Israel is their mortal enemy?
Hostility towards the Jewish state in Iraq is so strong that many parents refuse to travel to Tel Aviv for free life-saving hole-in-the-heart surgery.
Some accept the offer but never reveal where their children were treated, even though the operation has not been available in Iraq since its leading cardiac clinic burnt down after the American-led invasion in 2003.
Other parents are seeking treatment elsewhere in the Arab world, despite prices of up to £15,000 for heart surgery in private clinics. They fear the stigma of being treated in Israel.
Aria, an 18-month-old baby from Kirkuk in northern Iraq, was waiting to return home last week after a successful operation at the Edith Wolfson medical centre in Tel Aviv, where 11 Iraqi children are being treated. The surgery is sponsored by Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), a humanitarian organisation founded in Israel in 1996 and supported by private sources, including Christian charity groups.
Aria’s young mother, Paiman, paid tribute to the clinic and the surgeon, Dr Lior Sasson, saying: “He saved little Aria’s life.”
However, the parents of other Iraqi children in urgent need of surgery said they had rejected free treatment when they heard it would be performed in Israel.
Sara, 2, needs surgery for a defective heart valve. After taking her from Iraq to neighbouring Jordan for preliminary tests, her mother, Shatha, 37, turned down treatment at the Wolfson centre. She said she had had no idea before she left for Amman, the Jordanian capital, that the operation would be in Israel.
“We’ve been foes of Israel since before we were born. We firmly believe that they are our enemies. You can’t change this overnight,” she said.
She is now planning to have the operation performed in Algeria instead: its government agreed to pay for 14 Iraqi children to be treated there rather than be sent to Israel.
Shatha’s friend, an Iraqi Kurd from Kirkuk who was too afraid to give her first name, also travelled to Jordan so that her son, Ahmed, could be assessed for a heart operation. She too turned down the free treatment offered by SACH.
“Now I can sleep with a clear conscience. I’m able to hold my head up high and not be ashamed by having my son treated in Algeria,” she said.
The opposite view was taken by Mohammed, a 37-year-old Kurdish aid worker, whose daughter Souz, 22 months, needed urgent heart surgery. He borrowed thousands of dollars to pay for treatment in Iraq and Jordan, but the doctors there told him there was nothing they could do for her. When he heard she could be treated in Israel, he did not hesitate. She has now had surgery and is making a good recovery.
“I can honestly tell you that I didn’t worry for a moment about where or who will operate on my daughter,” he said. “Nor did I worry about the reaction of my family and relatives. Anyone who blames me should put themselves in my place and live for nearly two years watching his daughter die in front of his eyes, and then tell me what he’d have done.”
His wife, who accompanied Souz to Israel for the operation, added: “The doctors were helpful and understanding, and were sympathetic to our suffering.” She had not been charged anything and would be able to return home with the £1,000 given to her by her husband.
Apprehension about a hostile reaction in Iraq is common among families who opted for treatment in Israel.
The mother of Mustafa, 4, from Kirkuk, who has undergone two heart operations in six months, said: “My only fear, which spoils my joy at my son’s escape from death, is the revenge my family can expect when we go back to Iraq.”
Simon Fisher, the Liverpool-born executive director of SACH, said: “We welcome every child in need regardless of origin.”
Visit the Save a Child's Heart charity website

UNRWA head compliments Hamas

Palestine Today reports that the UNRWA Commissioner-General, Karen Abu-Zayd, complimented Hamas yesterday, saying, "[Hamas] has displayed good organization and discipline .. crime rates have plummeted, and clearly there is no longer the fear of being kidnapped among the staff of relief organizations [in Gaza.]"

She said that Hamas' strength in Gaza is because of "international isolation," blaming the world community for Hamas' strength and saying that it is more popular than ever.

Abu Zayd also stressed that there are no direct contacts between UNRWA and Hamas and they only cooperate in technical areas.

It appears that she did not say anything about Hamas confiscating fuel meant for UNRWA, but then again, she was speaking from Gaza where the UN workers supposedly have no fear anymore because of Hamas' benevolent rule of law.

There is no trace of this speech on the UNRWA website. The latest thing that she is quoted about on that website is her effusive praise of Palestinian Arab "refugees" in the context of a photo exhibition celebrating their life before the "Nakba" where she parrots the Palestinian Arab version of the events of 1948.