Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Fatah names summer camp after terrorist Mughrabi

Ma'an Arabic reports of a new summer camp in Hebron named after female terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, in order to teach the children that murdering Jewish children is praiseworthy.

I wonder how much EU and US money goes to keep this camp going?

This is of course not a new phenomenon. The PA has previously named camps and at least one school after Mughrabi.

The Palestinian Authority has also named two summer camps after Ayyat al-Akhras, a 17-year old who exploded herself in a Jerusalem supermarket. They've also named one after Wafa Idris, another female terrorist who murdered and injured many.

In addition, a camp was named for Jihad Al-Amarin, the founder of the suicide terror division of the Al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigades.

You can tell a lot about a people by looking at their heroes.

Those obstacles to peace

It is striking that the three civilians who killed the three Jerusalem terrorists (Mercaz HaRav and the two bulldozer attacks) were all members of the religious Zionist movement, all "settlers," and all considered the "enemy" by the leftists of Ha'aretz and Israel's academia.

Others have noticed this (including some amazing connections between the three).

Isn't it funny that those who are regarded and derided as "obstacles to peace" are the ones who end up protecting Israelis more than the Israelis who want them to lose their homes?

Oh well - Iran really isn't friends with Israel

A couple of days ago, an Iranian vice president of tourism and cultural affairs was widely quoted as saying, "Today Iran is friendly with the peoples of America and Israel. No people in the world is our enemy and this is a source of pride."

This created a bit of a stir and incredulity, given Iran's longstanding hatred of all things Zionist.

Well, it turns out that this gentleman really didn't mean what he said:

The following day, 20 July, Rahim-Masha'i denied the reports of his speech. "This is not what I meant and these are all lies. During my speech I also said that Israel was dead and only its funeral ceremony has been postponed, but they [the press] did not publish these statements," Iranian state radio quoted him as saying.
Fars news agency, which appears to have been the sole source for the vice-president's original, contested, remarks, cited him as declaring: "By `Israel' I meant the Palestinian and Jewish people living in Palestine, not the immigrant Jews or Zionists, because we do not recognize the Zionists at all."
The original Fars report on Rahim-Masha'i's remarks was carried by a number of Iranian newspapers on 20 July, including the reformist E'temad-e Melli and Aftab-e Yazd.
The hardline daily, Keyhan, on 21 July criticized the vice- president over his remarks.

The Iran Press Service adds:

“Sorry, when I said Iranians are friendly with the Israeli people, actually I wanted to say Palestinian people”, Mr. Esfandiar Rahim Mosha’i, the Iranian vice-President in charge of Tourism and Cultural Heritage Organisation corrected on 21 July 2008 his earlier statement...

What surprised more political analysts is that not only the statement by Mr. Rahim Mosha’i is in total contrast with the usual anti-Israeli outbursts by the President and his denial of the Holocaust, postures that have outraged international public opinion, but also he used the words “Israel” and “Israelis” even though that these references are officially prohibited by the Islamic Republic, referring to Israel as the “Zionist Entity” and to the Israelis as “Zionist Occupiers” or “Usurpators”.

In an official, but mild denial, published by the same Fars News on Monday 21 July, Mr. Rahim Mosha’i says “it is obvious that Iran can not be friendly with Zionist usurpators. Everyone should have understood that I made a mistake by saying we are friendly with the Israeli people while I had the Palestinians in mind”, he said, adding “however, as stated by our dear President several time, Iranians have no enmity with the American or the Jewish people, which we distinguish from the Zionists who occupied Palestinian’s homeland”.

How predictable was this?

Initial PalArab joy at new bulldozer attack

Here are the first three autotranslated reader reactions in Firas Press to today's copycat terror attack in Jerusalem that injured at least 16 people. Keep in mind that Firas is pro-Fatah.

Khosetm my brothers and apes and pigs and you should defend its borders shame you Zionism and the establishment of our Lord God accepts the hero martyr Ghassan Aboutir and enter it in eternal peace and shame to customers sons Qassam

Moreover, God bless
No benefit with the Jews, however, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and apparent darkest .. Oh God, mercy and Shahid Khaldeh Jinan Radwan and inspired his family patience and solace

God have mercy, and it has to be appointed who will tell Iasirlhm

Across the board, Palestinian Arab newspapers are referring to the terrorist as a "martyr."

Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, made his usual equivocal "condemnation":

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack, saying it 'hurts peace efforts'.

Abbas told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah: "We always condemn any terrorist act, and we condemn any attack on civilians regardless of what '.

He added: 'I understand today that there was intentional attack, we certainly condemn it does not accept it, because it marred the reputation and marred the peace in general'.

I have never yet heard any Palestinian Arab leader condemn a terror attack against Israel on moral grounds. It is always because the attacks make them look bad or appear counterproductive to their cause, never because human beings were killed or injured.

How a Saudi paper prints pictures of women

In the "Books" section of the Okaz newspaper there are articles written by both men and women. But while those written by men are accompanied with their photographs, for the women's articles the pictures are all the same:

Why don't they just use a generic picture like this?

It's more accurate - and more modest. You never know what evil thoughts might go through men's head from looking at the illustration - with hair visible, no less.

Work accident! Plus other peaceful PalArab news

A 24-year old Hamas man was killed when the bomb he was working with exploded a bit earlier than he expected. Of course, he was home at the time and he also injured a baby and a 17-year old with the same last name as his.

Hamas said that he was on a "special Jihad mission," which means that Hamas is actively planning terror attacks during the "truce."

A wedding in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City turned into a fight, and 15 were injured in the melee as happy guests grabbed any sharp objects they could to try to kill members of the other family. Palestinian Arabs often treat funerals as weddings and weddings as battlefields.

Hamas abducted a woman in Beit Lahia.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 115.

Gillermania!

Dan Gillerman, outgoing Israeli ambassador to the UN, is always good for a sound-bite. Here are a couple of highlights from an interview in yesterday's NYT:

You recently called Jimmy Carter a “bigot” after he met with Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas. Is it true you were reprimanded by the U.S. State Department? There was no complaint or reprimand. The only reaction I received was very positive.

The Bush administration, it seems, has not done much to advance the Mideast peace process. Would you agree? I think the key is in the Arab world. The Palestinians’ real tragedy is that they have not been able to produce a Nelson Mandela. Every single day, Muslims are killed by Muslims. You do not see a single Muslim leader get up and say, “Enough is enough.” It’s nearly as if we live in a world where if Christians kill Muslims, it’s a crusade. If Jews kill Muslims, it’s a massacre. And when Muslims kill Muslims, it’s the Weather Channel. Nobody cares.

You are about to be replaced at the U.N. by Gabriela Shalev, a law professor at Ono Academic College with no experience as a diplomat. Can any regular person be a diplomat? I’m sure Gaby will do great. Diplomacy is not something you can learn at school or in the foreign service. A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell and actually make you look forward to the journey.

I'll miss this guy.

Jordanians to king: "Pardon mass murderer of Israeli schoolgirls"

In the wake of Israel's release of despicable murderers of Jewish children, prominent Jordanians are asking King Abdullah to do the same:

King Abdullah II was urged on Sunday to pardon a Jordanian soldier who is serving a life sentence for killing seven Israeli schoolgirls in 1997.

"After around 12 years in prison, Ahmad Dakamseh deserves your majesty's special pardon," a group of 70 Islamists, unionists, lawyers, human rights activists and former officials said in a signed letter to the king.

In March 1997, Dakamseh fired an automatic weapon at a group of Israeli schoolgirls as they visited Baqura, a scenic peninsula on the Jordan River near the Israeli border, killing seven and wounded five others as well as a teacher.

The attack came almost three years after Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty, only the second between an Arab country and the Jewish state.

"Following the recent release of Arab prisoners, we hope to see Dakamseh free again," they said, referring to Israel's prisoner swap with Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group last week.

The signatories Islamic Action Front secretary general Zaki Bani Rsheid, former prime minister and intelligence department director Ahmad Obeidat, Jordan Bar Association head Saleh Armouti, and Hani Dahleh, president of the Arab Human Rights Organisation.

"The current political stage requires a policy that would make people happy and ease their socio-economic and political pressures. Pardoning Dakamseh will have a great effect on people," the letter said.

It remains to be explained exactly what kind of people would become happy that a mass murderer is freed in their country.

Notice that the president of the Arab Human Rights Organization is one of the people urging the release of this murderer. Apparently, the "human rights" of Arab murderers to walk around free is more important than the rights of Jewish schoolgirls to live.

Let's hope that King Abdullah will remain as aghast at this crime as his father was and let the killer rot. At the time, King Hussein went to Israel to pay his condolences to the families and truly condemned this act, not like the fake "condemnations" that we are used to hearing from Palestinian Arab leaders.

On the other hand, Daqamesh's mother defended him on Al Jazeera TV:

"I am proud of my son, and I hold my head high. My son did a heroic deed and has pleased Allah and his own conscience. My son lifts my head and the head of the entire Arab and Islamic nation. I am proud of any Muslim who does what Ahmad did. I hope that I am not saying something wrong. When my son went to prison, they asked him: 'Ahmad, do you regret it?' He answered: 'I have no regrets.' He treated everyone to coffee, honored all the other prisoners, and said: The only thing that I am angry about is the gun, which did not work properly. Otherwise I would have killed all of the passengers on the bus."

Although at his trial, his mother was quite willing to say something different in order to get him a lighter sentence: "I know my son is mentally ill because he used to have fits of rage and faint."

At least one terror group has named itself after Daqamesh, showing yet again that even the most heinous murderers of Jews are heroes in some Arab quarters.

Morning links....

Yourish: UN Troops salute dead terrorists

SoccerDad: Horribly wrong part II

Augean Stables: CNN’s Wedeman: I Black Heart Palestinian Children

Dhimmi Watch: Iranian woman, 31, to be hanged after 18 years in jail

My Right Word: First International Jewish Bloggers Convention
Anyone who wants to send me tickets to Israel to participate, feel free! I'll even lead a session!

I saw this poster at a Palestinian Arab site.

The site freely admits that this was a poster designed by Zionists, but for some bizarre reason they claim that the existence of this poster is "embarrassing" to Zionists:

This poster was originally designed by Franz Kraus in 1936 and published by the Tourist Association of Palestine, a Zionist development agency. The poster shows the city of Jerusalem, with its neat parks, homes, and the Dome of the Rock.

Embarrassingly for the Zionists, this one poster effectively debunks three of their core myths; that Palestine was a land without people, that Palestine was a barren desert, and that there never was any such thing as Palestine. Well, here is a populated and green Palestine, called by name in a Zionist-published poster!

The incredible naivete in the last paragraph is breathtaking. Of course there was an area known as Palestine, but what the poster is showing is that Zionists had pride in the nation they were building. In 1936, only Jews were proudly identified as Palestinians, and the Western world also identified Palestine as the Jewish homeland. Jews were proud Palestinians before 1948, creating the popular Palestine Pavillion at the 1939 World's Fair, for example.

If anyone should be embarrassed by this poster, it is the Arabs of Palestinian lineage, because they didn't create any posters like this! This poster proves that Zionism is what made Palestine relevant, Zionist muscle and brainpower turned a backwards land into a modern marvel, and Zionists were the people who took the greatest pride and interest in Palestine in that time period.

More similar posters that for some reason are not being sold by Palestinian Arab online stores, probably because they have that evil word "Jewish" in them:

UPDATE: Here are a couple of other "embarrassing" posters I just found on the Web:

Religion of peace

This photo accompanied a story in the Al Quds newspaper of London. It is apparently a picture of Shehada Jawhar, one of the leaders of Jund al-Sham Islamic group in Lebanon, who was killed this morning in continuing clashes in Lebanese "refugee" camps.

Do people who call Islam the "religion of peace" cringe when they see Islamist leaders explicitly equating weapons with the Koran, or do they perhaps have a different definition of "peace" than the rest of the world?

Today's marriage news from Saudi Arabia

In an update to last week's story about a 64 year old Saudi man who was to marry a 10-year old girl, we can all breathe a sigh of relief:

In the latest twist to a high-profile marriage in this central Saudi city, a 64-year-old man has announced that he would wait five years to consummate his marriage with his 10-year-old bride.
According to local newspapers yesterday, the man — who has already paid a SR100,000 dowry to the father of the girl and signed the marriage contract — now says he would wait until the girl is 15 to complete the marriage.
Explaining the circumstances that led to the marriage, the man’s son said his father never had a second wife. He said the girl’s father taunted his father saying he was willing to marry his daughter to him if he paid SR100,000 in dowry. “My father accepted the challenge, paid the money and became the husband of the young woman,” the son was quoted as saying.

Apparently, if you only have one wife in Saudi Arabia, there must be something wrong with you.

It is most heartening to know that this man claims he won't be raping the girl nightly. She'll just be his slave.

In other news about the wonders of polygamy in Saudi Arabia:

When a man discovered that his wife was secretly urging their son not to get married, he took revenge on her by marrying a second, younger woman.
According to yesterday’s Okaz daily, the couple, living in the southern Saudi city of Al-Madaya, has a son studying in the US. The father had been urging the young man to get married the next time he was visiting home. After discovering that his wife was tugging the young man in the other direction, the father used polygamy to get back at his wife. When the wife discovered her husband had married a 21-year-old woman, she insisted that no second wife was going to live under the same roof with her. So the man moved in with his new, younger bride.

In other Saudi marriage news, a man shot and killed his wife over a "family dispute" and a woman with her 16-year old son burned her husband to death.

PA lawmakers praise murderers, advocate Israel's destruction

Israel's "peace partners" have come together to praise Samir Kuntar and Dalal al-Mughrabi in this women's program on PA TV with female Fatah members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (from MEMRI):

Lowlights:

Jihad Abu Zneid: Today has stirred the emotions of all Palestinians and the whole world [towards] a Palestinian woman who was, and still is, a commander and a fighter for the sake of Palestine. Allah willing, we hope that the day is near when the remains of this fighter and martyr, who has been dubbed "the Princess of Female Martyrs" – sister Dalal Al-Maghrabi, will return, Allah willing, to Jaffa, and will be welcomed by Jaffa and by the entire homeland, and we will celebrate our liberation.

[...]

We extend our deepest salutations to that Palestinian mother, to the mother and sisters of Dalal, and to all the female martyrs [who died] for the sake of Dalal and Palestine. I say to them: You have won [this honor]. Becoming the mother or sister of a martyr is an unparalleled opportunity. I wish I could be the mother or sister of a martyr, or even be martyred for the sake of Palestine myself. This would be a great honor. We all wish to die, Allah willing, for the sake of Palestine, and to become brides for the sake of Palestine – all the women and girls of Palestine wish for that. Dalal was a role model, and we were raised on her memory, and on this outstanding Palestinian image of that great Palestinian commander, Dalal, who led the best Palestinian operation for the sake of Palestine and its liberation.
Najat Abu Bakr: To Dalal, confined in her coffin, I say that ...today, you made all the Israeli and Zionist warlords pay the price. Your price is higher than anything they expected. You are present, because while death means absence, martyrdom means presence. Oh leaders of the Zionist enemy, we are here to stay, and you will be gone.

So Israel's "peace partners" advocate on their own TV shows that all Zionists die, that all of Israel gets destroyed, and that murderers of Jewish children be considered heroes.

As LGF writes, this TV show is like a death-cult version of The View.

Guess who offered to help Palestinian Iraqi refugees?

We've previously discussed the plight of some 3000 Arabs who lived in Iraq for generations and are now in dire straits because they have Palestinian ancestry.

None of the oil-rich Arab countries in the Gulf have offered any help. Syria, which has accepted tens of thousands of other Iraqi refugees, refuses to allow them into the country. Jordan and Egypt have likewise been silent, despite efforts by the UNHCR for years to find countries that can accept them.

But one Arab country has stepped forward.

Sudan.

In what is clearly a public relations move, Sudan has offered to accept all the refugees to change people's focus away from its genocide in Darfur.

The UNHCR, while clearly not happy about this, is considering this idea as Sudan is marginally better than the camp they are in now. The PLO seems to agree to the plan as well.

Refugees International, rather than blaming other Arab countries for refusing to settle these refugees, is asking the US to pick up the slack:

"Relocating Palestinian refugees to Sudan does not offer this population a real choice for a permanent, stable home, and simply moves them from one marginalized situation to another," said Kristele Younes, Senior Advocate with Refugees International.

"We must not allow this vulnerable population to be used as pawns in a greater political game," said Younes. "The U.S. government should acknowledge the vulnerability of this stateless population and resettle them here. It is appalling that Sudan, a country infamous for its violations of international humanitarian law, has stepped in to protect these people when the U.S. would not."

To resettle this vulnerable population expeditiously, Refugees International urged the U.S. State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration to create a special category to process refugee applications. Any process should be held without prejudice to the Palestinians’ right to return to their homeland.

Ironically, this organization which says it tries so hard to solve refugee problems and to allow them to become normal citizens in their host countries still feels obligated to say that even if the US would accept them as citizens they should not forfeit their "right to return" to a place they have not lived in for three generations. Indeed, RI has bought into the very using the Palestinian Arabs as pawns that they rail against, and rather than looking for a permanent solution to the rampant discrimination that Arabs of Palestinian ancestry suffer in the Arab world they continue to advocate a solution that would destroy Israel. RI apparently agrees with the UN that Palestinian Arabs should be labeled "refugees" for generations, uniquely among all the world's refugee populations, and that the West is responsible to solve all Arab suffering, allowing petrodollar-stuffed Gulf states to abdicate all responsibility for the PalArabs.

What a bold move!

Peaceful PalArab weekend

Hamas is accused of killing a 23-year old Fatah member of the Gaza "naval police".

Hamas continues to raid houses of prominent Fatah members in Gaza, today stealing the Jeep of a former deputy minister.

Egypt found another cache of explosives meant to go to Gaza, the second in two days.

Hamas conducted military exercises in Gaza with live ammunition and missiles - in the densely-populated residential al-Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City. This panicked the residents and damaged many houses, but it was late Friday night, so no big deal.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 114.