Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Saudi grand mufti condemns Turkish soap operas

We've mentioned before how crazy the Arab world has gone over a Turkish soap opera dubbed in Arabic named "Noor."

Well, the Saudi grand mufti has decided enough is enough:

The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, has condemned Turkish soap operas, which have charmed millions of people across the Arab world, and prohibited people from watching them, Al-Watan daily reported yesterday.
“It is not permitted to look at these serials or watch them. They contain so much evil; they destroy people’s ethics and are against our values,” said the mufti during the closing ceremony of a forum, which took place in Riyadh on Friday. He added that these “malicious” Turkish soap operas corrupt individuals and spread vice in society.
“Any TV station that airs them is against God and His Messenger (peace be upon him). These are serials of immorality. They are prepared by people who are specialists in crime and error, people who invite men and women to the devil.”
Al-Asheikh was referring to two Turkish soap operas, “Noor” and “Lost Years,” which have become extremely popular in the Arab world over the last couple of months. The soaps are dubbed in colloquial Syrian Arabic and are currently being shown on channels run by the MBC Group.
The soaps are proving such a big draw in the Kingdom that many people plan their day around the programs, which have also become popular dinner table conversation.
According to mbc.net, “Noor” has become “a turning point in the lives of its Arab audience and the way Arabs view Turkish dramas.”
“The TV series is awaited daily by millions of eager Arab viewers from the Atlantic to the Gulf who follow the latest developments in Muhannad and Noor’s love story. It has opened the door for Arab viewers, especially since it contains an area of romance, which Arabic dramas have recently lacked,” says MBC’s webpage.
Maha Al-Hujailan, a Saudi columnist and a medical researcher at King Khaled University Hospital in Riyadh, wrote that the women’s attachment to male characters in “Noor” and “Lost Years” cannot just be attributed to their good looks.
“What really attracts women and gets them attached to these characters is the romance and the way they show their genuine love to their loved ones... Saudi women miss something important in their men: the feeling of love and security,” wrote Al-Hujailan.
A Saudi grandmother in her mid-70s told Arab News that, although she usually watches Arabic dramas, “Noor” has turned her life upside down.
“I couldn’t sleep the night when Noor was kidnapped. Her image haunted me. I just want to see what is at the end,” she said.

Al Watan recently reported that the number of Saudi women naming their children after characters in these two soap operas have skyrocketed.

More "Noor" news can be seen at MBC.net's Noor page, where they happily cite articles that are even critical of the show.

Peaceful PalArab weekend (UPDATED)

After yesterday's series of bombings, including the beachfront bomb that killed 5 Hamas terrorists having a picnic and a seven year old girl, Hamas has been keen to blame Fatah while Fatah is blaming internal Hamas infighting.

That doesn't stop Palestinian Arab columnists from blaming - all together now - The Jooooos!

Hamas held a series of raids today against Fatah, and also shot and seriously injured Fatah Sheikh Imad Khalil with nine bullets to the pelvis.

Hamas claims to have confiscated a large number of Fatah explosives and weapons, and they also raided some Fatah charities as well as the official Fatah WAFA news agency.

Meanwhile, an unknown group claimed responsibility for the Friday morning Internet cafe bombing that accidentally killed the bomber himself, saying that they were trying to rid Gaza of vice and adultery.

UPDATE: Looks like Fatah is retaliating - by arresting pro-Hamas journalists in the West Bank.

Also, Hamas had arrested a journalist for a German news agency, Sawwah Abu Seif. Funny how that has not stirred up a big stink.

A man died from wounds in a clan clash a few days ago.

Hamas continues to arrest every suspected Fatah person they can find, now going after student committees in Al Azhar University.

Hamas is also fighting the Army of Islam, and there have been at least 6 injuries on both sides in clashes.

A Hamas newspaper is claiming that Egypt arrested three Gazans trying to infiltrate - who admitted that they were from Fatah and admitted involvement in Friday's bombing. No confirmation from anyone else yet.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now 123.

Five more killed in a new Gaza blast

YNet (h/t Soccer Dad):

A bomb exploded at a major junction in the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing four Palestinians including Amar Masbach, a senior member of Hamas' Izz al-Din al-Qassam military wing. Notably, Masbach survived an Israeli assassination attempt last year, after elite troops attempted to kill him in the Strip.

Two other Hamas men were killed in the blast, including Iyad al-Haya, the cousin of senior Hamas figure Khalil al-Haya. A girl who happened to be in the area was also killed. More than 15 people were wounded in the explosion, west of Gaza City. The blast is believed to be related to intra-Palestinian tensions.

The circumstances of the blast were not immediately clear. According to one report, the explosion occurred while the two Hamas men were carrying explosive devices. A gas tank was apparently found in their vehicle. However, another possibility is that the blast was a deliberate attack on Hamas members.

Firas lists 5 dead.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 121.

UPDATE: The death toll is now 5 Hamas members and one girl. 122.

The wonderful illogic of Matthias Klein

In a Comment is Free piece in The Guardian, Matthias Klein argues that it is counterproductive for the UK to publicly declare Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization.

In the amazing logic of the Left, his argument is roughly this: Since in the pro-terror world of Hezbollah and their friends it is considered a badge of honor to be vilified by the West, and conversely it is considered awful to be friendy with the West, then any Western vilification of Arab terror groups makes them stronger.

As usual, the argument is high on cleverness and low on common sense. While indeed Nasrallah said that this classification was a "badge of honor," we have seen pro-terror groups use the prestige that comes with being treated with respect by the West in an exactly similar manner.

In other words, Klein naively assumes that Nasrallah is telling the truth when he says that he is happy.

It never seems to occur to him that, perhaps, the reason to label Hezbollah as terrorist is because they are, in fact, terrorists. Klein's argument against that is that since the West is not consistent in this labeling (for example, not labeling Israel as "terrorist") then it should not label anyone - a manifestly absurd position.

The idea that coddling terrorists will take away their bite should have been discredited long ago, but to the clueless Left, this is still considered an intelligent argument.

Obama's note at the Kotel published

In a pretty tasteless move, Maariv retrieved the note that Barack Obama placed at the Kotel.

(I removed the note, as it was upsetting a number of people.)

Al Ahram prints a critical letter

Kudos to Egypt's Al Ahram for actually publishing a letter that ridicules some of its pseudo-intellectual Israel bashing:

Sir -- 'Of jackals and crocodiles' (Al-Ahram Weekly 10-16 July) regurgitates the theory that the war in Iraq was initiated for the purpose of protecting Israel or, in any case, that Israel played a "leading role" in the war.
You state that Ehud Barak, Israel's minister of defence, is part of a government that is "largely funded and sustained by the US government". Israel's annual gross domestic product is over $130 billion and it receives $3 billion in aid annually from the US. In other words, US aid is insignificant in the context of the size of Israel's economy. Aside from being factually inaccurate, you would like us to draw the inference that Israel's aggressive lobbyists in the US are responsible for this largess and that their talents of persuasion were also put to work in manipulating the US government into deciding to invade Iraq. If Israel is so weak as to require "sustenance" from the US (i.e. support without which it would collapse), how in the world could it compel the US to enter into a $1 trillion war?

My intent here is to point out the internal inconsistencies in your thinking and, unfortunately, many others in the Middle East. Rather than face the realities of the backwardness of Arab politics and economics, you prefer to see their woes as being the result of a colonialist implant on the Middle East (Israel) which, if not for the support of the master imperialist power (or the Great Satan, if you prefer), would be blown away like so many grains of sand in the wind of jihad. However, this would leave the Israelis/Jews looking like pathetic puppets rather than the omnipotent Machiavellian conspirators that Arabs know them to be.

Where is the evidence that Israel is "directly and indirectly responsible for a large share of the war efforts"? Despite providing no money, troops or logistics for the Iraq war, Israel is accused of playing a big part in the planning and implementation of US policy. All we get in support of this are a few quotes from people uninvolved in the war and a report of Israeli operatives in Kurdistan. Yes, no doubt Israeli military intelligence shared their findings with the US, but it was American military intelligence that manipulated the data, not Israel. In fact, many or even most senior Israeli military officials were not in favour of the war in Iraq. The reason: Iran was and is the greatest threat to Israel and, as is now obvious, to weaken Iraq is to strengthen Iran. That the war was not in Israel's interests is implied by the Seymour Hersh story cited in yours. Moreover, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld planned and ran the war on their own (maybe with a little help from George Bush) and, unfortunately, were completely unsusceptible to outside advice or influence.

There are many reasons why the US (and the rest of the West, for the most part) and Israel are allies, but the main one is that today they see the world in the same way. The path forward is through economic growth and liberal democracy; fantasy and fanaticism will leave Arabs forever on the wrong side of the separation wall.

Jacques Cousineau
Paris
France

Internet cafe blown up in Gaza, two dead

There have been plenty of attacks on places that the Islamists don't like but this is the first fatal attack in recent memory in Gaza. From Firas (autotranslated):

An explosion had taken place a short time ago in a cybercafe in western Gaza. Unknown attackers blew up the cafe, which led to the death of a citizen and injuring a number of citizens with various injuries.

Palestine Press reports that two were killed in the explosion, and that there was a second bomb within ten minutes of this one that targeted a Hamas leader in Gaza. There were also reports of "violent clashes" in another section of Gaza City.

I'll wait for verification that the second person died, so for now the 2008 PalArab self-death count is at 116.

UPDATE: PalPress also reports that Hamas stormed Al Azhar University and tore down posters of Yassir Arafat.

Another case of ethnic cleansing of Jews (1898)

From the New York Times, describing an event in Eastern Palestine/Syria in 1898.

Do they have a "right of return?"

"I'm Muslim and hate Jews"

From The Calgary Sun:

Attacking a Jewish girl and the friends who came to her rescue has landed a Muslim man a one-year jail sentence.
Mustafa Taj must also serve a year of probation following his release for what provincial court Judge Bill Cummings ruled was a racially motivated assault.
"In this case, I'm satisfied that imprisonment is necessary," Cummings said in accepting the Crown's bid for a jail term.
Prosecutors Ken McCaffrey and Inayat Jetha had sought a sentence of up to two years for the hate crime.
Taj, 21, was convicted in May of attacking four teenagers the night of Nov. 3, 2006, while they waited for a C-Train at the Sunnyside LRT station.
Taj approached the group around 10:45 p.m. and asked "who's Jewish." Nichola Cordato, then 16, stated "me" and Taj grabbed her and said, "I'm Muslim and hate Jews."
He then slapped her in the face and pulled her hair before her friends, Jessica Motta, Kayla Hungle and Daniel Ball attempted to intervene.
Hungle attempted to prevent Taj from further attacking Cordato and was punched in the face by him.
Motta then intervened and was punched in the face, pulled to the ground by her hair and kicked in the stomach and ribs.
When Ball tried to stop the assaults, he was thrown onto the C-Train tracks where he fell onto his back and was spat upon by Taj.
During the melee, Taj called Cordato a "Jewish piece of (crap)."

He forgot to substitute "Zionist" for Jewish. Then he would have gotten off scot-free!

300K

If it's summer, it must be time for another set of blog milestones.

Yesterday I passed 300,000 visitors and within the past two days I passed 400,000 page views, according to Statcounter.

I've also recently seemed to pass the 10,000 comment mark, which is pretty cool since I don't usually participate too much in the comment threads.

It took a little less than six months to go from 200K to 300K. My traffic keeps on steadily increasing on average; I am now averaging 588 visits per day and 755 page views per day.

Even though my traffic increase has mostly been since I have been posting links from most of my postings on Little Green Footballs, it appears that about half of my readers come here directly. Which means that there are a couple of hundred people who check this blog regularly. That is most gratifying!

My fourth blogoversary is coming up in a couple of weeks, right before the first JBlogger convention in Israel (wish I could go!), so I might be making some more reflective posts about the state of the JBlogosphere between now and then.

As always, though, I want to thank you all for coming here and participating!

More of today's PalArab press

Every day I see so many stories in the Arabic press that don't merit their own posting, but I think it is important for people to understand the stuff that goes on there. So here is Part 2 of today's PalArabic press review:

Gazans have found a new way to smuggle small items into Gaza - having friends in Egypt fly kits and attach the items to the kites. Smuggled items include plant seeds, cellular phone parts and medicines. They do this while the Egyptian guards are on break in the afternoon, as they get out of the sun when it gets too hot - which shows the level of commitment that Egyptian army guards have to their jobs.

An article decrying the practice of burqa-clad ladies showing their eyebrows. Since eyebrows are essential in that "come-hither" look, they need to be covered by the burqa.

PA PM Fayyad is considering cutting salaries across the board.

Israel today allowed 174 truckfuls of goods into Gaza as well as 80 tons of gas.

Islamic Jihad claims that Israel has violated the calm 43 times so far. They include things like overflights and Israel arresting Arabs who try to sneak into Israel.

Today's PalArab press roundup

Al-Hayat al-Jadida has an op-ed celebrating the anniversary of Egypt's 1952 revolution that brought Nasser to power. The writer believes - even today - that Nasser was the best thing for the Arab world. This typifies the mentality that Arab pride - which usually involves militarism and harsh rhetoric - is more important than peace and cooperation with the West. This is a mainstream attitude; I have yet to see any Egyptian celebrating the anniversary of Camp David.

Ma'an (English) says that Obama rejected the idea of East Jerusalem as the capital of any Palestinian Arab state. Of course he didn't say that at all, but Ma'an put together his statements of "Jerusalem must not be divided" and "Jerusalem should be the capital of Israel" as implying this. Accuracy has never been the strong suit in the Arab press.

Firas reports on an Israeli Internet "sting" operation where Shin Bet members recruit Palestinian Arab youths in chat rooms and fake Islamist Internet sites to perform terror attacks and then arrest them. It is more likely that they just observe Palestinian Arab youths going to these sites on their own; the recent arrest of a suspected Al Qaeda cell in Israel seems to be related.

One writer is upset that while Saudi Arabia's shops will routinely close for prayer, electronics stores will keep their TVs on and some non-Muslims as well as Muslims will watch sports through the windows instead of go to mosques.

Tensions are increasing between Hamas and Islamic Jihad over the "calm" (even as one rocket was launched today, that fell short of Israel). Islamic Jihad is accusing Hamas of collaboration with Israel and it is upset over Hamas arrests of PIJ rocketteers; Hamas accuses it of being counterproductive.

Samir Kuntar still enjoys daily interviews with a fawning Arab press, today daring Israel to assassinate him and saying that Hezbollah can only win through military means.

Anderson Cooper strikes out

I don't get to watch too much TV, but last night I happened to catch the beginning of Anderson Cooper 360, where he breathlessly announced that John McCain made a major gaffe. After listening to the intro, I couldn't figure out what this mistake was, something about getting the order of some events in Iraq wrong. Here's the transcript:

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We begin with breaking news tonight: Barack Obama in the Middle East and John McCain taking shots at him back home. This could be a game changer.
Senator McCain says Obama doesn't understand the significance of the surge. Now he appears to have given critics reason to believe that he doesn't know one of the most basic facts about it, namely when it even began.

Here's what he told CBS' Katie Couric for an interview that aired tonight. He was responding to a question about Senator Obama, crediting the Sunni awakening in Anbar Province with improving conditions in Iraq, not just the surge.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, CBS NEWS)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel MacFarland, was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge, we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others, and it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history, thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: In other words, he's saying the surge made the Sunni awakening possible, except the timeline is wrong.

The surge was announced in January of 2007, with troops starting to arrive in early spring. Colonel Sean MacFarland, who McCain mentions, briefed reporters on the awakening back in September of 2006.

Here's what "The New York Times" said in April of 2007 -- quote -- "The turnabout began last September, when a federation of tribes in the Ramadi area came together as the Anbar Salvation Council to oppose the fundamentalist militants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia."

And this from a recent history of Iraq in "Foreign Affairs" magazine: "The awakening began in Anbar Province more than a year before the surge and took off in the summer and fall of 2006 in Ramadi and elsewhere, long before extra U.S. forces started flowing into Iraq in February and March of 2007." We will have more on this shortly.

But, first, let's get you up to speed on the Obama trip, the backdrop for tonight's headline.

Cooper is so overjoyed at finding this gaffe that he can barely explain it properly, as he quotes the New York Times and Foreign Affairs and puts the audience to sleep trying to figure out the point of this breaking headline story.

After the obligatory Obama worship section of the news comes the meat of the accusation against McCain, as Cooper gathers a group of reliable analysts to back up his McCain-gaffe story. Unfortunately, they are not as excited as Anderson is.

He previews it first when talking to Ed Henry:

COOPER: Ed, in a moment, we are going to talk to you and Joe Klein and David Gergen about what appears to be a pretty big mistake by John McCain tonight, talking about the surge.

And a little later:

COOPER: In a moment, we're going to have more with Ed Henry and, as I said, Joe Klein and David Gergen on this apparent gaffe by John McCain. We will talk about the significance of it.

Finally, his big moment. After playing the clip again:

COOPER: John McCain apparently confusing the Iraqi timeline. The surge began in early spring of 2007. The Sunni awakening started in early autumn of 2006.

Let's talk about the political repercussions, if any.

Ed Henry is at the White House. Also "TIME" magazine's Joe Klein, and CNN senior political analyst David Gergen joins us on the phone.

Joe, I don't like to play gotcha. You know, a word slip-up here and there, I usually tend to ignore. But how significant a mistake is this?

KLEIN: Well, I don't know how significant a mistake it is, although it does tend to reinforce my sense that John McCain kind of skims the surface of Iraq....

COOPER: David, David Gergen, given that this is a central attack that John McCain has against Barack Obama, how significant do you think this is?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Anderson, I do think it's a mistake, but I think the bigger mistake today was arguing, as you said earlier -- John McCain said twice today that he personally would rather lose a campaign than lose a war....

But, on this -- on this issue of the gaffe regarding the surge, it's -- when President Bush announced the surge, he acknowledged that there was an awakening among the Sunnis, that there was something going on that was very positive. And everyone since then has understood that what has worked in Iraq is the surge, but it's been with a confluence of other events. It's been the joining together of the surge with other events. Yes, the surge -- and John McCain, as a chief architect, deserves credit for that. But it's also true that it was a confluence.

But, Anderson, where I think this story is probably going to go is toward the issue of age. John McCain nearing his 72nd birthday coming this August, you know, in the last few days has confused the border of Iraq and the border of Afghanistan. Not long ago, he confused Somalia with Sudan.

COOPER: But, David, just to play devil's advocate on this, given the 24-hour nature of these campaigns, it's natural that people would make mistakes if they're being video-recorded every minute of the day, no?

GERGEN: Absolutely. That's absolutely true. And Barack Obama has certainly made his share of mistakes.

And John McCain is given -- he likes to do these impromptu interviews. That's what made him -- as Joe Klein said, at one time, he was the darling of the press because he was so frank and candid, and certainly back in the 2000 campaign, and I think even in this Republican primary season.

But if you're asking -- what you're asking about the political significance of something like this, it goes to the question of how your opponents can use it, and what they can use it as is a way to plant doubts or plant questions in people's minds.

This is -- at one point, this age issue in the 1984 reelection of President Reagan became his biggest vulnerability, Reagan's biggest vulnerability. He went on to win a thumping reelection. And this is not to say that it will penalize John McCain for a long time. I don't think that's the case. But I do think a pattern would -- would allow his opponents to plant those seeds.

COOPER: Right.

HENRY: (after an aside on what McCain's campaign's response to this "gaffe" was):But, in fact, what General Petraeus said in April of 2008 is -- quote -- "The first awakening, which, to be fair, took place -- it started before the surge, but then very much was enabled by the surge, because that enabled us to clear areas over time within Iraq."

So, essentially, General Petraeus is saying it's a little gray, that the awakening started before the surge, but then the surge, once it got into place in 2007, helped the awakening go further.

COOPER: Right.

HENRY: John McCain didn't quite put it that way.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: And, Joe, that's a fair argument.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: That's a fair argument, Joe, that the fact that there were troops helped -- that there were a surplus of troops did help the Sunni tribes who wanted to awake.

KLEIN: It wasn't the surplus of troops. It was the fact that Petraeus really knew how to leverage this and move it into other parts of the country.

But, if you want to be absolutely precise about this, the Sunni awakening -- and David Petraeus is absolutely precise about it -- the Sunni awakening began earlier.

Now, to go to David's points, I think that these sort of gaffes aren't very serious. You know, the Iraq-Afghanistan -- Afghani border, everybody makes mistakes like that. Or at least people my age do. And Barack Obama has done it on the trail....

COOPER: We're going to have to leave it there.

Cooper's hand-picked analysts all ignored Cooper's attempt at smearing McCain, usually trying to find othr more TV-friendly ways to do the same thing, and finally Cooper is forced to realize that he had no story.

But why should anyone think that this indicates media bias?

Marwan Barghouti - the great murdering hope

It appears that there is a good chance that Marwan Barghouti will be released, either as part of a deal to get Gilad Shalit back or as a "goodwill gesture." The fact that Olmert the habitual liar is denying it only lends it more credence.

Barghouti is an interesting person. From a purely objective viewpoint, he may be the best-qualified leader for Palestinian Arabs. He was a leader of the first Intifada which was home-grown (not run by proxy by Arafat from Tunisia) and a leader of the "young guard" of Fatah. He opposed Yasir Arafat's corruption, although Arafat the master politician managed to co-opt the intifada and used it to re-assert his leadership of the native Palestinian Arabs, marginalizing the first intifada's leaders.

Barghouti remained opposed to Arafat through the rest of the syphilitic terrorist's life, and considered a run for PA president after Arafat died, finally demurring in the name of Fatah unity.

Since then he has fully split from Fatah, starting his own political party from prison named al-Mustaqbal ("The Future") with other members of the "young guard." Unlike Fatah's entrenched, corrupt and senile leadership, the "young guard" seems to truly care about Palestinian Arabs.

Some advocate his release to strengthen Fatah against Hamas, even though he is no longer a Fatah member. He is respected by Hamas as well and is rumored to have been instrumental in the formation of the short-lived Fatah/Hamas unity government. He seems to a accept Israel's existence.

The only problem is that he is a terrorist. He has supported the murder of civilians who live beyond the Green Line and he was convicted of murdering five; he was the head of Tanzim during the beginning of the second intifada and Tanzim murdered many more.

(Incidentally, in his trial he was only convicted of murder of five civilians [thanks for the correction from Soccer Dad - EoZ] plus one attempted murder; and he was acquitted of other murder charges. But as head of Tanzim he certainly bears some level of responsibility for the outbreak and escalation of the second intifada.)

Here we have the Palestinian Arab story in a nutshell. Historically, they have been led by incompetent, corrupt and selfish leaders. Yet their most competent and least corrupt leaders are still unrepentant terrorists.

And it cannot be any other way. Since the Palestinian Arab psyche is so heavily invested in making murderers into heroes, it is impossible to imagine in this generation that an effective leader could emerge who is not a terrorist. Simply put, if you haven't spent time in Israeli jails for murder, you have no street cred.

The world has implicitly accepted this for decades. Rather than insisting on changing Palestinian Arab society from the ground up to be tolerant, liberal and moral, the world accepts as an unchangeable fact that Palestinian Arabs will remain enthralled with child murderers and terrorists, and the hope is that their leaders will not be quite as bad as others. Compared to Hamas or Al Qaeda, Barghouti the multiple murderer and terrorist looks positively saint-like, and he has more than his share of fans among the left worldwide.

This is today's "realpolitick" - better a murderer than an extremist murderer. The idea that a non-murderer, someone who truly wants peace and is willing to work for it, could be a popular leader of Palestinian Arabs is so absurd as to be considered fantasy.

This logic might make sense to the people who are not the stated targets of the terrorists, but to most Israelis the distinction is not too relevant.