Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Israeli actor playing Saddam in BBC drama

The Israeli actor playing Saddam Hussein in a new television series once narrowly escaped a missile fired by the late dictator's army.
But for Igal Naor, taking the lead role in "House of Saddam", the BBC/HBO dramatisation of Saddam's 24-year rule airing in Britain from Wednesday, it was not about revenge.

Instead, the 50-year-old from near Tel Aviv believes his experience of the conflicts and complexities of the Middle East, and his childhood effectively raised as an Arab in Israel after his family left Baghdad, gave him the edge over other actors.

"In the street everyone spoke Iraqi. It was a 'little Baghdad' around Tel Aviv," he said of the neighbourhood where he grew up that was dominated by Iraqi Jews who left Baghdad after Israel's founding 60 years ago.

"I could understand much better than, say, a British actor or an American actor about what this man is and the environment he was living in," Naor told Reuters by telephone.

"This is my area, the Middle East, Iraq. I can understand things like the special need for honour, pride. I live in an environment of war and blood."

He recalled how a missile fired by Iraq at Israel in 1991, during the first Gulf War triggered by Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, landed close by.

"As an Israeli, he was an enemy," Naor explained. "In 1991 a missile he sent to Tel Aviv fell 50 metres from my house with one tonne of explosives. Luckily nothing happened to us."

Nevertheless, he added: "I didn't love him or hate him."

Naor, who has appeared in Hollywood movies "Munich" and "Rendition", rejected the idea that casting an Israeli as Saddam should be seen as controversial.

"We are actors, we are artists. Why should we be Israelis, Lebanese or Egyptian?"

Although he encountered no negative feedback at home, there was a backlash against him, and more particularly his co-star Amr Waked, in Waked's native Egypt, he added.

Reuters of course doesn't expand on this last point. From Variety last year:

Egypt's Actors Union, which opposes normalization of ties with Israel, is furious and says Waked now faces being banned from ever filming in Egypt again.
"The position of the union is clear in its rejection of normalization and requires that members abide by this position," declared Ashraf Zaki, chairman of the union.
"He will be facing an investigation as soon as he returns," Zaki added. Waked is in Tunisia for the shooting of the drama, "Between Two Rivers," which is backed by the British Broadcasting Corporation and HBO.
The actor has defended his position, telling Egyptian papers he did not know an Israeli was involved. Furthermore, he told the Egyptian Mail, the film is pro-Arab and criticizes US foreign policy.
He has made it clear he has no intention of leaving the series, in which he plays Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law who fled from Iraq to Jordan but eventually returned and was executed.
Were he to quit now, the actor said, he would be in breach of his contract.

Notice how bold Waked is in the face of criticism: first he says he didn't know, then he says the film is critical of the US and finally he falls back on not wanting to breach his contract.

Outside of that, he fully supports the Egyptian actors' boycott of Israel.

Another meme

I would like to thank LindaSoG for listing me as one of her seven favorite blogs in this latest "Blogger Challenge" meme.

I generally do not pass these sorts of things on, because in my opinion they are just social computer viruses. However, it has made me realize something interesting:

I have really been avoiding reading too many other blogs.

While there are many excellent blogs that I enjoy reading when I see them, there are very few that I make a habit of reading, unless I really cannot find anything original to blog about (hence my occasional Links posts.) With what spare time I have, I prefer to pore over Arabic autotranslated sites or obscure Google News queries to find stories that others miss.

That being said, here's how I would answer - although I don't think anyone will be surprised:

Soccer Dad, who amazes me with his memory and ability to grab articles from everywhere to support his themes, all while giving a great analysis. Not to mention his very accomplished co-bloggers, Daled Amos and Judeopundit.

Israellycool, where I co-blog. Aussie Dave is informative and amusing.

Treppenwitz, who is not only a great blogger but also a great writer.

Shrinkwrapped, a psychologist who does a fair amount of analysis of the Arab and terrorist psyches.

Israel Matzav, who is essentially a one-man liveblogger of anything that happens in Israel.

Augean Stables always has great, well-thought out posts.

And my last entry will be three blogs that are associated with organizations rather than people: Contentions at Commentary Magazine, the MEMRI Blog and Backspin from Honest Reporting.

That poll of UK Muslim students

There has been a bit of news in the past couple of days about a poll taken of Muslim students in Great Britain:

ALMOST a third of British Muslim students believe killing in the name of Islam can be justified, according to a poll.

The study also found that two in five Muslims at university support the incorporation of Islamic sharia codes into British law.

The YouGov poll for the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) will raise concerns about the extent of campus radicalism. “Significant numbers appear to hold beliefs which contravene democratic values,” said Hannah Stuart, one of the report’s authors. “These results are deeply embarrassing for those who have said there is no extremism in British universities.”

The report was criticised by the country’s largest Muslim student body, Fosis, but Anthony Glees, professor of security and intelligence studies at Buckingham University, said: “The finding that a large number of students think it is okay to kill in the name of religion is alarming.

In addition to its poll of 1,400 Muslim and non Muslim students, the centre visited more than 20 universities to interview students and listen to guest speakers. It found that extremist preachers regularly gave speeches that were inflammatory, homophobic or bordering on antisemitic.

The researchers highlighted Queen Mary college, part of London University, as a campus where radical views were widely held. Last December, a speaker named Abu Mujahid encouraged Muslim students to condemn gays because “Allah hates” homosexuality. In November, Azzam Tamimi, a British-based supporter of Hamas, described Israel as the most “inhumane project in the modern history of humanity”.

James Brandon, deputy director at CSC , said: “Our researchers found a ghettoised mentality among Muslim students at Queen Mary. Also, we found the segregation between Muslim men and women at events more visible at Queen Mary.”

Predictably, Muslim student associations in Britain reacted furiously:

Britain's main students groups have disparaged a report by a right-wing group claiming that a third of Muslim students believe killings can be justified in the name of Islam.

"This report is a reflection of the biases and prejudices of a right wing think tank - not the views of Muslim students across Britain," Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students (NUS), said in a statement on Sunday, July 27.

"It is a willful misrepresentation of the views of Muslim students designed to create as sensational a picture as possible.

"It can serve only to generate a climate of fear on campuses."

"The report is methodologically weak," Faisal Hanjra, president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), said in a statement.

FOSIS said the report was part of attempts to undermine efforts by Muslim groups to fight extremism in Britain.

"It is unrepresentative and above all serves only to undermine the positive work carried out by Islamic Societies across the country," it stressed.

It is most interesting that FOSIS pretends that it is doing positive work and that it is fighting extremism, because the report itself shows where FOSIS supports terror:

FOSIS – and by extension ISOCs – also enjoy strong ties with the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), widely considered a British branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

A 2005 FOSIS publication claims these links help to foster greater tolerance
within such organisations:

“The involvement of many former FOSIS activists has helped in establishing an inclusive and broad-based ethos within other organisations such as the Muslim Association of Britain and the Muslim Council of Britain.”

However, FOSIS and its constituent Islamic societies regularly book MAB leaders
and activists, many of whom publicly support the Muslim Brotherhood, to speak
on university campuses. One such speaker, Azzam Tamimi, a Hamas supporter,
said in a BBC interview in 2006, “if I can go to Palestine and sacrifice myself I
would do it.”

FOSIS provides ISOCs with literature – Freshers and Dawah packs, leaflets on Islamophobia and pamphlets on political issues such as Palestine, Kashmir and Iraq
– many of which are published by Friends of Al-Aqsa, a lobby group campaigning
against alleged human rights abuses by Israel that advocates the creation of a single
Palestinian state to replace Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Leaflets produced
by Friends of Al-Aqsa include “Israeli War Crimes” and “Israeli Apartheid Policies”,
and much of the literature calls for a boycott of Israeli products and academic institutions.

Founded in 1997, Friends of Al-Aqsa’s stated goals include “defending the human
rights of Palestinians and protecting the sacred al-Aqsa Sanctuary in Jerusalem.”
Ismail Patel, the current leader of Friends of Al-Aqsa, has said that the group aims
“to raise awareness of the Palestinians’ sufferings and dispel the notion that Hamas
is barbaric, and that it cannot be dealt with.”

Patel is a regular spokesman for the British Muslim Initiative (BMI), founded
in 2006 by prominent members of the MAB – the Muslim Brotherhood’s British
franchise. Patel also sits on the advisory board of the Conflicts Forum, a pressure
group that promotes the Muslim Brotherhood to policy-makers in the West, and is
a director of IslamExpo.

Speaking at an event in November 2007 organised by the University of Manchester
Palestinian society, Patel argued that a Palestinian state could only exist at the
expense of the Jewish one.

At the same event, Patel pledged his support for Hamas, the militant Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood designated a terrorist organisation by the United States, the UK and the European Union. Answering an audience question about his views on Hamas, Patel said: “I think [Hamas] is one of the noblest resistance movements I’ve come across.”

The report itself seems to have a sound methodology, and it describes it in detail. Unlike the characterization of the report given by the Muslim groups, it is quite fair and it shows a deep divide between the generally more active Muslim students - who tend to be more radical and extremist - with the more moderate ones. In most polling questions the "extreme" and "moderate" positions are roughly equal, and the "extreme" positions are far more prevalent among members of Islamic student groups.

So rather than attacking Muslims, this report really attacks the ideology of the many Islamic student groups that it documents as supporting terror. And the criticisms by those same student groups have no basis in fact.

Guess who Pakistan is accusing of terrorism?

Go on, take a guess.

From Palestine Today (autotranslated):

The Pakistani intelligence service accused the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency and the Indian and the Afghan intelligence services of cooperating together to destabilize the security of Pakistan.

According to Pakistani intelligence, the Indian intelligence and the Mossad were planning and organizing terrorist operations against the Pakistani army deployed on the Pakistani - Indian border and other terrorist operations from the territory of Kashmir and within Pakistan.

Pakistani intelligence accused Indian intelligence and the Mossad of being behind the recent terrorist operations that took place inside Pakistan which killed a number of victims and injured dozens of Pakistani nationals.

Yes, the Mossad clearly has interest in destabilizing Pakistan so that nuclear-armed state can be taken over by Islamists.

Freedom of the press, Hamas-style

For the second day in a row, Hamas has confiscated all of the West Bank newspapers delivered to Gaza: al-Hayat al-Jadida, al-Quds and al-Ayyam.

Hamas is still saying that Fatah is responsible for the Friday bombings that killed five of its members and it does not want Gazans to see Fatah's denials, and especially evidence and accusations that the blast was because of Hamas infighting.

Hamas had already raided and destroyed the offices of the Fatah-based WAFA news agency in Gaza over the weekend.

Meanwhile, both Hamas and Fatah continue to arrest members of the other organizations in Gaza and the West Bank, respectively.

Hamas using "calm" cement for bunkers

One of the major items that Israel had not allowed into Gaza before the current "calm" was cement. Human rights organizations and others complained bitterly about how this cement shortage was affecting Gazans' lives.

So now that Israel has allowed many truckfuls of cement into Gaza, what is happening to it?

Everything that goes into Gaza, either from Egyptian tunnels or from Israel, gets taken by Hamas. Hamas takes everything it needs first and then places the rest on the market, heavily taxing it to ensure that the "international boycott" against that terror organization is meaningless.

Cement is a major item that Hamas covets. As the Shin Bet's Yuval Diskin testified yesterday, Hamas is using the cement it is receiving to build fortified bunkers and tunnels to transport and store weapons.

This is not just Israeli propaganda. Even last January, when Hamas breached the wall to Egypt, it was reported that Hamas was taking delivery of hundreds of bags of cement to build bunkers and tunnels.

And since the story of Israel cruelly blocking shipments of concrete from poor starving Gazans is so much more compelling than that of Hamas taking the concrete from those same citizens for aggressive purposes, the media and world community yawns. Human rights organizations are silent and the UN, which just last week said that the "calm" has not helped Gazans in their daily lives, wholly blames Israel.

Big surprise there.

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!