Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Obamas: $1000 good, $1200 not so good

I don't like to comment on American politics much, but Michelle Obama just said something singularly stupid:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, complained the government’s $600 economic stimulus check was only enough to buy “a pair of earrings” while stumping for her husband.
“You're getting $600 - what can you do with that?” Mrs. Obama said in Pontiac, Michigan last week. “Not to be ungrateful or anything, but maybe it pays down a bill, but it doesn't pay down every bill every month. The short-term quick fix kinda stuff sounds good, and it may even feel good that first month when you get that check, and then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings."
She made these remarks at a “working women’s roundtable discussion.”

Others are noting how elitist it sounds for a candidate's wife to think that most American women spend $600 on each pair of earrings, but what bothers me is that Obama's big plan to help families with their energy bills is to give them $1000 each:

We'll provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate for every family that will offset the increased costs of gas for a working family for the next four months. Or, it could be used to pay any of your other bills.

So according to the Obama camp, giving $1200 to each family is ludicrous but giving them $1000 each is a brilliant stimulus package.

I don't think Michelle was a math major at Princeton.

Shalit deal getting closer?

The Palestinian Arab press is reporting tonight that Israel is releasing a number of Hamas MPs that had been in Israeli custody, including former PA Finance Minister Omar Abdal Razeq.

Razeq and other PA Hamas ministers were arrested by Israel right after Shalit's kidnapping, and although Israel denied using them as bargaining chips it seems pretty clear that this is exactly what they were.

One can only pray that this is part of a deal that will result in the return of Gilad Shalit. Unfortunately, with the current Israeli government, one can never be sure what if anything Israel will gain from any deals.

"Peace activist" unplugged

There has been a bit of attention given recently to a group of people, mostly from the ISM, who call themselves "Free Gaza." Their gimmick is to sail a ship from Cyprus to Gaza with hearing aids for Gazan children, in order to either break the Israeli blockade or to video themselves getting stopped by those vicious IDF patrols. If they're lucky, there will be violence. Either way, they win.

The leader of this group is a longtime Israel basher named Greta Berlin. I just saw an interesting letter written about her to Daniel Pipes' website - from her former-stepdaughter:

Having read about the incident at UCLA I must admit that I was appalled by Ms. Berlin's behavior, but not at all surprised. I should know, she is after all my ex-stepmother...
After reading your article, I went on to research some of the links that your site provided and found it rather difficult to comprehend some of the titles that are now associated with Ms. Berlin's name. The title of "Peace Activist" is the one I find particularly hypocritical.

On numerous occasions I heard Greta launch the insults "the god damned Israelis, and those F****** Jews" at the dinner table in front of my father (a Jew) and the few Israeli friends and relatives who ventured to visit. Additionally, any rational debate attempted by anyone with an opposing view to Greta's, was immediately terminated with the responses: "Shut up" or "You don't know what the hell you're talking about." The rebuttal usually presented in screaming form.

These comments in juxtaposition to her role as "Peace Activist" I find hard to rectify. It prompts me to ask what should be an obvious question; "At what point did terms of hate and bigotry become synonymous with Peace?"

I was always under the strange impression that the road to peace laid in the arms of those who were tolerant, compassionate, and vehement in their will to understand and to promote understanding. God help us all if this is the role model that we hold up as an embodiment of those ideals!

Sincerely,
Ava E. Berlin

Could it be possible that some supposed supporters of Palestinian Arab rights are rabidly anti-semitic? Naaaaaah....

Ultra-Left hates PA, loves Hamas

The radical left is often amusing with its abject hypocrisy, and one of the funnier examples is its embrace of radical Islam, which is as anti-liberal as possible.

Two recent articles in leftist publications show how far the far left has gone.

From Cleveland Indymedia, and article by prolific hater Khalid Amayreh:

PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY ZIONIST PROXY SCUM!!!

So, as if Zionist ethnic cleansing were not enough, the PA is finding it necessary to complement Israeli criminality by arresting, humiliating and tormenting patriotic Palestinians for criticizing the Ramallah regime for compromising Palestinian national interests and for throwing itself squarely into the lap of the Bush administration which itself is at Israel’s beck and call.

It is really difficult to make any sense of what is happening except that the PA is effectively becoming another layer of the Israeli occupation.

Yes, wanting anything less than the total and immediate destruction of Israel is clearly a form of collaboration with the Zionist enemy. Much better to stay angry and stateless for the next few hundred years.

And in Redress.cc, an article by a self-styled charity worker and surgeon named David Halpin:

Gaza and humanity versus Zionist ethnic cleansers and their stooges

A scrupulous election was no bar to stifling a democracy emerging under brutal occupation. In spite of generous offers [by Hamas] to include the main opposition party Fatah in government, that attempt at plurality invited the annihilation of Hamas by the engine of destruction and its many subservient nations, led by the USA. Any adherents to Islam must be isolated and driven by goading to division and self-destruction. Thus was the medieval siege laid on Gaza in March 2006 against all morality and all major international laws.

The medieval siege laid on Gaza is against all morality and all major international laws The Hague Rules and Nuremberg Principles were never enunciated and they do not exist; barbarism is the only rule.

Yes, this British man is invoking international law to defend an organization whose founding principles emphasize the murder of Jews worldwide as well as the rejection of any possibility of peace.

This love of Islamic extremism on the part of the radical Left has nothing to do with loving Muslims - and it has everything to do with hating Jews. If Hamas wasn't opposed to the idea of Jews living in the Middle East as anything but dhimmis, people like Halpin and the other radical leftists would hate Hamas for all it stands for. Yet their hatred of Jews and Zionism makes all pretense of consistency go out the window.

PalArabs update blood libel

A new study released by the coordinator of the "Palestinian Farmers Union" accuses Israel of secretly dumping nuclear and chemical wastes near Palestinian Arab communities.

The reason?

Because Israel wants to cause Palestinian Arab men to become sterile, thus creating a method of mass birth control!

It seems that this is not the first time that Palestinian Arabs have accused Israel of this idea, because the Firas Press article that mentions this also mentions an earlier accusation by the equally esteemed "Dr. Mahmoud Deputy Chief of the Middle East in the International Physicians for Protection from Radiation and Nuclear War" that Israel has done the same thing in other "Palestinian territories" - burying nuclear waste from Dimona in the territories and causing "cancer, sterility, mental disorders and skin diseases."

Accusing Israel of poisoning the wells is so last century. Nuclear and chemical waste is the hip new way of fomenting blood libels!

More from Hamas leader's Christian son

Ha'aretz printed the full interview with Masab Yousef, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef and now a Christian in California. I wrote about this last week as well as the family's denials.

Here are some excerpts:

The younger Yousef is well aware of the implications of this interview, and how it will likely offend his family, as well as of the slim chance that he will be able to return to Ramallah one day. But apparently he is on a crusade of his own. "I know that I'm endangering my life and am even liable to lose my father, but I hope that he'll understand this and that God will give him and my family the patience and willingness to open their eyes to Jesus and to Christianity. Maybe one day I'll be able to return to Palestine and to Ramallah together with Jesus, in the Kingdom of God."

Masab-Joseph has five brothers and two sisters. He is in regular contact with them and keeps them informed of his situation. However, until recently he refrained from telling his family that he had converted to Christianity, and at the time of this interview his father the sheikh still did not know that his son had converted. And in spite of the secrecy surrounding his conversion, sometimes he seems like a veteran missionary who is trying to get entire communities to change.

"You'll see, this interview will open many people's eyes, it will shake Islam from the roots, and I'm not exaggerating. What other case do you know where a son of a Hamas leader, who was raised on the tenets of extremist Islam, comes out against it? Although I was never a terrorist, I was a part of them, surrounded by them all the time."

How were you exposed to Christianity?

"It began about eight years ago. I was in Jerusalem and I received an invitation to come and hear about Christianity. Out of curiosity I went. I was very enthusiastic about what I heard. I began to read the Bible every day and I continued with religion lessons. I did it in secret, of course. I used to travel to the Ramallah hills, to places like the Al Tira neighborhood, and to sit there quietly with the amazing landscape and read the Bible. A verse like "Love thine enemy" had a great influence on me. At this stage I was still a Muslim and I thought that I would remain one. But every day I saw the terrible things done in the name of religion by those who considered themselves 'great believers.' I studied Islam more thoroughly and found no answers there. I reexamined the Koran and the principals of the faith and found how it is mistaken and misleading. The Muslims borrowed rituals and traditions from all the surrounding religions."

"I respect Israel and admire it as a country. I'm opposed to a policy of killing civilians, or using them as a means to an end, and I understand that Israel has a right to defend itself. The Palestinians, if they don't have an enemy to fight, will fight each other. In about 20 years from now you'll remember what I'm telling you, the conflict will be among various groups within Hamas. They're already beginning to quarrel over control of the money."

He does not conceal his abhorrence of everything representing the human surroundings in which he grew up: the nation, the religion, the organization.

"You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death. They have to take revenge against anyone who did not agree to accept the Prophet Mohammed, like the Jews who are seen in the Koran as monkeys and the sons of pigs. They speak in terms of historical rights that were taken from them. In the view of Hamas, peace with Israel contradicts sharia and the Koran, and the Jews have no right to remain in Palestine."

Is that the justification for the suicide attacks?

"More than that. An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists. In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr. Sheikhs tell their students about the 'heroism of the shaheeds' and that causes the young people to imitate the suicide bombers, in order to achieve glory. I'll give you an example. I once met a young man named Dia Tawil. He was a quiet boy, an outstanding student. Not a Muslim extremist and not radical in his ideas against the Israelis. I never heard extreme statements from him. He didn't even come from a religious family: His father was a communist and his sister was a journalist who didn't wear a head covering. But Bilal Barghouti [one of the heads of the military arm of Hamas in the West Bank] didn't need more than a few months to convince him to become a suicide terrorist." (Tawil, 19, blew himself up in March 2001 next to a bus at the French Hill junction in Jerusalem; 31 people were wounded.)

My Christian readers will definitely want to read the whole thing.

Top advisor to Assad assassinated

Syria's formerly airtight grip on internal security seems to be unraveling.

From Jordan's Albawaba:

Well known sources informed Albawaba that General Mohammed Suleiman, an adviser to Syrian president Bashar al Assad, was assassinated on Friday. Suleiman also served as Syria's liaison officer to Lebanon's Hizbullah movement.

According to the sources, Suleiman was shot dead by a sniper in the Syrian port city of Tartous. They added the funeral service will be held on Sunday in Suleiman's home-town of Driekesh which is located less than 20 kilometers away from Tartous.

The sources told Albawaba the Syrian authorities have been making huge efforts to prevent the publication of the news regarding Suleiman's killing. It should be mentioned that on February 13, 2008 Imad Moughniyeh, the military commander of Hizbullah, was assassinated in Damascus.

Peaceful PalArab weekend

It is a little hard to keep up with everything going on, but....

At least nine were killed in clashes between Hamas and the Fatah-linked Helles family in Gaza. At least one of the dead was a 14-year old child from that family. There are reports of 90 wounded. The fighting included lots of mortars and machine gun fire. Hamas has been blaming that family lately for the bombing a week ago that killed 5 Hamas members.

At least two of the dead today were Hamas members.

There are reports that Hamas prevented ambulances from reaching Helles family members during the fighting.

Hamas has also been using machine guns against Army of Islam members in Gaza, no reports on injuries there.

There have been a number of arrests in Gaza of Fatah members, and Fatah in the West Bank has been retaliating against Hamas members there as well.

In the West Bank, two were killed and several wounded in fighting in the town of Jaba under unclear circumstances. One of the dead was also a 14 year old boy.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 137.

UPDATE: PCHR counts the bodies: 8 from the Helles clan, 2 from Hamas, one other. Unlike earlier reports, no children dead.

All of the Helles deaths were from gunshots to the head or chest, making it sound like executions.

The count is now at 139.

UPDATE 2: Clan clash in Bethlehem, one dead. 140.

UPDATE 3 (8/4): Another member of the Helles family has succumbed to injuries from Hamas. 141.

Tunnel collapse! Plus more!

At least 5 Palestinian Arabs were killed and 14 injured when a smuggling tunnel being dug collapsed in Rafah.

Also, a 65-year old Khan Younis man died of a heart attack while witnessing his son being beaten by Hamas terrorists who entered his home.

An Al-Quds terrorist was injured in a "work accident" when a bomb exploded in his home.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 132.

UPDATE: The tunnel didn't collapse while being built, the Egyptians blew it up, so the count is back to 126 for the moment.

"Top ten intellectuals all Muslim"

The Arab American News joyfully reports:

Two prestigious Western magazines — Foreign Policy in the United States and Prospect in Britain — asked their readers to choose which among the world's 100 public intellectuals deserved the top honours.

Over 500,000 people cast their votes via the internet. The results published this July were surprising. The first ten names on the list were Muslims, from countries as diverse as Turkey, Bangladesh, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran and Uganda.

Heading the list was the Turkish Sufi scholar, Fethullah Gülen. He was followed — in order of voters' preference — by Muhammad Yunus, the microfinancier from Bangladesh; Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Egyptian cleric who hosts the popular “Sharia and Life” TV programme on Al-Jazeera in Qatar; the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk; the Pakistani lawyer and politician Aitzaz Ahsan; the Egyptian television preacher Amr Khaled; the Iranian religious theorist Abdolkarim Soroush; the Islamic philosopher Tariq Ramadan; the Ugandan cultural anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani; and the Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi.

Wow, the top ten intellectuals are all Muslim? Is it coincidence, does it reflect Islamic intellectual superiority, or does it mean something else?

One only needs to look at Foreign Affairs magazine to see the answer:

Rankings are an inherently dangerous business. Whether offering a hierarchy of countries, cities, or colleges, any such list—at least any such list worth compiling—is likely to generate a fair amount of debate. In the last issue, when we asked readers to vote for their picks of the world’s top public intellectuals, we imagined many people would want to make their opinions known. But no one expected the avalanche of voters who came forward. During nearly four weeks of voting, more than 500,000 people came to ForeignPolicy.com to cast ballots.

Such an outpouring reveals something unique about the power of the men and women we chose to rank. They were included on our initial list of 100 in large part because of the influence of their ideas. But part of being a “public intellectual” is also having a talent for communicating with a wide and diverse public. This skill is certainly an asset for some who find themselves in the list’s top ranks. For example, a number of intellectuals—including Aitzaz Ahsan, Noam Chomsky, Michael Ignatieff, and Amr Khaled—mounted voting drives by promoting the list on their Web sites. Others issued press releases or gave interviews to local newspapers. Press coverage profiling these intellectuals appeared around the world, with stories running in Canada, India, Indonesia, Qatar, Spain, and elsewhere.

No one spread the word as effectively as the man who tops the list. In early May, the Top 100 list was mentioned on the front page of Zaman, a Turkish daily newspaper closely aligned with Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. Within hours, votes in his favor began to pour in. His supporters—typically educated, upwardly mobile Muslims—were eager to cast ballots not only for their champion but for other Muslims in the Top 100. Thanks to this groundswell, the top 10 public intellectuals in this year’s reader poll are all Muslim. The ideas for which they are known, particularly concerning Islam, differ significantly. It’s clear that, in this case, identity politics carried the day.

Zaman, the Turkish newspaper that promoted the contest so heavily, has a circulation of 700,000, far more than the number of votes cast, which means that this list was essentially a list of intellectuals chosen by Muslims. (And Noam Chomsky was #11.)

Like all online polls, this one reflects nothing. It is striking that people who are supposedly "intellectual" would lobby for votes so cravenly; this reflects not intellect but egoism.

But as usual, idiots will use this "poll" as reason to push their own political agendas.

Good Israel News Friday

Blooming Deserts Turn Israeli Water Industry Into Money Magnet

A hip reconstruction that mimics nature

Jasmine as a cancer fighter

An exoskeleton that helps paraplegics walk

Making plants use water more efficiently

Hamas hints at taking over the West Bank

In yet another little-reported story, Hamas on Thursday made a slightly oblique threat to the PA. From Ma'an:

Hamas refused to rule out the option of taking control of the West Bank if Fatah do not change their policies towards Hamas activists in the area. The statement was made in a press release by Sami Abu Zuhri, the official Hamas spokesperson in the West Bank on Thursday.

Abu Zuhri said "the current situation in the West Bank is similar to that in the Gaza Strip before Hamas took control. Security forces are committing crimes in their interrogation and torture centers."

"We remind them [Fatah]," he continued, "that they planted thorns and they will harvest regret."

Hamas have been accused by Fatah of the creation of an executive to carry out a coup in the West Bank similar to the one in the Gaza Strip. They have previously denied any plans to overthrow the caretaker government in the West bank, and while this falls short of a declaration of such an intention, it will be seen as a stepping up of the rhetoric around this issue.

I've noted before that Hamas' support in the West Bank is extensive and Fatah's is not nearly as strong as wishful thinkers in the West assume:

In the local PA elections of 2005, before the Hamas victory in the legislative elections, Hamas won the majority of seats in Nablus (73% of the vote to Fatah's 13%) , Al-Bireh (72% of the vote) and Jenin (winning eight seats to Fatah's four.) Fatah didn't even win a majority in Ramallah; although it outpolled Hamas there it ended up tied with the Popular Front.

This is yet another elephant in the room that the international community chooses to ignore. While Hamas is probably not in a position to take over the West Bank today, chances are very good that in the aftermath of any Israeli withdrawal from territory for "peace" that Hamas would move into the vacuum before Fatah even realizes it. Hamas is better organized and has a stronger ideology than Fatah, and its strength attracts recruits. Fatahs' major security accomplishment has been a crackdown on car thieves.

In Gaza, Fatah didn't just lose - it folded rather than seriously challenge Hamas. What objective reasons can anyone bring to say that this couldn't or wouldn't happen in the West Bank? The hundreds of millions of dollars that poured into the PA coffers for "security" were completely wasted in Gaza, and chances are very good that they are being equally wasted in the West Bank, while Hamas is methodically increasing its budget, ties to Iran, operational efficiency and firepower.

And as usual, the West as well as Israeli liberals choose to ignore the lessons of last year's coup and barrel forth with an exact repeat of the mistakes of Gaza.

More Peaceful PalArab news

Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas swept through Gaza and arrested many more Fatah leaders, as well as a 70-year old sheikh.

This happened only hours after Mahmoud Abbas ordered all of the Hamas detainees in the West Bank who had been arrested in the past week to be released.

Meanwhile, for the first time in ten years, Jordan has started talking to Hamas.

One reason that Hamas is being seen as more mainstream is because of the existence of the even more extremist groups emerging. Today was apparently the anniversary of the fall of the Ottoman empire, and Hizb ut Tahrir (The Liberation Party) tried to demonstrate in the West Bank, but the PA arrested many of them instead. However, in Gaza, hundreds of its members demonstrated for the restoration of the caliphate, for all Muslims to live in that pan-Muslim state under Sharia law, and to continue to fight the Jews ("a conflict with no limits") - not the "Zionists" - as well as the USA and current Arab regimes.

To be sure, in this same time period there were much worse atrocities against Jews in Europe, especially Russia. But whenever Arab apologists claim that "For centuries, Jews and Arabs lived together in peace," keep in mind what kind of peace it was.

Family denies son of Hamas leader converted to Christianity

This has got to be one of the funnier denials of all time:

Reports that Massab Yousif, son of Sheikh Hassan Yousif a high profile Hamas leader, has converted to Christianity and rejected Palestinian resistance, have been denied by his family.

The initial report was printed on Thursday in Ha'aretz, a leading Israeli paper, which said that their correspondent had interviewed Massab.

The Ha'aretz interview quotes Massab as saying that "the nation, the religion, the organization," of his youth were what made him convert. The article claims that Massab does not want to be part of a society that he apparently described as, "sanctifying death and the suicide terrorists."

Suhaib, Mussab's brother, has strongly denied these claims. He said that while his brother is indeed in United States, he has not converted to Christianity and is adhering to Islam.

Suhaib went on to express his disappointment that Palestinian news outlets, including Ma'an, had picked up the story from Ha'aretz saying, "how could they report such news and quote Hebrew newspapers without contacting Mussab?"

The family said they are considering their legal options to deal with what they called a totally made up story.

Hmmm, who has more credibility - Ha'aretz or a Hamas family? This is a tough one....