Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

MEMRI causes Kuwaiti to self-reflect

It is funny how it takes a foreign entity to repertoire and sample numerous clips that were aired on public TV here in the Middle East, and to further add subtitles to them; clarifying them for every one's viewing pleasure. Memritv.org, better known as "The Middle East Media Research Institute TV Monitor Project," albeit could be claimed to be biased with the explicit aim of pin-pointing the outrageous comments made by certain individuals. This is nothing more than showing actual clips that were aired, nothing more nothing less.

For instance...we can perhaps turn to a Friday sermon made by a Palestinian Sheikh, whereby he claims, "With the establishment of the State of Israel, the entire Islamic nation was lost, because Israel is like cancer that spreads through the body of the Islamic nation. This is because the Jews are viruses that spread like AIDS, the which the entire world suffers from." This is only an excerpt of the sort of rhetoric that is not unfamiliar in our part of the world, and is a rhetoric that only proves our inherent weakness and lack of self-esteem.

When we place our very own miseries in the hands of others, we are externalizing our problems that we are not able to solve, not because we cannot with some will and desire do so. Rather, we put our problems in the hand of foreigners because as such we can allow ourselves to do nothing about it for whatever reason we wish to ascribe to such act.

It is an undeniable fact that we in the region, have a great potential to create an Arab Union, which would mimic the European Union and would ensure that every country gets a chance to prosper and develop. It is unlikely to happen if we are unable to be honest with ourselves. We need to reform our respective countries; we need to stop externalizing our troubles, and to take a deeper look at our malaises, noting that we will not be able to fix them in a year or two. If we start a process of self-examination, in the near future, we would be able to start bringing forward solutions. One solution that has served many Arab States is the external threat, and that will only work for a short period.

It is fascinating that for this Arab writer, the outrageous things said daily on TV in Arabic don't make an impression on him, but seeing them in English - where such rhetoric stands out so much more - allowed him to be more conscious of his own culture and its shortcomings.

The Miraculous Terrorist Talking Dolphin

Terrorists who participated in the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, led by Palestinian Arab heroine Dalal Mughrabi, were interviewed on Al-Manar TV:

Fatah terrorist Hussein Fayadh: We spent two days in the dinghy, with all the [bad] weather. Before that, we spent two days aboard the ship. For four day, we didn't eat, drink, or sleep. In addition, I must say for the sake of history that a fish was our guide after we got lost. On the second day, when we had no idea which way to go, along came a dolphin fish and said to us: That is the right direction: Palestine is there. We set the compass to the direction of the fish. We sailed the entire day, and on the second night, we knew we were on our way to Palestine.
[...]

Sister Dalal Al-Maghrabi had a conversation with the American journalist [Gail Rubin]. Before killing her, Dalal asked: "How did you enter Palestine?" [Rubin] answered: "They gave me a visa." Dalal said: "Did you get your visa from me, or from Israel?" I have the right to this land. Why didn't you come to me?" Then Dalal opened fire on her. We must recall these issues as cases... as human experience.

Hearing the word "human" come out of the mouth of such filth is especially nauseating.

But maybe I'm just jealous that dolphins speak to him.

(Video clip here.)

Autotranslation of the day

From the Palestinian Arabic Ma'an news, auto-translated by Google:

Infanticide Club in Green Valley Fukui, honors students excelling and successful in high school

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Systems Club Infanticide Verde - The Phuket, in observance to honor the excellent students in the classroom and successful in high school, so during a celebration rally held at the Plaza Club, attended by a wide audience of students and families of the sons of the village and the faculty and headmaster Professor Ashraf Lashkar, And representatives of local institutions in the village.

Opened the festival, took the customs of both Ahmed sugar supervisor's cultural club, Mohammed advocate cultural committee member.

Bassam gave a speech advocating the club, a speech welcoming and congratulating the students and their parents and teachers on this success and excellence, calling on them to continue to achieve these results supervising, and praised the management of the school and the teaching staff and their role in access to these results.

I know they celebrate death, but an entire infanticide club brings things to a whole new level!

Today's Palestinian Islamic hypocrisy

The current Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, is (based on apparently no evidence whatsoever) accusing Israel of building cattle stables on top of Muslim cemeteries:

Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, General Mufti of Jerusalem warned that in some quarters of the Israelis they are converting Muslim graves in the territory of the 1948 into stables for cows, stressing that the occupation authorities that the attack violated all heavenly religions that prohibit interfering with the sanctities.

Al-Tamimi in a statement today called on the occupation authorities to stop these aggressive practices against the dignity of the dead after having touched the dignity of neighborhoods.

He pointed out that occupation authorities were destroying the holy sites and cemeteries and transformed into stables for cows or stores or clubs, stressing that such practices are incompatible with the laws and international norms and traditions.

He stressed that the Islamic cemeteries are the property of Muslims alone may not be for non-Muslims interfering in their affairs, and called all organizations, international bodies and local communities need to act to stop such practices which harm the holy sites and cemeteries.

Making baseless accusations is nothing new for the Mufti; he issues press releases like this every couple of weeks to make sure that he stays in the news and that he can keep a constant stream of incitement against Jews flowing among his constituency.

The hypocrisy, of course, is to remember what Arabs were documented to have done to Jewish cemeteries when they had the chance:

On the Mount of Olives, the Jordanian Arabs removed 38,000 tombstones from the ancient cemetery and used them as paving stones for roads and as construction material in Jordanian Army camps, including use as latrines. When the area was recaptured by Israel in 1967, graves were found open with the bones scattered. Parts of the cemetery were converted into parking lots, a filling station, and an asphalt road was built to cut through it. The Intercontinental Hotel was built at the top of the cemetery. Sadar Khalil, appointed by the Jordanian government as the official caretaker of the cemetery, built his home on the grounds using the stones robbed from graves. In 1967, the press published extensive photos documenting that Jewish gravestones were found in Jordanian Army camps, such as El Azariya, as well as in Palestinian walkways, steps, bathrooms, and pavement.

Elder's First Rule of Arab Projection lives!

Egypt discovers 8 more tunnels

Not a bad day's work. from Firas Press (autotranslated):

Egyptian security forces discovered today 8 tunnels on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egyptian territories that were used for smuggling into Gaza. The Egyptian security official explained that these tunnels were discovered north of the Rafah border crossing during the last 24 hours and that they arrested Egyptians.

In another incident police opened fire on Egyptian smugglers near the Egyptian-Israeli border in Sinai. The smugglers fled from the scene leaving behind five hundred kilograms of hashish.

Today's peaceful PalArab news

There were clashes yesterday in Bir Zeit University between Fatah and Hamas students; the university was evacuated. The Fatah students planned to protest Hamas' violence in Gaza, and the Hamas students objected a bit forcefully.

Hamas abducted a prominent Fatah activist and his brother in Gaza.

The PFLP radio station, Voice of the People, remains closed in Gaza after Hamas closed it on Saturday.

The Fatah camp named after terrorist Dalal Mughrabi ended its season. Its goals were to "strengthen the bonds of love, unity and tolerance" - although apparently it does not preach tolerance for any non-Arabs in the Middle East, based on its name.

PA PM Fayyad opened up a "hall for martyrs" in a camp in the West Bank. What percentage of their "martyrs" are dead terrorists?

A Salafi leader in Gaza called for Muslims to stop helping out Hamas financially. (Salafist preachers have been targeted by Hamas.) Does this mean that Muslims support those evil economic sanctions?

And, finally, Hamas partially destroyed a restaurant in Gaza City. The reason? Because the restaurant provided free food to young boy and girl scouts ("cubs and flowers") who were associated with Fatah.

And now, the video

How could I resist making a video out of "Hello martyr, hello Fatah"?

Luckily for my audience, I did resist singing, choosing instead to make a version that you can sing along with, karaoke-style.

Muslims freak over Israeli Quran project

An Israeli professor at the University of Haifa was teaching developmental psychology to a group of Bedouin students last year. One of them mentioned to him that the modern concepts he was teaching them would have no impact upon their likely patients; for example, a parent might tell them that "a devil has entered my child." The professor, a Jew, asked what would help them, and they answered that if they could base their psychological therapy on the Koran then the parents and kids would be very receptive.

The result of this conversation is the Quranet project, where some 300 verses of the Koran are used to teach universal concepts like taking responsibility, respect, and telling the truth. The project shows the verse and gives a psychological background as well as concrete examples for each verse.

A Flash example can be seen here, and an interview with the professor - who is now a big fan of the Koran - can be seen here.

This project does not try to interpret the Koran and it is not meant to be a scholarly study; it is merely using the Koran to enforce universal concepts of basic human kindness and dignity.

Which means, of course, that the Muslim world is freaking out at what they are convinced is an Israeli plot to twist the Koran into a work that teaches, well, universal concepts of basic human kindness and dignity.

From Gulf News:

Shaikh Dr Abdullah Al Mutlaq, member of the Senior Ulema Board in Saudi Arabia, denounced the project, which was developed by 15 Muslim bedouin academics in Israel as part of their Masters programme in educational counselling, supervised by Jewish professor Dr Ofer Grosbard and reviewed by three Islamic preachers.

In a statement to Gulf News, Dr Al Mutlaq stressed that the Israeli Quranet project should not be trusted by Muslims since it is run by Jews who openly show their hatred to Islam and Muslims.

"A Muslim who wants to abide by Islamic teachings should not depend on this website for interpretation of the Holy Quran whatever the case," he said.

He warned that Muslims should not be deceived by Israeli statements that "the Quranet transforms the Quran into a unique and useful educational tool for parents and teachers, and thereby renders the beneficial power of the Quran widely accessible".

"We regard this denounced move as an attempt to create a generation of Muslims who understand the Quran in the way that Israel and US want after misinterpreting the verses of the Quran to serve Israeli Zionist projects in the world", he said.

Abdullah Al Shihri, the prominent Islamic researcher, asked since when had Israel become keen to implant Islamic education in the minds of other nations and to enhance the face of Islam in the West?

"It is our right to be suspicious about the aims of the project which has been denounced by Muslim scholars all over the world," he said.

Al Shihri described the initiative of the Israeli Foreign Ministry to promote the Quranet website as suspicious, noting that Muslims are not in need of other people to interpret their holy book and that the relationship of Muslims with the West does not need middlemen.

Saudi propagator Fahd Al Harbi expressed his conviction that the main aim of those who are behind this project is to divide the Muslim world in a way that serves the Israeli political agenda.

"Otherwise how can we understand the good intentions alleged by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs unless we link this website with political motives," he said.

From IslamOnline:

"Israel wants to lure Muslims into its trap by interpreting the Qur'an in a way that suits Israeli projects," Sheikh Shawqi Abdel-Latif of the Egyptian Ministry of Awqaf (Religious Endowments) has told Al-Masri Al-Youm newspaper.

Dr. Manae Abdel-Halim Mahmoud, professor of Qur'anic sciences at Al-Azhar University, also blasted the Israeli project.

"Israel only harbors enmity to Islam and Muslims," he said.

"This project aims to tarnish the image of Islam by giving wrong interpretation of the Noble Qur'an."

The Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs also rejected the project, saying there was no reason to re-interpret the Qur'an into Hebrew as the Holy Book has been interpreted correctly many times before.

From the Iranian Quran News Agency:

But a short review of the Islamic history shows that the recent move, which is aimed at producing Zionist-oriented interpretations of the holy Quran, is not something new. From the early days of the advent of Islam, this tactic has been used to hinder the progress of Islam, but this time they have only done it in a modern way.

This old tactic is based on producing fake interpretations which are generally based on personal experiences and viewpoints. Their strategy is to sow seeds of misunderstanding and skepticism among Muslim generations but the tactics are different from time to time.

In an era called the era of dialogue, culture and reasoning, some imperialist colonists and Zionist Capitalists are still obsessed with their outdated mindsets. In an era in which Islam has conquered hearts and minds of billions of people across the globe and has acquired the title of the fastest growing religion in the world, the wretched Zionists and their imperialist allies can't make much of a difference by resorting to old tactics.

Muslims are educated and vigilant today and it is not a wise policy to try to beguile billions of people by spreading lies and forged information while there is an easy access to authentic sourses.[sic]

Yup, the critics certainly seem to disagree with anyone having the audacity to come along and assume that the Quran teaches love, respect for others and truth.

The Hamas threat to the West Bank - and Israel

We mentioned last week that a Hamas spokesman made an oblique threat that Hamas would take over the West Bank just as they did Gaza. It turns out that on the same day, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahhar made the threat a little more explicit:

In a sign of reassurance to the residents of the West Bank who are facing a joint campaign by the occupation forces and the Palestinian [National] Authority of Mahmud Abbas. Al-Zahhar said: "We tell our oppressed people in Ramallah that the sun of freedom has shone in the Gaza Strip and will shine on them in Ramallah, God willing."

Addressing the senior officials of the PNA in Ramallah, Al-Zahhar said: "Those who think that by oppression and imprisonment they can put off the candle of freedom which has been lit in Gaza are entertaining illusions. Those who did not read the Gaza history, let them read it."

He added: "Those who have sought negotiations and peace with the Zionist occupation are accusing us of resorting to the calm. Calm is a weapon in our hands, not a sword brandished on our necks." He said that the Al-Qassam Brigades continue to arm themselves, to manufacture arms, to train and to prepare themselves to be ready for self-defence."

Others have started noticing something we've been saying for years, that Hamas has far more power in the West Bank than is generally believed.

From Maariv (Daily Alert translation):

According to the IDF General Staff, the IDF is the only force preventing a Hamas takeover in the West Bank. The talks between Israel and the PA are purely cosmetic, since Israel's negotiating partner does not represent any real political force.

Anyone who is counting on Fatah to reform itself in order to serve as a counterweight to Hamas in the West Bank is fooling himself.

If Israel frees Hamas' West Bank political leadership - which was arrested two years ago in the wake of the kidnapping of Cpl. Gilad Shalit - in a prisoner exchange for Shalit, this will only help Hamas to take over of the West Bank.

From JCPA (also translated by Daily Alert):

With the most recent fighting, Hamas has ended the role of Fatah in Gaza and is patiently organizing toward the next stage, which includes the takeover the West Bank.

This is to occur after the completion of a prisoner-exchange deal for Gilad Shalit, in which key Hamas cadres and parliament members will be released from jail and return to the West Bank.

What is striking is that of all the players in the Arab/Israeli conflict, Hamas and Hezbollah (as Iranian proxies) seem to be the only ones with real plans, strategies and the ability to follow through. The current Israeli government's strategy is more based on wishful thinking plus some IDF contingency plans, and the PA has long ago become a joke.

Hamas, though, knows what it wants: it already replaced Gaza with an Islamic state, and it is mopping up any leftover opposition. It plans to take over the West Bank as well.

If, G-d forbid, Israel abandons large areas of the West Bank to Hamas, it really will become another Gaza. Anything Israel does to defend itself from the inevitable rockets will involve civilian deaths. Giving the Palestinian Arabs a state wouldn't slow Hamas down - on the contrary, it would accelerate Hamas' reaching its goals. Hamas' prestige will grow and affect Jordan as well as Egypt, and Israel will literally be surrounded by Iranian proxies.

Liberals scoff that Israel doesn't face a real existential threat from what are dismissively described as a few kids with stones, but the real threat is what I've described - at least two Iranian proxy armies on Israel's doorstep from the south, east and north.

And the only thing that can stop this sequence of events is Israeli "occupation," which, from decades of propaganda, is regarded as evil incarnate.

Israel has to retake the initiative on stopping this from happening. It can no longer afford to wait and then react; it has to change the narrative back to what it used to be: where every terror attack would be retaliated automatically, immediately and harshly; where pre-emption was regarded as a necessity and not evil, where world opinion was not considered as important as Israeli lives, where the enemy would have to guess how Israel would react rather than push Israel into a corner with no choices. To do that requires real leadership and vision, something that has been sorely lacking in recent years.

Continuing Twittering

So far I like Twitter; I'm using it to put up anything I come across that may or may not make it into a post, and that may not be 100% accurate if it is my initial impression of an autotranslation. (For example, I think that the police didn't run away from Bir Zeit but they had the students evacuate.) So I intend it as an early-warning system of raw info I encounter on the Web. (No, I do not intend to inform you all of what I'm eating for lunch. I'll leave that to others.)

I moved the Twitter gadget to the right side of the blog so that it can be seen without scrolling. I wish it auto-updated, but for now if you want to see the latest you'll have to refresh the screen. Obviously I am sometimes busy doing other things, so don't get too used to having updates as often as it has been.

I would like to have some feedback on what I write but I haven't figured out how that could work yet besides asking you to simply comment on a post like this one.

Even PalArabs hate PalArabs

And I'm not speaking about Hamas and Fatah.

An article in the Jerusalem Post shows that even West Bank Arabs hate Fatah Gazans:

The Palestinian Authority's refusal to receive members of the Hilles clan who fled the Gaza Strip Saturday did not come as a surprise to many Palestinians.

Although the Hilles clan has long been known for its loyalty to Fatah, the PA leadership in Ramallah asked Israel Sunday to send almost all those who fled the Gaza Strip back home.

For many of the Hilles clan members, returning to the Gaza Strip is tantamount to a death sentence. However, this did not stop the PA from asking the men to return home.

PA officials explained that the reason behind their refusal to absorb the new "refugees" was their desire not to encourage other residents of the Gaza Strip to leave.

"Everyone knows that if we allow people to leave the Gaza Strip, almost all the residents living there would try to cross the border into Israel," said a senior PA official. "We don't want to leave the Gaza Strip to Hamas."

Yet there are also other reasons why PA President Mahmoud Abbas doesn't want the new refugees in the West Bank.

One is related to Abbas's fear that the presence of the Hilles "refugees" in Ramallah and other West Bank cities would damage his efforts to impose law and order there.
...
Past experience has shown that the Palestinians in the West Bank have never been enthusiastic about the presence of their brethren from the Gaza Strip among them.

Shortly after the establishment of the PA in 1994, former PA Chairman Yasser Arafat deployed dozens of policemen from the Gaza Strip in a number of West Bank cities. This resulted in an "intifada" by the residents of these cities, many of whom openly rejected the presence of the Gazans in their communities. In many cases, West Bank families refused to rent out apartments to the "undesirables" from the Gaza Strip.

The experience was repeated in June 2007 when hundreds of Fatah members fled the Gaza Strip following Hamas's violent takeover of the area. Most of those who arrived in Ramallah are still finding it impossible to rent apartments in the city.

Many others continue to be shunned by local residents who treat them with great suspicion and often mock them for escaping from Hamas. A former Fatah security commander who was among the June 2007 "refugees" said recently that he had stopped going to public places in Ramallah because he felt that he was "unwanted" and because of the "ridiculing" looks he got from people.

Even the 150 Fatah men who fled to Egypt following the Hamas takeover have not been welcome there or in any other Arab country. In a recent letter to Abbas, the Fatah men, all former residents of the Gaza Strip, complained that they were being held in "military bases" belonging to the Egyptian army and were being treated as criminals rather than political refugees.

The population of Gaza is expected to double in the next twelve years. They simply won't fit in Gaza anymore without a serious development effort that is not forthcoming. Israel certainly won't take them; Egypt doesn't want them; other Arab countries have already made clear how much they loathe Palestinian Arabs - and now we see that even their fellow Palestinians Arabs in the West Bank can't stand them.

Which goes to show yet again that everyone pretends to love Palestinian Arabs but everyone really hates them, even their own people.

Why exactly do they "deserve" a state again?

Assassination attempt against Fayyad?

Firas Press is reporting that there was an assassination attempt against PA prime minister Salim Fayyad today.

According to the story, he first received threatening messages, I believe on his mobile phone, which were followed by gunfire towards his home.

Security had been beefed up at his house since there had been previous threats from Fatah loyalists.

No other PalArabic media is reporting this yet, and Firas' reporting is very tabloid-like.

Burning a flag lands PalArabs in jail

Several Palestinian Arabs were fined and sentenced to a year in jail for burning a flag.

There isn't much outrage over this, though, because it was the Jordanian flag that they were burning, after a soccer match last April.

The match was between a team that had many Palestinian Arab players against one that had Jordanian players. This wasn't even a political statement; it was simply the normal actions of fanatic Jordanian sports fans.

Don't hold your breath to see if "human rights" organizations will get involved here, though. People who pretend to care about freedom of speech as well as people who pretend to care about Palestinian Arab rights become strangely quiet when the perpetrators are Arab.

The definitive version: Hello martyr, hello Fatah

Earlier today Soccer Dad made a posting about to the phenomenon of Palestinian Arab summer camps that teach murder and hate, brilliantly named "Hello martyr, hello Fatah". (For those who don't get the joke, it refers to a classic Allan Sherman song, circa 1963 about a letter being written from a miserable camper at sleep-away camp. Before continuing this post you need to hear the original song; here's one from YouTube where the video isn't too irritating.)

I decided that a title like that needed lyrics, so here is the official EoZ version of:

Hello Martyr, hello Fatah

Hello martyr, hello Fatah
Here I am in Islamic Gaza
I must tell you, I'm having great fun
In my camp they teach us how to use machine guns

We blame things on the Jewish Lobby
Our hero is Dalal Mughrabi
We can march now, we can holler
And we love to pray five times a day to Allah

I keep ammo in my pocket
I just learned how to shoot a rocket
Just imagine how great I felt
When I was fitted for my first suicide belt!

We watch videos of friendly mouses
We practice mortars at Jewish houses
You remember Ahmed Fakid
He just lost his legs practicing to be a Shahid

Now my bombing's a routine task
I love wearing my new ski mask
Why should I learn a trade?
I just got my first rocket propelled grenade!

Just one problem, but it's old news
Lots of weapons, not enough Jews
But don't worry, dad and mother
I'll be practicing my new skills on my brother!

UPDATE: I just made a video of the song.

Trying Twitter

Since Twitter is so popular, I figured I'd give it a shot. I added a gadget on the left side where I will put up info I see around the net but that won't necessarily make it into their own blog posts.

My Twitter also has an RSS feed, if you're into that sort of thing....

This is only a test, so if I don't like it I might abandon it without notice. So far it looks useful.