Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Anti-semites HATE Palin

Mark Glenn, who is a proud Jew-hater whose quotes have polluted the Internet for a long time, has determined that Sarah Palin is "Israel's bitch."

And the author of "Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence" not surprisingly finds Palin to also be utterly unacceptable to the rabid anti-semitic crowd, saying that she would be like Queen Esther:

And, in the Book of Esther, one finds that Queen Esther—Palin’s role model—engaged in intrigues that resulted in the mass murder of 75,000 Persians who were considered a threat to the Jewish people, just as today’s Iran is likewise perceived as Israel’s greatest danger.

While this same crowd has been critical of Biden as well with his self-description as a Zionist, they go off the rails when talking about Palin. One can almost feel the spittle being dripped on the keyboard as these unapologetic haters type their unintentionally funny bile for their adoring fans.

In a similar political note, prominent Arab-American Ray Hanania writes a column that an neat flip side of my argument that Obama might be better for Israel because of his antipathy towards it (and Israel's likely reaction,) arguing that Arabs should vote for McCain because they will be disappointed that Obama, presumed to be their friend, will turn on them:

Arab Americans were hopeful with Obama because Obama comes from an oppressed South Side Chicago African American community, although he is an elitist who has always been above the suffering of African Americans. Nevertheless, Obama was close to Arab activists — most extremists — who he needed when he was running before to help raise funds and generate votes.

...
But there is one hope for Arab Americans. It is a theory based on the contrarian view that the best way to help a cause is not to constantly seek the best candidate and always be disappointed. It is the view that the best way to bring change is to keep the environment hostile. That is, don’t support Obama — just because he has a middle name that is Muslim (Hussein is not an Arab name, it is a Muslim name. I don’t know one Aran Christian named Hussein, unlike Abdullah, which is an Arab named shared by Christians and Muslims). The theory goes that instead of supporting Obama, who can’t do the right thing because his hands are tied by the reality of American politics, support John McCain who everyone presumes is more pro-Israel than Obama. The truth is, McCain, with his support of Israel, could do more to force Israel’s government to be more objective and do the right thing.

McCain, by virtue of the fact that he is viewed as being more supportive of Israel, could have the strength to do the right thing.
Obama will let the Arab American community down not because he wants to but because that is the inherent nature of an American political system where the Arab activism is at an extremist and dysfunctional minimal. If Obama lets us down, as he is certain to do, that would be far more traumatic for Arab Americans. Because the worst kind of disappointment come from friends, not enemies.

Notice how while Obama apologists will downplay his connections to radical Arabs in Chicago, Hanania - who was born in Chicago - readily admits them.

(I need to stress again that my contrarian argument is based on the fact that Israel's current government cannot stand up for its own Zionist ideals when asked by "friends" in the White House to give more and more concessions, and the real solution is for Israel to get leadership that can articulate its own needs and stand up to pressure from friend and enemy alike, while Americans elect who would be best for America.)

Sunday linkfest

Lots of great stuff out there today:

Muslim preacher Omar Bakri threatened Paul McCartney's life for agreeing to play in a concert in Israel.

Did the Iranian Paralympic basketball team pull out of competition over a possible match with Israel?

One of the major themes of blogs this week was Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin. For those who like to get caught up in the minutiae of American politics, this article by Charles Krauthammer is a must-read.

Did The Jerusalem Post cave to legal pressure from a Guardian columnist? It does seem strange that they would remove a non-offensive "counterpoint" column because of an unmoderated comment that got through...

Batya muses on the recent uptick of attacks on Jews from Arabs in the West Bank, wondering if they are responses to Israel's recent attempts at "peace".

Plus she also hosts this week's Haveil Havalim roundup of the best of the Jewish blogosphere.

Israelis invent a suit that allows some disabled people to walk, and another that might allow regular people to fly.

Two more tunnel deaths

Firas reports a man killed when he fell down the entrance of a smuggling tunnel in Gaza, saying that this was the second such death in 24 hours. This means that the 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 164.

Fatwa of the day: OK to kill immoral media moguls

From AP, of all places:(h/t LGF):

Saudi Arabia’s top judiciary official has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast immoral content.

The 79-year-old Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan said Thursday that satellite channels cause the “deviance of thousands of people.” ...

Al-Lihedan was answering listeners’ questions during the daily “Light in the Path” radio program in which he and others make rulings on what is permissible under Islamic law. One caller asked about Islam’s view of the owners of satellite TV channels that show “bad programs” during Ramadan.

“I want to advise the owners of these channels, who broadcast calls for such indecency and impudence ... and I warn them of the consequences,” he said.

“What does the owner of these networks think, when he provides seduction, obscenity and vulgarity?” he said.

“Those calling for corrupt beliefs, certainly it’s permissible to kill them,” he said. “Those calling for sedition, those who are able to prevent it but don’t, it is permissible to kill them.”

I guess this means that Time Warner, Viacom and Disney executives might have to start being a little more suspicious of the packages they get in the mail...

Manhattan

On Wednesday night, Soccer Dad asked me if I still had a picture I had made years ago and posted on this blog of a panorama of Manhattan taken from Jersey City. Unfortunately, the image hosting service that I stored it on went out of business and I no longer have the original.

As a result, I offered to create a new one.

Yesterday morning, I took a series of photos from a similar vantage point and sent them to him. Unfortunately, photographing Manhattan from New Jersey is problematic in mornings, as the sun is rising behind the skyline, so I wasn't altogether happy with the results:

(click to enlarge)

The good news is that I got the shot I posted yesterday of the Jersey City Fire Department shooting plumes of red, white and blue-colored water with the Statue of Liberty visible in the background.

In the afternoon, I tried once again to capture a panorama of Manhattan, with better results:

(click to enlarge)

The rightmost image of the series was slightly out of focus but altogether I am happy with the results, and Soccer Dad used it to illustrate his 9/11 round-up.

I used my latest camera, a Nikon Coolpix S210, and I used Autostitch software to piece the ten images together (11 images in the morning shot.) Autostitch is the easiest software I've seen yet for doing this, and it works in two dimensions as well.

Friday PalArab press roundup

A 48-year old woman was killed by someone shooting indiscriminately in the air near Nablus.

Hamas continues to arrest doctors in Gaza, abducting a pediatric surgeon and a woman doctor (whose husband they had arrested a few days before.)

A terror group called Al Tawhid took credit for a bomb at the Kissufim junction today.

Another day, another bizarre study: An Arab group talks about an increasing number of Jerusalem-area Arabs addicted to drugs - and says that Israel is pushing these drugs to help "Judaize" Jerusalem. Here's the logic: Since drug abusers need lots of money for their habits, they are more likely to sell their houses to Jews.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 162.

For a particularly hilarious example of how rumors start in the Muslim world, check out this blog post:

Israel is once again humiliating the Muslims by making fun of the Islamic symbols.

The Israeli mass Media recently published a photo of toilet bowls produced by a certain company, shaped in “Women In Jilbab".

This type of toilet bowl to facilitate urination, according to the Israeli mass Media are selling very well in the Israeli market.

A number of sources as cited by Albawaba, reported that the shape of the toilet bowl was purposely aimed at humiliating the Islamic symbols and the Muslims.

The first productions originated from the US and then imported by Israel. Now, toilet bowls of this shape can be commonly found in Israel.

Sorry to say, but how lowly is the attitude of the people of these two nations (Christian U.S. - Zionist Israel), they have no respect for other people’s religions. They can never stop poking fun at others. Little do they realize that their actions only reveal their immorality further. You can never find the Muslims doing likewise, the Muslims don’t insult other faiths or the lack of it thereof. We dont behave like immature or retarded people.

Of course, this urinal is poking fun at nuns, not Muslim women, and has nothing to do with Israel. And I have no idea if this really came from Albawaba or if the blogger made it up (no link was given.)

(I haven't yet seen any deadly Catholic riots over this, either.)

But truth has little to do with how bizarre rumors spread in the Islamic world, so we might be catching one in its early stages here.

In fact, this blogger may be a source for a number of rumors in the Muslim world.

He has no shortage of completely made-up posts. In at least one case, a post he wrote or pasted ended up being reproduced at Pakistan Daily two days later, about a supposed First Zionist-Christian Congress in Switzerland earlier this month. No real news source mentions this conference.

Saudi Arabia arrests five bloggers

From Saudi Gazette:

JEDDAH – Security authorities have arrested three Saudis and two expatriates for spreading false propaganda through the Internet, the Ministry of Interior announced on Wednesday.

The five were misleading young people, manipulating their religious sentiments and instigating them to create trouble, an official source at the ministry said.

Using pseudonyms to suggest they have supporters, the five accused would thus lure people to communicate with them as a first step towards recruitment for “vicious and wicked goals,” the source said.

“Despite the difficulty of laying such traps, our security men are highly capable and qualified to track down and arrest such deviants who spread wrong ideas wherever they are,” Interior Ministry spokesman Major Gen. Mansour Al-Turki told Saudi Gazette.

“These deviant mentalities use modern technology like the Internet to spread to mislead surfers and spread their deviant methodology,” he said without revealing where the five accused were arrested. “It doesn’t matter which cities they are from. What matters is their deviant thinking,” he said.

The Ministry cautioned the public about advocates of “deviant thoughts, their tricky methods and malicious intentions to mislead the sons of the soil and turn them into tools in the hands of their enemies who are conspiring against their country on which Almighty Allah has bestowed the honor of serving the Two Holy Harams.” The statement warned against falling victim “to these deviants who use deceptive and misrepresentative methods in promoting their evil thoughts.”

From this article it is a little hard to figure out what exactly these people were saying. The over-use of the word "deviant" implies homosexuality, but some of their names imply terrorism ("The Encyclopedia of Jihad.") Were they advocating an overthrow of the monarchy? Were they writing fictional stories about Mohammed?

A better hint may be seen in a recent law that passed in neighboring Kuwait. The law is set to "criminalize the promotion of immoral conduct, encouraging anti-government sentiments, divulging state secrets, or insulting Islam online." Chances are that these were the sorts of things that the "deviant" bloggers were doing.

The hole in the sky (Repost from 2006)

(This post will remain on the top today, scroll down for other posts.)

This is a view of lower Manhattan at around 9:59 AM on September 11, 2006.

It is difficult for people who are unfamiliar with the skyline to understand how huge the twin towers were. I attempted to show in this picture, in a very limited way, the enormity of what was lost.

ISM loves the Muslim Brotherhood

As if we needed any more proof, here is yet another tie between the "peace activists" of the International Solidarity Movement (and their affiliates in the Free Gaza movement) and the extremist inspiration for al Qaeda and Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood.

From the ISM site:

Egyptian Committee Against the Gaza Siege: At 8am this morning (10th September), a first group from the Egyptian Committee Against the Gaza Siege, mainly Labor Party’s members, left Cairo in 4 micro-buses with food and medicine to go and try to break the criminal siege of Gaza.
When they arrived at Ismailia, located at 100 km from Cairo and 30 km from the Suez Canal, the Sinai entrance, the Egyptian police stopped the convoy and took away the driving licences of the drivers, preventing them to go forward
More than 150 people got outside the buses with Palestinian and Egyptian flags and chanting slogans in support of the Palestinians.
Several national forces are participating in this action, including the Committee Against the Gaza Siege, Engineers against Detention, al-Karamah party, Labour Party, Nasserist party, Kifâya, independent lawyers, March 9 Movement, April 6 Movement and Muslim Brotherhood’s members.

Notice how the ISM tries to downplay the Muslim Brotherhood's involvement in this protest, which is clearly a Western-style protest architected by ISM members to begin with (the photos on the site show "activists" doing sit-ins and the like.)

But if you look at the wire-service reports of the protest, the Muslim Brotherhood is mentioned a bit more prominently. From AFP:

The group of judges, independent MPs, members of the main opposition Muslim Brotherhood and activists from other parties wants to protest the continued closure of the Rafah crossing by Israel and Egypt.

From Reuters:

Along with many opposition groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition force in the country, favours ending the blockade and opening the border for goods and people.

Not that these other parties are so peaceful either. The Socialist Labor Party is currently illegal in Egypt, and supports the imposition fo Sharia law throughout that nation. In fact, it tried to form a coalition with the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1990 elections.

The Al-Karama party praises Maomar Khaddafi, Libya's loopy dictator not known for his human-rights record.

Yet the ISM happily partners with groups that openly advocate and condone violence, all the while maintaining that it is a "peace" group.

Apparently, the only credentials one needs to be considered a "peace activist" is to advocate the destruction of the US and Israel.

Click on image to make it larger.

This was the scene opposite the site of the World Trade Center this morning at 8:46, the moment the first plane crashed into the North Tower seven years ago. The Jersey City Fire Department shot red, white and blue water from a fireboat.

The Statue of Liberty can be seen in the background, next to Ellis Island.

You know how much Hezbollah loves "fireworks"

From Monsters and Critics:

Four Syrians and a Lebanese were killed when a truck loaded with smuggled fireworks from Syria exploded Thursday near the Lebanese-Syrian border in eastern Lebanon, police said.
The alleged fireworks smuggling operation came a few days after a UN team assessing the monitoring of the border said progress in fortifying it had been minimal and remained 'penetrable'.

'Lebanon has not yet succeeded in enhancing the overall security of its borders in any significant manner,' the report said.

Oh yeah. Fireworks.

12 weeks in a row

For the twelfth consecutive week, Palestinian Arabs have managed to kill each other more than the evil IDF has managed to kill them.

The score this week (Thursday-Wednesday) is 3-1. (A Nablus man was reportedly killed by the IDF as they were arresting a known Fatah terrorist, for the first Palestinian death from the IDF in nearly six weeks.)

Thursday PalArab press roundup

Another man was killed as the tunnel he was helping to dig collapsed under the Gaza/Egypt border.

Following yesterday's explosions aimed at Hamas sites in Gaza, two Fatah men were arrested in a car full of explosives.

Islamic Jihad held its annual Iftar breakfast banquet for "journalists and intellectuals" south of Gaza City. The terrorist speakers stressed to the journalists what an important job they had in telling the world about their side of the story. (Pictures of the banquet here.)

The DFLP threatened to break the "calm" in face of alleged Israeli aggression. Islamic Jihad characterized the "calm" as "scandalous."

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 161.

Lauren Booth, idiot extraordinaire

From YNet:

In a telephone interview with Ynet on Wednesday, Booth slammed Israel's policies and called Gaza "the largest concentration camp in the world today. I was startled the Israelis agreed to this.”

Despite her current predicament, Booth said she has no regrets. "My children are the ones who are suffering, because I'm being prevented from leaving and they can't see me. I don't regret it, because I wanted to come here and help these children who are suffering on a daily basis," she said.

Apparently, her children miss her but she doesn't miss them too much.

When asked about Israel's right to respond to incessant attacks emanating from Gaza, Booth evoked Holocaust-related rhetoric. "There is no right to punish people this way. There is no justification for this kind of collective punishment. You were in the concentration camps, and I can’t believe that you are allowing the creation of such a camp yourselves.”

“The Palestinians’ suffering is physical, mental and emotional," she went on, "there is not a family here in which someone is not in desperate need of work, shelter or food. This is a humanitarian crisis on the scale of Darfur. "

Indeed, I have photographic evidence of the terrible conditions these concentration-camp inmates have to suffer through.

On the very same day that Lauren Booth gave this interview, Islamic Jihad held their annual Iftar breakfast for journalists south of Gaza City in a restaurant. Palestine Today covered the event.

Note the distended stomachs, the threadbare clothing, the suffering faces, and the awful humanitarian conditions that these brave Gazans are forced to survive in, day in and day out:

I don't know about you, but when I first saw these pictures the very first word that came to my mind was "Darfur!"

I was so surprised to find out that the deplorable conditions seen in these pictures did not take place in sub-Saharan Africa or in a Nazi concentration camp.

Poor Lauren, forced to witness such wide-scale suffering and starvation.