Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, October 11, 2008

US textbooks treat Islam as the true religion

A couple of weeks ago, a book came out that detailed many cases of bias in US textbooks, which included such problematic passages as "“Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus?” (The World, Scott Foresman/Pearson). " A number of other troubling claims are made, although the brief description of the book doesn't give specific examples.

I just noticed that the report included a mind-blowing table that compares how Judaism, Christianity and Islam are described. In the examples below, the origins of Judaism and Christianity are consistently described as "claims" and "stories" but the claims of Islam are described factually:

Comparison of Language Used for Beliefs of the Three Major Religions in Selected Textbooks
Textbook	Judaism	Christianity	Islam
The World (Pearson/Scott Foresman)	Caption to a picture of a seder plate: "Foods on the seder plate are symbolic of an ancient Hebrew story."		"The pilgrimage, or hajj (haj), to Mecca is an essential part of Islam, the religion revealed to Muhammad . . . .
World History: Continuity and Change (Holt)	Glossary entry: “Ten Commandments: Moral laws Moses claimed to have received from the Hebrew God Yahweh on Mount Sinai.”		Glossary entry: “Qur’an Holy Book of Islam containing revelations received by Muhammad from God.”
World Civilizations: The Global Experience (Pearson)		Glossary entry: “Jesus of Nazareth” reads in part, “prophet and teacher among the Jews; believed by Christians to be the Messiah . . . .”	Glossary entry: "Muhammad Prophet of Islam . . .; received revelations from Allah in 610 C.E. and thereafter . . . .”
Modern World History: Patterns of Interaction.(McDougal Littell)		“According to the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth was born around 6 to 4 B.C.” “According to Jesus’ followers, he rose from the dead. . . .”	“Muhammad’s teachings, which are the revealed word of God . . . , are found in the holy book called the Qur’an.”
World Cultures and Geography - Eastern Hemisphere (McDougal Littell)	“Judaism is a story of exile.”	“Christians believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah.”	"The Qur'an is the collection of God's revelations to Muhammad"

This isn't scholarship, this is indoctrination.

PalArabs lie about Jews cutting down olive trees

From Palestinian Arab propaganda outlet Ma'an:

Settlers from the illegal Israeli settlement of Yitzhar in the northern West Bank attacked a Palestinian family collecting olives on Saturday morning, a government official told Ma’an. Mayor Burin Ali Eid of the village of Burin, near Nablus, said a fight broke out when settlers “chopped down five olive trees” owned by the family. Local Palestinian sources said that settlers cut down 15 olive trees in other Nablus-area attacks on farmers.

Yitzhar is a religious Jewish village and the residents would not desecrate the Sabbath by chopping down any trees, so it is clear that these claims are lies. Sure enough, Arutz-7 reports something completely different:

Members of the security team in Yitzhar, in Samaria, spotted a group of Arab men entering an Arab olive grove near the Lehava neighborhood of the community Saturday morning. IDF soldiers were notified and arrived at the scene to question the men and ensure that they did not pose a danger to residents of Yitzhar. The soldiers were surprised to see that the group was busy cutting down olive trees. The men were cutting the trees in a "violent manner," soldiers said, explaining that they tried to show that there was damage to the trees instead of simply pruning them. They were apparently planning to accuse Jewish residents of Yitzhar of cutting down the Arab-owned trees, repeating accusations that have been made in recent years. The owner of the trees was not present and had not notified the army that he was planning to prune his grove, which Palestinian Authority farmers near Jewish towns are required to do.

The IDF did not quite confirm the Yitzhar residents' story:

Following Palestinian reports about clashes between settlers and Palestinian farmers near the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, the IDF stated that the farmers arrived at the olive groves without the required permit. The statement said that after the farmers arrived in the area to pick olives, settlers began to crowd around them. IDF soldiers arrived on the scene, fired in the air and separated between the rival groups, restoring calm.

While it is hard to know exactly what happened, it is clear that the Palestinian Arab version is simply a lie, and if any olive trees were cut down on Saturday they were vandalized by Palestinian Arabs themselves.

The Guardian rips off the Elder

Wow, I'm getting ripped off by the big guys now!

An October 7th article in The Guardian is eerily similar to my October 5th posting about Lebanon wanting to sue Israel over hummus and other foods.

In general, I wouldn't think so - Israeli media picked up on the story on Monday - but the reporter, Jenny Percival, not only copies my research on the history of those dishes, but she even links to the same Firas Press article - autotranslated - that I did! I have never seen an MSM outlet link to a Google autotranslated article, something I do often.

So nice to know that my blog allows paid reporters to be lazy and, shall we say, acquisitive.

The good news

Ma'an News (Arabic) is reporting that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said that the current financial crisis is proof that God is punishing America for its support of Israel.

He might have his own economic problems sooner than he thinks, though.

According to an article in the Gulf Times last month, Iran needs the price of crude oil to be above $90 a barrel to avoid running the country at a deficit:

“Iran’s break-even price is $ 90 a barrel, and that is a big issue in Iran right now,” Khan said.

“If prices dip below $ 90 a barrel, and we have seen it touch $ 89 earlier this week, then they would have to tighten their public expenditure policy, and probably cut subsidies, which would be an issue for the government there – the public would not be content,” he said.

Iraq has the highest break-even price in the region, according to the IMF figures. The war-torn country needs prices above $ 110 a barrel to balance its books.

The price of crude traded at below $80 in London today.

Which means that Hamas' main source of income is in danger of drying up.

The BBC mentions:

"The direct impact of this financial crisis in the United States for the Iranian people, could actually be more than for the American people, because of the oil price, and our dependency on oil income," explained Saeed Leylaz, one of Iran's most outspoken and independent-minded economists

"If the oil price for Iranian oil will be $75 to $80 a barrel, we will lose $50bn US dollars (a year) and that means we are losing between $700 and $800 per head."

Not to mention that Iran's economy has been shaky to begin with. As a result of dropping oil revenues, Ahmadinejad tried to impose a 3% sales tax - and merchants responded by going on strike yesterday, causing him to back down. Inflation in Iran is at nearly a 30% rate officially, the unemployment rate of working-age Iranians is believed to be 20%, and Iran's economy has not grown per capita since the revolution in 1979.

So Haniyeh might want to think twice before gloating over the West's financial problems. He might have worse ones very soon.

Today's Jew-hatred in TPV

It's been a while since I mentioned The People's Voice, a ridiculous website that I wouldn't bother with except for the fact that Google still indexes it as a "news" site at news.google.com.

Today's anti-semitism at TPV is a slam dunk, because the author freely admits his feelings:

the Zionists had as much to do with making whatever actually did happen in the camps as any other force including the Hitler government. They declared war on Germany long before anything took place. Once there were Jews in the camps they used powerful strong arm tactics to keep them there and to deny aid organizations the opportunity to provide aid. They would not let them emigrate and afterwards Ben Gurion and others had much to say about what a great investment that turned out to be....

I’m going to have to say that Israel is an abomination and an evil empire. Since all of the things stated in the State Department’s lists of what defines an anti-Semite happen to be true, it’s no surprise that Israel and her supporters have the muscle to enforce their fascist will world wide. Israel is a nation of parasites that is bent on world domination. It has to be said because it is true and it can’t be refuted because the evidence is right in front of you. It’s in the control exerted over world leaders in what they are compelled to say and do. It’s found underneath many of the many troubles that are blamed on others. The players engaged in the political and financial manipulations are right there to be seen.

Jews are two percent of the American population and a much, much smaller percentage of the world’s population yet… some unfortunate number of them causes- or enable more problems than any other group of people on Earth. They do control the media and exert enormous influence over the financial world and governments around the globe. Lest it be thought that I am opposed to Jews period, I would state that I am a friend of the Neturei Karta, all True Torah Jews and the distressingly small number of Jews who protest the Ashke-Nazi actions of their psychopathic fellows.

It seems that the Zionists intended for and assisted in their holocaust for the purpose of blackmailing the world. They’ve realized more profit from this event than the victims of every other holocaust on Earth since presently recorded history began. There now seem to be more holocaust survivors than there were when the war ended. This holocaust is the greatest publicity stunt in the history of the world. They’re gotten their money’s worth and now it’s time for the truth to be told and for these murderous scoundrels to be exposed and rendered powerless by whatever means are necessary. My personal expectation is that something is going to happen in this regard but I’m not going to get into predicting what that is.

Doesn't look "anti-Zionist" to me!

You can inform Google about this article here. The URL is www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2008/10/10/the_holocaust_blackmail_game_boy_1 and the title of the article is "The Holocaust Blackmail Game-Boy".

They might remove the article itself from their index, but, as usual, they'll leave The People's Voice as a seemingly legitimate "news" source, because that's what they have done for years even though this is hardly the first rabid, foaming at the mouth Jew-hating article published there.

A couple more PalArab deaths, plus other news

At least two dead in a new tunnel explosion.

And a victim of another "clan clash" near Qalqilya.

In other news, Hamas is not only building tunnels in Gaza. The PA discovered tunnels where Hamas was storing explosives and they found an explosives factory, apparently anticipating expanding their war to the West Bank.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count climbs to 198.

Latest Zionist crime: forcing prisoners to wear orange uniforms

Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades is up in arms over the latest Zionist crime. From their English website:

Palestinian captives in the Zionist Hadarim prison asserted that they won't wear the orange uniform, which the Zionist prison authority tries to impose on them, urging Palestinian masses to support them in this regard.

Lawyer Buthaina Dakmak of the Mandela foundation that caters from Palestinian captives in Zionist jails met Palestinian MP Ahmad Sa'adat, the secretary-general of the PFLP, and Tawfeek Abu Na'im, one of Hamas's political leaders in the Hadarem jail, adding that both Palestinian leaders highlighted the importance of the Palestinian popular support in this regard.

She also quoted the two leaders as asserting that four of the Palestinian detainees were sent by the IPA to the isolation cells for rejecting to wear the orange uniform. She said that the four prisoners were denied their simplest human rights and that they were completely isolated.

The two Palestinian leaders, according to Dakmak, accused the IPA of attempting to deceive the captives by bringing new captives to the said jail, and then convincing them to wear the orange uniform in a bid to persuade other captives to accept it.

Palestinian captives were determined not to bow to the IPA pressures to wear the orange uniform, underlining that the orange uniform was fit for criminals, underscoring that they aren’t criminals but rather they are, as the entire world know, political prisoners and freedom fighters.

The captives also confirmed that the orange uniform bears reflectors that could turn them into a target for the Zionist soldiers, even in the darkness.

Somehow, I think if Israeli soldiers wanted to shoot them in prison, they could manage quite nicely without the help of reflective orange clothing.

Friday morning links

Sultan Knish finds a 13th century Selicha which describes Arab and Muslim subjugation of the Jews at that time, plus an interesting apparent halachic implication.

My Right Word dissects the events at Akko (Acre) on Yom Kippur.

The Augean Stables notes some Good News About Israel's Arabs - more are joining the IDF.

Israellycool takes on Practical Jihad for Dummies.

16 weeks in a row

For sixteen consecutive weeks, Palestinian Arabs have managed to kill more of each other than the evil IDF.

The PCHR combined their report for the last two weeks, and they still claim that settlers killed a shepherd in late September, something that clearly didn't happen. So for the week starting September 25 the score was 1-0, and for the week of October 2 the score was 3-0.

From the beginning of September, the score is about 39-3.

And in other peaceful PalArab news....

Israel's "peace partners" in Ramallah celebrated the perception that Israel lost the Yom Kippur war on this 35th anniversary of that war - by the Hebrew calendar.

A PalArab was shot and killed in Rafah it what appears to be a clan clash.

Another Gaza rocket.

Hamas arrested four members of Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

Egypt arrested 30 tunnel smugglers in the largest operation of its kind.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 195.

Today's lies from the PalArab press

It seems that some Jews decided to visit the holiest place on the planet on the holiest day of the year. There is no evidence that they brought weapons, or threatened anyone, or did anything provocative. Except, of course, wanting to be on sacred Jewish land that Muslims also claim.

Ma'an is screaming an "extremist gang attacks Al-Aqsa Mosque":

An Islamic charity is outraged that a "massive" group of Israeli settlers, rabbis and politicians attempted to break into the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem early Thursday morning.

The Al-Aqsa Foundation for Islamic Waqf and Heritage claimed that Israeli extremists "carried out several failed attempts to break into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound" on Thursday.

Extremists shouted anti-Muslim slogans while others performed religious rituals in the mosque's outside yard, Israeli police looking on and reportedly refusing to act.

Witnesses told members of the Palestinian press that rioters numbered "at least 100" and that among them was a member of the Israeli Knesset.

PNN's coverage is even less credible:

The Waqf has closed several sections of Al Aqsa Mosque since Wednesday in an attempt to shield the holy site from an onslaught of Jewish groups, including rabbis and Israeli politicians.
The Al Aqsa Foundation for the Preservation of Islamic Heritage issued a warning after receiving information that fundamentalists intended to descend on the Muslim holy site as is the yearly case during Yom Kippur.

Mass marches of Jews incurred into the grounds of Al-Haram Ash-Sharif under heavy guard in what some referred to as a “pilgrimage” while others said it was a “mission to stop the Al Aqsa Foundation.”

If religious Jews wanted to go to the Temple Mount on Yom Kippur, chances are they wouldn't say the reason was to "stop the Al Aqsa Foundation," This sounds like a completely made-up story by that group.

Not to mention that, unlike Muslims, religious Jews do not spend their holiest day trying to attack or incite others - they have more important things to worry about.

Note also that this story says that the Arabs began making moves on Wednesday, not Yom Kippur, which means that they were looking for something - anything - to happen that they could spin into an attack before it even happened.

And the lies become even more transparent:

Reports of incursions began coming in yesterday morning and the Waqf and Al Aqsa Foundation called for an increased presence inside the Mosque during Yom Kippur in order to protect the holy site from fundamentalists. This is historically the most difficult of Jewish holidays for Palestinians as racist attacks normally hit a yearly high.
A crew from the Al Aqsa Foundation took a place inside the Mosque beginning yesterday morning and has been monitoring the situation since. Beginning at 7:00 am Wednesday the first group of Jewish fundamentalists stormed Al Aqsa Mosque shouting they had come to “stop the Al Aqsa Foundation” while several began to perform Jewish religious rites. A group of 100 came with Rabbi and Israeli politician Uri Ariel. They attempted to storm the Mosque from Bab Al Maghrarbeh (Moroccans Gate) and engaged in a stand-off while shouting against the Foundation, reports from inside indicate.
In an interview with the Director of the Waqf in Jerusalem the Sheikh said, “We categorically reject the Israeli practices and those of the extremists who take it as their right to raid the holy mosque of Al Aqsa. We have submitted a strong protest to what has happened.”

Now they are saying that these "attacks" began on Wednesday morning!

Needless to say, there are no photographs of this "storming" even though it supposedly started on Wednesday, nothing from the MSM which would have swarmed all over to take pictures of these Jewish extremists, not a peep from Ha'aretz.

In other words, the only people who claim that this event happened in anything but the most peaceful manner are the people who consistently agitate and lie about Jewish plots to demolish the mosque and and build the Thurd Temple - in other words, persistent liars that reliably get quoted in the Arab press.

G'mar chatima tovah 5769 - גמר חתימה טובה

Since many of my readers are a number of hours ahead of me, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a G'mar Chatima Tovah - may you be sealed in the Book of Life.

For those who are reaching this page by Googling it and looking for the translation, here it is:

Literally: A good final sealing
Idiomatically: May you be inscribed (in the Book of Life) for Good

I wish all of my Jewish readers an easy fast and a meaningful Yom Kippur. I unconditionally forgive anyone who may have wronged me during this year, and I ask forgiveness for anyone I may have wronged as well.

May this be a year of peace, prosperity, unity and wisdom.

Fatah moving towards Iran?

David Bedein points to a Middle East Newsline article that claims that Fatah leaders have been engaged in talks with Iran:

At a time when the United States and other western nations are demanding that all nations initiate sanctions against Iran, the Middle East Newsline has confirmed that the American-sponsored Palestinian Authority (PA) and its ruling Fatah movement has been quietly moving toward closer relations with Iran.

Senior Fatah members have been conducting a dialogue with Iran and its Hezbollah militia. The sources said the Fatah leaders have sought Iranian financing and diplomatic support.

"We have seen how Iranian support has helped Hamas everywhere in the Arab and Islamic world," a Palestinian source said. "Fatah wants the same thing."

Palestinian security commanders have endorsed a PA approach to Iran. The sources said several commanders called for Iranian cooperation in a proposal submitted to PA President Mahmoud Abbas in mid-2008.

"Iran has been paying more than 150 Fatah fighters..." the source said. "Iran can afford to be choosy."

I would like to see a bit more evidence. The hatred that Fatah sympathizers have exhibited on Arabic websites towards "Shi'ites" and Hamas for exactly this sort of thing has been pretty strong.

Still, this is something to keep an eye on.

Netanyahu's peace plan

The Financial Times publishes an extremely skeptical interview of Binyamin Netanyahu where he outlines his peace plan with Palestinian Arabs. I have italicized the bias and bolded the actual plan:

Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu grabs a green marker and jumps from his seat to sketch a map of the West Bank on a whiteboard. With vigorous strokes, the former Israeli prime minister and current leader of the rightwing Likud party outlines his plan for tackling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
What emerges is not what the Palestinians and almost the entire international community have in mind, which is a contiguous Palestinian state that follows broadly the borders in place before the 1967 war and the Israeli occupation. Instead, Mr Netanyahu wants to see the West Bank divided into a collection of disconnected economic zones with dedicated business projects.
The ancient town of Jericho, for instance, should capitalise on its proximity to the Jordan River to attract Baptist tourists from the US – a location which the hawkish leader of the Israeli opposition says is “easily worth tens of thousands of jobs”.
The Palestinians, Mr Netanyahu adds, would be allowed to hold on to their population centres. Other parts of the West Bank, such as the Judean desert and the Jordan Valley, should not leave Israeli control: “These areas are very significant for us because they are our strategic security belt,” he says.
Mr Netanyahu says he does not want to stop the current peace talks between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. But he would shift the emphasis away from a comprehensive settlement aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state towards practical steps designed to bolster living standards in the West Bank. “It is not so much that peace brings prosperity – it is that prosperity brings peace,” he says.
Such hawkish views, which run counter to current Israeli policy, infuriate Palestinian leaders, who reject Mr Netanyahu’s plan as an attempt to confine them into Bantustans – partially self-governing areas.
They may also exasperate many of Israel’s allies abroad, which overwhelmingly support the idea of an independent – and contiguous – Palestinian state.
Mr Netanyahu does not have the opportunity to put his plans into practice quite yet. For the moment, he has to contend with the indignities of life as an ordinary legislator in a tiny office.
It is from this modest perch that Mr Netanyahu has watched Israel’s current political crisis unfold, beginning with the publication of new corruption allegations against Ehud Olmert and his resignation as Israeli prime minister, right up to the current struggle of Tzipi Livni, his designated successor, to form a new government.
He makes clear that a second Netanyahu-led government would be guided by much the same worldviews that turned him into such a polarising figure in the first place: a Reaganesque belief in low taxes, small government and free markets, coupled with a Bushian commitment to defeat “radical Islam” as the shared enemy of Israel, the US and Europe.
Resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians – the focus of both Mr Olmert’s and Ms Livni’s attention – is a second-order issue for the Likud leader: “The issue for me is not the Palestinian problem. I think that conflict has been replaced by the battle between radical Islam and the western world,” he says.
Handing back control of the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the Palestinians as part of a peace deal, argues Mr Netanyahu, would simply strengthen the hand of Israel’s Iranian foe. “Any area we withdraw from will be taken over by Iran and its proxies,” he claims, pointing to the takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group, last year. “Both Lebanon and Gaza have become Iranian bases, and they would get a third one if we retreat from the West Bank.”

With the bias against Netanyahu dripping from the FT's pages, a reader would be tempted to dismiss Netanyahu's plans as just the ravings of an extremist lunatic.

Why, exactly, is emphasizing the ability for Palestinian Arabs to build their own economy - independent of Israel, to which it is now completely dependent - considered "hawkish?" What exactly is "rightwing" about emphasizing improving the lives of ordinary PalArabs to be much better than they are now after 15 years of a failed "peace plan" and roadmap to an inevitable - and inevitable failure - of a state? Why is it considered beyond the pale for an Israeli leader to prioritize the safety of Israelis?

(The "bantustan" argument is also absurd. The different economic areas would be no more disconnected than Manhattan is from Brooklyn, where oppressed New Yorkers are forced not only to go through manned checkpoints - but they have to pay for the privilege!)

Human rights for Palestinian Arabs, who have been screwed by the entire world for decades, are important. Those who are stuck in so-called "refugee camps" in Lebanon and Syria and Jordan should be integrated as full citizens into the countries they have lived in for two generations. The ones in the territories should have the ability to live in dignity - with their own jobs and their own independent economy. They should have control over their day-to-day affairs.

However, an independent "Palestine" which is likely to be co-opted by radical Islamists is not a human right. And the human rights of Israelis who would be the victims of another Iranian-backed Hamastan in the West Bank are no less important than the human rights of West Bank Arabs. (Neither, for that matter, are the human rights of the Jews who have also raised families in the West Bank to live in peace and security in their homes.)

There is nothing hawkish about emphasizing real human rights for Palestinian Arabs, in pushing for them to become prosperous and no longer dependent on billions of dollars from the international community. And given the track record of Oslo and its progeny, a prestigious economic newspaper should not be so dismissive of a plan that focuses on building an independent economy where none exists today.

Prisoners get expensive operations for free, PalArabs upset

Usually, a newspaper story will say something and then back it up with some background information.

Instead, Ma'an says something that demolishes its background information:

Bethlehem – Ma’an – A Palestinian sentenced to life imprisonment in an Israeli jail underwent his third major operation since his sentencing 16 years ago.

Relatives of prisoner Rizaq Salah, who is from the town of Al-Khadr near Bethlehem, said doctors performed a cholecystectomy on the man as treatment for severe stomach pain.

Doctors performed an appendectomy on the prisoner in 1995, which was shortly after they extracted liquids from his knee.

Sounds pretty humane, doesn't it? But wait:

Bethlehem-based Prisoners’ Society demanded in a statement received by Ma’an that Israel release Palestinians suffering from serious illness. The society estimated that around 1,000 Palestinians need urgent operations or are disabled as the result of being shot by Israeli soldiers during apprehension.

If the Prisoners' Society wants to see prisoners get needed surgery, they should want them to stay in Israeli jails!