Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Terror attack in Jerusalem; Ma'an gets facts backwards

There was a terror attack this morning in Jerusalem where an Arab stabbed a policeman and a 86-year old man. The terrorist was shot by the injured policeman, and he then stabbed the older man to death before being arrested.

The Palestinian Arab news outlet Ma'an, naturally, gets the basic facts wrong. For the past hour both its Arabic and English sites are still saying that the attacker was shot to death by Israeli police, and its adds some more fanciful fiction as well:

Israeli police then shot the attacker, killing him. One eyewitness reported that the man was detained before he was shot.

Even the version updated at 12:50 PM does not include the fact that the victim died, which was reported an hour beforehand, nor that the attacker is still alive in serious condition but conscious.

Providing yet another example of how even the most Westernized of Palestinian Arab media is filled with baldfaced lies.

Jordanian poet arrested for apostasy

That moderate Arab friend of ours, Jordan, has just arrested a poet for "apostasy" two weeks after Jordan's Grand Mufti declared the artist as an "enemy of Islam."

The poet, 27-year old Islam Samhan, published a collection of his poems eight months ago. Only recently has this been noticed by the Grand Mufti, and Jordan now says that this publication was "illegal" as every published work must be registered with Jordan's Press and Publication Department. Samhan claims that it was registered.

All this comes as something of a surprise to Samhan, whose book, In a Slim Shadow, published eight months ago, is a collection of his best work over the past decade. The ministry of culture even bought 50 copies.

The offensive poems include:

One that compares the poet's loneliness to that of the biblical Joseph, called Yusuf in the Quran. (This one is the one that caught the Mufti's attention.)

In a second, Samhan has a character address God, which his critics say personifies God.

In another the woman is talking to God while lying beneath a see-through sheet. Samhan said he was referring to the gods of Greek mythology.

Again, this is not Saudi Arabia or Iran. This is the Jordan that is often described in the Western media as "cosmopolitan" with a thriving nightlife - and a plethora of massage parlors.

It is instructive that the Mufti made his accusations weeks ago, on literature published months ago, after the author has publicly read from his works to acclaim. Jordan's authorities clearly felt pressure from the religious establishment to cave to 7th century theocratic mores.

PalArab news roundup

An Islamic Jihad terrorist was accidentally killed during "training exercises" in Gaza.

A mortar was shot from Gaza to Israel on Tuesday night.

Hamas claims to have stopped an assassination attempt again one of their leaders in Gaza. "Unknown persons" tried to set a remote-controlled bomb near the leader's house.

A union leader says that Hamas has so far closed some 450 medical clinics in Gaza since the doctor strike started a couple of months ago. Still no word from Doctors Without Borders.

A breakaway Fatah movement has started in Syria called Fatah Uprising. Not surprisingly, this wing of the Fatah movement rejects all attempts at a peaceful resolution.

There is a tomato shortage in the West Bank. The reason? Jews were buying West Bank tomatoes at higher prices for the Sukkot holiday, tripling the prices. Even when Palestinian Arab farmers get rich from Jews, the story at Ma'an gets twisted as if Jews are forcing Palestinian Arab families to starve.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now 202.

It looks like Rice really did praise Hamas

In a story that I've been following for nearly two weeks, it appears that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice may have really sent a message to Hamas that praised them for their actions. From Al Jazeera:

The US state department has denied that Condoleezza Rice, the country's secretary of state, sent a message to Hamas' senior political adviser praising the Palestinian movement for its halt in firing rockets into Israel.

The so-called "verbal communication" between the US and Khaled Meshaal is said to have been received this month through mediators visiting the Gaza Strip.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas spokesman, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the message also stated US support for the inter-Palestinian dialogue mediated by Egypt.

Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, said Hamas is not denying that communications with the US have taken place.

However, the organisation has said that they have not received anything official from the US, she said.

"I would like to inform you that your maintenance of the ceasefire is an absolute Palestinian interest and will be for the benefit of the people of Gaza and of course Hamas, which seized control of the strip," Rice was quoted by Ma'an, a Palestinian news agency, as saying.

"I would also like to commend the measures you have taken to protect the borders with Israel and prevent extremist terrorists from launching rockets at the south of the Jewish state," the message continued.

"I feel it is important for Hamas to be ready to renounce terrorism and to seriously consider living peacefully in two states, side by side in peace and security, allowing both the Israeli and Palestinian sides to live in peace and prosperity.

"I hope this can be the beginning of greater communication with Hamas, after your assimilation into the negotiation process and acceptance of the Quartet committee's demands."

Abu Marzouk said that Hamas considers the message a "recognition" of its existence, although the US still labels Hamas as a "terrorist" organisation.

Ahmed Youssef, a senior political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, the deposed Palestinian prime minister and a key Hamas member, told the Al Ahram newspaper that the message does not herald a massive change in the current relationship between Hamas and the US.

"It certainly reflects the US administration's sense that the justifications upon which it has long grounded its antagonism towards Hamas and the Palestinian resistance are crumbling," he said.
According to Al Ahram, a source in the Haniyeh government said that communications have been taking place for more than a year between his government and the office of Tony Blair, the Quartet's Midde East envoy.

Mahmoud al-Zahar, the former Palestinian foreign minister from Hamas, confirmed that Hamas had received a message from Rice.

But "this cannot be regarded as a turning point in relations between the US administration and Hamas", he said.

Odeh said these messages are not new.

"Previous US administrations have constantly tried to nudge isolated political parties into mainstream politics," she said.

"It also indicates that the US government cannot deny the influence of Hamas in the region."

The US denials do not ring true - calling it "unofficial" gives plausible deniability - and the contents sound like State Department-speak to make this sound legit.

One more holiday

Home stretch on the holidays - here in the Diaspora we have two more days, for Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.

Play nicely and have a good Yom Tov! I hope to be back Wednesday night.

Iran fears "spy pigeons"

From AFP (h/t Global Freezing):

Security forces in Natanz have arrested two suspected "spy pigeons" near Iran's controversial uranium enrichment facility, the reformist Etemad Melli newspaper reported on Monday.
One of the pigeons was caught near a rose water production plant in the city of Kashan in Isfahan province, the report cited an unnamed informed source as saying, adding that some metal rings and invisible strings were attached to the bird.
"Early this month, a black pigeon was caught bearing a blue-coated metal ring, with invisible strings," the source was quoted as saying of the second pigeon.
The source gave no further description of the pigeons, neither their current status nor what their fate will be.

Good job, Zionist psy-ops! While you send the obvious pigeons to be caught, the real nano-technology spy gnats are gathering up petabytes of information!

Open thread

Here is how the New York Times described the current Jewish holidays in 1897. (Click to enlarge.)

Somewhat better than the 1902 description in this Colorado newspaper!

Odds and ends (updated)

Self-death number 200: An 18-year old Palestinian Arab was electrocuted in a tunnel Saturday night.

Flying pig moment: Ha'aretz quotes residents of Judea and Samaria in saying that Palestinian Arabs destroy their own olive groves and blame it on settlers:

"They benefit twice," he said. "Cutting the trees down benefits the groves, and they also benefit financially because the damage supposedly was caused by settlers."

Lieberman also recalled how leftists "torpedoed" an agreement between residents of the Itamar settlement and their Arab neighbors.

"Village representatives would have gone to the community and, along with Itamar residents, evaluated the crops' yield, and determined the sum Palestinians would receive for the harvest. The extreme left prevented this," he said.

Lieberman admits, however, that the so-called "hilltop youth" of the surrounding outposts often clash with the farmers.

"If we don't protect the individual rights of the Palestinians, our neighbors we will break our hold and our roots in Judea and Samaria. We have an interest in maintaining what belongs to them, and what belongs to us. They are human beings, and we must deal with them as with human beings," he said.

Orit Struk, the head of Judea and Samaria Human Rights Group, said the media's treatment of confrontations between settlers and Palestinians is hypocritical.

"More than a year ago we released a document describing hundreds of instances of Palestinians harming Jewish farmers and their property. The media wasn't interested at all, and the police weren't exactly excited either," she said.

Proving once again that Israeli "extremists" are people who want to live in peace with their neighbors, and Palestinian Arab "extremists" are people who want to blow up their Jewish neighbors.

Two PalArab women tried to commit suicide.

First there were reports that Condi Rice sent a message to Hamas praising them for the "calm," then Hamas denied it. Now Hamas says she did send a message through Arab foreign ministers, but not to praise them, apparently.

UPDATE:

Al-Azhar University is closing for the third time in a week because Hamas is attacking people there with bombs and guns. Ho hum.

A man in his twenties was found dead in Gaza of multiple gunshot wounds. Must be the Zionists' fault! (The 2008 PalArab self-death count rises to 201.)

And here's the latest news from "Jewish extremists," according to Firas Press:

They tried to go to the Temple Mount armed with - shudder - prayerbooks!

How extreme can you get?

Hello, world. Yahooers have noticed me.

Although I can't find any links, apparently Yahoo decided to link my critique of a Reuters article yesterday to many news articles today, bringing a couple of thousand of new readers. You can see some of them commented on the piece, some making more sense than others.

One of them caught my eye, because he copied my entire posting onto his blog as well. (He also commented.) In his blog, he doesn't bother to answer any of my points, apparently assuming that his audience will understand that I am a complete idiot just from my own words. He only comments with this unassailable logic:

Israel has to be the biggest nation of self-indulgent whiners, narcissists and gun wielding paranoid thugs on the planet.
And delusional to boot.

Sure enough, his audience rises to the occasion, with his first commenter posting this brilliant analysis:

Ok folks, i don't like to boast about myself a lot, because i like to be as humble as i can, i am not smart, nor a scientist nor a psychologist. However i think that am a very instinct-oriented person, and my instincts and senses tell me that Israelites want to control a great part of the world, if not the whole world.

He also has a graphic on his site to boycott Israeli goods and claiming that you can tell what products are made in Israel by UPC code, which even Muslim boycotters have found out is simply not true. But since he defines himself as being part of a "fact based reality" I suppose that this is irrelevant.

Anyway, this person also threw in this gem in his comment:

Funny, but I can't help but to remember that before Israel came into existence, the US had NO enemies in the ME.

Which is really funny, because the US had enemies in the Middle East since the 18th century!

Reuters again trivializes Israel's security concerns

More anti-Israel bias from Reuters, from a couple of days ago:

Filet mignon menu brightens fearsome West Bank wall

It might be a while before some future U.S. president prevails on Israel to "tear down this wall," so Palestinian restaurateur Joseph Hazboon printed his menu on it instead...in waterproof colors.
When Israel ran a towering concrete "security barrier" past the window of the Hazboon family's Bethlehem property a few years ago, it seemed liked the kiss of death commercially.

But Hazboon, 35, hit on the idea of transforming what was now a highly undesirable location into a lucrative attraction.

He renamed the place "The Wall Lounge" and, judging by the results, the setting is surprisingly popular with tourists.
...The barrier is made of razor wire-tipped fences, walls of the sort that block the sound from motorways, and mightier sections of concrete panels similar to those that East Germany once used to seal off the West, complete with watchtowers.
...Like the Berlin Wall, which Ronald Reagan famously demanded be torn down, the Israeli barrier has attracted artists, poets, spraypaint taggers and jokers, whose colorful works take some of the menace out of its hard gray concrete slabs.

Reuters again downplays Israeli reasons for building the fence, putting "security barrier" in scare quotes as if that could hardly be the reason Israel built the wall.

And taking its cue from the worst Israel bashers, Reuters explicitly compares the barrier to the Berlin Wall, when it is the exact opposite. The Berlin Wall was built by communist East Germany to stop East Germans from defecting to the West; the people it was meant to stop were the people seeking freedom. The people that Israel's barrier is meant to stop are terrorists. The barrier, over 90% of which is a fence, is meant to keep bad people out, not good people in. The sections that are concrete also help stop Palestinian Arab snipers from targeting Israeli citizens.

The comparison to the Berlin Wall is odious and obscene, and the positive results of the barrier are undeniable. In the three years before and while Israel started building the fence (2001-2003) about 450 Israelis were murdered in suicide bombing attacks alone; in the three years from 2005-2007 the number went down to 41. In 2002 alone the number of suicide bomb victims was 220; if it wasn't for the barrier and other Israeli countermeasures that are also roundly criticized there is no reason to think that we wouldn't be seeing hundreds such deaths every year.

As usual, the wire service trivializes Israeli security concerns - and real-life examples of the hundreds of lives that have been saved - and emphasizes the undeniable but comparatively minimal inconvenience to Palestinian Arabs that the barrier brings. (It also happens to be inconvenient to many Israelis, as are the checkpoints that Israelis have to endure in their daily lives when going to malls and other popular bombing targets, but that will never be reported.)

It would have been possible for Reuters to report on Joseph Hazboon's restaurant and his use of the wall in an accurate, fair and entertaining manner without its clear bias against legitimate Israeli security concerns. But why would Reuters want to do that?

Reuters blames Israel, again

Here's today's textbook example of Reuters' bias:

Harvesting olives is a laborious process, not made easier if teargas is drifting over the groves as it does most Fridays here in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli-Palestinian clashes are almost ritual.

Since this is the first paragraph of the article, it sets the tone for the piece: Israelis fire tear gas and Palestinian Arab farmers therefore cannot harvest their crops.

One has to read the entire article, and parse out the bias, to see the truth.

"This happens two or three times a week maybe. But with an emphasis on Fridays," says Ram Kaho, an Israeli border police officer whose squad of 40 patrols one of the many fault-lines on the tense interface between the two communities.

Kaho's sector is where the Jewish settlement of Hashmonaim rubs up close to the Arab village of Nilin -- soon to be cut off by the barrier Israel is building in the valley between.

So Reuters is saying that the problem is both Jews having the audacity of living near Arabs, which is of course considered provocative, and Jews wanting to separate from Arabs with a fence, which is considered a violation of international law. Either way, the Arabs can't be blamed for anything.

"This is an especially difficult place," he says. "In relation to other places we have lots of injuries. So it's a very problematic area."

Injuries? From what? Reuters has not yet told us. The only people at fault mentioned so far are Jews, so perhaps they are injuring themselves?

Israeli settlements on occupied land in the West Bank are perhaps the most contentious issue in the way of a peace settlement with the Palestinians ending decades of conflict.

This has been repeated so often that most people cannot notice the obvious absurdity: settlements don't stop peace; terrorism is what stops peace. Before the current Intifada, Israelis and Palestinian Arabs visited each other, shopped in each others' villages, and worked together, and the settlements weren't a factor in real-life interactions.

The Nilin clashes have been going on for about a year.

Again, we have yet to be told what exactly happens in these "clashes."

In 2004, the World Court in The Hague ruled that Israel's proposed 720-km (430-mile) barrier on occupied Palestinian land -- begun in 2002 -- was illegal.

Israel says the barrier, a mix of wire fence and concrete walls, keeps suicide bombers out of its cities.

But why believe them? Just because the number of successful suicide bombings has decreased dramatically since the barrier was started? Nah, it is just an unverified claim. And why should Israel's claim that lives are being saved be more important than a non-binding court ruling?

When Kaho's police hear the Friday Muslim call to prayer from the hill opposite, they brace for action. They are sure that as soon as prayers are over, some Palestinians backed by international activist supporters, will begin throwing rocks.

Rocks? Who said anything about rock throwing? No, in Reuters' universe, the (potentially lethal) rocks that are thrown at Israelis is in paragraph 9, but the (non-lethal) tear gas that Israel shoots in return is in paragraph 1. Causality is a bit less than obvious.

...Half-way up the hill, a couple of young Palestinian men and their father perch on ladders, stripping blue-black olives from a tree onto canvasses spread on the ground below.

They seem oblivious of the flying whiz and exploding pop of tear-gas canisters just up the slope. But the breeze soon blows acrid fumes over the small stony terrace of ochre soil where they are working.

Would anyone even dare to suggest that if the protesters would stop throwing rocks that perhaps there wouldn't be any tear gas? Or is the IDF more active against the olive harvesters?

"There would be more of us here harvesting, normally, but the soldiers make us go away. And we send our young kids home," said one of the men, who declined to give his name.

Ah, we have someone here saying that Israel stops the olive pickers. Sometimes. Although not when any reporter is around.

The protesters are no match for the Israelis, who have automatic weapons and armoured jeeps. Three Palestinians have been shot dead in the West Bank over the past four days, for aiming firebombs at troops, the army says.

The first sentence implies that only Israel uses deadly force and sets up the "David and Goliath" myth. The second sentence follows through, saying that Israel kills protesters, only incidentally mentioning that the "protesters" had deadly weapons themselves. The entire paragraph is structured to make Israel look as aggressive as possible and to give it no reason to defend itself against firebombs - perhaps because the IDF has jeeps?

"Here we really, really try to avoid any use of lethal force," says Kaho. He relies on an arsenal of gas and stun grenades, or "shock weapons" as he calls them, to keep the stone-throwing attackers at bay.

Here we start to get a little balance - when most readers have already moved to the comics page. The major part of the article demonizing Israel is finished, now Reuters can pretend to be fair. Allow that Israel tries to avoid using lethal force after accusing Israel of killing protesters for little reason.

The olive harvesters are allowed to get on with their work but when the protesters mingle among them "we start to worry".

You mean that the protesters - many from nowhere near the area - are perhaps the problem? You mean that the Palestinian Arab farmers would be allowed to harvest their olives without any problem if it wasn't for these outside troublemakers who encourage stone throwing and firebombs? Would real journalists perhaps try to expand upon this just a little bit?

Nah - that would place blame on someone other than Israel, and that just is not an acceptable position for this article. Move along, nothing to see here.

Many facts are here in this article, but Reuters skillfully highlights some and backpedals others to give an impression that is opposite the truth. Not that this is a great piece of writing anyway; it meanders between the tear gas, the olive pickers and the barrier, and it ignores the protesters almost completely. Since this is a "feature" article one would expect it to be a bit more expansive and organized, but that would defeat the theme of Israel's culpability.

Gaza tunnels exposed!

Every journalist and their brothers have been filing stories from the Gaza tunnel industry, so the Islamic Jihad-leaning Palestine Today joined the party.

After a number of photographs of two masked men transporting their booty from Egypt to Gaza, we finally get a chance to see what life-saving goods they brought for the starving Gazans stuck in their concentration-camp conditions. Medicines? Wheat? Rice?

Let's look a little closer....

So this is what they are starving for! The great taste of Gotcha!, a big hit of wafer layers, delicious caramel and crispy cereals in real milk chocolate!

Gotcha! - the official candy bar of Gaza tunnel rats!

Sony submits to Islam

From VentureBeat:

Sony has been touting LittleBigPlanet as one of its biggest holiday release titles. But the company announced it would delay the worldwide launch, which had been scheduled for Oct. 24, because one of the background music tracks in the game might be offensive to Muslims.
The company’s European games division put out a statement that said that the music, licensed from a record label, has “two expressions that can be found in the Qur’an.” It also apologizes for any offense. I’ve actually got a finished copy of the game and so it’s clear that Sony had already been moving ahead with manufacturing of disks for the launch. Now it will have to create new disks without the music.

That’s a big setback for Sony. game promises to be a mass market hit because of its appeal to both hardcore gamers. It isn’t clear when the new disks will be ready for launch. The game has a very high rank on GameRankings.com, which aggregates review scores, of 94.5 percent. It is the highest ranked recent game on the list.

The song in question can be downloaded from iTunes, as it is freely available and was sung by a devout Muslim. Although it has been out for a while, it had never been criticized before.

The original letter complaining to Sony about these lyrics can be found here:

To: Sony Computer Entertainment & Media Molecule

While playing your latest game, "LittleBigPlanet" in the first level of the third world in the game (titled "Swinging Safari"), I have noticed something strange in the lyrics of the music track of the level. When I listened carefully, I was surprised to hear some very familiar Arabic words from the Quran. You can listen to part of the track here:

http://mt14.quickshareit.com/share/preview/soundclip22503c0.wav

The words are:

1- In the 18th second: "كل نفس ذائقة الموت" ("kollo nafsin tha'iqatol mawt", literally: 'Every soul shall have the taste of death').

2- Almost immediately after, in the 27th second: "كل من عليها فان" ("kollo man alaiha fan", literally: 'All that is on earth will perish').

I asked many of my friends online and offline and they heard the exact same thing that I heard easily when I played that part of the track. Certain Arabic hardcore gaming forums are already discussing this, so we decided to take action by emailing you before this spreads to mainstream attention.

We Muslims consider the mixing of music and words from our Holy Quran deeply offending. We hope you would remove that track from the game immediately via an online update, and make sure that all future shipments of the game disk do not contain it.

We would also like to mention that this isn't the first time something like this happened in videogames. Nintendo's 1998 hit "Zelda: Ocarina of Time" contained a musical track with islamic phrases, but it was removed in later shipments of the game after Nintendo was contacted by Muslim organizations. Last year, Capcom's "Zack & Wiki" and Activision's "Call of Duty 4" also contained objectionable material offensive to Muslims that was spotted before the release of the final games, and both companies thankfully removed the content.

It is remarkable that the gaming industry, which has no concerns about offending anyone else with ultra-violent and sexual scenes in its games, is suddenly so sensitive to one segment of the population.

Would lyrics that are offensive to Jews or Christians or Hindus (or blondes, disabled people, the French or any other group you can name) have caused Sony to pull a highly-anticipated and fully ready game from release? I doubt it highly.

So why is Sony so uniquely sensitive to Muslim sensibilities? The unstated reason is obvious: because none of the other groups have a history of threatening the lives of those who offend them.

Islam has managed to force the world to submit to its dictates because a significant number of its adherents firmly believe that those who hurt their feelings must be killed.

Some UN bias for you

One UN agency is called the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Occupied Palestinian Territories.

OCHA is not nearly as overtly anti-Israel as other UN agencies. Even so, and even as it tries mightily to project an unbiased front, its hatred for Israel is clear in its very mission (which, by definition, is not concerned with any Palestinian Arab violation of Israeli human rights) as well as its reports.

A new slick OCHA report on the situation in the "OPT" in September provides a number of examples of the overarching bias, bordering on hatred, that the UN has against Israel.

Three times the report states:

Israel’s closure of Gaza crossing points continues, with only a slight increase in the number of truckloads allowed entry... The number of truckloads of imported goods allowed into Gaza increased slightly compared to August 2008....imports for the month were slightly up from the August figures.

And what does "slightly" mean? It means that the number of truckloads of goods increased from 3565 to 4049, an increase of 13%.

Somehow, I don't think that a 13% monthly increase in, say, inflation or the stock market would be characterized by anyone as "a slight increase." But in its zeal to make Israel look bad, the UN will trivialize Israel's efforts to increase aid while maintaining its own security.

And then the UN chooses specific types of goods that decreased:

There was a noticeable decline in the number of truckloads carrying hygiene and cleaning supplies (82% less than in August), industrial/electrical appliances (33% less) and the non-edible consumables (39% less).

If that is true, it must mean that some other goods increased more than the 13%, but the UN doesn't bother to break those down. It is apparent that Israel increased the amount of food, cement, gravel and fuel sent to Gaza significantly, but the UN doesn't mention this fact in its attempts to make Israel look as bad as possible.

Another section of the report praises smuggling tunnels:

In light of the inability of many Gazan businessmen to conduct trade through Gaza official crossings (Karni, Sufa and Kerem Shalom), Rafah tunnels have become a vital lifeline to obtain needed goods over the last year. Media reports estimate the number of tunnels to be in the hundreds, employing up to 6,000 Palestinians. On 25 September, the Hamas authority police introduced new regulations to control trade through the tunnels. A list of conditions were announced, among which was that all tunnel operators must meet certain standards in order for their tunnels to be licensed and allowed to operate. Numerous tents covering tunnel entrances are visible in the Rafah area and the industry is increasingly becoming open and controlled. The extent of the tunnel network is a direct result of the continued restrictions on access.

Notice how the UN carefully refuses to mention the possibility of Egypt allowing trade to occur legally through Rafah.

Also note that not a word is mentioned about another major tunnel industry - weapons and explosives. Egyptian forces regularly find caches of dynamite and weapons in the Sinai around Rafah, meant for transport in these same tunnels that the UN considers a "lifeline."

Well, that is true if you don't consider the lives of Israelis who are the ultimate targets of these weapons to be worth anything.

Another indicator of bias, as the UN couches what should be considered good news into expectations of Israeli evil:

While the number of settler-related incidents decreased in September, there are concerns that settler violence will increase during the October olive harvest as has been the case during past harvests.

Invariably, if something good happens the UN spins it to make Israel look bad.

Incidentally, the UN's definition of "settler-related incidents" includes unverified reports that the UN encourages Palestinian Arabs and NGOs to submit using a handy form.

Another example:

On 15 and 16 September, Erez crossing was closed, except for emergency medical and humanitarian cases, in response to the firing of a homemade rocket from Gaza towards Sderot.

The adjective "homemade" is purely meant to trivialize the threat of the rockets towards Israel, and the implication is that Israel must not bother to defend itself.

I wonder, if Palestinian Arabs would firebomb UN workers in Gaza, if the UN report would refer to the means of attack as "homemade Molotov cocktails."

And yet another:

Access for more than 60% of the Palestinian population to pray at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem was denied during the holy month of Ramadan (1-29 September). Palestinians from the Gaza Strip were denied entry, while the access of West Bank ID holders was regulated by a special permit regime, valid only on the four Fridays during the month.

The absurdity of counting Gaza residents as part of the "60%" who were denied entry to Al Aqsa is self-evident, but it serves to make Israel once again look evil - for not allowing a large, unrepentantly hostile mass of people to cross though Israeli territory.

But this is the UN, and when UN staffers are tasked to only support one side of a conflict as they are in this case, one can expect that they will be singularly biased.

Ya gotta love the Left

This morning I posted about an article in a San Francisco Indymedia site about far-left rabid Israel haters proudly damaging consumer goods.

One commenter here mentioned that his comment at Indymedia was deleted, so I checked out what else was going on at that page.

Indymedia has a published policy of what sort of articles and comments it deletes (or "hides.") The policy is:

SF Bay Area IMC is founded on the principle of open publishing. Reality dictates that the editorial collective will at times decide to hide posts and comments. This is not a decision that is taken lightly, however, and the editorial collective does its best refrain from hiding. Our vision for the function of the newswire, and the general framework in which all decisions to hide will be made, are as follows:
The newswire is intended to be a community media resource, a space free from spam and abuse in general; and
That space will not contribute to the oppression of traditionally oppressed and marginalized groups.
Members of the Editorial Collective are permitted to hide posts or comments as long as that person's decision is based on at least one of the following three points:
The post or comment constitutes abuse of the newswire (see note below);
The post or comment undermines the Principles of Unity of the SF Bay Area IMC; e.g., right-wing propaganda or hate speech; or
The post or comment constitutes a spam attack (see below) on the newswire.
The editorial collective may remove copyrighted material on request of the copyright owner. At any time another Editorial Collective member may dispute the hiding of a post or comment, based on our Principles of Unity or this policy.

Comments, questions, and feedback regarding this policy are highly encouraged. Please write us at sfbay-web@lists.indymedia.org.

Here are two comments that were made that Indymedia, that bastion of free speech, felt went over the line:

Why I am posting a comment

by Yerushalimey
Thursday Oct 16th, 2008 11:10 AM

I discovered your site when I visited Elderofziyon, where it was pointed out that whoever is putting these stickers on products is breaking Federal Law. I wanted to see for myself the kind of people who flout the laws of the country they live in and feel morally, ethically obliged to improve the behavior of people in other countries.
I discover that the people who call for support a boycott of hummus lack the integrity to boycott Israeli products like cell phone and computer technology or pharmaceuticals - presumably because it would inconvenience them.
And, when I returned to this site, I discovered that comments offering opposing opinions are soon deleted.
So I am writing to suggest you are a bunch of criminal hypocrites who cannot tolerate criticism, naively hoping that I will touch your conscience and you will let this comment stand.

Boycott the racist, apartheid states of the Arab world!

by Yehudi Hazak
Thursday Oct 16th, 2008 11:11 AM

For the mother of all racism, xenophobia, sexism, and homophobia in the Middle East look at the "Arab" states many of which have large non-Arab minorities suffering under systematic discrimination and racist policies that keep them suppresed, such as the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, the Berbers in Morocco (where they actually outnumber Arabs) and Algeria, or the Assyrians in Iraq, or the black African and Christian southern Sudanese who suffered genocide at he hands of the the Arab Musims of northern Sudan over a horrific 20 year war that killed 2 million people. And where is indybay' conern about the genocide of non-arabs in Darfur? Oh, I forgot, taking the side of Arab nationalists in that one, too. And indybay's concern for the plight of LGBT in Arab and Muslim lands? Non-existent. Indybay's concern for gender equality, freedom of choice for women in the Arab and Muslim worlds? once again, non-existent.

You are all a bunch of moral hypocrites, obsessed about Israel, & willfully blind to the horrendous human rights disasters in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and as such your silence aids and abets the oppressors of the Middle East's non-Arab and non-Muslim minorities, women and LGBT.

BTW, you don't have to worry about the Jewish minorities in the Arab world: the Arab already ethnically cleansed 99% of the "their Jews" since 1948. Any concern by indybayers for this massive human rights crime? Likely not.

Both these comments were silently deleted.

So, which Indymedia rule did they break?

Does mentioning Arab bigotry against their minorities contribute to the oppression of a billion Arabs, whom Indymedia apparently feels is a "traditionally oppressed or marginalized group?"

Or is mentioning that gays are oppressed in Arab countries considered "right wing propaganda" or "hate speech"?

Meanwhile, other articles at that site darkly hint at a conspiracy of a small number of manipulative evil Jews controlling America. But that's fine, because Indymedia doesn't consider the Jewish 0.2% of the world's population to be an oppressed minority - obviously Jews can walk freely in most places in the world without a problem, while a billion Muslims are huddled in fear, relying on their communist heroes to make the world a safer place for them.

As usual, those who scream the loudest about free speech are the ones who are in the forefront of quashing it.

UPDATE: One more comment posted and gone:

Putting your own labels on commercial packaged food is a crime...

by Zionist
Thursday Oct 16th, 2008 12:07 PM

Punishable by up to 3 yrs in prison. Enjoy!

But seriously, you bring up the 'don't let the evil Zionists distract you with their talk of other problems in the world!', but the truth is, the international 'left' is sick with a virus that has Jew-hatred at its core. Your obsessive focus on perceived injustice in Israel does definitely come at the expense of all the people who are suffering in other conflicts around the world. And on top of that, your understanding of the history of the conflict in the Middle East is hopelessly ignorant and filled with the evil lies that have been propagated by others before you.

But that's just my opinion, so carry on.