Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, October 30, 2008

PA admits it supports terror against Israel

Daniel Pipes notices how the PA argued to dismiss a lawsuit in US courts against the organization for terror acts that killed over 30 people:

The lawsuit, Sokolow v The Palestine Liberation Organization, brought by the intrepid David Strachman, alleges that the PLO carried out two machine-gun and five bombing attacks in the Jerusalem area between January 2001 and February 2004. The plaintiffs allege, in the words of U.S. District Judge George Daniels, that the PLO did so "intending to terrorize, intimidate, and coerce the civilian population of Israel into acquiescing to defendants' political goals and demands, and to influence the policy of the United States and Israeli governments in favor of accepting defendants' political goals and demands." The attacks killed 33 and wounded many more, some of them U.S. citizens; the victims and their families are seeking up to US$3 billion in damages from the PLO.
To this, the PLO, represented in part by none other than the appalling Ramsey Clark (who in a distant age, 1967-69, was attorney general of the United States), replied that the attacks were acts of war rather than terrorism. As Daniels summarizes the PLO argument: "defendants argue that subject matter jurisdiction is lacking because this action is premised on acts of war, which is barred under the ATA [Antiterrorism Act of 1991], and further is based on conduct which does not meet the statutory definition of ‘international terrorism'."

This response is noteworthy for two reasons: (1) Fifteen years after Oslo supposedly ended the state of war, four years after Mahmoud Abbas took over and supposedly improved on Arafat's abysmal record, the PLO publicly maintains it remains at war with Israel. (2) The PLO argues, even in the context of an American law court, that blatant, cruel, inhumane, and atrocious acts of murder constitute legitimate acts of warfare.

The court record seems to go a little even beyond this.

Firstly, the lawsuit is against both the PLO and the PA, so the defendants represent both entities. One cannot argue even facetiously that the PA is somehow not claiming to be at war with Israel, but only the PLO is.

Secondly, since the ATA does not apply to sovereign states, the PLO claimed that Palestine is a state for the purposes of this lawsuit:

An ATA action may not be maintained against a foreign state or the agencies, officers and employees thereof, acting within their official capacity or under color of legal authority....While the PLO and PA argue their sovereignty, they do not claim individual statehood status.Their assertion of immunity derives from the claimed sovereignty of the State of Palestine. Defendants claim that they are essential agencies of Palestine, performing core governmental functions and, as such, are entitled to immunity.

The Palestinian Authority is claiming in legal documents that bombing cafeterias, bus stops, buses and busy downtown streets in Jerusalem are "core governmental functions" as part of their war with Israel.

"Blind shiekh" depressed, whining in prison hospital

A truly saddening story from Palestine Today, quoting the website of the terror group Jemaah Islamiyah: (autotranslated and cleaned up a little)

Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the Emir of Jemaah Islamiyah, jailed in a prison in America 16 years ago, told his wife in a telephone conversation, "I am in great distress, my health has deteriorated too, and I need the prayers of all the righteous brothers, I do not feel access to prayers , and I feel they do not du'aa (call out to God) remind me so."

According to the official website of the group, the Rahman said to his wife: "The U.S. authorities that the supervisor of the prison did not respond to any request of mine, no matter how simple..."

According to the official website of the group that is based out of Egypt,Dr. Abdul Rahman is in poor health, and that this is the first time he used the term "I'm in great distress" in 16 years in U.S. prisons. During this time he contracted a number of diseases including cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes.

Dr Omar Abdul Rahman confirmed that he has been mistreated in U.S. prisons, where he is in isolation from other prisoners and in solitary confinement.

Rahman was of course the ideological center of the plot to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993 and he was convicted of planning terror attacks.

Just for some background, Rahman is in a medical center that is a part of a prison, not in the prison itself, which would explain his "isolation." As far as mistreatment in prison, he is on the record as complaining that he didn't like the tea he was being served, threatening that if he doesn't get Tetley or Lipton tea he will stop taking insulin - or eat M&Ms.

Yes, he certainly sounds oppressed!

More of our tax money going to Gaza

Once again, Hamas maintains control over Gaza with no financial responsibility, which is happily taken care of by our tax dollars via the PA. From Ma'an:

The Palestinian Authority (PA) will pay compensation to civilians affected by the recent flooding there, according to a statement received by Ma’an on Thursday.

The governor of the central Gaza Strip said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad had followed up with him on damage caused by the storms.

Governor Abdallah Abu Samahdanah noted that “the government will take all required measures to ease the suffering of civilians harmed by this disaster.”

In case it isn't clear, here's how it works:

Our tax money goes to the government, whether it is US, European or Japanese.

These governments now pay billions to the Palestinian Authority.

60% of the PA budget goes to Gaza, a territory that they lost in the violent Hamas coup and that now gets twice the money that the West Bank gets on a per-capita basis.

Hamas gets to control the police, the courts, the schools and the hospitals in Gaza, without having to worry about paying salaries or maintaining infrastructure or bailing out victims of flooding - normal functions of a government. Our tax dollars take care of all that stuff. So Hamas can spend its money (from taxing smuggled goods and from Iran) on weapons, on tunnels and on building a Hezbollah-like bunker network for terrorists and rockets.

Vapor stories

Even though the Palestinian Arab press will wildly exaggerate and completely mislead with their stories, usually there is some real event that happened that caused them to light up their imaginations.

Sometimes, though, I cannot find that real event.

Two recent cases, in which the first one sounds somewhat realistic and the second one a bit less so:

Yesterday, Firas Press wrote an article - which they said came from Yediot Aharonot - saying that Hamas was found to have been using Facebook as an intelligence tool, as IDF soldiers would inadvertantly be placing classified information and photos on their Facebook pages.

YNet did have two recent Facebook stories: one that the Defense Ministry warned against exactly this type of occurrence last April, and one where the IDF would use Facebook to find girls who claimed religious exemptions from the army doing decidedly non-religious activities.

It is possible that Hamas read the April article and decided to create a Facebook intelligence function, but I can't find any article saying that.

The second example is from today's PalArab newspapers where they claim that "Jewish extremists" went into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, tried to attack monks and smashed wooden crosses in adjacent shops. (Palestine Press Agency helpfully illustrated the story with a picture of a bearded Jew praying, captioned "Jewish extremist.")

I can't find this story anywhere.

I did find that a Molotov cocktail was thrown into a synagogue in Lod and another one in Acre within the past few days.

Maybe they just mixed those stories up.

Free Gaza isn't free for their passengers!

The Free Gaza freaks are so far in debt, they apparently charged their idiot passengers about $1000 each for this latest trip!

Look at this graphic on their site (they apparently had a typo which I correct):

The FGMers have so far spent $740,000 and have raised $325,000 - but $300,000 came from "donations" and $25,000 from "passenger fees".

There was no mention of "passenger fees" on their website when I previously looked at their bizarre thermometer graphic.

Since their latest trip to Gaza, where they were greeted by their Hamas terrorist pals and a tiny crowd, included 27 people, it appears that they are so broke that they are charging their "humanitarian" passengers about $1000 to get their publicity.

Comparing their numbers, they've spent $190,000 since September - and only raised $75,000, even including their passenger fees. And this was after the massive amount of publicity they received from their first trip.

What will they try next? Clearly their leftist pals aren't willing to pony up the bucks for them to continue these public relations stunts, and nobody is buying the boats they are trying to sell (for quite inflated prices.)

It's been a long 28 years!

The "scholarship" of Al Quds University

Al Quds University has on its website, in English, a "history" of Jerusalem aimed at erasing Jews. Quotes (after a section that claims that Biblical history is filled with lies):

The key to clarifying the history of Jerusalem and Palestine lies in distinguishing between literary tradition and recorded history, between imagined memory and material evidence. It is equally important that an effort be made to establish a history based on people and their continuity rather than a history based on which political power or religious ideology was present in the land and then left it.

Palestine was conquered in times past by ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans, Muslim Arabs, Mamlukes, Ottomans, the British, the Zionists. [Note who is missing - EoZ].These are recorded conquests (not literary legends), whose facts and remains are documented. Meanwhile, another development was the evolution of monotheistic faiths that followed the "pagan" religions. It is crucial to keep these two developments as distinct as possible, for the sake of not confusing issues and identities. The people of Palestine may have become more mixed with each consecutive conquest, or may have changed religions, but essentially (especially in villages) the population remained constant-and is now still Palestinian, though many villagers were tragically dislocated in the 1948 Nakba.

The "temple" issue dominates the politics about Jerusalem today. An assumption is made that the present Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa compound is the same location of the "Temple Mount" or "Mount Moriah." But as Ernest L. Martin has demonstrated (working strictly within biblical scholarship), the Al-Aqsa compound cannot possibly be in the same place as the first or second temple. [Martin was a meteorologist and member of a religious cult that got some traction on this theory a couple of decades ago. - EoZ.]Further, what is called the "first temple," associated with the legendary Solomon, was in fact a pre-monotheistic place where many gods were worshipped. As scholars like Herbert Niehr document, the "first temple" was dominated by Syro-Phoenician traits and appealed to pagan worshippers living in the area. Various "pagan" sites existed until after Constantine converted to Christianity in the early 4th century. At that time, Constantine's mother Helena determined many biblical sites, most coinciding with pagan temple locations.

The Wailing or "Western" Wall is a focus of Jewish veneration. It is a site associated with a past memory, as Moshe Dayan once noted. The Wailing Wall is assumed to be what remains of Herod's Temple. But that Herod was a Jew is debated by some and rejected by others (he came from tribes east of the Jordan and had a Hellenistic cultural background). Judaism was different from how some see it today; like Christianity and Islam, it should not be confused with "ethnicity."

Further, the Wailing or "Western" Wall is a most likely candidate for being the wall of a fortress built for Roman legions (as Ernest Martin reports, citing other scholarship). Even if we assume that Herod built a "second temple," the building was reportedly destroyed in the 1st century AD. The Romans, then the Byzantine Christians, had prevented people of the Jewish faith from living in the city for hundreds of years. At other times, the two then-contending religious groups had exchanged expulsions and massacres, particularly before and during the Persian invasion of 614 AD. The hundreds of skulls at the Monastery of Mar Saba are said to be evidence of those massacres. One wonders then, under such circumstances, how the traces of any temple in Jerusalem could possibly have been preserved.

The Dome of the Rock is a focus of veneration for hundreds of millions of Muslim worshippers. It is also a visible and impressive work of architecture, around which much lore has developed. It was built in times of recorded history, on previously unoccupied ground, though the spot probably had ancient associations impossible to trace today.

This is only another small example of how Palestinian Arabs like to erase the eternal Jewish connection to the Land of Israel from history, often relying on outright lies as well as discredited "scholarship."

Of course, Al-Quds University is not only interested in erasing Jews from history; it is also supportive of terror attacks against them today. For example, it designated a week in honor of the Hamas innovator of suicide terrorism, Yahya Ayyash, "the engineer." Hamas and Fatah regularly schedule commemorations for terrorists there.

And an official university calendar included this graphic on every page, symbolizing the destruction of Israel by the Islamic sword.

Nevertheless, the US government seems to consider Al Quds University as a distinguished place. The US Consulate in Jerusalem often has programs in conjunction with Al-Quds, and is instrumental in fostering ties between US colleges and Al Quds. USAID has given Al-Quds millions of dollars.

But as far as I can find, only one US senator ever visited Al-Quds University:

Date: 15 / 01 / 2006 Time: 11:20

Ma'an Ramallah – US Democratic Senator Barak Obama, accompanied by US Consul Jacob Walles, visited the American Studies Center at Al Quds University in Abu Dis on Saturday.

The two officials were received by the head of the Center, Professor Mohammad Ad Dajiani, along with other University faculty and students.

Obama expressed his happiness at the visit and admired the academic services provided by the Center. He stressed the importance of such programs in order to create mutual understanding between the American and Palestinian people.

Professor Dajiani welcomed Obama and thanked him for accepting the University's invitation. He spoke about the importance of visits by US officials in order to develop the Masters program offered by the center.

Obama delivered a lecture on US policy and politics. Following the presentation, there was a brief debate and discussion.

Rafah cemetery collapses into smuggling tunnels

From Firas Press and Palestine Today (Arabic):

Heavy rain washed away the Azaaarbp cemetery on the Egyptian-Palestinian border town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip today, because of the existence of tunnels beneath the cemetery.
Witnesses said a large number of modern and ancient tombs were destroyed by torrential rains and plunged into a the tunnels beneath the cemetery.
A large number of houses were submerged in rainwater in all southern provinces.

Interestingly, a columnist at Palestine Press Agency quoted a poll saying that 65% of Gazans were against the smuggling tunnels, saying that the tunnels onlt served a small part of Gaza society.

Free Gaza freaks are seasick!

I signed up to be on Free Gaza's mailing list so I get the latest news quickly. And their dispatches sometimes contain real gems.

From Greta Berlin, of the FGM Media Team:

It's 2:30 am, and Osama has just gone to get some sleep for a couple of hours. He and I wait in Cyprus for news from the Dignity and watch the small blip of the SPOT checker as it moves slowly toward Gaza and a possible forceful intervention from the well-armed Israeli navy somewhere are oung 6:00 am. The rumblings out of Jerusalem are fierce. They will not let us come into Gaza, because we didn't behave the last time. What that means only the minds of neurotic military men can sort through, and I am reminded of the movie, Dr. Strangelove, only this confrontation will be real, pitting nonviolent human rights watchers against the 4th largest military in the world.

The people on board are now Osama's and my friends, most of them having been to Cyprus twice in an attempt to get on board. We talked to David S about a half hour ago, and 80% of them are sea-sick, some seriously. Even with the new boat, one that rides better and is more stable, the people are still sick. Twenty-seven of them are crowded onto that boat, because they care enough about the human rights of an occupied people being slowly strangled to death by Israeli military might to take the risk.

If the doctors on the boat can't handle seasickness in a couple of dozen people, exactly how much help can they give to 1.5 million during their attempted photo-op?

And why am I not surprised that one of their leaders is named Osama?

Clearly Greta is tired, because she let slip something she surely didn't mean to:

Israel is panicked that the Palestinians will do the same thing that they did in the late 40s and that is get on boats and come home.

It took me a second, but then I realized what she was saying: she was comparing Palestinian Arabs to the Jews who had to "illegally" immigrate to Palestine to save their lives from the Nazis!

Which means that she must consider the Palestinian Arabs' host countries to be as oppressive as Nazi Germany, I guess.

But notice her word choice: even this rabid anti-Zionist admits that the Jewish refugees of the 1940s were not European colonialists, but they were members of a nation coming home!

I doubt that this dispatch will make it onto their website before they realize that they just justified Zionism as a national restoration movement.

An early Jewish settlement in Palestine (1882)

Famed, eccentric British explorer and writer Laurence Oliphant journeyed to Palestine in the early 1880s. In this excerpt from his book "Haifa; or, Life in modern Palestine," this is a somewhat humorous and illuminating account of the founding of a new unnamed Jewish agricultural settlement in 1882, probably Zichron Yaakov. (h/t anonymous commenter)

About sixteen miles to the south of the projecting point of Carmel, upon which the celebrated monastery is perched above the sea, there lies a tract of land which has suddenly acquired an interest owing to the fact of its having been purchased by the Central Jewish Colonization Society of Roumania, with a view of placing upon it emigrants of the Hebrew persuasion who have been compelled to quit the country of their adoption in consequence of the legal disabilities to which they are subjected in it, and who have determined upon making a bona fide attempt to change the habits of their lives and engage in agricultural pursuits. I was invited by the local agent in charge of this enterprise to accompany him on a visit to the new property, whither he was bound with a view of making arrangements for housing and placing upon it the first settlers. Traversing the northern portion of the fertile plain of Sharon, which extends from Jaffa to Carmel, we enter by a gorge into the lower spurs of the Carmel range, which is distant at this point about three miles from the seacoast, and, winding up a steep path, find ourselves upon a fertile plateau about four hundred feet above the level of the sea. Here over a thousand acres of pasture and arable land have been purchased, on which a small hamlet of half a dozen native houses and a storehouse belonging to the late proprietor compose the existing accommodation. This hamlet is at present occupied by the fellahin wlio worked the land for its former owner, and it is proposed to retain their services as laborers and co-partners in the cultivation of the soil until the new-comers shall have become sufficiently indoctrinated in the art of agriculture to be able to do for themselves.

The experiment of associating Jews and Moslem fellahin in field labor will be an interesting one to watch, and the preliminary discussions on the subject were more picturesque than satisfactory. The meeting took place in the storehouse, where Jews and Arabs squatted promiscuously amid the heaps of grain, and chaffered over the terms of their mutual co-partnership. It would be difficult to imagine anything more utterly incongruous than the spectacle thus presented —the stalwart fellahin, with their wild, shaggy, black beards, the brass hilts of their pistols projecting from their waistbands, their tasselled kufeihahs drawn tightly over their heads and girdled with coarse black cords, their loose, flowing abbas, and sturdy bare legs and feet; and the ringleted, effeminate-looking Jews, in caftans reaching almost to their ankles, as oily as their red or sandy locks, or the expression of their countenances — the former inured to hard labor on the burning hillsides of Palestine, the latter fresh from the Ghetto of some Roumanian town, unaccustomed to any other description of exercise than that of their wits, but already quite convinced that they knew more about agriculture than the people of the country, full of suspicion of all advice tendered to them, and animated by a pleasing self-confidence which I fear the first practical experience will rudely belie. In strange contrast with these Roumanian Jews was the Arab Jew who acted as interpreter—a stout, handsome man, in Oriental garb, as unlike his European coreligionists as the fellahin themselves. My friend and myself, in the ordinary costume of the British or American tourist, completed the party.

The discussion was protracted beyond midnight—the native peasants screaming in Arabic, the Roumanian Israelites endeavoring to outtalk them in German jargon, the interpreter vainly trying to make himself heard, everybody at cross-purposes because no one was patient enough to listen till another had finished, or modest enough to wish to hear anybody speak but himself. Tired out, I curled myself on an Arab coverlet, which seemed principally stuffed with fleas, but sought repose in vain. At last a final rupture was arrived at, and the fellahin left us, quivering with indignation at the terms proposed by the new-comers. Sleep brought better counsel to both sides, and an arrangement was finally arrived at next morning which I am afraid has only to be put into operation to fail signally. There is nothing more simple than farming in co-operation with the fellahin of Palestine if you go the right way to work about it, and nothing more hopeless if attempted upon a system to which they are unaccustomed. Probably, after a considerable loss of time, money, and especially of temper, a more practical modus operandi will be arrived at. I am bound to say that I did not discover any aversion on the part of the Moslem fellahin to the proprietorship by Israelites of their land, on religious grounds. The only difficulty lay in the division of labor and of profit, where the owners of the land were entirely ignorant of agriculture, and therefore dependent on the co-operation of the peasants, on terms to be decided between them.

Jihadis love their kiddie pr0n

I had missed this story from a couple of weeks ago, from the Times of London:

Paedophilia and terrorism seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. We think of men who prey on children, and those who are a step away, collecting child po-rnography over the internet, as depraved isolated individuals wallowing in their own obsessions.

By contrast, despite the destruction of innocent lives that they crave, the popular view is that terrorists are driven by some external, if distorted, ideology that they at least see as a noble cause. The illegal child porn images found on the computers of a number of extremists give the lie to this simple division.

It is probably sensible for the police to take stock before assuming there is an inevitable link between terrorism, especially the jihadi variety, and child pornography. But it is possible that an extreme interpretation of Islam that regards male sexual urges as so uncontrollable that all women have to cover themselves from head to toe generates in some men a confusion about their sexuality and appropriate sexual partners. An interest in child pornography may be one consequence.

In 2005 anti-terror police were monitoring Abdul Khalisadar, a Muslim preacher. They were astonished to find that his DNA came up on the national database for an unsolved rape in Whitechapel. His computer contained enough extreme child pornography for him to be charged with possession of this illegal material, but he was never convicted of terror offences.

Another religiously observant youth who was caught up in British anti-terror surveillance in 2006 was also found to have serious child po-rnography on his computer.

In Spain Abdelkader Ayachine, a man in his forties who is thought to be a leader of a terrorist cell, is awaiting trial accused of having thousands of extreme child po-rnography images. These files were on the same computers as videos of Osama bin Laden and other Islamic fundamentalist ideologues extolling jihad.

Just as anti-terror police have found that their investigations have led them to collectors of child po-rnography, so also have child protection officers found that their investigations have led them to people preparing to carry out terrorist acts. This overlap is seen as of such significance that Scotland Yard has considered whether child protection officers should be alerted to the possibilities of terrorists being among their suspects.

This story, also at the Times, gives more details.

More proof that immorality breeds immorality, even if the practitioners like to clothe it in religious terms.

Today, the Free Gaza leftards and terrorist-huggers gave out another of their endless supply of press releases where they lie about their goals:

We are returning to Gaza for exactly the same reasons we came in August: to deliver medical supplies, meet with civil society organizations, volunteer in hospitals, and visit Palestinians who have requested our presence.

But their mission statement gives the real reason they came:

We want to break the siege of Gaza. We want to raise international awareness about the prison-like closure of the Gaza Strip and pressure the international community to review its sanctions policy and end its support for continued Israeli occupation. We want to uphold Palestine's right to welcome internationals as visitors, human rights observers, humanitarian aid workers, journalists, or otherwise.

Not a single word about acually helping Gazans in their mission statement!

The goals of the FGM have nothing to do with helping Gazans, and their bringing small amounts of medical supplies and a few doctors is a show - to try to embarrass Israel and score brownie points in the international media. As we have seen, the terror-supporting FGM freaks have proven that helping Gazans is the last thing on their minds.

Egypt's siege of Gaza

Last week, CAMERA released a backgrounder aimed at the many media outlets that refer exclusively to an "Israeli siege" of Gaza without acknowledging that Egypt also chooses to severely restrict people and goods from entering Gaza.

A case in point can be seen in this story which has been ignored by the Western press.

Ma'an wrote last week:

A European group is organizing the largest-ever parliamentary visit to the Gaza Strip next month, aimed at breaking the ongoing Israeli siege.

The European Campaign to Lift the Siege of Gaza announced its preparations on Thursday, saying it intends to send legislators from all over the world to Gaza in November.

Several Arab and foreign parliamentarians expressed their wish to participate in the visit aiming at breaking the siege of the Gaza Strip, organizers said in a statement.

Leaders from Rights for All, a Swiss-based organization in Geneva, said that "parliamentarians from Algeria, Kuwait, Yemen, Jordan, Sudan and other Arab countries will join the international parliamentarian delegation."

The head of the European Campaign said that the group will also include leaders from various other countries, namely the United Kingdom, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and Scotland, as well as Asia and Latin America.

Concerning the arrangements for entering the Gaza Strip, Al Gharbi said that “negotiations are ongoing with the Egyptian side."

He added that the movement has high hopes for Egypt to open the Rafah crossing to enable the delegation to enter Gaza and "see the human and medical situation" there.

In an ironic twist that has gone completely unnoticed by the mainstream media, Egypt denied this delegation from crossing Rafah:

The "European Campaign to Lift the Siege on Gaza" condemned the decision of the Egyptian authorities to refuse to allow the group, which includes scores of Arab and foreign deputies, from entering the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing dividing Egypt and the Gaza Strip early next month.

The head of the delegation said in a press statement: "We strongly condemn the surprise decision refusing to enter the Gaza Strip from Egypt, although the objective of the visit was humanitarian."

Yes, a group of self-declared "humanitarians" who say that their objective it to stop the "Israeli siege" is stopped from entering - by Egypt.

The irony doesn't end there. The "Free Gaza" movement, which is set to sail their patched-up boat today from Cyprus to Gaza, got British MP Jeremy Corbyn to submit an absurdly anti-Israel motion to the British House of Commons (received via email):

This House applauds the excellent work of the Free Gaza Movement in highlighting the fact that Israel is imposing collective punishment on the 1.5 million people of Gaza, in contravention of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention; acknowledges the considerable amount of pressure applied by the Israeli government on a previous (FG) voyage last August; wishes the latest boat travelling from the port of Cyprus to Gaza carrying both a large group of concerned human rights workers and, including among them Palestinian MP - Dr Mustafa Barghouti, and the Nobel Peace Prize winner - Mairead Maguire, as well as medical practitioners and supplies, a safe voyage with no outside interference, and calls upon her majesty's government to take action to ensure that the massive economic, political and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is brought to an end as a matter of urgency.

So the "Free Gaza" movement gets massive amounts of publicity and claims that Israel interfered with their non-humanitarian, PR-fueled voyage last August - when Israel allowed the boats through unimpeded - but when a much more prominent group actually does get stopped from entering Gaza by Egypt, the world media is utterly silent.

LG Electronics markets Quran TV set

The line between religion and commerce is nonexistent when it comes to Islam. Korea-based LG has released a TV with built-in Quran:

Keen to read the Quran on your TV set in the comfort of your home or bookmark your favourite phrases from the Holy Quran at the flick of your TV remote? You can now, with LG's latest Quran-enabled Time Machine TV.

Fresh from the success of its Qiblah mobile phone, digital leader LG Electronics has announced the Middle East-wide availability of the only TV in the world with built-in Quran, to honour the Holy Month of Ramadan.

LG's latest Time Machine plasma/LCD TV allows viewers to listen to the Quran, search and bookmark passages - all on the TV screen. The Holy Quran incorporated into the plasma/LCD TV includes all of the 114 suras, allowing users to search for specific sura or verse and bookmark up to 10 favourites with record and stop button on the remote control.

The innovative TV also allows viewers to listen to the Quran, an excellent feature for allowing several people to study and understand the scriptures together. A multilingual interface allows viewers to navigate and read the text in Arabic and Farsi. At the top of the screen is a status bar that displays the name of the sura, verse numbers and the time of day.

"The built-in Quran TV will provide believers in Allah and his Prophet (PBUH) a new and rewarding way to experience the Holy Scriptures during the most sacred time of the year," said Mr. H.S. Paik, President of LG Electronics Gulf FZE. "As a brand that respects Muslims, LG is committed to ensuring that we offer solutions that meet local needs, and the built-in Quran TV comes as a part of this effort."

The latest innovation follows the unprecedented success of LG's Qiblah mobile handset, which notched up impressive sales especially in the GCC. The Qiblah Phone (LG-F7100) indicates the direction users should face in order to pray toward Mecca, even if they are in the desert with few reference points. Users simply input their location and the phone, which works in 500 cities worldwide, automatically points the way.

As was with Nokia, this is a case where a multinational company is endorsing a single religion.

If the Muslim market would demand that Nokia or LG boycott Israel, what are the chances they would resist? They've already shown that they bend over backwards to uniquely accommodate Muslims.

The peaceful Palestinian Arabs, 1834

I just saw this account of a Muslim riot against Jews in 1834 in Safed in a book called Eōthen by Alexander William Kinglake published in 1846:

At length I drew
near to the city of Safet. It sits as proud as a fortress upon the
summit of a craggy height ; yet because of its minarets, and stately
trees, the place looks happy and beautiful. It is one of the holy
cities of the Talmud, and according to this authority, the Messiah
will reign there for forty years before he takes possession of Sion.
The sanctity and historical importance thus attributed to the city
by anticipation render it a favourite place of retirement for Israelites,
of whom it contains, they say, about four thousand, a number
nearly balancing that of the Mahometan inhabitants. I knew
by my experience of Tabarieh that a "holy city" was sure to have
a population of vermin somewhat proportionate to the number of
its Israelites, and I therefore caused my tent to be pitched upon
a green spot of ground at a respectful distance from the walls of
the town.

When it had become quite dark (for there was no moon that
night,) I was informed that several Jews had secretly come from
the city, in the hope of obtaining some assistance from me in
circumstances of imminent danger...These men informed me that
the Jews of the place, who were
exceedingly wealthy, had lived peaceably in their retirement until
the insurrection which took place in 1834, but about the beginning
of that year a highly religious Mussulman called Mahommed
Damoor, went forth into the market-place, crying with aloud
voice, and prophesying, that on the fifteenth of the following June
the true Believers would rise up in just wrath against the Jews,
and despoil them of their gold, and their silver, and their jewels.
The earnestness of the prophet produced some impression at the
time, but all went on as usual, until at last the fifteenth of June
arrived. When that day dawned, the whole Mussulman population
of the place assembled in the streets, that they might see
the result of the prophecy.

Suddenly Mahommed Damoor rushed
furious into the crowd, and the fierce shout of the prophet soon
ensured the fulfilment of his prophecy. Some of the Jews fled,
and some remained, but they who fled, and they who remained,
alike and unresistingly left their property to the hands of the
spoilers. The most odious of all outrages , that of searching the
women for the base purpose of discovering such things as gold,
and silver concealed about their persons, was perpetrated without
shame. The poor Jews were so stricken with terror, that they
submitted to their fate, even where resistance would have been
easy. In several instances a young Mussulman boy, not more
than ten or twelve years of age, walked straight into the house of
a Jew, and stripped him of his property before his face, and in
the presence of his whole family.* When the insurrection was
put down, some of the Mussulmans (most probably those who
had got no spoil wherewith they might buy immunity), were punished,
but the greater part of them escaped; none of the booty
was restored, and the pecuniary redress which the Pasha had undertaken
to enforce for them, had been hitherto so carefully delayed,
that the hope of ever obtaining it had grown very faint.

And later, we see that the author harbored a little empathy for Jews himself - but only a little:

Mohammed Damoor had again gone forth into the market place, and lifted up
his voice, and prophesied a second spoliation of the Israelites.
This was grave matter; the words of such a practical man as
Mohammed Damoor were not to be despised. I fear I must have
smiled visibly, for I was greatly amused, and even, I think,
gratified at the account of this second prophecy. Nevertheless,
my heart warmed towards the poor oppressed Israelites, and I
was flattered, too, in the point of my national vanity at the notion
of the far-reaching link, by which a Jew in Syria, who had been
born on the rock of Gibraltar, was able to claim me as his fellow-
countryman. If I hesitated at all between the "improprietry" of
interfering in a matter which was no business of mine , and the "
infernal shame" of refusing my aid at such a conjecture, I soon
came to a very ungentlemanly decision — namely, that I would
be guilty of the "impropriety," and not of the "infernal shame."
It seemed to me that the immediate arrest of Mohammed Damoor
was the one thing needful to the safety of the Jews, and I felt
confident, (for reasons which I have already mentioned in speaking
of the Nablous affair) that I should be able to obtain this
result by making a formal application to the Governor. I told my
applicants that 1 would take this step on the following morning;
they were very grateful, and were for a moment much pleased at
the prospect of safely which might thus be opened to them, but
the deliberation of a minute entirely altered their views, and filled
them with new terror; they declared that any attempt, or pretended
attempt on the part of the Governor to arrest Mohammed
Damoor would certainly produce an immediate movement of the
whole Mussulman population, and a consequent massacre and
robbery of the Israelites. My visitors went out, and remained I
know not how long consulting with their brethren, but all at last
agreed that their present perilous, and painful position was better
than a certain, and immediate attack, and that if Mohammed
Damoor was seized, their second estate would be worse than their
first. I myself did not think that this would be the case, but I
could not of course force my aid upon the people against their
will, and moreover the day fixed for the fulfilment of this second
prophecy was not very close at hand ; a little delay, therefore, in
providing against the impending danger, would not necessarily
be fatal. The men now confessed that although they had come
with so much mystery, and, as they thought, at so great a risk
to ask my assistance, they were unable to suggest any mode in
which I could aid them, except, indeed, by mentioning their
grievances to the Consul-general at Damascus. This I promised
to do, and this I did.

My visitors were very thankful to me for the readiness which I
had shown to intermeddle in their affairs, and the grateful wives
of the principalJews sent to me many compliments, with choice
wines, and elaborate sweetmeats.

The course of my travels soon drew me so far from Safet, that
I never heard how the dreadful day passed off which had been
fixed for the accomplishment of the second prophecy. If the predicted
spoliation was prevented, poor Mohammed Damoor must
have been forced, I suppose, to say that he had prophesied in a
metaphorical sense. This would be a sad falling off from the
brilliant and substantial success of the first experiment.

How peacefully they lived together when the Jews were dhimmis!