Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

New anti-semitic play in London

Harry's Place covers a new ten-minute play called "Seven Jewish Children" where Jewish parents and grandparents teach their unseen charges to hate Arabs. (Melanie Philips also talks about it.)

The climax of the play is where unfeeling Jewish parents literally cheer the deaths of Gaza children:

Tell her about the family of dead girls, tell her their names why not, tell her the whole world knows, why shouldn’t she know? tell her there’s dead babies, did she see babies? Tell her she’s got nothing to be ashamed of. Tell her they did it to themselves. Tell her they want their children killed to make people sorry for them, tell her I’m not sorry for them, tell her not to be sorry for them, tell her we’re the ones to be sorry for, tell her they can’t talk suffering to us. Tell her we’re the iron fist now, tell her it’s the fog of war, tell her we won’t stop killing them till we’re safe, tell her I laughed when I saw the dead policeman, tell her I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out, the world would hate us is the only thing, tell her I don’t care if the world hates us, tell her we’re better haters, tell her we’re chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? Tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her.

It is pointless to argue that Jews and Israelis don't feel anything like the words spoken here. It is a waste of time to explain that, Jews are not happy to see dead Palestinian Arab civilians. And it is beyond the comprehension of the playwright to mention that the only population that unabashedly and joyously celebrates the deaths of innocents are the Arabs that the author of the play is so sympathetic to.

But it is important to point out that the playwright, who pretends to be a liberal, is displaying the worst kind of bigotry possible.

Israellycool livechatting the elections

With Professor Barry Rubin.

Much more fun than watching CNN during American elections.

Check it out!

The elections 75 years ago

Here were the preliminary results for the elections of the 18th Zionist Congress in Prague, August 1933:

These were the first Zionist elections where Labor outpolled the General Zionism list.

After this Congress the Revisionists (precursors to Likud) established their own alternative organization; they rejoined in 1946.

Guess what UNRWA blames Israel for now?

UNRWA is upset at blaming Israel for its teachers not telling their young charges that firing rockets at civilians is wrong:

[UNRWA chief John Ging] voiced particular exasperation at the ban on importing paper which UNRWA needs for printing school text books and a new curriculum on human rights, calling it shameful, appealing for common sense to prevail, and stressing that the new rights programme would instil in the young how wrong it is to fire rockets.

In the previous paragraph, Ging is quoted as saying

“We have 900,000 people queuing up for food at UNRWA, and we’re only getting through them at 30,000 a day because that’s all the food we can get in,” he added. “The plight of the people is extremely bad, as we should all know by now. We’re struggling to get in the quantities that are needed, and failing I might add.”

I cannot say for certain why Israel might think that food is a higher priority than paper, even if you don't believe the claims that somehow Gazans are only getting 3% of their food needs.

However, how absurd is it to hear, after sixty years of being the major educator of Palestinian Arab children, that UNRWA now has decided to teach that cold blooded targeting of civilians is somewhat less than ideal?

And that it is Israel that is somehow stopping this lesson from being taught?

PA threatens to scuttle "peace process"

From WAFA:

PA presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina stated that the PA "will not deal with any Israeli government that is not fully committed to the peace process."

Abu Rudeina said in a statement, on the eve of the Israeli general elections, "We will not deal with any Israeli government that were not fully committed to the peace process and the two-state solution and the roadmap and the Arab peace initiative, to stop the settlements."

Sounds like as good a reason to vote for the hawks as any.

Latest Zionist plot against "Al Aqsa"

Just about every day the PalArabic press mentions another Jewish plot against the Al Aqsa Mosque. Either the Jews are planning to build a synagogue there, or they are building a tunnel underneath, or they are installing cameras nearby, but either way they know that the goal is the same - to destroy the mosque one way or another.

Today, we have a novel method of undermining the holy site: by deliberately introducing immodestly dressed women to the area. From Palestine Today:

The "Noble Sanctuary Heritage Institution" charges that Israel is violating the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque by allowing the Jews and foreigners to enter the area with scandalous clothing.

The institution stressed that the occupation authorities deliberately introduced thousands of Jews and foreign tourists to Al Aqsa clothing does not respect the sanctity of the place, especially women.

They said that "the Israeli authorities that accompany tourist groups prevent any of the guards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque or the Muslim faithful patrons from approaching the tourists to object to their semi-naked and provocative behavior."

Another brilliant Zionist plot against Islam!

It has been over a week since my last Open Thread, so I have been remiss in my duties to provide my readers with a spot to place their flotsam and jetsam.

(Actually, only jetsam; flotsam cannot be placed anywhere voluntarily, from what I understand.)

Anyway, here's the place to put stuff that I haven't spoken about or to add links to interesting finds on this vast World Wide Web.

Arab pride again trumps people

From the NYT (h/t EBoZ):

Scores of Palestinian patients being treated in Israeli hospitals, a rare bright spot of coexistence here, are being sent home because the Palestinian Authority has stopped paying for their treatment, partly in anger over the war in Gaza.

Hadassah Hospital says that for the past week no payments have come in and Palestinians whose children are being treated there have been instructed by Palestinian health officials to place them in facilities in the West Bank, Jordan or Egypt.

“Suddenly we have had 57 patients dropped from our rolls,” lamented Michael Weintraub, director of pediatric hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplantation at Hadassah. “We have been bombarded by frantic parents. This is a political decision taken on the backs of patients.”

The Palestinian health minister, Fathi Abu Moghli, said he was examining the entire referral procedure because he was tired of adding to what he called Israel’s “oil well,” meaning the payments for Palestinian patient care. In particular, he said, he had no desire to see the injured from the Gaza war get Israeli care.

“We already pay $7 million a month to Israeli hospitals,” he said in a telephone interview. “Since the first day of the Gaza aggression I said that I will not send to my occupier my injured people in order for him to make propaganda at my expense and then pay him for it.”

An Israeli clinic set up with great fanfare on the Israeli-Gaza border the day the war ended on January 18th has already been closed since both Hamas, the rulers of Gaza and the Palestinian Authority essentially boycotted it. The Palestinian Authority pays for the care in Israel of its citizens — or much of it — out of its budget.

As the article goes on the show, there are many patients - cancer patients especially - who simply cannot get comparable care in Palestinian Arab hospitals. And Israel's hospital costs are one quarter that for comparable care in the West.

Once again, the so-called "leaders" of the Palestinian Arabs are not only willing, but eager, to sacrifice the life and health of their own people in order to score rhetorical points. Projecting their own hatred onto Israelis, they feel that the Zionists only care for Arabs for propaganda purposes and they would rather remove that perceived, imaginary gain by Israel - and let their own children die.

This is no different than how Palestinian Arab leaders have made most of their decisions in their short history - looking at everything as a zero-sum game and assuming that what is good for Israel is bad for their people, and vice versa. And then they make decisions that are the exact opposite of what their own people would prefer.

After all, no one is forcing Palestinian Arabs to choose Israeli hospitals to treat their people. They obviously want to - but their wise health minister can't stand it and would rather have some of them die.

Even the most obvious win-win cannot be stomached, because one of the sides that wins is the hated Jewish side. This kind of hatred is pathological.

Did UNRWA engineer the Hamas "hijacking?"

YNet reports:

The United Nations said on Monday that Hamas has returned all of the aid supplies that it seized from the agency in the Gaza Strip last week.

But one of the sentences at the end of the article is more interesting:

The UN is under pressure to show international donors that it is independent of Hamas as it seeks funding to rebuild the territory after Israel's crushing three-week military offensive.

Indeed it is. There have been prominent calls for Congress to withhold funding UNRWA until it proves it can audit UNRWA more effectively, and a bill has been introduced to increase oversight over UNRWA and investigate its ties to terror.

There is increasing evidence that UNRWA and Hamas have worked together, not officially but as de facto partners. If we take UNRWA's statements at face value, Hamas has avoided stealing UNRWA goods while it has taken supplies from other NGOs over the years; if we are more skeptical, then UNRWA has been covering up Hamas crimes against the agency. Either way, it looks more like collusion than an adversarial relationship.

Additionally, Hamas has admitted to diverting Palestinian Red Crescent aid to UNRWA.

Much has been written about known Hamas terrorists in UNRWA, and perhaps those accusations aren't entirely fair, as UNRWA has argued. However, instead of looking at the relatively low percentage of verified terrorists among the thousands of UNRWA employees in Gaza, we can get a more complete picture by looking at the UNRWA union. In 2003, more than 90% of the vote for the UNRWA workers' union was won by Hamas - and this is way before Hamas' Gaza coup. Hamas won every UNRWA union election since 1990.

After years of what can only be considered a symbiotic relationship between UNRWA and Hamas, where a Hamas-dominated UNRWA controlled the majority of aid in Gaza allowing Hamas to import weapons, it seems strange that Hamas should suddenly openly steal aid from UNRWA.

In the context of the new spotlight on UNRWA ties to Hamas, between the aforementioned congressional pressure and the recent report by James Lindsay on UNRWA's many shortcomings, is it possible that UNRWA engineered this "hijacking" of aid? UNRWA now appears to be upset at Hamas (and the UN genuinely is,) it gets Hamas to back down and admit its "mistake" - something Hamas never does - and the Hamas now shamefully returns the aid, also something Hamas has never done before. The idea that Hamas and UNRWA work together seems much less likely and this could be enough to allow that relationship to survive another couple of years without serious oversight.

I'm generally not big on conspiracy theories, but UNRWA seems to have benefitted greatly over this while Hamas has lost little.

Lunch links

Michael J. Totten files a dispatch from the Gaza border

Meryl Yourish goes much further than I did in taking apart Jimmy Carter's latest screed

Soccer Dad presents his 12th edition of Shiny Happy Dhimmi

Yaakov ben Moshe covers some amazing ground in The Biggest Honor Killing of All (h/t Augean Stables)

And some more garden-variety British anti-semitism

The Egyptian Madoff

The Daily News Egypt reports:

Broker Mahmoud El Boushi of Optima Securities Brokerage, who allegedly pilfered around $68,422 million and €200,000 from his clients, was arrested earlier this week in Dubai, but was granted bail after he reached a settlement with an Egyptian businessman in an AED 5 million dud check case.
However the same businessman filed another complaint involving AED 21.9 million [$2.5m -EoZ], according to Khaleej Times, a UAE-based newspaper.
Over 48 Egyptians, including high-profile public figures, had also filed complaints to Egypt’s Commercial and Financial Affairs Prosecution office against Mahmoud El Boushi, accusing him of fraud.
Last Tuesday, the Interpol requested from the Emirati government to hand over El Boushi to the Egyptian authorities, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Dubai Police, Major-General Khamis Matter Al Mazeina, said.

Last week there were some articles about this Boushi, who swindled millions from Arab celebrities, but only now do we see that the amount he stole might be significantly worse than Bernie Madoff's alleged $50 billion.

The comparisons are eerie. Like Madoff, Boushi promised high returns to his clients (actually much higher than Madoff - 40%) and he targeted high-profile clients:

The list includes famous actress Laila Olwi, said to have lost more than $500,000 dollars, Mervat Amin, another cinema star, losing almost the same amount, and her ex-husband, actor Hussein Fahmi, who lost $2 million.

Mahmoud al-Khatib, former footballer and the current vice chairman of Egypt's Al-Ahly Club (lost $6 million) and Hassan al-Gabali, the brother of Egypt's Minister of Health Hatem al-Gabali (lost $12 million) are also among those named as victims, according to the list published by Rose al-Youssef Egyptian daily.

I can only find the huge $68 billion figure from the Khaleej Times, but it if is true, this could have a huge impact in Arab financial circles.

And of course we can expect plenty of articles about Arabs agonizing over how Boushi could besmirch all Arabs by doing this, how embarrassed they are that he shares their culture and religion and how it will increase Islamophobia. Right?

UPDATE: Almost certainly I was reading the decimal point wrong, and it is $68 million, not billion.

Another two Gazans killed by Hamas

Hot on the heels of Hamas accusations that Fatah tortured a Hamas member to death, Fatah announced that Hamas abducted a 48-year old father of ten in Gaza named Nehad Saadi Aldbaki three days ago and tortured him to death.

Palestine Press Agency also mentions another person killed by Hamas a few days ago I had not counted, a member of the PFLP named Shaqqura.

My "self-death" count of Arabs violently killed by other Palestinian Arabs in 2009 rises to 22.

Natan Sharansky has a blog

My favorite thinker, Natan Sharansky, has a blog.

Spend five minutes now to read his section on human rights.

Throughout the site one finds true gems, such as this:

Hamas is not the only Palestinian group at fault. In 2005, shortly after the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, I met with the chief of staff to the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. My question to him: Now that we have uprooted thousands of Jews and empowered Gazans to be masters of their own fate, can we hope that within a year’s time there will be fewer refugees in the camps? “Absolutely not,” he said. “The refugees will be relocated only in the context of the final status [agreement]. How can we move them if we do not know where they will live? Maybe they will live in Israel.”
In withdrawing from Gaza, Israel made painful concessions for peace by forcibly removing Jews from their homes. And yet even the Palestinian Authority, the most moderate among Palestinian political groups, would not consider easing their own people’s plight in the wake of Israel’s compromise. This is because the suffering of the refugees is essential to their broader political struggle.

How does the West respond to the obvious exploitation of Palestinian refugees? Soon after my meeting with Mr. Abbas’s chief of staff, I met with the ambassador of one of the West’s most enlightened countries. I asked: Why are the Palestinians not willing to help their own refugees? “I can understand them,” he answered. “After all, they don’t want the refugee problem to be taken off the agenda.”

The world needs such clarity as Sharansky's.

Freedom of religion, Saudi-style

From the Saudi Gazette:

Establishing houses of worship for non-Muslims is a sensitive issue but the Kingdom does not restrict non-Muslims to practice their religion in private, a senior human rights official said here Saturday.

Zeid Al-Hussein, Vice President of the Saudi Human Rights Commission, said the Kingdom is not only an Islamic state, but it is also the cradle of Islam and of Islamic civilization. It is the land of the Two Holy Mosques and the destination of Muslims from around the world.

Therefore, he said, the Kingdom is charged with the responsibility of preserving Islam, its rituals and its sanctities.

Regarding not allowing the establishment of places of worship for non-Muslims in the Kingdom, Al-Hussein said, we believe that Islam is the seal of religions and that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the cradle of Islam, the land of the Two Holy Mosques, and the destination of 1.5 billion Muslims.

Therefore, the religious peculiarities make it difficult to establish worship places in the holy land.

However, non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia are completely enjoy the freedom of worship and can practice the rituals of their religions in their own places.

Imagine the outcry if an Israeli "human rights" official said that "Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people and the object of their prayers and devotions. As a result, there can be no churches or mosques, but everyone is free to practice their religion in private." Or a similar statement from Rome disallowing synagogues and mosques there.

The Saudi article has some humorous sections about Islam and human rights, like this:

Islam supplements, rather than undermines, international human rights standards and Saudi Arabia derives its values from all sources provided that they are compatible with the objectives called for by the Islamic Shariah, Al-Hussein said.

The Shariah pays special attention to the rights of vulnerable groups, such as, minorities and non-Muslims, and, in fact, the Shariah grants women extensive rights.

We all know that Saudi Arabia is hardly a mecca (pun intended) for freedom of religion, but for the "Human Rights Commission" official to justify it in the name of human rights is more than a little hypocritical.

Update on UNRWA West Bank "strike"

A Ma'an report last week said that UNRWA workers in the West Bank went on strike, so I emailed UNRWA:

Is there any comment about the UNRWA workers' strike reported in Ma'an? http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=35542

Which workers are striking? How is it affecting UNRWA services? How many are on strike? What is the minimum and average salaries for UNRWA workers in the West Bank?

Chris Gunness replied that he was much too busy to reply, but this morning I received an answer from Sami Mshasha, denying any strike:

1- Who are striking? No one.

The UNRWA West Bank Staff Union issued a circular last week calling for ‘protest activities’ to protest:

a-UNRWA not wanting to move its field operations work week from a six-days into a five-days work week. The Union believes that this is possible and would not affect services. UNRWA—and large segments of the population benefiting from UNRWA services—thing otherwise.

B- Increase in salary to correspond to cost of living increases and

c- compensating losses in the staff’s provident fund (retirement fund).

2- So far direct assistance to the refugees are not being affected. If and when the Union decides to go on strike, education, health and social services stand to be affected.

3- UNRWA employs some 5,000 staff members. Almost all of them are union members.

4- UNRWA’s salary scale is set on a scale of 1 to 20— Grade one being the lowest and grade 20 the highest (for nationally recruited staff).

Salary for grade one (average): Jordanian Dinar (JD): 370

Grade 20: JD1200.

Average salary: JD530.

I'm not sure if the 5000 workers are for all of UNRWA or just the West Bank.

A Jordanian dinar is worth about $1.41, so this means that the union employees average $9000 a year. Management, however, seems to make over ten times that amount.