Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

US senators in Syria while Syria builds WMD plant

Jane's uncovers:

Satellite images from several commercial sources gathered from 2005 to 2008 have shed light on activity at the chemical weapons facility identified as Al Safir in northwest Syria. Imagery obtained by DigitalGlobe's WorldView-1 satellite indicates that the site contains not only a number of the defining features of a chemical weapons facility, but that significant levels of construction have taken place at the facility's production plant and adjacent missile base.

And yet the US continues to send major officials to genuflect at these active builders of WMDs:

A delegation of US senators headed by Benjamin Cardin, a member of the foreign relations committee, arrived in Damascus on Tuesday for talks with President Bashar al-Assad.
Cardin's talks with the president on Wednesday will focus on bilateral relations, the peace process and regional questions, the US embassy said.

It is the second US Congressional delegation to visit Syria in less than a month and John Kerry, foreign relations committee chairman, is expected to make the country one of his stops on a current Middle East tour.

See Soccer Dad for more on the folly of senators sightseeing in Damascus.

Iranian official calls Bahrain a province of Iran

Bahrain isn't too happy with Iran:

PARLIAMENT yesterday condemned controversial statements by Iranian officials, who claimed Bahrain was actually part of the Persian state.
All 40 of Bahrain's MPs agreed to issue a statement dismissing the statements as a flagrant violation of the UN Charter, an international law that advocates mutual respect between sovereign states.

It follows comments by Hujjat Al Islam Ali Akbar Natiq Nuri, head of public inspection at the office of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, last week.

He revived the controversial claims during a speech in Mashhad marking the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, in which he described Bahrain as the 14th Iranian province.

On December 27 last year, IIam province MP Daryoush Ghanbari also claimed Bahrain was an integral part of Iran, questioning what he called the dubious role of the United Nations in establishing Bahrain's sovereignty.

Bahrain has suspended talks with Iran over natural gas imports.

Jordan has condemned the Iranian official's remarks as well, and reminded Iran that they still illegally occupy land that belongs to the UAE.

UNRWA is part of the problem (video)

I wish I knew who made this, but it is pretty good (h/t Israellycool):

Good news links

An Israeli company has signed the world's largest solar energy deal with a California electric company, to power nearly a million homes.

A Portuguese cheesemaker who is a descendant of Jews forced to convert to Christianity 500 years ago decides to get kosher certification.

Technion scientists invent an artificial "nose" that can detect and identify cancers early just from smelling the breath of the patients. The head of the team is an Arab.

An IDF soldier who died in a tragic accident becomes a successful shadchan (matchmaker) two years later. (See also Treppenwitz for a personal angle and observations.)

Now babies can have their own iPods before they are born - and it might save their lives.

The "James Bond" gadgetry of the IDF.

British libraries cave to Muslims

From the Daily Mail:

Librarians are being told to move the Bible to the top shelf to avoid giving offence to followers of Islam.
Muslims have complained of finding the Koran on lower shelves, saying it should be put above commonplace things.
So officials have responded with guidance, backed by ministers, that all holy books should be treated equally and go on the top shelf together.
This means that Christian works, which also have immense historical and literary value, will be kept out of the reach and sight of many readers.
The guidance was published by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, a quango answering to Culture Secretary Andy Burnham.
It said Muslims in Leicester had moved copies of the Koran to the top shelves of libraries, in keeping with the belief that the Koran is the all-important word of God.
The report said the city’s librarians consulted the Federation of Muslim Organisations and were advised that all religious texts should be kept on the top shelf.
‘This meant that no offence is caused, as the scriptures of all the major faiths are given respect in this way, but none is higher than any other,’ the guidance added.
Critics said such a move implied religious works should be treated as objects of veneration rather than as books to be read. Robert Whelan of the Civitas think-tank said:

‘Libraries and museums are not places of worship. They should not be run in accordance with particular religious beliefs.
‘This is violating the principles of librarianship and it is part of an insidious trend.’

"410 children"

On the day that Israel declared a cease fire in Gaza, AFP quoted Palestinian "medical sources" - meaning the Ministry of Health - as saying that there were 1188 dead, including 410 children.

On that same day, Ma'an quoted a figure of 1205 killed - including 410 children.

And on January 19th, two days later, the Palestinian Ministry of Health was quoted by the UN and WHO as saying there were about 1300 deaths - including 410 children.

By February 1, the Arab press was saying that there were 1400 deaths - including 410 children.

It is truly amazing that during the cease fire, the ridiculous sources that reporters uncritically used raised the death toll by over 200 and no one noticed - and they also didn't notice that the children and women dead stayed the same.

I started researching this bizarre "410 children" figure when I saw it quoted as fact by the rabidly anti-Zionist Philip Weiss in his blog, today, even when the MoH figures have been proven to be absurd. Even if you don't accept the IDF figures of 300 total women and children (counting children as under 16, not under 18), the PCHR said that the number of children killed was 280 and at least tries to back up that number.

But why let facts get in the way of insane hate?

More details about the missing Gaza ordnance

I just got off the phone with Richard Miron, UN spokesman in Jerusalem for UNSCO who was quoted in the BBC report about the seven missing tons of unexploded ordnance in Gaza. He said that his only official statement was what he told the BBC, but he did answer a couple of questions.

Miron said that the YNet report was incorrect in saying that UNRWA officials examined the weaponry. The UN Mines Action Team was not the party that found, gathered nor stored the explosives; they did not own the warehouse and never took possession of them. Their job was simply to safely destroy of the material, and Miron did not tell me how exactly they found out about it to begin with.

He also refused to speculate who might have taken the explosives, although I think we all now who that was.

(Interestingly, I had emailed Chris Gunness about the UNRWA connection and he simply emailed back to call a certain number. I assumed the number belonged to Gunness himself, but it was Miron, Chief Public Information Officer of UNSCO, who answered the phone, and whom I had earlier emailed with similar questions.)

Followup: Terrorists recycling unexploded Israeli bombs

As a followup to yesterday's article about Hamas bragging that they got lots of free munitions from unexploded Israeli ordnance, the BBC explains exactly where they got it from:

A large stockpile of unexploded weapons has disappeared in Gaza, before United Nations experts were able to dispose of it safely, the BBC has learned.

The explosives, including aircraft bombs and white phosphorus shells, were fired by the Israeli military during its recent offensive in the Gaza Strip.
UN officials said they were urgently trying to establish where the arms had gone and have called for their return.
Israel has accused Hamas of taking the stockpile, which was under Hamas guard.
A UN Mines Action Team has been in Gaza since the end of the war, last month, its job to locate unexploded Israeli ordnance and to organise its safe disposal.
Two weeks ago, on 2 February, the UN team was given access to a storage site in Gaza City where more than 7,000kg of explosives were being housed.
They included three 2,000-pound bombs and eight 500-pound bombs, which had all been dropped from aircraft but failed to explode.
There was also a large number of 155mm shells for delivering the incendiary chemical white phosphorus.
Many of the explosives had been collected by the Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip.
The UN staff had been waiting for the Israeli army to allow them to bring specialist equipment into Gaza so they would be able to destroy the explosives safely.
In particular, the team needed explosives or flares to set off a controlled explosion and they needed tools to allow them to extract fuses from some of the bombs.
The UN staff were also waiting for permission from the Israeli military to use two safe areas to dispose of the munitions.
At a meeting last Thursday with the Israeli army, two areas were identified: one in the north, in a no-go area close to the border with Israel and the other near Khan Younis in the south, in a former Hamas training area.
On Sunday, when UN officials returned to the warehouse, which was under a Hamas police guard, they say they found most of the explosives had gone missing.
Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said the stockpile had been "commandeered by Hamas".

And why exactly did the UN allow Hamas to "guard" seven tons of explosives?

(h/t Callie)

Guess who wrote these words?

Try to guess what organization wrote these words in their press releases during January:

Zionist killing machine aimed at medical staff and drug stores

The [Zionist] forces of Nazi oppression, which has taken upon itself to destroy crops and cattle, adding to its black record every minute a new shameful affront to civilization and humanity. A new Holocaust in Gaza, the indiscriminate targeting of elders, women and children.

Army of the Nazi occupation attacks children and women

Seems that there is no sanctity of anything in this war declared by the barbaric Zionist killing machine on the defenseless people of Gaza Strip...every hour there was a massacre.

Was it Hamas? Islamic Jihad? Iranian TV?

No, these press releases were from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, of the moderate PA, reporting to peacemaker Mahmoud Abbas, whose webpage is plastered with pictures of dead children.

Reading their words does not make one think that they would be the most reliable sources for objective information.

Yet it just so happens that the Palestinian Ministry of Health was the "official source" for most media outlets during the Gaza operation when they counted the number of casualties. They were the ones that insisted that one third of the dead were children. And they were also the source used by the UN's John Holmes when discussing how many casualties were civilians - even when the somewhat less biased PCHR reports were out that showed the MOH to be exaggerating.

Journalists can be forgiven for using MOH's figures as long as they identify the source and indicate the possible bias. But when they use them as fact, they are simply part of the problem.

PA arrests and beats shoe-throwing teen

From JPost:

A Palestinian boy who threw a shoe at the car of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad has been arrested by the PA security forces.

The boy was identified as Saher Ahmed Muhaisen, 15, from the Dehaishe refugee camp near Bethlehem.

The incident occurred last Thursday while Fayad was in Bethlehem to attend a conference of Christian community leaders.

Sources in the city told The Jerusalem Post that Muhaisen hurled his shoe and an orange at Fayad's car as his convoy passed through one of the main thoroughfares. No one was hurt.

They said that PA policemen and security officers accompanying the convoy arrested the boy after chasing him through the alleyways of the camp.

The sources quoted eyewitnesses as reporting that the boy was severely beaten before being taken into custody. The boy remains in prison, and the motive for his attack on Fayad remains unclear.

A Palestinian journalist living in Bethlehem told the Post that he and his colleagues have been warned by the PA security commanders not to report on the incident.

The journalist, who asked not to be identified out of fear for his safety, said that Fayad's convoy was attacked on two other occasions.

"Each time the convoy passed through the main streets, young men would throw different objects, especially vegetables, at the cars," he said.

The journalist added that the PA police have so far arrested eight suspects, including Muhaisen, in connection with the assaults. He said the families of two other teenagers have refused to hand their sons over to the security forces for questioning about the attacks.

According to the sources, all the suspects are minors.

A senior PA official in Bethlehem said the suspects were detained for throwing vegetables at vehicles belonging to the security forces in the city. He refused to say whether the attacks were directed against Fayad's heavily-guarded convoy.

Asked why the PA has refrained from informing the public about the alleged incidents, the official replied, "This is not an important issue and we don't think there's a need to publish it. It's just a trivial matter concerning thugs."

I found this mentioned in the Arabic press - only after the Jerusalem Post report, and only quoting from it.

The anti-Fatah Palestine Today mentions the JPost story, as does the independent Al-Quds newspaper. Ma'an, Firas Press and Palestine Press Agency do not.

Freedom of the press is still dead in the "moderate" PA.

PA accuses UNRWA of illegally selling aid

From Ma'an:

UNRWA has begun investigating PA Ministry of National Economy accusations that the agency has been importing private-sector goods under its name behind the back of the ministry, Undersecretary of the Ramallah-based government office Nasser As-Sarraj said on Monday night.

As-Sarraj, part of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministry in Gaza not to be confused with the separate Ministry of National economy of the de facto Hamas government in the same area, said UNRWA has been caught selling rice and sugar to local merchants without coordinating with the ministry first.

When contacted, UNRWA spokespeople said they had not heard of any such accusations and were unaware of any ongoing investigations of Gaza staff.

As-Sarraj said UNRWA employees were involved in bringing truckloads of goods into the Gaza Strip under title of the agency and selling them to the private sector, and called the act “illegal.” He said he brought the accusations to UNRWA’s attention Monday night.

“We seized three truckloads of rice and sugar [being sold to] merchants of the private sector through UNRWA, and the [PA] coordination committee had no idea. UNRWA does not have the right to use its special position [in the Strip] to engage with the private sector.”

Whether or not these accusations are true, the very fact that they exist is evidence that UNRWA in Gaza is firmly on Hamas' side.

How Will Nassur Die? [new EoZ video]

Terrorists recycling unexploded Israeli munitions?

According to an article in the Islamic Jihad-oriented Palestine Today, the percentage of unexploded IDF ordnance in Gaza is considered a "gift from the sky:"

Abu Maaz of the resistance in the zz el-Deen al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades of the military wing of Hamas made clear that dozens of missiles and rockets by Israeli aircraft over the Gaza Strip in the recent war did not explode, and Hamas was quick to dismantle them and use the material that is inside.

He said: "After the war of aggression was stopped, we discovered dozens of rocket-propelled grenades which did not explode ... a gift from the sky. We in the resistance, we found the treasure trove".

"Abu Anas", an expert in explosives engineering al-Qassam Brigades, confirmed that the resistance is in the process of dismantling the missiles that did not explode, and making use of inside and outside.

Abu Anas noted that 5% of the rockets shot by Israel did not explode...

They go on to say that since there is a scarcity of raw materials in Gaza to manufacture missiles, these will come in very handy.

They also quote a YNet article about this phenomenon, which I could not find in English.

Does Hezbollah have anti-aircraft weapons?

The LA Times blog says:

Hezbollah said it has a right to acquire and use antiaircraft weaponry against Israeli warplanes, in a ceremony commemorating assassinated leaders of the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group.
"We have the right to possess any weapons including air defense arms, and we have all the right to use these arms if we wished to," Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah said to crowds in the southern suburb of Beirut, which is the group's stronghold.

Nasrallah did not confirm or deny whether the group had acquired antiaircraft missiles but said that Hezbollah has built its successes on the "basis of surprises."

Israeli warplanes have launched regular flights over Lebanon since the 2006 war between the Jewish state and Hezbollah.

Nasrallah said that Israel's superiority in its wars is only due to its air force, adding that Israeli ground troops have proved their weaknesses during the 2006 war and the latest offensive on Gaza.
"If the air equation changes, the equation for the whole struggle changes," he said.

Al Quds - Arabic seems to have understood Nasrallah a little differently, assuming that the autotranslation is correct:

Secretary-General suggested the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, on Monday evening that "the resistance in Lebanon has anti-aircraft missiles," saying that "resistance to the full right to possess such a weapon."

It is interesting that the Lebanese government doesn't seem to have any reaction to an extra-governmental militia gaining such capabilities.

It will also be interesting to see if UNIFIL - which is supposed to guard against such things - has any reaction.

Latest on UNRWA school casualties

Following up on the IDF report that the Arab-sourced casualty numbers from Gaza are completely wrong....

From JPost:

Amid controversy over the number of Palestinian civilians killed and wounded during Operation Cast Lead against Hamas last month, the United Nations is working on compiling its own report to determine the exact figure.

Work on the UN figures is being led by the office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO).

UN officials said Monday that researchers were scouring data on the number of casualties provided by the Palestinian Health Ministry, the IDF and Gaza-based human rights organizations. The work is complicated and will last several weeks, if not months, one official said.

Isn't it amazing that uncritical belief in bogus statistics takes no time at all, while doing actual research takes months?

Even so, the UNRWA has already told me that they stand by their figures of 30 killed initially at the UN school, without being able to tell me how they came up with that number.

"It [the IDF report] prompts inquiries," a UN official said. "The UN is researching from various sources the number of casualties to gain clarity on the number of people who were killed in the conflict."

Yet if the IDF hadn't done some research, the chances that the UN would have cared to check is somewhere between zero and none.

Defense sources also reiterated their earlier claim that three civilians and some nine terror operatives were killed in an IDF shelling near a UN school in Jabalya in early January, and not 40 or more people as was widely reported at the time based on Palestinian claims.

A New York Times report from the Gaza funeral after the incident stated that "the row of bodies [were] uncountable in the press of the mourning crowd" and cited reports that as many as 40 people were killed in the shelling outside the school. It said Palestinian hospital sources reported that 10 of the dead were children and five were women, and quoted one mourner who said she had lost nine members of her extended family, age three to 25.

The defense sources Monday said that the IDF had studied the incident and was adamant that its figures were correct.

It would take guts for the IDF to make such a claim if there were really 30-40 dead, and their credibility would take a huge hit if they were found to be wrong. Unfortunately, one cannot say the same for the Palestinian Arab side - although their credibility for casualties has been nil for years, the press is always eager to report their accusations as facts.