Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Arab Cheesecake

I just read a brilliant post by The Other McCain on How to Get A Million Hits on Your Blog in Less than a Year. Since I have not yet gotten a million hits in four years, it sounded like this guy knows what he is doing.

Indeed he does, as he is entertaining as well as smart, and far less concerned with political correctness than I am.

Anyway, McCain has five rules on how to get more hits. My mind immediately focused on Rule 5, which is to gratuitously throw in pretty women.

But since my blog is so single-focused, I need some sort of flimsy excuse to post pictures of scantily-clad women that is consistent with my blog.

The easy way out would be to throw in pictures of hot Israeli babes, but others do that much better than I ever could.

And, let's face it, I just can't pull off the "gratuitous" part convincingly.

So, in the interests of fulfilling Rule 5 and yet keeping with my blog's themes, here is a Serious Post about Arab women.

It is easy to pigeonhole the Arab world as single-mindedly Islamist and opposed to any display of female flesh. But Egyptian, Jordanian and even Palestinian Arab newspapers will include Western-style features with models and actresses, both from the West and from the Middle East.

The PalArabic newspaper Al Quds, for example, shows this model from a recent Beirut fashion show:

Not exactly what one would find in a Hamas newspaper.

Similarly, this picture was taken at an Amman fashion show:

Not to my taste, but that ain't no chador either.

Here's one of a Lebanese actress from Firas Press:

And a final photo at Al Quds features this beauty:

OK, so maybe I'm not cut out for this type of blogging.

A few more interesting Arab articles

Arab News publishes a ridiculous analysis by a British writer trying to prove that IDF policies control everything that happens - in Pakistan.

In order to maintain its military dominance in the region, Israel has for years set about destabilizing any Muslim country that poses a threat to its dominance. Pakistan is the only Muslim country with nuclear weapons and Israel is within range. So Pakistan must be weakened to the point at which it ceases to operate militarily as a nation. Pakistan is supposed to be the West’s foremost ally in the fight against Islamic militancy, so Israel cannot attack Pakistan directly, and, if Israel did, she would certainly be defeated. So what to do? Well, two strategies come to mind: One, use America to attack Pakistan for you; and two, train and send into the border regions of Pakistan gangs of thugs willing to commit atrocities that will then be blamed on “barbaric Muslim militants”, suggesting that Pakistan has lost control of its territory to dangerous extremists and so may lose control of its nuclear weapons. Is there any evidence that these policies are being pursued by Israel in Pakistan? Yes, though regrettably my sources must remain anonymous. Perhaps the best-informed person in Afghanistan has said that he knows for sure that the Israelis are training teams in Badakhshan and are sending them into Pakistan’s border regions to commit atrocities. Two British friends who have covered Afghan wars since 1980, tell me the same thing. Rumors of Israeli-trained provocateurs amongst the tribesmen in the Khyber Agency and in Swat are rife.

There ya go!

The Egyptian Information Minister has been banning free-speech advocates from appearing in the Egyptian media, thus proving the point.

A rich UAE playboy has apparently murdered his Egyptian lover and cut her up into eight pieces, which he stuffed in the garbage. He then fled back to the Emirates.

An Egyptian editorial is upset about the Shahar Peer incident in the UAE, and offers this amazing logic:

The UAE and the Arab world as a whole have nothing against Peer; she previously played in a tournament in Doha, Qatar. Ergo, it was nothing personal. And even if it was, can the UAE really be blamed? We'll say something the Dubai organizers did not: If the refusal to issue a visa to Peer violated WTA Tour rules, was not the three-week Israeli onslaught against the Gaza Strip, which killed 1,300 Palestinians, a violation of every human right in the book?

There ya go!

Anti-Muslim video game sold in Saudi Arabia

From the Saudi Gazette:

A PlayStation game requiring players to kill Muslim characters and destroy mosques to reach higher levels is being sold to the public across the Kingdom.

A man said that he saw his son playing the game in which he had to kill Muslim characters and destroy the last mosque minaret to be a winner. The man said he bought the game from a shop in Batha in Riyadh.

The soundtrack of the game is the call for prayer, he said.

The man asked for the withdrawal of these offensive games from the Kingdom.

Last December, Sony delayed its game Little Big Planet after lines from the Qur’an were found to be included in the accompanying music. The game was scheduled to be re-programmed without the offending song – a track by Mali-born singer Toumani Diabate that contained two lines from the Qur’an. – Okaz/SG

Here's a neat example of the selective outrage that Muslims show against "insults "to Islam. A video game whose targets are Muslims and Muslim symbols barely gets any press at all, while at other times much smaller (or imaginary) provocations result in deadly rioting throughout the Muslim world.

The reason is that the Muslims aren't nearly as sensitive to insults as we think they are. They are only sensitive when the insults come from societies that they already loathe. The violent riots are not in defense of "the Prophet," they are against the West.

It all comes down, as it often does, to shame. Islam still has a self-image of being the vanguardin science, philosophy, art as well as military superiority, a position that has been in steady decline for six centuries. The world leaders in all those fields today are in the Western world. Our very existence as being pre-eminent in all these fields are a constant insult to Muslims who feel that this leadership is their right. Moreover, it is a not-so-subtle proof that Islam itself is a fundamental failure, as it envisions a world under Islamic rule that should have been completed by now.

So it is not that the occasional novel or cartoon grievously insults Islam; it is that these items remind Muslims how far they have fallen, and of their unrelented shame. The obvious reaction to being confronted with such shame is rage and violence - because Islam today is impotent to do anything constructive and stay within its ancient guidelines.

A video game found in Saudi Arabia might have been written by a Muslim apostate or maybe it was written by a Hindu and smuggled in, we don't know yet. By any objective measure, this game is far more insulting to Islam than anything that can be found in the mainstream of the West. But until the target is identified and found to belong to an already-identified enemy, there will be no huge outbreaks of outrage. The "prophet" and his god can take care of themselves, but their followers need a target for their pent-up anger, an anger that has nothing to do with defending their religion and eerything to do with reclaiming a tiny amount of relevance in a world that has passed them by.

Today's must-reads

There's really a lot of good stuff out there:

Israel Matzav has a damning look at President Obama's nominee for Director of National Intelligence, Chas Freeman. He is simply another Jimmy Carter - supporting legitimizing Hamas and blaming all of America's international problems on Israel.

Pajamas Media points out the obvious - if Iran can propel a satellite into space, it can shoot a nuclear bomb pretty much anywhere it likes worldwide. Yet the world continues to treat the prospect of Iranian nuclear ambitions as being directed "only" towards Israel.

David Bogner looks at Tzipi Livni's attempts to become Prime Minister, and is happy that such a person won't get that chance so soon.

Natan Sharansky defines modern-day anti-semitism: "Live and be hated, or die and be loved."

Sultan Knish neatly demonstrates the hypocrisy of Muslims who are so thin-skinned about "Islamophobia" but happily defend routine Muslim violations of human rights.

I used to spend lots of time dissecting the Iranian press the same way I do the Arab press today. The main reason I don't anymore is because Judeopundit does such a nice job.

The Augean Stables reproduces an article about Taqqiya, the Muslim practice of institutionalized dishonesty, by Stuart Green.

He also points to an article by James Kirchick on how the world rationalizes terrorism against Israel.

Tunnel collapse, and more PalArab news

Ma'an seems to have backtracked from its bizarre claim yesterday that a tunnel collapse was due to Egyptian "gas bombs." Three more bodies were pulled from the rubble from the illegal tunnel, and one more was found later in the day.

In other PalArab self-death news, an Arab man was stabbed to death while “sitting together in a friendly atmosphere” with pals in Qalqiya.

There are reports that Hamas stole medicine from a PA Ministry of Health storage facility last week.

George Galloway's British aid convoy for Gaza, traveling through north Africa, crossed the border from Morocco to Algeria, the first time that any traffic has crossed between the two countries in 15 years. No word on whether that means that Morocco's closing of its border with Algeria means that Algeria is "occupied" by Morocco, which is apparently the UN definition of "occupation" - even when it isn't.

The PalArab self-death count climbs to 38.

PalArab news roundup 2-21-09

Work accident! Two Hamas members were killed in another of those "mysterious explosions" in Gaza.

Tunnel accident! One died, five injured in a Rafah smuggling tunnel. Ma'an claims that Egypt had fired something called "gas bombs" but the other PalArabic press just say that they suffocated. I will not count this as a self-death yet, but if Ma'an is correct, that means that Egypt just killed a Palestinian Arab and no one cares.

"Collaborators" no more: Two Gazans were executed for being suspected of collaborating with Israel. I couldn't find any mention of an arrest or trial. It's almost as if Hamas doesn't subscribe to normal standards of behavior and human rights!

When homemade projectiles turn deadly.... A Qassam rocket, invariably described as a mere nuisance when shot against Israel, fell short in Gaza - and now it is a big deal:

Two families said narrowly escaped death when a Palestinian homemade projectile hit their apartments in Al-Farahin, east of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday night.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted the owner of the apartments, Ahmad Abu Duqqa, as saying, “The projectile drilled through the roof causing serious damage."

"Only the heavens prevented a massacre," said Abu Duqqa, "as the projectile hit a bathroom next to my four grandchildren and their mother, who live with us after they fled their home because it is in the range of Israeli fire.”

Working to make Hamas respectable: Representatives from the Carter Center are working on reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. They met with Hamas leaders today in Ramallah. No doubt they are trying to find ways that Hamas can keep its desire to destroy Israel but can convince Europe that they don't really mean it.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 32.

New mosque in Sri Lanka named after Arafat

Palestine Press Agency has a lengthy article about a new mosque in Sri Lanka named after the "martyr" Yassir Arafat.

In an interesting autotranslation, the article says

Ambassador Agha added that the Minister of Religious Endowments has made a statement on that occasion that he was happy with the overwhelming opening of the mosque which bears the name of the immortal martyr leader Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian suicide revolution and commander of the Palestinian national project, which has devoted his life to serving the Palestinian cause.

Do they mean that he oversaw the idea of using suicide bombers against kids in pizza shops, or that he started a suicidal Palestinian Arab movement?

And will the mosque start sporting a consistently three-day old beard?

More intrigue from Jabalya UNRWA school

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), which earlier this week told The Jerusalem Post that 12 Palestinians were killed in the shelling near a UN school in Jabalya, north of Gaza City - and not 42 as claimed by Palestinian officials at the time - has now given the Post the names of seven of those fatalities.

The incident at the UN school was a key case in point, said the CLA's head, Col. Moshe Levi, since initial reports erroneously stating that the IDF had fired at the school, and putting the death toll at 42, were widely adopted at first by the UN and various NGOs. Earlier this month, the UN corrected its position and confirmed that the shelling and all of the fatalities had taken place outside the school compound.

Within hours of the incident on January 6, the IDF named two Hamas operatives, Immad Abu Askar and Hassan Abu Askar, as being among the dead.

Levi said nine Hamas operatives and three noncombatants died in the incident near the school. The seven names newly released by the CLA were: Ranin Abdullah Sameh, 12, Hadifa Jihad Kahloud, 17, Faris Mahmoud Faraj Allah, 21, Nafed Abu Abid, 22, Abed Muhammad Kadas, 25, Ayman Ahmad el-Khourd, 35, and Basem Abdel Gabin, 40.

The CLA would not specify how it had obtained the names. Officials said these names were being checked and categorized as combatants or noncombatants.

This sentence doesn't make much sense - if they already announced that 9 of them were combatants and three civilian, why don't they know which of the names are in each category?

But the next sentence is more intriguing:

On the day of the incident, officials further said, officers from the CLA contacted the Palestinian Health Ministry and were told that three Palestinian civilians had been killed and that Hamas was hiding the identities of the remaining casualties.

If the Palestinian Health Ministry never claimed the initial count of 42 deaths, then who did? The UN said 30, and PCHR said 27 civilians, so it wasn't either of them. Was this just another case of some reporter or bystander making up a number and having the world believe them without question? And if so, how many other times has this sort of thing happened?

And if the IDF turns out to be correct - and so far, they are the only ones to release names of the victims - then we have solid proof that the UN and PCHR are not reliable. All the other groups need to do to prove the IDF wrong would be to give us their own list of more than 12 victims.

PalArab news roundup 2-20-09

For the third time in two months, someone opened fire at the Fatah newspaper headquarters Al Hayat al-Jadida. And for the third time, Ma'an tries to imply that it came from a Jewish settlement, not from the many Hamas supporters in the West Bank.

An illegal fuel pipeline between Egypt and Gaza exploded, injuring two on the Egyptian side; the fire is still burning.

Islamic Jihad claims to have shot at a "settler" car on the West Bank.

Ten mortar shells shot from Gaza this morning. A rocket launched today was claimed by the "Hezbollah Brigades" of Gaza.

Things I didn't blog this week

Some stories that, for whatever reason, I didn't feel like going into this week, but that are still important or noteworthy. Many were sent to me either via email or comments.

The Park Slope Food Co-op, a major Brooklyn cooperative food store with 15,000 members that many Jews frequent, is considering boycotting Israeli products. The board has not brought it up yet as an official agenda item. (via email as well as Vicious Babushka)

Lots of blogs covered the case of Muzzammil Hassan, founder of Bridges TV, who apparently beheaded his wife in Buffalo. Bridges TV is meant to fight ugly stereotypes against Muslims, like the canard that Muslims like to behead people or support honor killings.

sshender via email points me to many more Pierre Rehov videos available online, including one about Arafat, The Road to Jenin (the truth about the Jenin "massacre,")and Suicide Killers (about the minds of suicide terrorists.) He has an entire YouTube channel as well (h/t ahoovah)

Bishop William Richardson, the Holocaust denying cleric who was reinstated to the Catholic Church last month, has been told to leave Argentina, officially for technical reasons but clearly because of his noxious views.

A number of rumors started swirling around Presidential Determination No. 2009-15 of January 27, 2009, "Unexpected Urgent Refugee and Migration Needs Related To Gaza," which seem to imply that the US will be taking in Gaza refugees. WND researched it and found it to merely be a method for the US to authorize some $20 million for relief efforts in Gaza.

Multiculturalism now includes "put yourself in the terrorists' shoes."

US allowing Durban II to be like Durban I

A very troubling article in NRO:

President Obama had been warned to avoid having anything to do with the U.N.’s Durban II “anti-racism” conference this year. The U.S. walked out of the 2001 Durban I conference because it proved to be a U.N.-sanctioned platform for anti-Semitism. Its final Declaration singled out Israel for criticism, accusing the country of racism.

Ignoring these warnings, the U.S. sent a seven-person delegation to a preparatory meeting in Geneva this week — without asking anything of conference sponsors in return. The State Department explained the decision as an effort “to try to change the direction in which the Review Conference is heading.” But the delegation’s behavior during the week, which began by expressing “strong reservations about a document singling out Israel for criticism,” more closely resembles a double-cross.

...In other words, it didn’t take President Obama’s delegation two days before it sat in silence while Israel was singled out as guilty of racism — again.

Why would the delegation behave this way? The idea, seemingly, is to make it appear to an American audience that the Conference’s prospects are improving, that there are no intense disagreements. Just business as usual at the U.N., where multilateral engagement is always a force for good. The less said by the United States, the smoother multilateralism proceeds.

Read the whole thing. It is even worse than I predicted.

Peace rallies, Pakistani-style

The third paragraph of this story pushes the irony meter to 12.

Hundreds of journalists throughout Pakistan have protested against the murder of a reporter in the volatile Swat Valley.
Journalists rallied in cities across Pakistan to mourn the death of television reporter Musa Khan Khel.

The 28-year-old was kidnapped at gunpoint while covering a peace rally to celebrate the planned introduction of Sharia law in the Swat Valley.

His bullet-riddled body was found later outside the town of Matta.

That was some "peace rally!" But I guess the murder was perfectly halal according to Swat Valley Sharia.

What's so far right about Lieberman?

A guest post from EBoZ because I don't have time to write anything thoughtful:

The "far right" label is beginning to stick to Lieberman. See, for example, today's NYT which characterizes him as "ultranationalist," or NPR, AP and CBS who prefer the "far right" terminology.

But what is so far right about Lieberman? The loyalty oath he wants from Arab citizens? Every new US citizen must take a similar oath. Every member of congress must take a loyalty oath every time they are sworn into office. Every first grader in the country does it when they recite the pledge of allegiance.

Lieberman wants to cede Arab parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinian state. Normally, someone who wants to give up sovereignty over united Jerusalem is considered "left wing". He also wants to cede Umm el Fahm which is within the Israeli green line. Umm al Fahm residents are up in arms at the very thought of joining a Palestinian state, (while at the same demonstrating in
favor of Hamas).

The buttonholing of Lieberman into the far-right camp is part of the media's desire to oversimplify a nuanced election platform while at the same demonizing a large Israeli constituency.

UAE allows Israeli tennis player to compete

From AlBawaba (Jordan):

An entry permit has been issued to permit the Israeli tennis player Andy Ram to take part in next week's tennis tournament in Dubai, the Director of the Consular Affairs Department of the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Sultan Al Qertasi, said Thursday in a statement issued to the Emirates News Agency, WAM.

"The relevant Government department has issued a special entry permit to allow the tennis player Mr. Andy Ram to enter the country to take part in next week's international tennis tournament being held in Dubai," the statement said. "The decision to issue the permit is in line with the UAE's commitment to a policy of permitting any individual to take part in international sports, cultural and economic events or activities being held in the country, without any limitation being placed on participation by citizens of any member country of the United Nations," Al Qertasi said.

A commitment that is now approximately one day old.

The visa permit for the Israeli player came following stern international criticism against the organizers of Dubai women's tennis tournament after they failed to issue visa permit to Israeli player Shahar Peer.

But Dubai still has to make sure that the Arabs don't freak out and start slaughtering the collaborators/traitors/infidels who allow Israeli tennis players in the country:

"This is a well-established policy and has no political implications. Nor does this decision indicate any form of normalisation of relations with countries with whom the United Arab Emirates does not have diplomatic relations," the statement concluded.

Whew, glad they cleared that up!

Prisons and private homes have taken over from mosques as recruiting hubs for Islamist radicals in Europe, a shift that cannot be tackled simply by short-term government security measures, an academic said yesterday.
Under pressure from state surveillance and disapproval from local communities, activists who once trawled high-profile mosques for recruits increasingly use more discreet venues including makeshift prayer halls and bookshops, said Peter Neumann, a political scientist at Kings College, London.

"This pattern of withdrawal from open agitation is consistent across Western Europe," said Neumann, author of "Joining Al Qaeda," a report on radicalisation in Europe.

"A lot of open activities that used to go on at mosques are now taking place in private flats, as mosques themselves become more vigilant and restricted," he said.

"Recent years have seen the emergence of radical Islamic prison gangs which - although not always overtly political in outlook - are aggressive in their rhetoric."

Neumann said such gangs provided inmates with a protective social network and a sense of self-esteem, the report says.

I suppose that the fact that European mosques no longer openly advocate jihad is somewhat of an accomplishment.