Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 27, 2009

Saudi lingerie sold by - men

From the Times of India (h/t Jihad Watch):

RIYADH: Before her wedding last year, Huda Batterjee went abroad to buy her bridal lingerie she just couldn’t bear the humiliation of discussing her most intimate apparel with a man.

She had little choice: there are almost no saleswomen in Saudi Arabia.

Now a group of Saudi women sick of having to deal with male sales staff when buying bras
or panties, not to mention frilly negligees or thongs have launched a campaign this week to boycott lingerie stores until they employ women. It’s an irony of the kingdom’s strict segregation of the sexes. Only men are employed as sales staff to keep women from having to deal with male customers or work around men.

But in lingerie stores, that means men are talking to women about bras or thongs, looking them up and down to determine their cup sizes, even rubbing the underwear to show how stains can be washed out.

The result is mortifying for everyone involved shoppers, salesmen, even the male relatives who accompany the women.

“When I buy underwear in Saudi, some salesmen say, ‘This is not the right size for you,” said Batterjee. “You feel almost taken advantage of. Why is he looking at me in this way?” So for her wedding trousseau, she went to neighbouring Dubai to shop. She now lives in Virginia with her husband.

Heba al-Akki, a businesswoman who supports the boycott, said when she shops for underwear, “I go to a store, pick this, this and that and leave quickly. It’s as if I’m buying illegal stuff.”

It turns out that women are allowed to work in Saudi lingerie shops - but no one lets them:

Re'em As’ad is leading a Facebook campaign to boycott lingerie shops that employ men and she is aiming at the whole lingerie business in Saudi Arabia since women are not allowed to work in such shops.

As’ad hopes that her campaign will force storeowners to rethink the option of hiring women; she hopes to breathe life into a never-enforced law that allows women to be employed in lingerie shops. The law has been lying in a drawer somewhere for two years now. As’ad’s campaign started a few months ago with posts on websites and through e-mails asking people to show their objections to employing men to sell women’s lingerie.
Hiring saleswomen is difficult despite the Ministry of Labor’s approval. This is due to conflicting views on the subject between the ministry and the religious establishment. Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh recently said, “Women are entrusted to us, we should not involve them in matters far from their nature.”

That explains everything!

Hezbollah smuggling through Mexico to the US

From the Washington Times:

Hezbollah is using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins do to smuggle drugs and people into the United States, reaping money to finance its operations and threatening U.S. national security, current and former U.S. law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism officials say.

The Iran-backed Lebanese group has long been involved in narcotics and human trafficking in South America's tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Increasingly, however, it is relying on Mexican narcotics syndicates that control access to transit routes into the U.S.

Hezbollah relies on "the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels," said Michael Braun, who just retired as assistant administrator and chief of operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

"They work together," said Mr. Braun. "They rely on the same shadow facilitators. One way or another, they are all connected.

"They'll leverage those relationships to their benefit, to smuggle contraband and humans into the U.S.; in fact, they already are [smuggling]."

His comments were confirmed by six U.S. officials, including law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism specialists. They spoke on the condition that they not be named because of the sensitivity of the topic.

While Hezbollah appears to view the U.S. primarily as a source of cash - and there have been no confirmed Hezbollah attacks within the U.S. - the group's growing ties with Mexican drug cartels are particularly worrisome at a time when a war against and among Mexican narco-traffickers has killed 7,000 people in the past year and is destabilizing Mexico along the U.S. border.

So the "Party of God" has no ethical problems with drug smuggling.

And Iran has easy entry into the US.

Sleep well.

Rule 5 Sunday (early edition): A corporal Miss Israel

Continuing Rule 5 Sundays, as suggested by The Other McCain....

From the IDF website:

Without a doubt, the most presentable Corps in the IDF is the Navy. White uniforms, impeccable ceremonies reflect an impressive sense of duty. It was therefore not surprising to discover that Miss Israel 2009 Adi Rodnitzki is also a corporal in the Israel Navy. Even less surprising is the fact that she serves as the secretary of the head of the Foreign Relations, whose job it is to present the Navy to the world. “This is an important role that represents the unit. In addition to office work, we participate in meetings with senior personalities from abroad,” commented Rodnitzki, “I enjoy my service and I am happy to be in the place I am.”
Adi, single, 20 years old and from Tel Aviv, has completed one and a half years of her service. She arrived to the Navy after finishing her basic training and notes that even at the time of her draft into the IDF she wanted the position that she now holds. “There are high quality people. Some of them speak foreign languages, which raises my interest level.” Adi was born in Israel and completed high school at the Alianz School in Tel Aviv, where she chose to study economics, psychology and French.
One of the things that surprised Adi the most was the support she received from the IDF, particularly her direct commander. “Normally, commanders don’t want their soldiers to leave and because of that I was afraid to ask her, but from the moment I did she was more excited than I was and that convinced me to do it.” She says her commander understood her need to leave the office for several months. “She called me during these months and also after I won, I received a phone call from her,” she remembers with a smile. Adi also received many calls of support from her friends in the Navy: “From the beginning of the competition until the end I got a lot of support from them.”

10 months of military service remain for the beauty queen and she fully intends to complete them even if things may have changed slightly. “I will not be in the army for a large number of hours, things will change. I do what I can.” Beyond the days where she is busy with interviews she is planning to compete in the Miss Universe competition in a few months. “The army will release me, I am not worried”, she stated. “It really doesn’t bother me, they release me every time I need to and when I don’t then I’m in the army. It is not contradictory,” she stresses. “I continue to do regular service as needed.”

Video of her victory can be seen here.

A "civilian" tortures a civilian to death in Gaza

From the PCHR:

According to PCHR investigations, at approximately 01:30am on Tuesday 24 March 2009, medical sources at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City pronounced the death of Jamil Naser ‘Assaf, 20, from the ‘Asqoula neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. ‘Assaf died after suffering severe kidney failure, resulting from beating and torture carried out by members of the Security Services. The injuries were sustained while Jamil ‘Assaf was being detained at al-Tufah police station on charges of theft.

The victim’s mother, Nuha Zaki ‘Assaf, 46, gave the following statement to PCHR:

“At approximately 09:00am on Sunday 8 March 2009, members of the General Intelligence Service arrested my son, Jamil, from his house. They accused him of theft and led him to an unknown destination. On 12 March 2009 we heard that Jamil was detained at al-Tufah police station on theft charges. The following day, 13 March 2009, Jamil was transferred to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. He was unconscious. After medical checks, it was found that he suffered severe kidney failure after he had been severely beaten and tortured by members of the Security Services. He was immediately admitted to the intensive care unit due to the seriousness of his health condition. He died of his injuries on Tuesday, 24 March 2009.”

Keep in mind that, according to the PCHR, the Hamas "Security Services" who routinely beat and torture people - often for political reasons - are considered "civilians" for the purposes of trying to jack up the number of civilian casualties in Gaza at the hands of Israel.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is at 59.

Mistaking "peace process" for "peace"

The New York Times encapsulates the problem that much of the world has in its utter inability to distinguish between real peace and the illusory "peace process."

In a hugely condescending editorial today, the august NYT states:As he prepares to take office as Israel’s next prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu is offering what sounds like a tantalizing commitment. He said that his government will be a “partner for peace.”

“I will negotiate with the Palestinian Authority for peace,” he said.

We would like very much to take Mr. Netanyahu’s words at face value, and it would be a lot easier to do that if he had not worked so assiduously to build his reputation as a hard-liner with deep misgivings about the very peace process he now claims to be willing to embrace. In this year’s election campaign, he disparaged talks on a peace treaty with the Palestinians. Even now, he has not spelled out exactly what terms he is offering as a “peace partner.” He still cannot bring himself to endorse a two-state solution — which we believe must be part of any serious regional peace effort.The logical fallacies here are staggering, and completely opaque to the NYT and similarly-thinking entities.

Even more egregiously, the Times proclaims:

If Mr. Netanyahu is serious about being a partner for peace, he will not get in the way of the militant group Hamas entering a Palestinian unity government with the rival Fatah faction — as long as that government is committed to preventing terrorism and accepts past agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. He will recognize that the United States has its own interests in diplomacy with Syria, Iran and the Palestinians — and allow the Obama administration the freedom to pursue them. He also will not start a preventive war with Iran.

In other words, Israel must sacrifice its own peace and security for what the New York Times considers to be "peace." It is only a short distance from these self-righteous prescriptions to saying "Israel must allow itself to be destroyed in order to avoid any aggressive moves that might hurt our definition of peace."

Guess what? Syria and Israel have barely exchanged any bullets for decades. Even when Israel bombed Syria's nuclear reactor, a war didn't break out. And yet, somehow, there is no "peace treaty" between the two states! Things haven't been ideal, to be sure, but the clandestine Syrian support for Hezbollah would not be abated by a peace treaty, Syria will not suddenly love Israel because of a peace treaty, Israeli tourists will not flock to Syria after a peace treaty. All a "peace treaty" would accomplish is giving Syria a much greater tactical advantage for any future war(by owning the high ground of the Golan Heights and threatening Israel's water supply in the Kinneret) - a war that has not occured yet because Syria lacks that very advantage.

Why would anyone with two brain cells not see that this cold peace between Israel and Syria is the optimal solution?

This cold peace is the optimal model for "peace." It is ugly, it doesn't come close to the desired end state of Israel being treated like a normal country by its neighbors - but that end state will never occur. Ever. No matter what concessions Israel gives. Period.

Palestinian Arabs were offered a state multiple times. They refused, because the state they want will be by definition an existential threat to Israel. Therefore, such a state is not at all conducive to real "peace." Autonomy, economic reforms, gradual confidence building, a possible confederation with other Arab countries, allowing Palestinian Arabs "refugees" to become citizens in the nations they were born in - these and other moves would provide a type of "peace" that might not be ideal - but the constant insistence on the ideal is exactly what is preventing the optimal.

A Jewish state will never be accepted wholeheartedly by her neighbors, but it will be accepted grudgingly if Israel does not give in to stupid "peaceful" suggestions by idiots at the New York Times who consider a process more important than human lives.

(h/t Soccer Dad)

Anti-semitism to be "debated" at Oxford

Ah, debates. Where you get people of goodwill together to entertain an audience with intellectual arguments about interesting topics.

The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival is going to hold a debate on anti-semitism, with an interesting line-up of debaters. According to Middle East Online:

The debate, entitled "Anti-Semitism - Alive and Well in Europe?", will host Gilad Atzmon, renowned Israeli saxophonist and devoted opponent of Zionism; Denis MacShane, Labour MP for Rotherham; and David Aaronovitch, Orwell prize-winning 'Times' journalist.

The three participants will address pressing questions related to anti-Semitism; whether it is still strongly present in Europe and if the recent Israeli bombardment of besieged Gaza has further fuelled it.

Observers say Atzmon's participation will give the debate an "insider's view" on Jewishness, Israeli strategies and accusations of anti-Semitism.

Gilad Atzmon is a Jewish anti-semite; he writes articles insulting Jews and Judaism as easily as he breathes. The extent of his denial that anti-semitism exists at all can be seen from a bizarre article I quoted in 2006, about Borat, of all things. He pretty much markets his own anti-semitism to make money from forums like this.

David Aaronovitch seems like a nice enough guy. He describes himself this way:

These days, when I look in the mirror I see my father's face and when I speak, I hear my father's voice. From somewhere, God knows how, I have inherited a few inflections that Henry Higgins would recognise as being London Jewish. Apart from that, no synagogue, no briss, no Hebrew classes, no bar mitzvah. Yet in the past year ... small things have begun to make a Jew out of me, whatever I think about it.

Too many leftwingers and liberals are crossing the magic line right now. Let me spell it out for you. There is no all-powerful Jewish lobby. There is no secret convocation. Most journalists with Jewish names do not write the things they do because of loyalty to their race or religion. Nor can you simply change the word "Jewish" to "Zionist" and somehow be exempt from the charge of low-level racism. And it's no good wiffling on about your Jewish friends or trying to slip your prejudices past the guards by boldly proclaiming your refusal to be intimidated. There are no Elders and there are no Protocols.

So of the two Jews in the debate, none of them has even the slightest familiarity with Judaism - one is openly hateful towards it, the other is cheerfully ignorant.

Denis McShane - the Gentile - is the only one of the participants who is actually an expert in anti-semitism in Europe.

Often, the selection of "debaters" shows biases more than the debate itself.

Evening links

There are lots of stories out there that are important that I haven't had time to comment on.

Pat Oliphant made an incredibly offensive cartoon, published in the Washington Post and New York Times. See Barry Rubin's take on it, plus Daled Amos to fill in a missing piece that makes it even worse. Also check out Meryl Yourish and Abe Greenwald.

Roger Cohen is getting a bit repetitive with his coddle-the-terrorists-and-pressure-the-Jews shtick, but he's still going at it, and Soccer Dad and Daled Amos are still taking him apart.

Khaled Abu Toameh writes a scary article about the incredible hatred at American university campuses towards Israel - more so than in Palestinian Arab universities. Money quote:

What is happening on these campuses is not in the frame of freedom of speech. Instead, it is the freedom to disseminate hatred and violence. As such, we should not be surprised if the next generation of jihadists comes not from the Gaza Strip or the mountains and mosques of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but from university campuses across the U.S.

Eye On The World brings us the latest example of Islamic attempts to end freedom of speech.

Yaacov Lozowick talks about Israeli innovations and makes this great observation:

Take, for example, the multiple-tiered explanations about how when people suffer, they aren't nice in return. They must be assuaged, their needs addressed, their woes removed, their grievances respected, acknowledged, and rectified. You know the line; it's one of the top meta-narratives of our age. It's also all wrong, fundamentally wrong, and quite pernicious. Those Shoah survivors disprove it by the simple fact of how they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps (after they acquired boots) in a mostly indifferent and partially hostile world.

The PCHR vs. the IDF on Gaza casualty counts

(This posting has changed from quoting yesterday's Haaretz article to quoting today's Jerusalem Post article which seems more accurate and uses the same numbers as YNet.)

The IDF has released a report on the Arab casualties in Gaza:

The IDF formally released precise figures on Thursday for the first time detailing Palestinian casualties incurred during Operation Cast Lead, and said a large majority of those killed were terrorists.

Of the 1,166 names of Palestinian dead gathered by the IDF's Research Department, 709 have been identified as "Hamas terror operatives," the IDF said, adding that the terrorists hailed from a variety of organizations.

According to the IDF, 162 additional names of men killed during the operation "have not been yet attributed to any organization."

A total of 295 Palestinian non-combatants died during the operation - 89 of them under the age of 16, and 49 of them women, the army added.

The figures were released "following the publication of reports that introduced false information originating from various Palestinian sources," the IDF said.

"In order to remove any doubt regarding the number of Palestinians killed in Operation Cast Lead, the IDF wishes to introduce the accurate figures to the public.

"The figures were gathered following the examination of various intelligence sources and after the names and numbers were thoroughly cross-referenced and examined," it added.

Ha'aretz adds:

The fatality list presented by the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza has numerous inaccuracies and contradictions, the IDF says. For example, Tawfiq Ja'abari, the commander of the Hamas police, and Mohammed Shakshak, a personal assistant to the head of Hamas' military wing, Ahmed Ja'abari, are both described as dead children on the Palestinian list.

The PCHR disputes the IDF methodology. Here is their main argument:

PCHR consider the IOF’s classification of police officers as combatants illegal: this classification constitutes a wilful violation of the principle of distinction, a key component of customary international law. Hamas is a multi-faceted organisation, exercising de facto governmental control of the Gaza Strip. As an organisation, it cannot be considered an armed group. Rather, a distinction must be made between Hamas’ armed and political/civil components. The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades are the military wing of the Hamas organisation, they are an armed group, and are considered as combatants according to IHL. However, Hamas’ political and civil wings are comprised of civilians, who are legally entitled to the protections associated with this status, provided they do not take an active part in hostilities. Civil police, and governmental officials cannot be considered combatants. Attacks intentionally directed against these individuals constitute wilful killing, a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, and a violation of customary international law.

So the PCHR seems to accept for the most part Israel's contention that 600 of the known casualties are members of Hamas or other armed groups; they argue that only members of Hamas' "military wing" are legal targets.

This is sophistry.

Hamas is a military organization. Its entire purpose is to destroy Israel. All of its "wings" exist for that purpose, and its charitable and civil wings are not independent of its military wing - they are subsidiary to it.

Hamas will use its "charity" components to attract members for its terror wing. It will use the "political" wing as cover to deflect its clandestine use of terror.

Here is an excerpt from a book by Matthew Levitt that is probably the most comprehensive treatise on Hamas, describing the terrorist and political career of the mastermind of the 2002 Netanya Passover massacre:

The mastermind of the attack, Abbas al-Sayyid, served simultaneously as both the overt political Hamas leader in Tulkarm and the covert head of the Qassam Brigades terrorist cell there. Wearing these two hats, al-Sayyid gave public speeches and represented Hamas at public functions even as he secretly recruited military operatives and suicide bombers, received orders and funds from Hamas leaders in Lebanon and Syria, and personally planned and oversaw the cell’s operations. Al-Sayyid openly acknowledged his contacts with Hamas leaders abroad, but maintained these were purely political in nature. In fact, al-Sayyid took active measures to hide the military nature of these contacts. For example, while funds for Hamas political activity—$10,000—$13,000 a month—were overtly transferred from Hamas leaders abroad into al-
Sayyid’s personal bank account, Hamas leaders in Syria transferred funds for Hamas terrorist operations to an account al-Sayyid opened under a fictitious American-sounding name.

At the operational level, almost all the Hamas terrorists involved in the attack rose through the ranks of Hamas through the group’s Islamic Bloc student movement.Al-Sayyid himself began drifting toward Hamas while in high school after hearing the lectures of Sheikh Jamal Mansour, a prominent Hamas political and dawa leader. Three of the operatives, including both intended suicide bombers, were members of a singing troupe called al-Ansar that lauded Hamas and its suicide bombers. Hamas dawa activists and institutions performed a variety of key functions like helping fugitive cell members hide from authorities. In one case female Hamas activists helped a cell member move around Tulkarm disguised as a woman. Covert operatives also used mosques tied to Hamas as meeting places and as dead-drops where messages and matériel—including the suicide bombing vests—were left and retrieved by parties unknown to one another. Long after the attack, the Hamas dawa would use the Park Hotel bombing as a means to radicalize and recruit future operatives by printing posters glorifying the attack and naming community events like a soccer tournament after Abdel Aziz Basset Odeh, the suicide bomber.

Inside the Palestinian territories, the battery of mosques, schools, orphanages, summer camps, and sports leagues sponsored by Hamas are integral parts of an overarching apparatus of terror. These Hamas entities engage in incitement and radicalize society, and undertake recruitment efforts to socialize even the youngest children to aspire to die as martyrs. They provide logistical and operational support for weapons smuggling, reconnaissance, and suicide bombings. They provide day jobs for field commanders and shelter fugitive operatives.

Even after Hamas' takeover of Gaza, Hamas has shown little interest in building an infrastructure to perform daily duties that are a necessary part of governing. When it could, it would keep the existing PA/Fatah infrastructure; only when it felt threatened by them would it replace the leadership - all the while accepting hundreds of millions of dollars from the PA to keep the institutions running. In this way, all the "wings" of Hamas could concentrate on smuggling weapons, building fortified tunnels for bomb storage and to kidnap IDF soldiers, and recruiting more members.

The Hamas police, to take an example of a group that the PCHR considers civilian, is not primarily the law-enforcement organization that PCHR implies. There is no functioning legal infrastructure in Gaza. The Hamas police exist to keep the people under the thumb of Hamas and to stop any competing groups like Fatah to gain strength. Their purpose is just as terrorist as the "military wing."

The PCHR, as always, is doing its best to demonize Israel and as such it has a vested interest in increasing the numbers of "innocent civilians" killed in Gaza. But when you look at the details, you can see that most of those killed were not innocent civilians...and the PCHR knows this quite well.

Hamas privately admits it sucks at fighting

From Jane's:

Hamas will adopt new fighting and training techniques and emphasise its anti-armour capabilities following a review of the organisation's failures during the three-week conflict in Gaza, a senior Hamas official has told Jane's.
Some 50 field commanders will also be removed from their roles for their poor performance in response to Operation 'Cast Lead', the official said.

The highest-level military council and a representative from the intelligence department, as well as senior Hamas political figures, launched their investigation in January at the end of the three-week offensive, which Israel began after a six-month ceasefire ended without resolution. The investigation, first reported by Jane's on 22 January, was expected to be critical of virtually every decision made by commanders on the battlefield, as well as of the political decision-making surrounding Hamas' engagement in the conflict.

However, conclusions drawn from the investigation show an organisation unbowed by its defeat, with plans for new logistical supply lines and a modern satellite communications network. The report also stresses a need to rebuild the morale and motivation of the front-line fighters so that they do not show the same "weakness and fear [when confronted] by a real war".

Firas Press adds that some 40 Hamas commanders essentially abandoned the fighting during the war. It also adds this intriguing tidbit:

[The report emphasized] the necessity of changing the methods of warfare used and ways to train their units, and not to rely on Iran's combat doctrine.

Which means that Hamas admits that Iran was training them in how to fight, probably indirectly.

Chips

According to an article in Firas Press, a "collaborator" captured by Hamas admitted that he was given special "chips" by Israeli intelligence, homing devices that he placed on terrorists' cars or Qassam rocket factories, so they could accurately fire at the targets.

Of course, the only reason to do this would be to minimize civilian casualties, but that part didn't quite make it into the article.

Something to look out for

A couple of years ago I had found a Ma'an article about a PalArab Sesame Street special on Jerusalem, including a visit to the separation barrier, which seemed a bit too political for Sesame Street. I commented then:

Apparently, for the BBC to refer to Jerusalem as Israel's capital was a major crime worthy of apology, but for people to teach children that Jerusalem is Arab Palestine's capital is not a problem at all.

I wonder if Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) approved the script.

This morning, I was contacted by a New York Times Magazine reporter on a story she is writing about the Palestinian Arab version of Sesame Street. She wanted to know if I had the original article, and although Ma'an has changed its format and the original link was gone, I found it.

We'll see how this is spun.

Open question/thread

I had been barely following the IDF T-shirt controversy that al-Aretz has been talking about, and I looked at it a little yesterday. Many of the T-shirt slogans that Ha'aretz claimed were being printed were indeed very offensive and insensitive, although I have not had much luck actually finding photos of many of them.

My question for the day is, how many of you realized, from reading the media, that the T-shirts with the pregnant woman and the child in the crosshairs were showing a pregnant woman with a rifle and a child with a rifle? Should that information change one's attitude towards the entire episode?

UPDATE: I wrote this before seeing that Yaacov Lozowick noticed the same thing.

Muslim Council of Britain seethes and whines

From The Guardian:

Britain's largest Muslim body has accused ministers of wanting to "undermine its independence" by demanding one of its leaders be removed from office.

The accusation is the strongest public attack yet by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) in its row with the government after ministers broke off relations earlier this month.

Hazel Blears, the communities and local government minister, wrote to the MCB demanding the resignation of Daud Abdullah, its deputy secretary general, after he allegedly called for violence against Israel.

This is very misleading; as the Guardian itself reported, Blears was upset over Abdullah's seeming support for Muslims attacking British troops as well as support for attacking Jewish communities. The Guardian is trying to make it look like this is simply a Zionist plot - essentially what the MCB claims.

Today the MCB spokesman Inayat Bunglawala told the Guardian that the government only wanted to deal with Muslim groups who were "stooges" and "spineless", and vowed the council would resist attempts to interfere in how it was run.

By cutting ties with the MCB, the British government is not mandating how the MCB is run.

But The Guardian is publishing a plethora of apologetics for the MCB:

In principle, whom the MCB chooses as its office-holders is none of Blears's business. The very unfortunate precedent she is trying to set reflects the practices of a totalitarian state – China perhaps, or Zimbabwe. I am shocked that such a mindset could emerge in the UK.

And this:

Whether or not we approve of the Istanbul declaration's content, there is little doubt that it represents a significant strand of Muslim opinion, in Britain and elsewhere. By refusing to acknowledge this and instead bestowing its favours on cuddly but marginal Sufi organisations, the government is destroying whatever credibility its policy of engagement might have had.

The arguments are absurd, of course, as they claim that the UK must excuse terror if a minority of its citizens accept terror and it wants to engage with that group. But they also ignore a much more salient fact: The MCB has received funding from the British Government.

In 2006, the MCB received £300,000 from the UK's Department for International Development, £148,160 in 2005 from the Home Office and some other smaller sums that have been documented.

The MCB can elect whomever it wants as its leadership. But the UK has an obligation to make sure that taxpayer monies do not go to groups who support terror. Beyond that, as long as the MCB is requesting money from the government, it has no right to whine about "undermining its independence" - if it wants independence, it should not accept money from outsiders; if it accepts money, it must also accept oversight on how the money is being used.

Does this photo editor make me look fat?

One strange thing that many Arab websites have in common is a weird tendency to stretch photographs to fit into pre-defined dimensions, rather than cropping them. As a result one would see webpages filled with distorted images that look like Silly Putty versions of the originals.

Sometimes, the results are less than flattering.

From Syria's SANA news agency (h/t Soccer Dad via email):

Election of Top Model Syria for 2008-2009

Mar 24, 2009

Damascus,SANA _ In the festival of Top Model Syria which was held last night, Miriam Salibi, 18 years old, gained the title of Top Model Syria for 2008-2009.

The festival was held at the Princesses Palace Hotel and sponsored by Tourism Ministry in the presences of a number of artists and pressmen.

I don't know, maybe the photo editor prefers his women to have some meat on their bones.

And while we are at SANA, here's a typical "culture" article from that brutal dictatorship:

The Italian singer Moraizio Tistoni gave a concert Monday evening at Abu Rumanah Cultural Center, entertaining the audience with Syrian and Palestinian songs in both English and Italian.

Tistoni sang 14 songs in the praise of Syria, its people and its leader. Among the songs were /Good Morning Syria/, /I Love Syria/ and /My Syria…Sweet Syria/.

You almost expect to read "Three audience members who did not applaud vigorously enough were arrested and shot after the show."

Then again, Syria's culture includes things like this.

Israel celebrates, and Egypt despises, peace anniversary

From Al Arabiya (AFP):

Israel is set to celebrate on Wednesday its first peace treaty with an Arab state but its partner Egypt plans to leave the 30th anniversary almost entirely unmarked.

"No commemoration is planned in Cairo" for Thursday's anniversary, foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said, in a sign of the cold peace that still reigns between the two neighbors amid widespread popular opposition to the treaty in Egypt.

"We haven't received any invitation for an event in Egypt, while we're planning several in Israel," Israeli embassy spokeswoman Shani Cooper-Zubida said.

To give an idea of how ordinary Egyptians think about peace with Israel, here are some of the comments at Al Arabiya:

Anour Sadat who brought victory to Egypt in 1973, wiped it all off when he decided to make peace with the Zionist...
---
This agreement was the start of the divide and rule policy by the Israelis of neutralising the powerful Arab countries. They have much to celebrate with their achievement. What about the Egyptians. After the Yom Kippur war they were in the ascendancy anyway and proved that the Israelis could not sustain a protracted ground war, particulalry against a nation with over 10 times its population.
---
Rest assured you JEWISH (that`s an insult itself) , the end is near . War is coming and nothing is gonna stop Muhammad`s army , not your planes , nor your ships , nor the Mirkava tanks , hell not even your nukes .You`d better brace yourself , coz You`re going down !
---

Apparently, the tens of billions of dollars that the US sends to Egypt as compensation for signing Camp David has not made the Egyptians any more amenable to real peace.

Equally apparently, between the bloodthirsty Zionists and the peaceful Arabs, only one side seems to celebrate peace.