Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Palestinian "journalist"'s unfair advantage

One of the most prolific - and hateful - Palestinian Arab journalists is Khaled Amayreh, who we've quoted before as calling the PA "Zionist proxy scum!" He breathes bile, often at the "Palestine Think Tank" site.

One recent article compares the Palestinian Arab children's orchestra who played for Holocaust survivors in Israel to Holocaust victims forced to play music for Nazis. The pure hatred he feels for all things Israeli and Jewish is palpable.

Another from today calls the new Israeli government

an extremist coalition of war criminals, pathological liars, racist thugs (both of the Hitlerian and Stalinist styles), and hateful religious maniacs who inhale and exhale hatred 24 hours per day.

...I am, of course, in no way suggesting that the previous Israeli government was less nefarious than the new one. The previous government of the evil trio Olmert, Livni and Barak had all the hallmarks of a Zionist Third Reich.

But from looking at his website, I can see how he knows so much. You see, Khaled Amayreh has an advantage as a journalist that allows him to see the truth and to dismiss any Zionist propaganda.

He can read minds!

Right below where he calls himself a "peace activist" on his "About Us" page, he writes that his interests include "outer space and parapsychology."

People who are interested in astronomy do not refer to their interests as "outer space," which means that Amayreh not only believes in mind reading and telekinesis, but he probably has a direct connection to aliens and flying saucers as well!

This explains his deep knowledge of the facts as well as his devotion to truth. His main source is Zrfgpl from the planet Zyrkle-8, who happens to also be a rabid anti-semite.

Saudi women's advocacy group folds

From the Arab News:

A proposal to establish a first-of-its-kind organization to support women’s rights in Saudi Arabia has been dropped shattering the hopes of Saudi women for an official organization that would fight for their rights.
“We failed to obtain official approval to operate legally,” said Sulaiman Al-Salman, the man who came up with the idea to establish the society, Ansar Al-Mar’ah (Supporters of Women).
Al-Salman said he has been in constant conflict with the Ministry of Social Affairs to gain approval, adding that the ministry’s rejection has frustrated the group’s determination and that group members have, as a result, lost interest.
“I recently called members for a meeting, but no one showed up apart from one member who said he would be willing to join again once the society gets approved,” he said. “I realized that I was the only one working for this goal, all alone. So I decided to break it up,” he said.
He added that Ansar Al-Mar’ah does not enjoy support in some official circles because it includes members of both genders.

Support for women in the sharia state of Saudi Arabia seems to be a bit...lacking.

Iranian logic

One of the most often-used arguments in favor of anti-semitism is that since there is such a long history of persecution of Jews, the Jews must have done something really evil to deserve it.

In normal enlightened societies where racism and bigotry are frowned upon, the haters are the ones who are put on the defensive. But in the twisted world of the bigots, the innocents who are persecuted are the ones who must prove they shouldn't be hated, an impossible task.

In today's world, the two major recent recipient groups of unbridled hate are "Zionists" and Americans. And just like classic anti-semitism, the haters are arguing that their hate is justified because everyone else is doing it.

From the Los Angeles Times, in part of a response by an advisor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President Obama's Persian New Year's greetings:

In all corners of the world, it is worth noting, the only flags being set ablaze belong to the U.S. and the occupying Zionist regime.

See? Because Muslims have a love of burning flags, then the nations whose flags are burned must all be evil! QED!

I would add that the major targets of shoe-throwing incidents have been Israelis and Americans as well. The author can feel free to use that argument next time.

Birkat HaChamah, 1897

Via Daled Amos, an article from the April 8, 1897 New York Times:

The mental picture of a European rabbi who barely knows English explaining to an Irish New York cop about Birkat HaChamah is really amusing.

Birkat HaChamah will be observed on April 8 this year.

PalArabs support the "peace process" - and terror

A recent poll of Palestinian Arabs from the PCPSR shows what would appear to be a contradiction.

61.9% say they support the peace process while less than 20% oppose it. Yet 54.2% of Palestinian Arabs also support terror attacks against civilians in Israel, while only 42.7% oppose terror.

In Gaza, the seeming incongruity is even starker: 66.9% support terror attacks and 31.6% oppose - but 73.3% support the peace process, with only 15.5% opposing!

How can the Palestinian Arabs support peace and terror at the same time?

The answer is, of course, that they can't, and don't. They aren't in favor of peace - they are in favor of a "peace process." There is a big difference between the two, a difference that the West refuses to acknowledge.

Peace is the acceptance of the other party's rights and the desire to live and work together.
The "peace process," on the other hand, is a Trojan horse meant to weaken Israel for an ultimate attack to destroy the Jewish state.

The idea of using "peace" as a method of winning land that couldn't be conquered has been part and parcel of Arab thought since 1977, and it remains ingrained among Palestinian Arabs today. They have seen that the combination of terror attacks and fake peace overtures has gotten them effective control of Gaza and much of the West Bank, and this is a formula that they will not give up as long as the West pressures Israel to accept illusory "peace."

The "peace process" and real peace are antithetical.

UNRWA teachers overwhelmingly support Hamas

From JPost:

Hamas supporters scored a victory in elections for the school teachers' union of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that were held in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

The results showed that Hamas won all 11 seats of the teachers' union.

The Hamas victory means that Hamas supporters will continue to control UNRWA-run schools and other academic institutions throughout the Gaza Strip. Hamas has controlled the UNRWA teachers' union for the past 16 years.

Some 10,100 UNRWA workers participated in the election, with the turnout being estimated at more than 97 percent.

The voting was conducted at UNRWA's main headquarters in the Gaza Strip.

Just a small reminder that, no matter what UNRWA says, the people who teach at UNRWA schools support terrorism.

Arabs sick of Palestinian issue

From Ma'an:

The results of the Arab Summit in Doha were unrealistic and lacked any practical measures to ensure goals are met, said Palestine’s Islamic resistance movement Hamas on Tuesday.

A special statement from Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said the summit failed to deal with the Palestinian issue, and neglected the suffering of Gazans following Israel’s three week war on the Strip.

“We were expecting that this summit would be different than the other summits and put practical steps to protect the Palestinian territories, especially Jerusalem and to help Gazans; but it is all the same,” Barhoum’s statement read.

The focus of the Arab summit turned to Sudan's President Omar Al-Beshir, who was strongly supported by Arab states against the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hauge. Al-Beshir stands accused of committing war crimes in Darfur.

Xinhua adds:

For the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, the Arab summit only called on Israel to lift its siege on the territory. Hamas had hoped that the Arabs would do more than calls to overcome the blockade.
"We were hoping the Arab leaders would move to lift the siege by acts, not by words," Barhoum added. "We also hoped they would use their pressure cards against the Zionist occupation."

All together now:

"Awwwwwww!"

In recent years, Arab countries seem to be sick and tired of Palestinian Arabs. While they keep saying that it is their highest priority, in reality they only use the issue to blame their own problems on Israel and shield themselves from criticism. Decades of incessant whining and, worse, demands from the Palestinian Arabs have turned them off, and the Hamas/Fatah infighting has accelerated their anger. They'll tell the world that the Palestinian issue must be fixed before any other unrelated Arab problems, but privately they don't give a damn.

Yet the West has not yet picked up on this, as clueless Europeans and Americans keep insisting that fixing the unfixable Palestinian Arab problem is a magic key to solving all the problems of the Middle East.

Doha, where the only solidarity the Arabs had was to show support for a genocidal dictator, proves otherwise.

UPDATE: This post from last year shows even more conclusively that Arabs do not consider Palestinians to be a good investment.

Wild Saudi women let loose in all-girl coffee shops

From the Saudi Gazette:

Women’s coffee shops are no longer just meeting places for friends or refuges for a moment’s escape from the daily routine. Instead, according to some, they have become the haunts of university students and schoolgirls playing truant to indulge themselves in smoking shisha pipes and cigarettes, with women using the locations as impromptu job agencies, and matchmakers seeking willing bribes. Behind the walls of women’s coffee shops, some say, all sorts of things go on.

Salwan Abdullah, a 24-year-old university student, recalls the first time she was invited by a student friend to go to an all-female coffee shop. “I had no idea of what went on in these places, and when we entered the room was crowded with university students and girls from secondary and intermediate school. The air was full of smoke from shisha pipes and cigarettes. There were married and single girls, and women matchmakers going round asking girls if they were looking for husbands and if so what sort of features they were looking for.”

“I saw the same thing in another café during school exam time,” Salwan continued. “I saw girls in school uniform, no more than 14 years old, going into the bathrooms to change into jeans and T-shirts and putting on make-up they’d hidden in their school bags along with their cigarettes.”

“Girls have become more and more daring in coffee shops,” said university student Khuloud. “I once saw two girls among a group smoking shisha and laughing out loud as if it were the most normal thing in the world, and I could tell from their eyes that they were proud of it.”

Sara, a science student at King Abdulaziz University, described some of the behavior she saw in coffee shops as “incredible.”

“It goes completely against our ethics,” she said. “In one of the larger coffee shops I saw girls dressed very immodestly, acting as if they were young male teenagers, drinking coffee and tea, and there was a special place for listening to music which had been turned into some sort of place for dancing and showing off their bodies. Families need to keep an eye on this and prevent this sort of behavior in our conservative society.”

Smoking? Dancing? Make-up? Jeans? Acting like boys?

What could make Saudi girls want to act like this?

It couldn't possibly be living in a society where they are forced, 24 hours a a day, to avoid accidentally being seen by any man, could it?

No...it must be that they are simply immoral.

Money doesn't buy influence from Arabs

Diplomats are addicted to the idea of "influence." The thinking goes that they can influence how other entities act by dangling carrots or threatening with sticks. In recent times, sticks have gone out of fashion and the carrots have proliferated, but either way, the thinking is that by offering positive incentives, intransigent parties can become more malleable. Likewise, by offering a steady stream of positive incentives, the implicit threat of withdrawing them can likewise influence parties to act in more acceptable ways.

In the Arab and Muslim worlds, the entire carrot idea is not only ineffective, but it is derided as a perfect example of Western stupidity. It is as if both the scientists and the laboratory rats are convinced that each one has conditioned the other one to behave in the way they want. Paying off a party who is already resentful or hateful does not tend to make them change their minds nearly as much as it is supposed.

A perfect example of this comes from an Al Ahram article from last week, talking about the wisdom of Camp David from Egypt's perspective by countering arguments of those who were opposed. The last section has this very instructive section (h/t Judeopundit):

The last charge against the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty that I would like to address here is that which maintains that it turned Egypt into a US dependency. The contention could only come from someone who is not quite mentally stable, or that has never read history, or that does not know the true nature of Egypt, the Egyptian people and the Egyptian government. Clearly, no rational person would fail to take the world's sole superpower into account. But all that country's economic and political clout has not prevented Egypt from casting its vote contrary to that of the US in 83 per cent of issues that came to a vote in the UN (compare this to Israel's record of voting with the US in 87 per cent of the cases). History is full of instances of Egypt's ability to stand firm in the face of US demands. Cairo refused to cooperate with the American attack against Libya in the 1980s and it refused to exert pressure on the Palestinians during the negotiations that took place in the 1990s. Indeed, Egypt, which signed a peace agreement with Israel, has been the foremost obstacle to the rush to normalisation with the Hebrew state, keeping normalisation as a major card in the negotiating process between the Arabs and Israel, in perpetual defiance of Washington's wishes. Nor is it a secret that all the "advice" given by Washington regarding domestic change was not heeded. In fact, those who hold that Egypt is a US dependency would do well to study the entire chapter of the past eight years when Cairo was at constant loggerheads with the Bush administration. Moreover, even then Egypt remained the largest recipient of arms and money from Washington apart from Israel. This was the product of wisdom and skill...

Egypt has been playing the US, accepting billions of dollars of aid while not changing its policies towards US interests one iota. All of the benefits of the Egyptian/Israeli peace treaty, as enumerated by the author in the rest of the article, would be just as effective without US largesse.

In other words, all the billions of dollars given by the US to Egypt, ostensibly to influence that country, have gone to waste.

Washington's influence over Israel is not predicated on aid money but on shared interests and a deep friendship. That is what makes a reliable ally. And as we see from this article, Egypt is anything but.

Syphilitic dead terrorist in the news

A new website has been set up by the Yasser Arafat Foundation to celebrate the life of the world's foremost modern terrorist.

Don't take my word for it; here is how Arafat is described in his biography on the site (autotranslated):

Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian people and the revolution of modern bomber, and one of the most great leaders in the world during the twentieth century, the struggle and fought a relentless jihad for more than half a century ago on various fronts, the name of life for the cause of Palestine and its people in human rights awareness, and the development of the Palestinian issue on the political map of the World .

In normal English, this means that Arafat innovated in the modern use of murdering civilians deliberately to gain attention for his cause.

The Foundation's biography of the AIDS-stricken martyr starts off with a lie:

Born and raised in Jerusalem

Born, "Yasser Mohammed," Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Husseini Kidwa. Known to be the name of Yasser Arafat in Jerusalem, the fourth day of August 1929, the sixth in the family of Daoud Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Husseini and mother Kidwa Zahwa Khalil Abu Al-Saud, in the corner house in the honorary, the point of view of Abu Al-Saud, in the South West of the Temple Mount Al-Sharif.

Of course, Arafat was born in Cairo and his relationship with his father was so poor that he didn't attend his funeral in 1952 and never visited his Gaza grave.

The man behind the website and the Arafat Foundation, named Nasser Al-Kidwa (who is Arafat's nephew,) has also announced that he is starting a "Commission of Truth" to investigate exactly how Arafat died. Given that he has already established himself as a liar, it isn't too hard to imagine who he will conclude was behind the likely AIDS-ravaged murderer's death.

Clan clash!

From Ma'an:

A young Palestinian man was killed and six others were injured on Monday afternoon after a fight broke out between two families at Balata Refugee Camp east of Nablus.

Palestinian security sources said Ma’an that 25-year-old Saher Mahmoud Sawalmeh, a policeman, was killed after being injured in a clash at the camp as a result of being struck on the head with an iron bar. Shortly after his arrival at Rafidia Hospital he died, they said.

Sources added that six others were wounded in the clash and that Palestinian security services arrived at the scene and arrested a number of people who were allegedly involved.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 60.

New Israeli MK supports Iranian nukes

In other countries, this would be considered treason. From The Bulletin:

Hanin Zoabi is the first woman to be elected to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, as a representative of an Arab party. Ms. Zoabi, former director of the I’lam: Media Center for Arab Palestinians in Israel, is a feminist and strong secularist. She is now one of three representatives of the Balad (National Democratic Assembly) Party.

On one of her first days in the Knesset, the new parliamentarian asked for her thoughts regarding increased Iranian influence in Gaza. Ms. Zoabi replied that she welcomed it.

She said, “If this influence is supporting me, so I will not mind this influence. Even, I would ask for this influence ... The question is not whether there is an influence or not, the question whether this influence is supporting you, can support your demands or can go against your demands.”

Queried regarding Iran’s quest to manufacture nuclear weapons, she stated was that “It would [sic] be more supporting me to have a counter-power to Israel” and “I need something to balance its [Israel’s] power.”

She also spoke of Egypt and Jordan as being a threat to the Arabs of the Gaza Strip, intimating that they are scared of a free and democratic Palestinian state.

Ms. Zoabi was then asked if she felt worried due to the fact that Iran is getting close to acquiring a nuclear weapon and because she lives in close proximity to Jews. She replied, “No, I am not, I’m afraid from the nuclear Iran, I am more afraid from the Israeli nuclear [weapons].”

Israel does not officially admit to being a nuclear power, yet it is generally accepted that it has been a nuclear power since the 1960s.

When asked if she thought that Iran would use nuclear weapons, she deliberately misunderstood and replied, “The Israelis? I think yes. And I am afraid from real risk rather than from potential risk.” She said that everyone is asking about potential risk while “Every day the Israeli uses its violence, army violence.”

“The Iranian is a potential … but the real risk is the Israeli army.”

She was then asked if an Iranian bomb would lead to a nervous America and thus more U.S. pressure on Israel and if that would be good for her she replied “Exactly.”

Asked about Israel as a Jewish state, Ms. Zoabi declared that the very concept of a Jewish state is “inherently racist,” saying that Israel must be turned into a “state of all its citizens,” which would eliminate its Jewish or Zionist nature.

The irony of an elected Israeli Arab MK, who while declaring her allegiance to a foreign power also calls Israel a racist state, is apparently lost on Ms. Zoabi.

If only the reporter would have asked her is the "Islamic Republic of Iran" or every Arab country is inherently racist by her definition, and if she would answer honestly, then she could compare the criticisms she'll receive from the Jewish state from the ones she would receive from her Arab brethren....

(h/t Jameel via email)

Qaddafi goes nuts in Doha

It looks like the good Colonel has not mellowed in his old age:

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi stormed out of an Arab summit on Monday after denouncing the Saudi king and declaring himself "the dean of Arab rulers."
Gadhafi disrupted the opening Arab League summit in Qatar by taking a microphone and criticizing Saudi's King Abdullah, calling him a "British product and American ally."
When the Qatari emir tried to quiet him, the Libyan leader and current Africa Union chairman insisted he be allowed to speak.
"I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam (leader) of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level," Gadhafi said.
He then got up and walked out of the summit hall.

Doha looks like it will be fun to follow!

Doha showcasing Arab disunity and support for genocide

There is an Arab League summit starting today in Doha, Qatar, and - as usual - it highlights the differences between Arabs more that their purported "unity."

In fact, pretty much the only unified statements that the Arab League has ever made have been support of Palestinian Arabs and denunciations of Israel.

This year, Egypt refused to attend, due to disputes between Egypt and Qatar. Egypt feels that Qatar has fallen under the influence of Iran and Qatar, including through Al Jazeera, has bitterly criticized Egypt for keeping the Rafah border closed.

Saudi King Abdullah walked out of the opening session following remarks made by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

But there is one issue that the Arab League does seem unified about this year: supporting genocidal Sudanese president al-Bashir.

The Arab leaders are expected to show support for Al-Bashir after the International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted him for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur province. The indictment is perceived in the Middle East as a Western attempt to undermine a sitting Arab leader.

Al-Bashir adviser Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters in Doha, according to Reuters, "We expect this popular uprising of support for Sudan, not just in the Arab world, to be translated into a strong resolution that meets the hopes of the Arab street."

Hmmm...the Arab League defying the International Criminal Court? But I thought that they had such respect for international law!

What I have been working on

With what little free time I had on Sunday, I decided to start creating a Passover gift for Elder of Ziyon readers.

Soon, I hope to be able to post a full EoZ Passover Haggadah.

It will not have any original material; it will just be a series of commentaries that I have taken from various websites that have a religious Zionist perspective, along with the full text in Hebrew and most of the full text in English. Since I didn't spend that much time on it, there will be inconsistencies in the transliterations and such between the commentaries, and some of the commentaries assume a fairly deep knowledge of Jewish texts and "yeshivish" Hebrew, but there should be enough material to add a dimension to your Seder.

If any of my readers wants to add their own Zionist-oriented divrei Torah to the Haggadah, I will be happy to put them in and give proper credit. Just do it by tonight!

The beautiful and talented Daughter of Ziyon plans to create the cover art tomorrow, and then I will try to post a PDF that can be downloaded.

I hope it comes out well, and I hope you like it!