Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

You can still download the free EoZ Haggadah

So far, over ~~450~~ 550 people have downloaded the Elder of Ziyon Haggadah, available here.

It contains the entire Hebrew and (almost the entire) English text of the Haggadah. It is quite usable during the Seder, especially if you print it double-sided. The commentaries all come from a religious-Zionist perspective, emphasizing themes of golut and geulah, that will enhance your Seder (or Sedarim.)

לשנה הבאה בירושלים הבנויה

Socialist writes against modern Leftist anti-semitism

An unusual op-ed from The Militant, a stridently socialist site:

The fifth annual “Israeli Apartheid Week” was held on campuses across the United States the first week in March. The activities are part of an international campaign to boycott businesses that have trade or other relations with Israel, and to sever ties between Israeli academic institutions and those in other countries.
The campaign has the backing of a range of groups that support the struggle of the Palestinian people against national oppression, including radical and socialist groups in the United States like the International Socialist Organization (ISO) and the Workers World Party.
The character of these activities—aimed increasingly at Jewish-owned businesses—is part of the deepening pattern of Jew-baiting and anti-Semitism in the middle-class left worldwide. It should be opposed.
At a February 10 panel discussion at Hunter College in New York, ISO leader Lichi D’Amelio appealed to students not to buy hummus produced by the company Sabra. After stating that the company gives money to the Israeli military, she also asserted that the chick-pea-based dip “is not even Jewish, but an Arab food.”

Starbucks, whose owner is Jewish, has become a target of this campaign internationally. On January 10 some 200 protesters looted a Starbucks coffee shop near the Israeli embassy in London and attacked a number of businesses in the area. One proud participant posted a video of the looting on YouTube under the header “How to really boycott Israeli products.”
Jew-hatred and anti-Semitism, a centuries old form of racism, has been used by ruling classes throughout history when their system faced a crisis. Modern anti-Semitism often comes draped in an anticapitalist and even socialist cloak. The real exploiters—the billionaire ruling families, whose great majority is non-Jewish—are replaced by a racist conspiracy that paints the Jews as the source of society’s problems.
The notion that Washington is a pawn of the Israeli lobby is a modern form of this anti-Jewish conspiracy theory. And those who promote it often use the term "Zionist movement" as a substitute for "Jew."
As part of Israeli Apartheid Week a meeting was held at New York University titled “NYU-Tel Aviv University: A Partnership in Occupation.” Students, academics and others are presented as a “partner in occupation” simply because they study or teach at Tel Aviv University. And, by that logic, why is studying or teaching at NYU less of a threat to the interests of humanity. It also produces scientists, politicians, and military leaders who advance the bloody course of U.S. imperialism—a far greater threat to humanity than the Israeli capitalist state.

He goes on to decry Leftist support of Hamas, which is hardly a socialist cause:

Support for the anti-Israel boycott effort among radicals—like the members of the Workers World Party and the ISO—often goes along with increasingly open support for Hamas. As ISO leader D'Amelio said of Khaled Meshal, the Hamas political bureau leader in Damascus, "There is little in what he says that I disagree with.”
The Hamas covenant, written in 1988, outlines the aims of that organization.
Speaking of the Jewish people, the document states, “With their money, they took control of the world media… . [T]hey stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution… . With their money they formed secret societies… . They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources.”

This has upset the truly hateful ultra-leftists.

AP can't avoid their anti-Jewish bias

Here's a picture of Jews performing the once-every-28 years Birkat Hachamah from AP:

Nice enough, until you read the caption:

Overlooking the Dome of the Rock Mosque, in the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, also known to Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City, Jewish worshippers wrapped in prayer shawls participate in the special "Blessing of the Sun" prayer, in Jerusalem, Wednesday, April 8, 2009. Devout Jews around the world on Wednesday observed a ritual performed only once every 28 years, saying their morning prayers under the open sky in the "blessing of the sun."

Before AP even bothers to say what is happening, it has to imply that the crazy ultra-religious Jews are coveting Muslim holy places. The existence of the mosque, illegally built on top of sacred Jewish land in order to erase all Jewish claims, is utterly irrelevant to the story, and the parenthetic phrase "also known to Jews as" mean that the Muslims have the absolute right to the Temple Mount while Jews have some sort of an irrational claim to Muslim land.

It shows how deeply ingrained the Muslim narrative has come to dominate the Western media. Anyone who thinks that the press is biased towards Jews should read this caption objectively - and if you cannot see what is offensive about it, it means that years of Muslim influence has made such incredible bias the norm.

Egypt closes "blasphemous" magazine

From Al-Arabiya:

An Egyptian court revoked the license of a literary magazine on Tuesday on the grounds that a poem it had published more than two years ago was blasphemous, court sources said.

Ibdaa (Creativity), a small circulation magazine issued by a government-controlled publishing house, lost its license for printing Helmy Salem's poem, "Laila Mourad's balcony" –a reference to a 1940s Egyptian movie icon.

The poem contains references to God, some phrased as questions, likening him for example to a villager force-feeding a duck.

The judge described the poem as "presumptuous drivel" and said a free press should be responsible. The ruling followed a lawsuit raised against the magazine by an individual.

BBC adds:

The court's ruling said: "Freedom of press... should be used responsibly and not touch on the basic foundations of Egyptian society, and family, religion and morals."

Which is the equivalent of saying that the press is free to write whatever it wants, as long as it is about rainbows and unicorns.

AFP indicates who supported the ruling - that bastion of academic freedom, Al Azhar:

The Islamic Al-Azhar University, the government's highest authority on religion, had submitted to the court its opinion that Salem was a heretic and his poem was blasphemous.

Don't invest too much stock in Salem's life.

Jews "desecrate the holy Al-Aqsa mosque"

Palestine Today has another photo essay of Jews "desecrating" the Temple Mount.

As we saw last time, their definition of "Jewish desecration" is "Jews existing."

Palestine Today also has another article warning that extremist Jews plan to "break into" the Al Aqsa mosque for Passover and start building the third Temple.

The Arab Lobby shuts down preacher

When Zionists complain about the opinions of someone, it is considered "censorship" and "shutting down free speech."

But what happens when Muslims complain about someone's opinions?

From al-Arabiya:

Members of France’s Muslim community called for ousting the director of the Paris Grand Mosque after comments he had made in a French magazine that were interpreted as praising Israel and justifying its latest offensive in Gaza.

In an interview Wednesday with the tourist magazine SVP-Israel, the Paris Grand Mosque imam Dalil Boubakeur lashed out at Hamas for firing missiles at Israel and implied that Israel's reaction was justified.

“Concerning the latest event in Gaza, I personally believe that when organizations like Hamas bomb Israel over several years, they essentially generate Israeli reactions and expose the Palestinian population to reprisals,” he told the magazine.

The mosque sought to distance itself from his comments Saturday and reaffirmed its support for the Palestinian people. The mosque has been inundated with calls, from religious organizations to prominent leftist politicians, about his statements, an official at the Paris Mosque told AlArabiya.net.

"They all wanted an explanation to this anti-Palestinian stance despite the fact that Algeria is known for supporting just causes," said Abdullah Zikri, who is also a member of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, which Broubaker heads.

"We do not agree with what Boubakeur said about Israel and I will demand an explanation. If he really said so, it would be an insult that we cannot accept," he said.

Broubaker sought to distance himself from the comments Saturday in an interview with AlArabiya.net.

"The magazine took my statements out of context and I am taking the necessary measures to file a lawsuit," he said.

Boubakeur, who is of Algerian origins, also told the magazine that he admired the intelligence of the Israeli people and that the Quran refers to Jews as God's chosen people.

The Franco-Algerian Association said it was preparing an official memorandum against Boubakeur for insulting Algerians and Muslims with his statements.

Is this that "free speech" that we hear so much about?

Hamas had Stinger anti-aircraft missiles?

I don't know how reliable this is, but the World Tribune reports:

The Hamas regime acquired U.S.-origin air defense systems but was unable to use them in combat.

Hamas sources said the Islamic military has acquired the Stinger man-portable air defense system. The sources said the Stingers were acquired from smugglers in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in 2008 and deployed in the 22-day war against Israel in January 2009.
"We were disappointed by them, and they were found to have been useless," a Hamas source said.
The source said Hamas smuggled four Stinger systems in 2008. The source said the Hamas military deployed the Stingers against Israel Air Force AH-64 Apache attack helicopters during strike missions in the northern Gaza Strip.
"Our gunners couldn't fire the weapon," the source recalled. "A notice came up on the display saying 'friendly aircraft.'"
Industry sources said Raytheon, producer of Stinger, installed identification friend/foe capabilities more than a decade ago. The sources said this would prevent Stinger from being fired against any aircraft used by the U.S. military.
Another Hamas source said gunners deployed Stinger along with heavy machine guns in attacks on Israeli helicopters during the war in the Gaza Strip. The source said one Stinger surface-to-air missile was launched, but the projectile veered off course and struck a Hamas gunner squad.
"The Stinger was drawn by the heat of our guns rather than the engines of the Israeli helicopters," the source said. "At that point, we stopped using this weapon."
The sources said Hamas has abandoned plans to acquire additional Stingers. Instead, the Islamic army has been ordering the Russian-origin SA-16, or Igla-1, surface-to-air missile system, with a range of five kilometers.

They also have a report on Hamas ordering more Chinese rockets.

Latest "outrage" - the "Umayyad" stone

As I mentioned in my morning update, some Palestinian Arabs are up in arms over a supposed Israeli desecration of yet another important Muslim shrine.

From Ma'an (Arabic):

Mohamed Awad, Secretary General of the Council of Ministers, denounced the capture of the Israeli occupation of one of the stones of the Umayyad palaces in the city of Jerusalem.

Awad said in a statement to Ma'an, "This action is a form of erasing Islamic history to change the parameters of the Holy City and the eradication of the Islamic and Arab identity and that the occupation authorities aimed at bringing about demographic change in the holy city and the deportation of Palestinians and the confiscation of their property ".

Also from Ma'an:

Tayseer Rajab al-Tamimi, Chief Justice of Palestine, accused Israel of the [destruction of] Islamic sanctities and the massacre of Christian civilization, blurring the historical landmarks, on the second day of the Forum on the Alliance of Civilizations of the United Nations in Istanbul.

He stressed that there is an unprecedented acceleration of the Government of the occupation and the Jewish religious extremist groups to Judaize the city of Jerusalem, the latest of which was the so-called "Israel Antiquities Authority," the theft of a precious archaeological sites in the Islamic Umayyad palaces in the south-east corner of the Masjid al-Aqsa mosque and placed in front of the Israeli Knesset, saying it has done as one of the greatest crimes of the times and in defiance of all the resolutions of UNESCO, the United Nations and a clear violation of the charters and resolutions, international conventions, "which states that Jerusalem is an occupied city laws do not apply for the Israeli and classified by UNESCO and is Amairha premises."

Another article in PalToday

calls it a "Rosetta Stone" and also accuses Israel of placing it in front of the Knesset.

So what are they talking about?

I finally found a picture of this "Umayyad palace" stone, at Al-Quds.

And the Al-Quds article sheds light on what should be obvious about this stone for anyone who ever visited the tunnels under the Western Wall: that this stone is from the Second Temple, not an Umayyad palace that was built over a millennium later.

The stone was taken to the Israeli Knesset and the public put in front of the building at the site to see both within the Israeli Knesset has allocated a small platform and the subject of concrete, according to Israeli claims of the institution, this stone structure is one of the stones of the alleged second temple.

Compare how this stone looks with the stones on the lowest level over the Temple tunnels, way beneath any Umayyad structure:

These borders and dimensions show that stone to be Herodian, not Umayyad. I know that Israel has started a project to protect the stones fo the Kotel from damage andI am not sure if this particular stone was moved as part of that project - that doesn't seem likely - but to say that this stone is Islamic is, simply, to lie.

Morning items of interest

The Wall Street Journal looks at anti-semitism that is fueled by the economic crisis.

Israel performed a successful test of it's Arrow-2 anti-ballistic missile system. Israel is worried that the US might cut funding for the Arrow-3 system as a result of Pentagon budget cuts. A UPI analysis says

Israel may lose U.S. funding for its ambitious Arrow-3 anti-ballistic missile interceptor, but the United States may instead sell Israel its already operational Standard Missile-3, which has a far superior performance to what the Israelis wanted from their Arrow-3 anyway.

Palestinian Arabs are upset that Israel supposedly removed a large historic stone from the southeast of the Temple Mount and moved it to the Knesset. This story sounds like a completely unfounded rumor or a wild exaggeration, as the Israel Antiquities Authority keeps close tabs on any Israeli construction that could damage any archaeological sites. (They are not quite as good about Arab construction.)

Latest Hamas blood libel

From Palestinian Media Watch via FrontPage:

In this skit, Hamas portrays a "Jewish" father talking to his son:

Father: "We Jews hate the Muslims, we want to kill the Muslims, we Jews want to drink the blood of Muslims and Arabs.
[Turns to the audience:] Are you Muslims and Arabs?
[The audience responds in the affirmative.]
I hate you, to please God."
...
Father: "Shimon, look, my son, I want to teach you a few things. You have to hate the Muslims."
Son: "[I don't] like them, I hate them."
Father: "You have to drink the blood of the Muslims."
...
Father: "I spoke with God, so that you will hate the Muslims, so that you will please God."
Son: "Don't worry, father."
Father: "Very well, my son. I repeat: You have to hate the Muslims."
Son: "But I [do] hate them."
Father: You have to drink the blood of the Muslims."
...
Father: "I tell you, you must stand next to me and pray, my son."
Son: "Okay, one moment and I'm coming."
Father: "Where are you going, my son?"
Son: "I am going to cleanse my body." [as Muslims do before prayer]
Father: "You're going to do WHAT?"
Son: "To cleanse my body. You said you want us to pray."
Father: "Muslims [do that], not us."
...
Father: "We have to wash our hands with the blood of Muslims."

Honor killing for "leaving the house too often"

From Gulf News:

Jordan's Criminal Court has charged a 19-year-old man with stabbing to death his sister in what is believed to be an honour killing.

Al Dridi said the man confessed to repeatedly stabbing his 22-year-old sister to cleanse the family honour because she left the house too often.

The victim is the eighth person to be killed in honour crimes this year [in Jordan.]

Is there any excuse that people don't use for honor killings?

I just saw this ad on a Google sidebar.

Clicking on it brings one to a neo-Nazi paraphernalia site, named NSM88 Records, where you can see such items as this T-shirt:

Apparently Google is happily accepting advertisements from neo-Nazis.

Google's AdWords policy does not seem to have any real prohibition against these sorts of ads. The closest I could find was this section on "inappropriate phrases."

The best page I could find to complain to Google was this one.

Arabs who try to get on the Jews' good side

The New York Times has an interesting article on the tiny Jewish community of Bahrain:

In the tense landscape of the Middle East, there is little room left for Jewish Arabs, a tiny minority in this country as well as in places like Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. But in Bahrain, the king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, has taken unprecedented steps for an Arab leader to show his support for his dwindling Jewish population. Last year, he appointed a Jewish woman, Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo, as ambassador to the United States, the first Jewish ambassador posted abroad by any Arab country.

Then he made a personal visit to London to appeal to expatriate Jews to return to Bahrain. He has also appointed Jewish business leaders to the Shura Council, which acts as an upper house of Parliament. Those measures went against the tide in a region where anti-Semitism is often preached from government-controlled mosques and hating all Jews has become interchangeable with hating the state of Israel.

Being Jewish in the conservative Persian Gulf region still presents challenges, even in Bahrain. Though it has preserved its last synagogue, the building has not had a religious use for decades and all Jewish symbols have been removed. Nevertheless, it is defaced with graffiti that says, in Arabic, “Death to Israel.”

While Bahrain's efforts to make its 36 Jews comfortable is admirable, there may be an agenda:

Some people here take a cynical view of their king’s outreach. Bahrain is a close American ally of great strategic value to Washington. It is near Iran and allows the United States Navy to base its Fifth Fleet here. Many people said the king’s overtures were a safe and convenient bid to cement ties with Washington.

“We always believe here that control of America is governed by the Zionist lobby,” said Salman Kamal al-Deen, a businessman and the head of the Bahrain Human Rights Society. “The media and the money are all in the hands of the Jews. We believe if we have a Jewish ambassador and Jews in the Shura Council, this is a positive indicator for the country.”

There is also some resentment at the king’s support for the small Jewish community. Bahrain is hot with sectarian tensions: the king, a Sunni Muslim, is accused of discriminating against Shiite Muslims, who make up a majority of the native population. Shiites are barred from almost all positions in the military and security services, and they say they are not given the same employment and education opportunities as their Sunni neighbors.

Shiites complain that the 36 Jews are treated better than they are, and that the king’s Jewish outreach is intended to make Bahrain appear to be a tolerant society, papering over the systemic discrimination they say they experience.

It is easy to be tolerant when the tolerated minority offers zero threat and happily accepts its second-class status. When other minorities are not treated as well, one must question why that is. The answer very may well be the flip-side of anti-semitism: the belief that since Jews control the world, it makes sense to butter them up.

Similarly, here is another news story from over the weekend:

Al-Jazeera is lobbying Canadian Jews in its bid for regulatory approval to hit the airwaves.

Tony Burman, a former executive at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. who is now managing director of the Al-Jazeera network, met this week with representatives of the Canadian Jewish Congress to reassure Canadian Jews that the operation's English service, which has been running for two years, is independent from the controversial Arabic service.

In both these cases, the reason for paying attention to Jews is not because Jews are respected. It is because Jews are perceived to have power and must be sucked up to. While this is arguably better than the normal explicit hate that comes from the Arab world, the thinking behind it is very similar.

Ma'an again calls a terrorist "shahid"

From the Ma'an English site:

A group calling itself the “Ahrar An-Naqab” (Free People of the Negev) on Monday claimed responsibility for Saturday’s shooting at Israeli soldiers at the Shoket Junction near the southern Israeli city of Beer Sheva.

The statement also warned Israeli authorities who are continuing to detain family members of the “martyr,” Basma Nibari, threatening to carry out more “qualitative and unprecedented” attacks. The group asserted that the operation came in retaliation for Israeli atrocities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as demolition of homes in Jerusalem.

The statement denied claims that Nibari had personal or family troubles, affirming she was adamant about carrying out an attack against the occupation and wanted be “an example for Palestinians living inside Israel.”

Ma'an here, refers to the terrorist as a "martyr" in scare quotes, indicating that it does not agree that she is a heroine.

Part of the same article, in Arabic, autotranslated:

The statement warned Israel of the continued detention of [the family of the] martyred, and promising more of the operations launched by the quality and unprecedented, adding that the operation came in response to the massacres and crimes of the occupation in Gaza and the West Bank and the policy of house demolitions in Jerusalem and the right message to Government that it will face a "black days. "

The "Free Negev Brigade" denied that Şahide Alnbari had any family or personal problems, "but was determined to implement the process to become a model in the '48 Arab [territories] and deter the occupation and martyrdom for the sake of Allah."

It took out the scare quotes for "martyr" and explicitly called the terrorist girl a "shahid" in the latter paragraph.

Which means that the most "moderate" Palestinian Arab news source explicitly endorses terror attacks inside Israel and considers those who perform them to be heroes.

It also means that the average Palestinian Arab would prefer to see Arabs in Israel act like a fifth column, something that would inevitably make their lives harder.

AP shows anti-Zionist bias in Tel Aviv article

AP has an article about Tel Aviv's 100th anniversary. While it should have been a puff piece, they still manage to throw in their own biases.

The headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer calls it the "First Jewish City." The caption of photos call it "the world's first purpose-built Jewish city."

Somehow, I seem to recall a whole bunch of Jewish cities built over two thousand years ago. The AP has implicitly accepted the Arab claims that Israel has nothing to do with Jewish history, and was built on Arab land.

Even worse is what they quoted here:

In last year's mayoral election, a third of the vote went to Dov Khenin, a Jewish member of a mixed Arab-Israeli party. He finished second.
Still, having been founded as an entirely Jewish city on empty land purchased from its Arab owners, "in that regard," said Khenin, "it is not a Zionist city, because in no way was it based on the oppression of the Arabs."

AP quotes a Jew who defines Zionism as the oppression of Arabs - which is exactly the Arab definition, and exactly not the Zionist definition!

Of course, AP doesn't bother to find anyone who disputes this assertion - one that justifies terror attacks, world hatred and Arab intransigence towards Israel. AP obviously believes it as self-evident, expecially since it found a Jew to assert it.

So the mainstream media continues its mission to demonize Israel even in a minor feature about what should be a celebration of Israel.