Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The anti-jihad meltdown

I have been watching with increasing concern the blog war between Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs and Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch.

It is alarming because when two powerful players fight each other, the only loss is to the cause itself.

The details aren't important. Both sides and their supporters have already spent countless hours trying to dig up tenuous connections between the opposition and, absurdly, Nazis and Islamists. As so often happens in situations like these, eventually the hard-core get caught up in minutiae that casual fans quickly lose interest in, to the detriment of both blogs.

I have a simple rule to determine what people believe: read what they write and say. Don't make leaps of logic based on who they associate with. No two human beings agree on everything; that doesn't mean that they cannot talk to each other or link to each other in cyberspace or even say nice things about each other. If someone writes something that is bigoted or racist, call them on it; but don't start making assumptions based on their connections or their commenters.

I have read enough of Robert Spencer's and Charles Johnson's writings to say that they are both against bigotry and they are not racist. The accusations to the contrary are absurd and divisive.

I have also read enough of their writings to say that they are both right about the Islamist threat, period. That is the issue and everything else is a distraction. And today especially, we cannot afford distractions.

The silly game of accusations and counter-accusations has to stop. Disagreements can and should occur, but without the stupid baggage that turns them into wars. There is enough real scary stuff going on out there that wasting time on blog wars ends up hurting everybody.

10 years for double murder. But they were only women.

From Ma'an:

A Palestinian military court in Ramallah on Monday sentenced a man to ten years in prison for murdering two sisters in November 2005.

According to court records, the masked killer broke into the home of Dawlat and Fitnah Assaf, stabbing both of them. Dawlat died instantly while Fitnah succumbed to her wounds later.

What Ma'an fails to mention is that the sisters were elderly - Dawlat was 75 years old.

The Palestinian Arab jurisprudence is working overtime for justice. Looking through Ma'an, I only found two other recent stories from the Ramallah Law and Order beat: the conviction of a man who stole millions via insider trading to 2 years in prison and a $150 fine, and a man who was arrested for marketing expired yogurt.

Hezbollah ridicules idea of "political wing"

From the LA Times (h/t Carl in Jerusalem):

On one point, the United States agrees with Hezbollah's No. 2 leader, Naim Qassem, and not such allies as Britain.

Neither Qassem nor Washington distinguish between the Shiite militant group's political wing, which has members serving in the Lebanese Cabinet and parliament, and its military wing, preparing for the next round of battle against Israel. "Hezbollah has a single leadership," said the 57-year-old cleric in a rare interview with an American reporter recently.

"All political, social and jihad work is tied to the decisions of this leadership," he said. "The same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions in the struggle against Israel."

This article was published yesterday morning. It is an explicit refutation of Great Britain's decision in March to talk "only" with Hezbollah's "political wing."

Yet the story has not been picked up by any British media. So far it has only been reported in Israel, Iran and peripherally in the UAE.

And Ha'aretz reports on the interview - yet ignores this statement about Hezbollah's leadership, which led the story in the LAT!

Given what Great Britain did and what Europe is doing in legitimizing Hezbollah, isn't this kind of important? Wouldn't a responsible Western press pick up on something like this? It isn't as if the LA Times is a tiny newspaper. The story's been out for more than a day.

The media silence is perhaps more troubling than the story itself.

PalArabs deny booby-trapped boat had explosives

Ma'an:

The Palestinian Agriculture Ministry in Gaza slammed on Tuesday Israeli allegations that Palestinians attempted to attack an Israeli warship using an explosive-laden fishing boat on Monday morning.

The ministry said in a statement that Israel’s account of Monday’s events was “trumped up story aimed at escalating aggression against fishermen” and “an excuse for piracy and destruction.”

The Agriculture Ministry said it has spoken with eyewitnesses who said the boat contained no explosives, and that it exploded only when an Israeli warship shelled it.

The Israeli military’s Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, maintained the Israeli version of events saying, “The fishing boat that was identified this morning by Israel Navy boats was booby-trapped with hundreds of kilograms of explosives."

“We assume that this was an attempt to attack one of the Israel Navy boats, an attempt that fortunately was not successful, thanks to the soldiers correctly implementing the regulations,” said Ashkenazi.

For some reason, the PA didn't explain why exactly this "fishing boat" that exploded so spectacularly after being shelled had no people on board. Perhaps the Gazans have perfected robot fishing techniques?

Saudis go nuts over - sewing machines

From the Saudi Gazette:

Rumors that Singer sewing machines contain the so-called “red mercury” substance has sent prices skyrocketing around the Kingdom, with individuals flocking to markets to pay up to SR200,000 [$53,000] for a single machine.

The rumors, which first started circulating a few days ago via the Internet and then the word of mouth, led to a rush for sewing machines that could previously have been bought for as little as SR200.

Mansour Al-Turki, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, described the rumors, which have gathered momentum around the Kingdom, “as false and deceptive.”

Believers of the rumors say that the presence of a drop of red mercury in the machine’s needle can be verified with a mobile telephone. If the line cuts off when the telephone is placed close to the needle, they say, that proves the existence of the substance.

In Madina, trading in the sewing machines was intense in many places. Potential buyers were seen using their mobile telephones to check the machines for the level of its red mercury content.

While crowds have also thronged car boot sales and other market areas in search of the sewing machines, others have resorted to theft, with two female tailoring shops broken into in Dhulum and their sewing machines taken.

So what is "red mercury?"

It is a mythical substance, rumored to be used to build nuclear weapons, that supposedly is worth a fortune.

Those Singer folks are brilliant to start such a rumor!

Triple "honor killing" plus Gaza kids killed by Hamas bomb

From PCHR:

On Thursday, 9 April 2009, three members of the ‘Olaiwa family – including a child – were murdered in Gaza City. The police found three bodies belonging to Sufian ‘Arafat 'Olaiwa, 45, his wife, Miriam al-Majdoub (‘Olaiwa), 30, and his son, Jawhar Sufian ‘Olaiwa, 5, in their houses in al-Shoja’eya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. The victims were shot by several bullets to different parts of their bodies. On the same day, the police arrested three members of the ‘Olaiwa family for questioning. Yousef Abdul Wahab, Chief of the Police Criminal Investigation Bureau in Gaza, told PCHR that the crimes were related to ‘family honor’.

This is not a clan clash - this is members of a family killing other members of the same family for "honor." I'm not sure what heinous crime 5-year old Jawhar did, but it must have been a doozy.

Also, two weeks ago two Gaza boys were killed while playing with a "suspicious object" which exploded. The original stories concerning this made it sound like they were leftover Israeli ordnance, but PCHR says:

Palestinian police sources informed PCHR that they had opened an investigation into the incident, but they have not yet obtained any data about the suspicious object.

This is the Hamas police, of course, and if they are not blaming Israel immediately this means that the kids found one of the hundreds of booby traps that Hamas had seeded urban areas of Gaza with.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 66.

Chol HaMoed Open Thread

Since I am not able to do any real blogging until later tonight, it is time for the highly anticipated and always unpredictable Open Thread, where various and sundry topics get discussed in entertaining ways.

Lotsa Matzoh

I was just reading the back of a Manischewitz matzoh box, where they are celebrating their 120th anniversary, and I wondered - did they invent the machine matzoh?

A brief Google search brought me to an article from Time magazine last week that answered that and many other matzoh questions:

For thousands of years, the story of matzo remained relatively unchanged. For one week during Passover, observant Jews refrained from any leavened bread product (meaning, anything made from dough that is able to rise), replacing it with irregularly shaped discs of handmade matzo. Orthodox Jews went a step further, eating only shmurah, or "guarded" matzo made from grains that had been watched by a Jewish official from the moment of harvest to ensure that they never came into contact with a liquid that would lead to accidental leavening. According to rabbinic law, once the flour is combined with water, matzo dough must be kneaded, rolled and baked within 18 minutes — otherwise it will begin to rise.

In 1838, a Frenchman named Isaac Singer invented a matzo-dough-rolling machine that cut down on the dough's prep time and made mass production possible. But changes to 3,000-year-old religious traditions never go smoothly, and Singer's invention became a hot-button issue for 19th century Jewish authorities. In 1959, a well-known Ukrainian rabbi named Solomon Kluger published an angry manifesto against machine-made matzo, while his brother-in-law, Rabbi Joseph Saul Nathanson, published a defense. Jewish communities around the world weighed in on the issue — arguing that handmade matzo provided kneading jobs for the poor; that the machine made matzo cheap enough that poor people could afford it; that the mitzvah, or good deed, of eating matzo was ruined if a machine was used; that the machine made it easier to abide by the 18-minute rule. These discussions were not resolved quickly — and in some Orthodox communities, not at all.

In 1888, a Lithuanian immigrant named Dov Behr opened the first matzo-making factory in Cincinnati, Ohio. Behr adopted the name Manischewitz, named his factory the B. Manischewitz Company and developed an entirely automated method of matzo production. In advertisements, Manischewitz boasted that "no human hand touches these matzos!" By 1920, he was the world's largest matzo producer — at 1.25 million rectangular, sheetlike matzos a day — but he always adhered to the original kosher rules. As Manischewitz's popularity grew, so did the general perception of matzo. Gone were the lumps and bumps of homemade mazo; machine-made mazo was uniform in size, shape, taste and texture. Manischewitz endured some controversy for his use of machines, but after he spent 13 years studying the Talmud in Jerusalem, even the most hardened traditionalists eventually considered him an acceptable authority on matzo. The Manischewitz family sold the company in 1990 for $42.5 million; the brand is still the most popular type of matzo in the world.
Matzo Facts:

1. A matzo bakery was invited to the 1938 New York World's Fair, but for unknown reasons never appeared.

2. In 1973, Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan shouted, "Man, oh, Manischewitz," the matzo company's slogan, in the middle of his moonwalk.

3. In 2008, competitive-eating champion Joey Chestnut ate 78 matzo balls in eight minutes for a $1,500 prize.

But Time magazine in 2009 is not the only mainstream media to be interested in matzoh. Here's a typically inaccurate but fascinating article from the New York Times, April 4, 1871 (click to enlarge):

Roger Cohen unveils his "appease Iran" plan

What can you say about someone who is so consistently wrongheaded and stubborn as to keep digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole of insanity?

Today, Roger Cohen, the self-appointed guru of realpolitik, unveils his Grand Plan for Peace, Sunshine and Unicorns!

Iran ceases military support for Hamas and Hezbollah; adopts a “Malaysian” approach to Israel (nonrecognition and noninterference); agrees to work for stability in Iraq and Afghanistan; accepts intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency verification of a limited nuclear program for peaceful ends only; promises to fight Qaeda terrorism; commits to improving its human rights record.
The United States commits itself to the Islamic Republic’s security and endorses its pivotal regional role; accepts Iran’s right to operate a limited enrichment facility with several hundred centrifuges for research purposes; agrees to Iran’s acquiring a new nuclear power reactor from the French; promises to back Iran’s entry into the World Trade Organization; returns seized Iranian assets; lifts all sanctions; and notes past Iranian statements that it will endorse a two-state solution acceptable to the Palestinians.

There is a fundamental flaw when trying to apply realpolitik to the Muslim world.

Realpolitik by definition is not ideological - and Islam by definition is.

The vapid assumption that ideologically motivated Muslims such as the Iranian leadership can violate their core principles for practical considerations is breathtakingly wrongheaded. The Islamic Republic of Iran styles itself as being based on moral and religious principles, and in reality they are not subject to compromise unless they are backed into a corner, when the principles may be downplayed but never changed.

Cohen's plan is fundamentally flawed in another way as well. It assumes that Iran's leaders are not only practical, but that they are trustworthy. For someone who thinks of himself as an expert on Iran, this betrays an unparalleled amount of self-deception on Cohen's part. In the past few years, how many times have we seen Iran flout the IAEA and UN? How many times have we seen them promise that they were only working towards a peaceful nuclear program, only to find out later about secret military nuclear programs that the IAEA has been banned from inspecting? Even Cohen agrees that Iran is working towards a "virtual nuclear power status" - even as Iran denies that today! If Cohen agrees that Iran is lying today about its aims, why on earth would he believe them if they would "agree" under his plan to stop funding and arming Hezbollah and Hamas? They are doing it covertly now!

Iran, however, would love this plan. It can easily lie and bifurcate about its "commitments" all the while happily accepting its increased prestige and power that would be given to it. To take an example, Iran would - and does - insist that it carefully respects the human rights of all its citizens even as it persecutes dissidents and executes minors.

One other point that Cohen makes that comes out of Neverland: the idea that Iran has endorsed a two-state solution "acceptable to the Palestinians." The only thing I can think of was an incident from last year where Iran's flag was placed on an advertisement by the PLO pushing the Arab peace plan. Iran's reaction was pretty explicit:

Iran condemns "any move taken by some Arab countries to push the recognition of the occupying Zionist regime in any manner, including in Islamic conferences."

How moderate! How practical!

Cohen is another of a long line of people who think that if they just shut their eyes tightly enough and believe, that when they can see again the world will be magically aligned with their fantasies.

Honor killings!

A 28-year old woman was dragged from her home to a field and smothered to death with a waterlogged towel in Deir al-Balah in Gaza.

According to the Mezan Center for Human Rights, this is the third "honor killing" in less than two months. This is one of them, and here are some details on the other one, from March 26th:

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, based in Gaza, reported on Wednesday that a 31-year old woman was stabbed to death on Tuesday at night. The woman gave birth to a child boy less than two weeks ago.

The Center added that on Tuesday approximately at 21:15, four young men came to the house of Ola Hasan Safi, 31, and then the neighbors heard screams coming from her house.

The police was called to the scene and found Safi repeatedly stabbed in her neck and back. Forensic examination showed several bruises on her back in addition to stab marks on her back, chest, abdomen, and neck.

The Al Mezan Center said that Safi gave birth to a healthy child less than two weeks ago, and that she was staying at her father’s home due to a conflict with her husband.

Remember, violence against women in Gaza is completely normal and should only be blamed on barbaric Israeli practices.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is at 61.

Gaza "fishing boat" explodes in botched attack

From YNet:

A Palestinian fishing boat exploded as it neared the Israeli coast from the direction of Gaza.

IDF sources estimated that the booby-trapped boat was activated by remote control and meant to explode near an Israeli Navy vessel or a coastal community.

A naval patrol followed the boat for about an hour and spotted no people on board. As it was several hundred meters off the Gaza shore and heading north the boat exploded.

None of the soldiers was injured and no damage was reported.

IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi said that the boat was loaded with a large amount of explosives.

The "Free Gaza" movement has been obsessing over Israel's patrols off the Gaza shore to ensure no weapons being smuggled into Gaza as well as to stop "fishing boats" like these from steering into Israeli ports. Not surprisingly, they have been silent about this incident.

The algorithm of Palestinian Arab claims

There is a very simple algorithm to determine if Palestinian Arabs claim that something belongs to them.

Step 1. Determine if Israel claims it.

Done!

Jewish shrines? Every single one is claimed to be a Muslim shrine, belonging to Palestinian Arabs.

Jewish-built cities? Every single one is claimed to have been built on some Palestinian Arab village.

Zionist advances in science, medicine, arts, literature? All wouldn't have been possible without the Zionists "stealing land," therefore it belongs to Palestinian Arabs.

Eastern Palestine? No, Jews aren't claiming it, so Jordan can keep it.

The Sinai? No, Jews gave that up, and Egypt wants to make sure that no Palestinian Arabs could possibly own land there. Maybe some of them considered it Palestinian Arab land before Camp David, but certainly not now.

And now the Palestinian Arabs are claiming - the Dead Sea Scrolls!

From Ma'an:

The Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities called on Canada to cancel an exhibition of Dead Sea Scrolls, which an official said were stolen by Israel from the West Bank, AFP reported on Sunday.

"The exhibition would entail exhibiting or displaying artifacts removed from the Palestinian territories," said Hamdan Taha of the ministry's archaeological department, according to the Toronto Star Newspaper.

Taha called on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harmer to cancel the exhibition, which is scheduled to open at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto in June.

Other senior Palestinian officials signed the letter to Canada's prime minister, the AFP reported, insisting that the texts were taken illegally after Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967.

Isn't it interesting that they say that the Scrolls were taken in 1967? I wonder what Palestinian Arab had them in his possession before that, and who exactly stole them from him. Especially since they were being studied throughout the 1950s and 60s. And most of them were purchased in the 1950s by David Samuel Gottesman and given as a gift to the State of Israel, where the Shrine of the Book that houses many of them was built in 1965.

Apparently, since the Palestinian Arabs have so little to show for their past sixty years of whining, they think it is much more efficient to claim everything Israeli as really being theirs. It sure saves effort, and they know from experience that the world will believe them, no matter how outlandish their claims are.

Another day, another bomb factory in a mosque

Ma'an Arabic reports:

The Palestinian Interior Ministry on Sunday revealed that their security forces seized a cache of explosives inside a mosque in the city of Qalqilya.

The ministry said in a statement to Ma'an that the explosives seized by the security forces have been manufactured inside the mosque, which it seized, in addition to find the quantities of materials used in the manufacture of these explosives.

Arutz-7 fills in the details:

Hamas terrorists in Kalkilya built a large supply of bombs and stored them in a local mosque without raising suspicion from local Palestinian Authority armed forces who represent the rival Fatah faction. However, the terrorists were out of luck on Wednesday, Passover eve, when a simple electric shortage gave away their plans.

The shortage caused a small fire in the mosque, bringing PA forces to the building, where they found bombs ready for use and large cannisters of bomb-making materials. The mosque was closed down, and PA sappers removed the explosives.

The bombs were then turned over to the IDF, which sent experts to detonate the weapons in a controlled explosion.

A captain in the PA forces told Israeli journalists that the mosque had been used to both produce and store the bombs. “It was a huge weapons lab,” he said.

Four people have been arrested in connection to the incident, he said, two of them members of Hamas and two “everyday citizens.”

If you listen very carefully, you can almost hear the complete absence of any outrage on the part of Muslims that one of their holy sites was used to manufacture weapons of death. Could it be that they think that the murder of human beings is completely consistent with the Religion of Peace?

"Settlers" "storming" Temple Mount

Ma'an reports:

Israeli police allowed 50 right-wing settlers to tour the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Sunday afternoon without a police escort.

Ma’an’s correspondent in Jerusalem reports that the settlers entered the compound during a time slot reserved for foreign tourists.

Palestinians who were in the compound at the time said that they found the settlers’ tour “provocative.” They said that Israeli police stationed at the entrance refused to remove the settlers when this was requested by Palestinians.

Amazing how Ma'an can tell that these people are all "settlers."

Palestine Press Agency says that the Israelis "stormed" the Al Aqsa compound, as did Palestine Today.

Of course, the big concern is not that they would riot, or shoot, or throw stones at Muslim worshipers. No, the big concern is that they might start to - gasp - pray! Prayer scares the Palestinian Arabs far more than tanks.

It is a good sign that the Israeli police didn't discriminate against religious visitors to the Temple Mount today, as they always do. Yet that behavior is rarely reported as discriminatory, even as thousands of visitors stream to the Temple Mount daily and only the religious Jews are stopped and severely limited in what they can do.

Sharia court allows divorce via SMS

From Arab News:

JEDDAH: A Shariah court here has approved the divorce of a young Saudi woman in her 20s whose husband sent her an SMS text from Iraq saying he had divorced her.
The husband, who is in Iraq to participate in what he described as “jihad,” also telephoned two of his friends who witnessed his marriage and told them that he had divorced his wife.

Who says that Islam hasn't embraced modernity?

This is not the first time that particular Islamic legal ruling has come up.