Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, September 14, 2009

Bin Laden, pacifist

The latest "Bin Laden" tape calls for US citizens to pressure the White House to cease the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Who knew he was such a pacifist?

He also asked the American people to stop supporting Israel, now claiming that this was the main reason he attacked America on 9/11. Of course, this only proves that the tape is an elaborate fake by the Mossad, as everyone knows that it was Seventh Day Adventists who attacked on 9/11.

Interestingly, while Al-Quds writes that Bin Laden attacks neocons and the "Jewish lobby" in the audiotape, the MSM articles don't mention anything about the Jewish lobby. We'll have to wait for the MEMRI translation to see how watered down the MSM version is.

Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood urges release of mass murderer

In 1997, a group of Israeli schoolgirls visited what was known as "Peace Island" between Jordan and Israel. A Jordanian soldier opened fire on them, massacring seven 11-year old girls.

Al Arabiya reports that the Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan, fresh off of its more extremist turn, is now urging Jordan's king to pardon the murderer, Ahmad Daqamseh.

But before you think that this is just a fringe extremist group that can be ignored, it is worth recalling that last year a much more heterogeneous group of Jordanians demanded the exact same thing. And they included the president of the Arab Human Rights Organization and the head of the Jordan Bar Association. They justified their demand by saying that "pardoning Daqamseh will have a great effect on people."

As I wrote then, let's hope that King Abdullah will remain as aghast at this crime as his father was and let the killer rot. At the time, King Hussein went to Israel to pay his condolences to the families and truly condemned this act, not like the fake "condemnations" that we are used to hearing from Palestinian Arab leaders.

Who started the Gaza war?

Amnesty International, in its report on the Gaza war, introduces the topic this way:

At 11.30am on 27 December 2008, without warning, Israeli forces began a devastating bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip codenamed Operation “Cast Lead”. Its stated aim was to end rocket attacks into Israel by armed groups affiliated with Hamas and other Palestinian factions.

The name of the report is "ISRAEL/GAZA: OPERATION ‘CAST LEAD’: 22 DAYS OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION."

This is a pretty typical description of how the war began. People know that Hamas and other groups had been sending rockets into southern Israel but the conventional wisdom is that Israel started the real war.

It just so happens that Hamas declared war a full three days before Israel did. And this little fact has all but disappeared.

On Wednesday, December 24th, a full three days before Israel's response, Hamas announced "Operation Oil Stain" (or, "Oil Slick" in some translations.)

On that day, they shot over 40 Qassam rockets and over 80 projectiles altogether towards civilians in Israel. It was by far the biggest barrage that Israel had seen since February.

I can only find a single reference to "Operation Oil Stain" in English-language Palestinian Arab media, but Hamas press releases continued to call it by this name even well after the Israeli response started. They never considered it a one-time operation. Hamas looked at Israel's response as being a part of a war it started. For example, here is their press release from December 28th, and this one from January 1st.

A couple of days later Hamas changed its tune, using both the "Oil Slick" term as well as the new term "Battle of Discord" on January 3, and using the new term exclusively on January 4th.

In other words, for about a week after Israel's counterattack, Hamas took credit for starting the war. Once it became clear that Hamas could gain more political points by claiming to be victims of Israeli aggression, they abandoned their earlier boasting about Operation Oil Slick and the media and human rights groups ignored Hamas' declaration of war in every single report to date.

This is a typical case of meta-bias, where the very framing of the description of the war is designed to make it appear like Israel was the aggressor (look at using Amnesty's phrase, "without warning, Israeli forces began...") While of course Israel's response was indeed devastating, Amnesty and other groups ignore that it was a response to a very specific, planned and declared attack from three days before. And by framing the conversation this way, they force any counterarguments to be within this erroneous framework and take Hamas off the hook.

It will be interesting to see if the UN's Goldstone report due out this month will look at things any differently. But given its mandate, that possibility is remote.

12-year old Yemeni girl dies - in labor

From AP:

A 12-year-old Yemeni child-bride died after struggling for three days in labor to give birth, a local human rights organization said Saturday.
Fawziya Abdullah Youssef died of severe bleeding on Friday while giving birth to a stillborn in the al-Zahra district hospital of Hodeida province, 140 miles (223 kilometers) west of the capital San'a.
Child marriages are widespread in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, where tribal customs dominate society. More than a quarter of the country's females marry before age 15, according to a recent report by the Social Affairs Ministry.
Youssef was only 11 when her father married her to a 24-year-old man who works as a farmer in Saudi Arabia, said Ahmed al-Quraishi, chairman of Siyaj human rights organization, which promotes the rights of children in Yemen.
Impoverished parents in Yemen sometimes give away their young daughters in return for hefty dowries. There is also a long-standing tribal custom in which infant daughters and sons are promised to cousins in hopes it will protect them from illicit relationships, he said.
In February, parliament passed a law setting the minimum marriage age at 17. But some lawmakers are trying to kill the measure, calling it un-Islamic. Before it could be ratified by Yemen's president, they forced it to be sent back to parliament's constitutional committee for review.

Garlasco responds, poorly

Marc Garlasco finally responds to the story about his obsession with collecting Nazi-era German paraphernalia. And, as could be expected, he twists the facts around a bit:

Now I've achieved some blogosphere fame, not for the hours I've spent sifting through the detritus of war, visiting hospitals, interviewing victims and witnesses and soldiers, but for my hobby (unusual and disturbing to some, I realize) of collecting Second World War memorabilia associated with my German grandfather and my American great-uncle. I'm a military geek, with an abiding interest not only in the medals I collect but in the weapons that I study and the shrapnel I analyze. I think this makes me a better investigator and analyst. And to suggest it shows Nazi tendencies is defamatory nonsense, spread maliciously by people with an interest in trying to undermine Human Rights Watch's reporting.

Actually, he had achieved some blogosphere fame previously, for his poor analyses blaming Israel for various things that he didn't have adequate evidence for.

Secondly, his hobby is not "Second World War memorabilia associated with my German grandfather and my American great-uncle." Unless he has another handle he keeps secret, his obsession - it is difficult to call it anything else - has been specifically with German memorabilia, and specifically with WWII-era German memorabilia (although I saw a few awards from the earlier part of the century.) His book was on specifically German medals.

Thirdly, collecting medals has zero in common with military analysis. To imply that somehow his creepy hobby makes him a better analyst is laughable.

Fourthly, there are serious questions as to how good an analyst he is to begin with. I am not one who can judge, but I would love to hear from military people who have read his analyses. Clearly he has screwed up in the past. And as far as I can tell, his Pentagon career had nothing to do with "analyzing shrapnel."

I've never hidden my hobby, because there's nothing shameful in it, however weird it might seem to those who aren't fascinated by military history. Precisely because it's so obvious that the Nazis were evil, I never realized that other people, including friends and colleagues, might wonder why I care about these things.

If this is true, then why did he agonize in one of his forums as to whether he should use his real name on his book? He was concerned because he sometimes gets quoted on the news, and being associated with this enterprise might hurt his career. That indicates an awareness that he knew that his hobby was potentially offensive to some. He knew quite well that people "might wonder." Yet, like all obsessives, he justified it rather than take up collecting stamps or pink flamingos.

The question he has yet to satisfactorily answer is why his obsession was almost exclusive to Nazi-era German memorabilia. He has simply denied that (as has HRW) and there has been little evidence that he spent even 1% of his collecting time on non-Nazi-era German war materials.

I deeply regret causing pain and offense with a handful of juvenile and tasteless postings I made on two websites that study Second World War artifacts (including American, British, German, Japanese and Russian items). Other comments there might seem strange and even distasteful, but they reflect the enthusiasm of the collector, such as gloating about getting my hands on an American pilot's uniform.

Here he is simply lying. The websites were both specifically geared towards German Nazi-era collections, one named GermanCombatAwards.com and the other was Wehrmacht-Awards.com. I didn't see any post about getting his hands on an American pilot's uniform, but I did see the one on his enthusiasm about seeing an SS jacket:

That is so cool! The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!

Marc

It makes my blood go cold, as well, but for completely different reasons.

Which points up to the major problem with Garlasco's non-apology: it is an excuse, with the trappings of some apologetic words, probably forced by his bosses at HRW who are trying desperately to shut this story down.

And the problem is not specifically Garlasco. It is HRW. Garlasco is always trotted out as their "senior military analyst" but we do not know what his areas of expertise really are, and one gets the impression that he is overreaching in his analyses to get to a conclusion that was already decided before he entered the scene. Now he looks a lot flakier, and so does HRW's credibility; their defense of him indicates that they just don't get it.

Ancient synagogue unearthed in the Galilee

This handout file photo provided on September 11, 2009 by the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) shows a large carved stone found during excavations of a recently uncovered synagogue at Migdal on the north-western end of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. The synagogue, dated to the 2nd Temple period (50BC - 100AD) is one of the oldest ever found, and was unearthed at Migdal.... Archaeologists were particularly excited by the discovery of the stone depicting the menorah -- a seven-branched candelabrum -- from the Jewish Second Temple which was destroyed in 70 AD during the Roman siege of Jerusalem. (Getty Images)

In the middle of the 120 square meter main hall of the synagogue archaeologists discovered an unusual stone carved with a seven branched menorah . "We are dealing with an exciting and unique find," said excavation director and Israeli Antiquities Authority archaeologist Dina Avshalom-Gorni.

The menorah engraving is the first of its kind to be discovered from the Early Roman period according Avshalom-Gorni who said the site joins just six synagogue locations that are know to date from the same time.

Avshalom-Gorni posited that the engraved menorah was done by an artist who had visited the main synagogue in Jerusalem known as the Second Temple where the actual menorah was believed to be kept.

3 Katyushas hit Israel from Lebanon

From Ha'aretz:

Three Katyusha rockets struck open fields near Nahariya on Friday. There have been no reports of casualties.

The rockets were fired from southern Lebanon and Israel Radio has reported that the Israel Defense Forces have launched retaliatory artillery into southern Lebanon.

Perhaps if Israel would just withdraw from occupied Lebanese territories, these sorts of incidents would stop. Hezbollah wouldn't have any incentive any more to attack Israelis.

Oh, sorry...Israel already withdrew some nine years ago.

Well, for sure, there must be some sort of valid reason for Hezbollah or their like-minded Islamist buddies to fire rockets at Israel, right? We just have to identify the just cause that Islamists are fighting for and then pressure Israel to give in, because it is an article of faith on this September 11th that people don't just attack civilians without good cause. They're hungry, they're stateless, they're disillusioned, they have poor self-esteem...if we just look hard enough I'm sure we can identify a good, defensible reason that we can blame Israel for.

Pure hatred cannot be the reason, because that is irrational, and everyone is fundamentally rational. To say otherwise makes you a bigot.

Some of my best friends are Zionists...ummm....

A comment at Solomonia by Neurodoc caught my eye:

Now, at the risk of denying Marc Garlasco any of the attention he deserves, might I point out something I have not seen mentioned about another HRW stalwart, Sarah Whitman [sic]? Am I the only one to think it noteworthy that Ms. Whitman's Facebook page identifies as a special friend of hers Adam Shapiro, the same Adam Shapiro who was a founder of International Solidarity Movement, buddy of Yassir Arafat, etc.? I don't see anyone among her friends that I recognize as an ardent supporter of Israel, matching the very much anti-Israel Shapiro.

Indeed, Sarah Leah Whitson's Facebook page includes Shapiro.

Now, I am not a big user of Facebook, so I don't know whether "friends" is meaningful at all in this context. But it may be a useful exercise to see if any of the "objective" members of NGOs like HRW have as many unabashed supporters of Israel as friends as they have unabashed haters.

This is a picture I took on the morning of September 11, 2006 from Jersey City, showing the downtown Manhattan skyline and superimposing the WTC. It is still jarring in its absence eight years later.

(My original photo disappeared from Imageshack, so I am indebted to Seraphic Secret for copying it last year.)

Two more murders in Gaza, and other news

Ramadan is such a peaceful time...

In the Ashanti camp in Gaza, gunmen shot and killed a 37-year old man and seriously wounded another as the victims prepared to eat their Iftar meal Wednesday night. Commenters in PalPress claim that this was a result of an old feud; the victim had apparently murdered another guy four years ago.

In that same camp, a family feud erupted in the murder of a 23-year old.

(I'm pretty sure these are two separate incidents. Firas Press reports them separately, although every other paper reports one or the other.)

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 186.

In other news, Palestine Today headlines a story that China provides 30% of Gaza's electricity. That would be a really stunning technological feat, but what the article means is that 30% of Gaza's electricity comes from generators made in China. Of course, that means that the fuel for the generators comes from Israel, but they aren't going to mention that part...

HRW sends out the sockpuppets (UPDATE)

Earlier this evening I received a comment from "Dash F.", about the Garlasco story, saying:

This is total nonsense. It's malicious and defamatory and borderline libelous, to be honest. The mere fact that someone collects a certain kind of military artifact does not make them loyal to what those artifacts represent. Saying Garlasco is a Nazi b/c he owns Nazi medals is like saying someone interested in cave paintings is a neanderthal. It simply makes no sense! Instead of dragging this man's name through the mud, perhaps it would be better to consider his record, his position at a leading Human Rights NGO (which, despite claims to the contrary, is not anti-Israel since they criticize Israeli and Palestinian tactics alike when either cross the line of legality), and the fact that he COLLECTS stuff. That's as far as it goes. People study and write about and read about and are interested in every evil figure and vile empire that ever existed, Nero, Ghengis Khan, Sadam Hussein, Stalin, Hitler. This interest does not equal acceptance or agreement or support in any way and to argue otherwise is totally illogical!

Five minutes later, on a different thread, I received another missive from "Tom K." who pasted HRW's press-release defense of Marc Garlasco.

Both of them happen to have the same IP address.

And that IP address happens to resolve to ....HRW.org!

Is this HRW's idea of how to win friends and influence people in the new media? Because, to my mind, they just did the opposite. Sock-puppet messages are considered a gross breach of netiquette, and it indicates a certain dishonesty, not to mention puerility.

HRW? Dishonest? Juvenile? Non-professional? Perish the thought!

UPDATE: Commenter Max notices that "Dash F."'s comment was repeated, verbatim, at Solomonia under the name "Sue." I wonder how many other blogs got visits from our pals at Human Rights Watch under different handles?

Meanwhile, Helena Cobban, who is on the HRW Middle East advisory committee, seems as disgusted with Garlasco as the rest of us are.

UPDATE 2: "Sara" wrote an identical message at the Z-Word blog. When it was mentioned, a person who answered her wrote, "Yay, I was debating with CTRL-C + CTRL-V!"

Saudi religious leader bans swine flu pamphlets

This story is just weird:

The Director of Endowments and Mosques (Auqaf) in Jeddah, Sheikh Fuhaid Bin Muhammad Al-Barqi, has announced that swine flu information leaflets containing images of living creatures have been banned inside mosques for conflicting with the Shariah.

“These images are impermissible inside people’s houses, let alone in the houses of Allah,” Al-Barqi said.

The Endowments and Mosques Department is, according to Al-Barqi, taking part in spreading awareness of the dangers of swine flu, with Imams having been instructed to cooperate in that regard.

“There is no objection to distributing swine flu awareness leaflets inside mosques as long as they do not have images of living beings. The ones with pictures can be distributed outside the mosque after prayer,” Al-Barqi said.

Former editor of Al-Watan newspaper, Qainan Al-Ghamdi, wrote of the prohibition of the leaflets Wednesday saying they were an “attack on the ministry volunteers handing out the leaflets, which will move on to the Ministry of Health itself and later the State.”

Al-Ghamdi compared this “attack” to the “takfeeri fatwas” (edicts accusing Muslims of infidelity) of two decades ago.

“When there are warnings of the danger of these sort of things, there is always someone who will justify it and one ends up in a tangle of fiqh [jurisprudential] arguments,” Al-Ghamdi wrote. “In the end, the Ministry of Health might well back down in the face of this stronger current of thought.”

I can sort of understand a Sharia rule against images of living beings. Weird, yes; extreme, yes; but at least it is a rule that probably has some sort of Quranic basis.

But what I cannot understand is the contradiction between the two bolded statements: if the pictures are forbidden, even in houses, why are they allowed to be distributed outside mosques?

Moreover, if pictures of living beings is forbidden in Sharia, why do Saudi newspapers have such pictures? Are newspapers forbidden to be read at home?

And notice the last paragraph. Saudi society - even a person who one would expect would fight the hardest for freedom of expression - has apparently surrendered to the veto power of the most extreme versions of Islam.

Latest Garlasco update

I'm trying to find time to post on other topics, but this one keeps getting more interesting...

Daled Amos uncovers some stuff that Garlasco has said in the past that seems somewhat, um, inconsistent with his attitude towards Israel:

"I don't think people really appreciate the gymnastics that the U.S. military goes through in order to make sure that they're not killing civilians," Garlasco points out.

"If so much care is being taken why are so many civilians getting killed?" Pelley asks.

"Because the Taliban are violating international law,” says Garlasco, “and because the U.S. just doesn't have enough troops on the ground. You have the Taliban shielding in people's homes. And you have this small number of troops on the ground. And sometimes the only thing they can do is drop bombs.”

Daled Amos finds another quote from Garlasco in that same interview concerning his previous life working with the US military:

Garlasco says, before the invasion of Iraq, he recommended 50 air strikes aimed at high-value targets -- Iraqi officials.

But he says none of the targets on the list were actually killed. Instead, he says, "a couple of hundred civilians at least" were killed.

Let see, that's a ratio of, very roughly, zero percent of the dead that were the intended targets. The worst you can say about the IDF in Gaza is about 45% with equally tough circumstances. (Is this sorry record what makes him a military expert?)

Perhaps we should ask HRW to investigate whether Garlasco should be charged with war crimes.

Read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, The Guardian has picked up on the story, even mentioning little ol' me:

Several of the websites that have been running with the Garlasco story, Human Rights Watch says, are the same websites that have been attacking its reporting of the Gaza war. They include Elder of Ziyon, NGO Monitor and Mere Rhetoric.

Sounds vaguely conspiratorial, no?

HRW/Garlasco roundup from NGO Monitor

NGO Monitor does a nice job rounding up all the latest findings about Human Rights Watch's Marc Garlasco and his fetish for WWII German memorabilia.

Hamas leader brags about weapons smuggling

Palestine Press Agency quotes Khaled Meshal, on a trip to see his buddies in the Sudan, bragging that Hamas still managed to smuggle weapons into Gaza despite the Israeli blockade:

"Despite the siege and closure, harassment, and conspiracies of the East and West to prevent us from getting weapons, we thank God we buy weapons and smuggle arms and make weapons [ourselves]"

It is telling that this is Hamas' priority - smuggling weapons. Not food, not paper, not clothing - but explosives and arms. The fact that their obsession with killing Jews is hurting a million Gazans doesn't bother them at all; on the contrary, it provides the opportunity for their pals in the media to do their part and pretend the tunnels are merely for toys:

Yesterday, a Hamas terrorist was killed, and others injured, in a smuggling tunnel under Rafah on what they called a "jihad mission." That doesn't make the news, only pictures like this one.

This is something the media misses when they talk about Gaza. Hamas is not a government in the sense that they try to protect and serve their people. On the contrary, Hamas is concerned with only two things: staying in power and building a terror infrastructure. To them, Gazans are pawns to be used as needed, and sometimes that means they like to see the people killed for propaganda purposes.