Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, October 02, 2009

The IDF's supermodel

YNet has an article about Israeli model Esti Ginzburg, who proudly serves in the IDF unlike the more famous Bar Rafaeli.

As opposed to other models and actresses her age, Private Esti Ginzburg had no hesitations at all about serving in the Israel Defense Forces. In fact, Ginzburg believes in military service so much, that as part of her role at the IDF reception base she explains to young recruits why it is so important to join the army.

"In order to contribute and help, in order to be part of the State," Ginzburg said, "enlisting is a duty, not a choice. There are a million of things I don't feel like doing, but I do them because I have to. Military service is part of the things I believe in, the values I was raised on."

Naturally, I had to painstakingly plow through hundreds of photographs of her to properly illustrate this important story for this blog. Lucky for me, I hit the jackpot here.

This is a picture of her from last spring's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, where Ginzburg subtly signals to her fellow Jews that she is also a proud member of the worldwide Zionist conspiracy, leaving the gentiles none the wiser.

Goldstone report inaccuracies part 18

Part Two, Section A of the Goldstone Report is dedicated to "Military Operations." Goldstone decides to begin this section with a description of the blockade:

311. The military operations of 28 December to 19 January 2009 and their impact cannot be fully evaluated without taking account of the context and the prevailing living conditions at the time they began. In material respects, the military hostilities were a culmination of the long process of economic and political isolation imposed on the Gaza Strip by Israel, which is generally described as a blockade.

Why exactly does Goldstone choose the blockade as the beginning point of the narrative? It would be at least as valid to choose the beginning of the Qassam rocket fire on Israelis several years beforehand, or perhaps the violent Hamas coup against the PA, or perhaps the rocket fire that came after Israel's disengagement from Gaza, or any of a number of other seminal events each of which helped shape the circumstances of the fighting.

By choosing the blockade as his starting point for the military operations, Goldstone specifically chooses an event that makes Israel appear to have initiated the conflict. (He repeats the same pattern in choosing December 27th as the beginning of actual hostilities, and ignoring Hamas' effective declaration of war on December 24th, accompanied by a huge rocket barrage. )

Is it not strange to ignore the role that thousands of Qassam rocket attacks had in setting this fighting into motion, and that they are not considered a seminal event by Goldstone?

The blockade section of the report blames only Israel. It does not note that the Quartet participated in the blockade (except for an elliptical statement "This was also accompanied by the withholding of financial support for the Gaza Strip by some donor countries and actions of other countries that amounted to open or tacit support of the Israeli blockade.)

Goldstone also does not saythat Egypt has any part to do with the blockade. In fact, in paragraph 278, the report says:

Israel controls the border crossings (including to a significant degree the Rafah crossing to Egypt, under the terms of the Agreement on Movement and Access 163) and decides what and who gets in or out of the Gaza Strip.

However, the link he provides to this Agreement shows no such thing.

In reality, Egypt was not a signatory to the Rafah Agreement - it was between Israel, the PA and the EU. Israel could veto specific people from going into Gaza, and it could watch the crossing via closed-circuit TV, but the Rafah Agreement provided for EU observers to be the main gatekeepers and for the Palestinian Authority to be the party responsible on the Gaza side. After the Hamas coup, the Rafah crossing was closed because the EU observers could no longer travel there safely and because the PA was no longer in charge, as per the agreement. Israel's influence over Egyptian behavior at Rafah has nothing to do with this agreement, that was in any case effectively abrogated by Hamas' coup.

Egypt has opened up the Rafah border on a number of occasions, for humanitarian aid and for people to cross (often for pilgrimages to Mecca or medical reasons.) There is nothing in the Rafah Agreement that precludes Egypt from fully opening up Rafah. There are obvious reasons why it doesn't do so, and they have little to do with Israel.

In other words, Goldstone blames Israel exclusively for the blockade, even on the Egyptian side, using a link to a UN document that shows nothing of the sort.

(At times, Hamas also limits movement out of Gaza as well, another salient fact that Goldstone ignores. Hamas stopped Fatah members from attending the Bethlehem conference and it stopped Gazans from leaving when Egypt opened the border in May.)

In the blockade section of the report, Goldstone mentions (para. 320)

The tunnels built under the Gaza-Egypt border have become a lifeline for the Gaza economy and the people. Increasing amounts of fuel (benzine and diesel) come through those tunnels as well as consumables.

Yet he doesn't mention other major imports through the tunnels - explosives, rockets and weapons. Egypt has confiscated many tons of weapons before they reached Rafah. Goldstone elsewhere mentions that some of Hamas arsenal are "thought to be smuggled" and "allegedly smuggled" without saying exactly how (para. 1621 and 1622.)

Since Goldstone ignores the smuggling of weapons to Hamas through the tunnels in context of the blockade, it doesn't even address the concerns that Israel has about allowing construction materials or infrastructure materials like metal pipes into Gaza. It ignores the fact that Hamas has confiscated metal pipes meant for sewage treatment in order to manufacture rockets.

More generally, Goldstone doesn't address other pertinent facts about the reasons for the blockade. Hamas takes all of the available materials that Israel allows into Gaza first, and then hands over the leftovers to the rest of the territory. It ensures that it has all the fuel it needs before it allows the rest to go to ordinary Gazans. Hamas has also stolen ambulances donated by other countries and converted them for military use. All these are ignored by Goldstone as he assails Israel alone for the blockade.

Hamas' apparent policy is that any imports to Gaza are primarily used for military purposes and only secondarily to help Gazans themselves. If that policy would change, in a transparent manner, all indications are that Israel would allow far more goods through to Gazans. One only needs to see the differences between how Israel treats Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and those in Gaza to see that the driving factor for Israeli behavior is not to punish the people but to protect Israeli citizens.

Goldstone sees no such nuance. He flatly states that the blockade "amounts to collective punishment intentionally inflicted by the Government of Israel on the people of the Gaza Strip" (para. 1878).

One can argue whether the blockade is effective, and one could argue whether the specific goods Israel disallows into Gaza can be used against Israel. But if Goldstone is being fair he should at least mention Hamas abuses with the goods that are brought into Gaza as a possible reason for Israel's reticence to provide it with such goods.

Similarly, he fails to point any blame at Hamas for Israel's reluctance to provide Gaza with materials that Hamas would immediately use against Israelis.

Goldstone report inaccuracies part 17

Goldstone looks for Israeli corroboration for a series of incidents that he details of alleged IDF point-blank shooting of civilians. He heavily relies on the published anonymous "testimony" of soldiers speaking at the Rabin Academy as well as for the organization Breaking the Silence.

In paragraph 805 of the final version of the Goldstone Report, he does not find corroboration for any specific incident he details but he finds something he considers relevant:

In one incident highly relevant to the cases investigated by the Mission because of factual similarities, a soldier recounted an event he witnessed.(448) A family is ordered to leave their house. For reasons that remain unclear, probably a misunderstanding, the mother and two children turn left instead of right after having walked between 100 and 200 metres from their house. They thereby cross a “red line” established by the Israeli unit (of whose existence the mother and children could have no knowledge). An Israeli marksman on the roof of the house they had just left opens fire on the woman and her two children, killing them. As the soldier speaking at the Rabin Academy’s “Fighters’ Talk” a month later observes, “from our perspective, he [the marksman] did his job according to the orders he was given”.

Footnote 448 notes " Testimony of 'Ram' in the Rabin Academy Fighters’ Talk, pp. 6-7. The Mission notes that “Ram” clearly states that he was an eyewitness to the incident."

So, although Goldstone did not find any direct corroboration for the terrible stories he tells of heartless IDF soldiers consistently picking out and shooting women and children from close range, he felt that "Ram"'s supposed testimony to the Rabin Academy acts as a reasonable proof of the Palestinian Arab testimony.

The problem is that after Ha'aretz published the Rabin Academy talks, the other Israeli newspapers went to great lengths to find out whether the stories told were true. This specific incident was especially heinous and one of the soldiers that recounted the incident was tracked down by Israel's Channel Two, and he told the reporter that he did not witness the incident and in fact was not even in Gaza!

In addition, the IDF investigated the alleged incidents mentioned. From the Jerusalem Post:

"All of the soldiers who were involved in the conference were questioned - not as a punishment - but in order to understand whether they had witnessed these things. From all of the testimonies we collected, we can safely conclude that the soldiers who made the claims did not witness the events they describe," the source said.
"All of it was based on rumors. In the incident of the alleged shooting of the mother and her children, what really happened was that a marksman fired a warning shot to let them know that they were entering a no-entry zone. The shot was not even fired in their general direction," the source said.
"The marksman's commander ran up the stairs of a Palestinian home, got up on the roof, and asked the marksman why he shot at the civilians. The marksman said he did not fire on the civilians. But the soldiers on the first floor of that house heard the commander's question being shouted. And from that point, the rumor began to spread," the source added.
"We can say with absolute certainty that the marksman did not fire on the woman and her children. Later, the company commander spoke with the marksman and his commander. We know with certainty that this incident never took place," he said.

From Ma'ariv (translated by CAMERA):

Two central incidents that came up in the testimony, which Danny Zamir, the head of the Rabin pre-military academy presented to Chief of Staff Gaby Ashkenazi, focus on one infantry brigade. The brigade’s commander today will present to Brigadier General Eyal Eisenberg, commander of the Gaza division, the findings of his personal investigation about the matter which he undertook in the last few days, and after approval, he will present his findings to the head of the Southern Command, Major General Yoav Gallant.

Regarding the incident in which it was claimed that a sniper fired at a Palestinian woman and her two daughters, the brigade commander’s investigation cites the sniper: “I saw the woman and her daughters and I shot warning shots. The section commander came up to the roof and shouted at me, 'Why did you shoot at them?’ I explained that I did not shoot at them, but I fired warning shots.”

Officers from the brigade surmise that fighters that stayed in the bottom floor of the Palestinian house thought that he hit them, and from here the rumor that a sniper killed a mother and her two daughters spread.

The New York Times also followed up and mentioned that the investigation found this incident to be "an urban myth."

Even if Goldstone believes the unsourced "testimony" of "Ram" above the IDF investigation, he should have mentioned that there is a dispute about Ram's "eyewitness" testimony. He could hardly have been unaware of the firestorm that erupted in Israel as a result of the Ha'aretz article. His failure to do so, when the followup information was so widely disseminated, is significant and troubling.

In short, Goldstone uses an apparent Israeli urban myth to corroborate separate Palestinian Arab narratives of different incidents - which means he has no corroboration at all.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that Goldstone wanted to believe the Palestinian Arab stories of being shot so badly (he states multiple times that they are "credible and reliable witnesses") that he purposefully cherry picked very dubious Israeli "testimony" to back it up, rather than look at the facts impartially - or even to mention in passing that the IDF claims to have discredited "Ram." Since he accuses the IDF a fortiori of not being able to credibly investigate its own soldiers, he doesn't even mention any questions about "Ram."

It is also interesting that none of the 53 anonymous interviews in "Breaking the Silence" mentioned any first-hand knowledge of wanton killing of civilians. They mentioned that the rules of engagement could end up with soldiers making decisions that would weight Gaza civilian lives less than the lives of the soldiers themselves - something Goldstone highlights - but as far as I can tell, every interaction of the soldiers and civilians mentioned there does not come anywhere close to the horrors narrated by the Palestinian Arabs. This absence of corroboration from Israeli soldiers who were upset at the Gaza operation is noteworthy - if they had seen anything like what Goldstone reports, they would have mentioned it.

Palestinian Arabs continue incitement over Temple Mount

Ma'an reports:

Israeli police interrogated Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, chief of the Islamic Supreme Committee, and preacher of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday afternoon over possible charges of incitement and disturbing public order.

The interrogation came after Israeli police clashed with Palestinian protesters at the Al-Aqsa Compound on Sunday after Israeli settlers were reported entering the sensitive holy site.

Sheikh Sabri said that he was interrogated at the Russian Compound prison in Jerusalem from 4pm to 7pm on Tuesday. “They falsely accused me of inciting Palestinian youths to hurl stone at Israeli police officers. They also questioned why I called Palestinian citizens to head to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

Sheikh Sabri accused Israeli police of allowing extremist settlers to access the Al-Aqsa compound, and then protecting them while inside. He said the intrusion was a violation of the mosque’s sanctity. He said that to protect the settlers, Israeli police fired rubber bullets and tear gas canisters at worshippers.

Keep in mind that even now, none of the outraged Arabs have even claimed that the visitors to the Temple Mount did anything the least bit threatening or disruptive. Arab reports themselves say that the devout worshippers started throwing stones, chairs and shoes at the presumed "extremists" whose "crime" was to walk around like any tourist while under the influence of Judaism. The police protected the visitors and did not initiate any violent actions. It seems likely that had the police not been there, the Arabs would have happily massacred the Jews.

But that doesn't stop other extremist Islamic clerics from inciting their people with the latest lie that it is the Jews who are threatening a massacre at Al Aqsa. From Palestine Today (Arabic):

Dr. Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, Chief Justice of Palestine and chairman of the Christian-Muslim organization in support for Jerusalem and the holy sites, warned today of a potential massacre inside the Al Aqsa Mosque.

The Chief Judge's warning came after extremist Jewish groups called on supporters to collectively storm Al-Aqsa on the occasion of the so-called 'Eid throne' [Sukkot holiday] to the Jews, beginning on Sunday, 4/10/2009 until Thursday 9/10/2009.

Sheikh Al-Tamimi renewed his call for the masses of our people in all positions, especially the residents of Jerusalem and the territories of 1948, to continue mobilizing the armed forces [I believe that this translation is correct -EoZ] and the intensification of attendance at the Al Aqsa Mosque, to protect, defend and oppose attempts to breach it, as of next Sunday, to thwart Israeli plots to prejudice its sacredness and to undermine and destroy it.

He said that anyone who has access to Jerusalem and fails to do so is a sinner.

He called to consider this Friday a day of angry protests and marches in every Arab and Muslim town after Friday prayers in support of Al-Aqsa mosque to condemn the actions of the occupation. He also called preachers of mosques throughout the Islamic world to customize their Friday sermons to the issue of Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque, and expose the schemes and the Israeli occupation practices against it.

Dr Tamimi said there is a deliberate intention by the occupation authorities and the extremist Jewish groups to commit a massacre in Al-Aqsa Mosque, especially after the statements by occupation police chief Aharon Franco[?] in Jerusalem, who said that 'Jews have the right to arrive safely and enter the mosque, like the Muslims who performed their religious rites during the month of Ramadan on the Temple Mount without interference.'

He added that the Israeli government is secretly seeking the division of Al-Aqsa Mosque, as they did in the Ibrahimi Mosque [Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron] after the acts of terrorist Baruch Goldstein who had the support of the Israeli occupation forces for the massacre of worshipers, to impose their control upon establishment of the alleged temple on its ruins.

Tamimi is fabricating a clear series of lies and incitement to violence. Based on what happened last week, this incitement is likely to have very dire results.

Not a single Arab spokesman has yet condemned the throwing of stones and chairs at a group of peaceful visitors to the Temple Mount. On the contrary, even the most moderate of them have praised the "defense" of the "sanctity" of Al Aqsa done by the masked stone-throwers.

I scoop CBS News - by a month

From CBS:

Al Qaeda has developed a new tactic that allows suicide bombers to breach even the tightest security, as CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar reports.

Inside a Saudi palace, the scene was the bloody aftermath of an al Qaeda attack in August aimed at killing Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, head of Saudi Arabia's counter terrorism operations.

To get his bomb into this room, Abdullah Asieri, one of Saudi Arabia's most wanted men, avoided detection by two sets of airport security including metal detectors and palace security. He spent 30 hours in the close company of the prince's own secret service agents - all without anyone suspecting a thing.

How did he do it?

Taking a trick from the narcotics trade - which has long smuggled drugs in body cavities - Asieri had a pound of high explosives, plus a detonator inserted in his rectum.

This was a meticulously planned operation with al Qaeda once again producing something new: this time, the Trojan bomber.

The blast left the prince lightly wounded - a failure as an assassination, but as an exercise in defeating security, it was perfect.

The bomber persuaded the prince he wanted to leave al Qaeda, setting a trap.

Al Qaeda has an animated movie showing the meeting between the bomber and the prince. Asieri says more senior al Qaeda figures want to surrender and convinces the prince to talk to them on a cell phone.

In the conversation recorded by al Qaeda, you hear a beep in the middle of two identical phrases that are repeated by the bomber and his handler.

Explosives experts tell CBS News that beep was likely a text message activating the bomb concealed inside Asieri.

The Trojan bomber hands the phone to Prince Mohammed. He's standing next to him, and 14 seconds later, he detonates.

"This is the nightmare scenario," said Chris Yates, an aviation security consultant.

On a plane at altitude, the effects of such a bomb could be catastrophic. And there is no current security system that could stop it.

"Absolutely nothing other than to require people to strip naked at the airport," said Yates.

And al Qaeda says it will share its new technique via the Internet very soon. There is nothing that can stop that either.

Al-Arabiya in Arabic says that the weapon has been termed the "Ass Bomb".

Which is what I called it - in August.

CNN says that the Saudis now claim that he his the bomb in his underwear.

The airplane scenario is real and frightening, though.

Ahmadinejad spurned Neturei Karta?

Vos iz Neias, a Brooklyn-based Orthodox Jewish website, reports:

VIN News has learned from high-ranking Iranian officials that a New York meeting between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and members of the radical anti-Zionist Neturei Karta group was canceled at-the behest of Ahmadinejad himself.

Neturei Karta members reportedly were scrambling to secure a meeting with Ahmadinejad himself during his recent visit to New York for the U.N. meeting. Hope seemed "lost" until the group actually succeeded in arranging for a face-to-face with the firebrand head of state-only to have that meeting suddenly canceled, by no less than Ahmadinejad himself.

According to VIN's sources, it is said that the Iranian president has lost total interest in the Neturai Karta, and views them as zealots with no serious following within the Jewish community.

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of Neturei Karta confirmed to VIN News that their group did not meet last week with Ahmadinejad, but declined to provide a reason.
Two years ago, members of the group scored international headlines, and a fierce firestorm to match, when they appeared at a Holocaust-denial conference in Teheran to publicly and literally embrace Ahmadinejad. The group has also met Ahmadinejad in 2007 while visiting New York.

Meanwhile nowadays, famous Austrian Rabbi Moishe Arye Friedman, the formerly high-ranking official who facilitated that infamous event, has done teshuvah [repentance ]. As described in an exclusive interview with VIN, the activist no longer agrees with the NK's philosophy, and believes what most said about it for decades: that it is a dangerously foolhardy calculation for a handful of extremists to claim international Torah Jewish representation, especially on such a critical issue as the safety and security of fellow Jews-not to mention a humiliating chilul Hashem [desecration of God's name.]
Rabbi Friedman is reputedly using his connections and influence in high ranks of the International Community places to now thwart, not facilitate, publicity-heavy meetings between members of the group.

I have no idea if it is true but it sounds semi-plausible. The reason given is a little strange; what does Ahmadinejad care if NK is considered fringe or not? They serve his purposes either way as Jewish cover for his desire to destroy Israel.

Anyway, this story does show that religious Jews can't stand the anti-Israel NK as a whole and that they represent essentially no one in the Orthodox Jewish community.

I am reminded of an old posting of mine, where an avowed "anti-Zionist" idiot wrote an article against Neturei Karta because they were just too Jewy for him.

(h/t Andre)

Casualties of Truth - the website

PTWatch, after much exhausting work, has put together a database-driven website that shows all the results of our team's research into PCHR's casualty list from Operation Cast Lead.

Much better than the posting I've been updating, the site lists alternate names of the militants, points to the URLs that prove their terrorist ties and even includes screenshots of the sites.

This is now the definitive reference site for Cast Lead casualties. I hope that the other researchers that have been doing similar work can help update it with their own raw results.

Thanks again to PTWatch, t34zakat and Suzanne for the many, many hours of research that resulted in this!

September rocket calendar

Q=Qassam (may include Katyusha-style rockets)
QS=Qassam landing short in Gaza
M=Mortar
(G)=Grad (included in Qassam count, not consistent yet)

MS=Mortar landing short
P - unnamed "projectiles"
(Paren) indicates unconfirmed Palestinian claims

K=Katyushas from Lebanon

September 2009

Palestinian Arab leaders calling for new intifada

Palestinian Arabs love to romanticize their worst decisions.

During the 1936-39 riots and strikes they ended up killing far more of their own people than anyone else. Their leadership was forced out of the area and they were left a disorganized mess, which historians blame for their poor performance in 1948. Yet they nostalgically refer to that time period as "The Great Revolt," mostly because they did manage to scare the British into severely limiting Jewish immigration and therefore many tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of Jews ended up in ovens instead of Palestine. Apparently, to the Palestinian Arabs, this made it all worthwhile.

The same logic is happening now. The second intifada, by any sane measure, was a terrible setback for supposed Palestinian Arab hopes for an independent homeland. Thousands were killed, their economy was ruined, and the possibility of nationhood became more remote. Just as in the 1930s, they ended up fighting each other, killing hundreds more. Yet they regard it today with nostalgia - because they were successful in killing over a thousand Jews and the wave of suicide bombings made them feel important and relevant as they enjoyed being on the world stage - even if it was for terrorism.

Today, Palestinian Arab leaders across the spectrum are calling for a new intifada, and leveraging the threat of one to gain the prestige that they associate with terror.

Several political figures from across the Palestinian spectrum have suggested this week that a new uprising is on its way in the wake of the violent clashes with Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday.

The Hamas movement urged Palestinians throughout the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel to take to the streets and begin a new uprising against Israel in reaction to clashes at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on Sunday.

Muhammad Dahlan, a member of Fatah's Central Committee, warned on Sunday a third intifada could arise in light of "Israel's contempt for the feelings of Muslims."

Other officials, like Saeb Erekat and others from the PLO, are more indirect in their calls to violence by characterizing peaceful Jewish visits to the Temple Mount as "attack[s] on ordinary civilians and worshippers at Al-Aqsa." These lies are simply incitement to terror.

These threats of violence are perceived as something that gives them relevance, and relevance is synonymous with honor. This perceived "honor," in turn, is more important than compromise, peace and normal lives for PalArabs.

If anyone is provoking violence, it is the Palestinian Arab side. But this is not surprising because these are the people who name public squares and children's camps after the most vile terrorists, who almost universally support attacks on Israeli civilians, and who celebrate when Jews are murdered.

Is it any wonder that Palestinian Arabs are calling to relaunch a new terrorism campaign? The prestige that it gives them in the Arab world is worth far more to them than the lives that are disrupted and lost when they choose war.

Latest insane Arab rumor

From Ma'an:

Israel plans to allow Jewish worshipers to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a regular basis, dividing prayer time between Muslims and Jews, officials at the Islamic Christian Society in Support of Jerusalem said Monday.

Currently Israeli citizens are not permitted to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the Haram Ash-Sharif. On Sunday, however, clashes broke out inside the sanctuary when extremist Jews - reports dispute whether or not the culprits were Israeli citizens - entered the area along with Israeli soldiers. The compound was locked down during the clashes and 13 were injured. Israeli forces also raided Palestinian Jerusalem and detained dozens military sources say were involved in the clashes.

According to the society, there will be 50 Jewish holidays on which Jews will have exclusive access to the compound for worship. The religious calendars of the Muslim and Jewish faith often overlap, with the Jewish Rosh Hashana holiday coinciding with the final Friday of the Muslim Ramadan. The society calls the decision “unacceptable.”

Officials, including Sheikh Taisir At-Tamimi, Archbishop Atallah Hanna, Dr. Hasan Khater, Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsour and Father Manuel Musallam from the society spoke at a news conference Monday in Ramallah. They warned that such a policy was dangerous, and “went beyond the red line.”

The religious leaders then appealed to Palestinian leaders to seek a national agreement so they could prevent Israel from taking over the site, which Jews believe is the place where the Second Temple stood. Plans from extremist and even moderate right wing groups to raze Al-Aqsa and build a Third Temple have been repeatedly uncovered.

The leaders called the plan a war crime, noting there were attacks on Al-Aqsa from “above and below,” referring to the contentious excavation work Israel is carrying out on tunnels beneath the compound.

The officials called all the Muslims to fast on Thursday and all the Christians to pray on Sunday as an expression of solidarity with Jerusalem and all the holy places in the city.

Sheikh Taisir At-Tamimi urged Palestinians to attend worship ceremonies in the Old City of Jerusalem and at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in particular, in order to stave off encroaching Israeli presence in the area.

The Archbishop Atallah Hanna asked all Christians to join their fellow Muslims in prayer on Sunday to be in solidarity with Al-Aqsa mosque. He stressed that targeting Al-Aqsa is only the beginning of targeting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

50 Jewish holidays every year? Jews coveting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre? Rosh Hashanah always coinciding with Eid?

What is really happening is that these extremist religious leaders saw that their rioting on Sunday was, from their twisted perspective, a complete success. People like Tamimi come out with Jewish conspiracy theories every week, all published in the Arabic media, about how Jews are digging tunnels underneath the Temple Mount or planning to destroy it or whatever. But last week, he got "lucky" by predicting that Jews would go to the Temple Mount on Sunday (even though Jews, and even Israeli Jews, go there often) and he had riled up his acolytes to riot.

The riots resulted in the Jews leaving their holiest area, so once again Arabs proved that the threat of violence is far more effective than anything else in getting their agendas done.

So now they need to extend their good luck. They make up crazy rumors. Major clerics announce these so-called Jewish plans without the tiniest shred of evidence, but that doesn't matter - as long as they can credibly get their idiot followers to believe them, they are golden. Their goal is to ensure that Jews are never allowed to set foot on the Temple Mount, and the way to do that is to repeat the circumstances of the 2000 intifada - something they consider a wonderful victory. For years, the holiest Jewish shrine was Judenrein, and these sheikhs and clerics were happy even as their people were getting killed and their economy went down the tubes.

How sweet would it be, though, if the Jewish state would actually take over the Temple Mount from the corrupt Waqf and give permanent access to Jews?

The IDF's miracle weapons!

From Palestine Think Tank:

Malformed Babies Resulting From Israeli Banned Weapons

Since the end of criminal Israeli operation "Cast Lead" in Gaza Strip last January, more than five cases of birth have been registered which show babies who have a deformed and not fully formed heart. These births came as an effect of the use of internationally banned weapons of phosphor and uranium by the Israeli occupation in the middle of populated areas.

I did see these accusations in Arabic as well.

So, at least five Gaza children were born with birth defects in the past nine months? Let's do some math.

According to CIA World Factbook figures, we can estimate some 43,000 children were born in Gaza since January. It appears that in general, 2% of all babies born in Western nations have severe birth defects.

Let's pretend that the normal rate of severe birth defects in Gaza is much lower, say 0.5%. That means that in a normal 9 month period, one could expect 215 babies in Gaza to have severe birth defects. (The real number is probably around 900.)

Since only 6 or 7 babies born in Gaza are claimed to have had these ill-effects, this means that the illegal Israeli chemical and radiological weapons that were unleashed on Gaza ended up reducing the number of deformed babies by an astonishing 97%!

Clearly, the IDF has come up with some miracle weapons that eliminate nearly all severe birth defects!

Quick - call the March of Dimes!

UNHRC meeting members accuse Israel of genocide

The UN Human Rights Council continues its farcical actions as today it considered the Goldstone Report.

In the synopsis of the morning session, two people used the report to accuse Israel of genocide. One was Israel's erstwhile "peace partner." (Notice how the UNHRC already regards "Palestine" as a country:)

Palestine, speaking as a concerned country, said that the report was a professional, unbiased report, and related to facts that could not be denied. This was not a political instrument that supported Palestine or Israel. This report was important because, for the first time, there was monitoring and documentation of the massacres the Palestinian peoples had suffered, indeed were suffering from genocide.

The other was Venezuela:

GERMAN MUNDARAIN HERNANDEZ (Venezuela) thanked the Fact-Finding Mission for the presentation of their report and for the work they had carried out. At the ninth Special Session, Venezuela had already stated its profound indignation over the violations of international humanitarian law that had been carried out by the Israeli army against the civilian population in Gaza. Venezuela believed that the report was a document with scientific rigour and that it was historic. The Mission had shown, once again, the Israeli crimes over the years using Palestinian civilians as military targets. This was genocide.

By the way, if Israel killed 50,000 Gazans a year, their population would still be increasing. Perhaps these esteemed diplomats have no idea of what "genocide" means or, more likely, they just take great pleasure in hurling such accusations at Israel.

The Islamization of Lebanon

From the Lebanon Daily Star:

Christians are tempted to flee Lebanon as the country becomes increasingly “Islamized,” according to the founder of the Center for Arab Christian Research and Documentation (CEDRAC). One-third of the nation’s Christian population has left since the beginning of the 1975-90 Civil War, and a recent surge in emigration means Christians now make up just 34 percent of Lebanon’s population, Father Samir Khalil, a Jesuit teacher at Beirut’s St. Joseph University’s CEDRAC department, told Vatican Radio last week.

“Christians used to make up 50 percent of the nation’s population; now experts think the Christians are probably not exceeding 34 percent, which is worrying,” Khalil said in the radio interview during a visit to The Holy See.

The Beirut-based researcher expressed concern that Christians in the Arab world are moving abroad to places with higher Christian populations, such as America, Europe and Australia, which is increasing the Muslim majority in countries like Lebanon.

“The same is happening [all over] the Middle East, and this is certainly a very tragic situation, and it will have great consequences in the future,” Father Khalil warned last week on the Vatican Radio station, adding that Christians must stay in the Middle East to keep numbers up.

Large numbers of Lebanese Christians are leaving as they feel their traditional influence in their country is weakening, while an increasing number of crucial political positions are going to Muslims.

In reference to Islamic extremism, Khalil claimed the power of the influential Christian minority to counterbalance it was waning, saying: “Lebanon has always been a bastion of religious tolerance, but now it is moving toward the model of Islamization seen in Iraq and Egypt.”

Something to keep in mind as Muslims keep pointing to the Arab Christians as proof of their "tolerance."

"Honor killing" in Jordan

From AFP:

Three Jordanian men were charged on Tuesday with premeditated murder after allegedly stabbing to death their divorced sister as well as burning her body and house over her "bad reputation," police said.

"The three brothers all under 30, agreed to kill their 40-year-old sister on Sunday because she allegedly had a bad reputation," in Abu Alanda, in southeast Amman, a police spokesman told AFP.

"She was stabbed 15 times. One of the three told police that the mother of five had a love affair with a man and that he found pictures of the woman sitting with her alleged lover."

The spokesperson said the suspects "burned the victim's body and set ablaze her house to cover the crime."

Murder is punishable by the death penalty in Jordan but in the case of so-called "honour killings" a court usually commutes or reduces sentences, particularly if the victim's family urges leniency.

Israel to import lulavs from Gaza

From Arutz-7:

Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved Tuesday the importation of lulavs (date palm fronds) from Gaza, after Minister of Religious Services Yakov Mergi asked him to do so. The lulavs are one of the four species used in the morning prayer services during the upcoming Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
The request comes as a result of a shortage in lulavs and concern over a possible cartel by dealers, resulting in a price hike.

The story appeared in Palestine Today in Arabic as well.

I don't understand why palm branches aren't available from anywhere else. If anything, importing them from PA-controlled areas of the West Bank would be preferable.