Looks like Ahmadinejew story is not true

From Karmel Melamed at the (LA) Jewish Journal blog:

This reporter and blog were bombarded with e-mails and questions since last night from readers of this blog asking me whether the story published in Britain’s Daily Telegraph’s that Ahmadinejad was born a Jew had any validity. After reading the Telegraph’s original story published yesterday and consulting with a number of local Iranian Jewish scholars with regards to the story’s claims of Ahmadinejad’s supposed Jewish identity, as an Iranian Jewish journalist I cannot verify a single shred of evidence that would suggest this story is accurate in any way. The article lacks any real or credible sources cited that can unequivocally prove that Ahmadinejad had any Jewish roots and it seems as if the story was just leaked to the Telegraph by “reformist” leaders in Iran as a part of a larger smear campaign against the newly “re-elected” hardliner president of Iran.

The article’s authors, Damien McElroy and Ahmad Vahdat claim that “Iranian experts” they consulted with have seen the supposed “Jewish name of Sabourjian –meaning cloth weaver” in a photo of Ahmadinejad’s identity papers from March of 2009. My main problem with this claim about the “Sabourjian” name is that the Iranian Jewish experts, scholars and religious leaders in L.A. I have interviewed today, have never heard of any Jewish family in Iran with such a name. Likewise the handful of English to Farsi dictionaries authored by Solomon Haim (a 20th century Iranian Jewish scholar of Persian language) found at UCLA’s library I have research through today do not identify the word “sabour” as “the name for the Jewish tallit shawl” as both McElroy and Vahdat claim in their article! For that matter, none of the English to Farsi dictionaries I came across even had the word “sabour” nor a definition listed for it! Where these journalists came up with this nonsense about the word “sabour” having a Jewish meaning is beyond me! As an Iranian Jewish journalist fluent in the Persian language for the last 31 years, I have never heard of the word “sabour” uttered by members of my community and the Iranian Jewish community has never used this word as a reference to the Jewish prayer shawl. We Iranian Jews refer to the Jewish prayer shawl by it’s Hebrew name of “seat-seat” (the Hebrew word for the fringes of the prayer shawl) or we use the Hebrew word of “tallit” just like the millions of other Jews living on this planet.

Likewise I also have a problem with McElroy and Vahdat’s supposed expert sources they used in their article who are not even Iranian Jews nor credible scholars with any real familiarity with the subject of Iranian Jewry! The authors of the article list “Ali Nourizadeh, of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies” in London and some Iranian internet blogger “Mehdi Khazali” as their experts who back the unproven claim that Ahmadinejad was supposedly born a Jew. Both Nourizadeh and Khazali are clearly NOT Jewish and my question as a reader of the article (and not as an Iranian Jewish journalist) is a simple one; why would anyone cite non-Jewish experts unfamiliar with Iranian Jewry as supposed accurate sources on a story about the Jewish origins of a country’s leader? You’d think these journalists would go through some effort to find some sort of a Jewish scholar or expert familiar with Iran to substantiate their claims—but no, McElroy and Vahdat instead rely on Iranian Muslims with no real knowledge of Iranian Jewry to prove their allegations of Ahmadinejad supposed Jewish roots. Therefore the articles authors’ use of these non-Jewish experts who lack any real credibility or knowledge of this topic clearly places the entire accuracy of their overall story on Ahmadinejad into question for me. Iranian Jewish experts I consulted with also said they were unable to read the unclear photo of the Ahmadinejad’s identity papers to properly verify the Telegraph’s story.

Another serious question I have with the accuracy of McElroy and Vahdat’s story is their claim that Ahmadinejad’s alleged Jewish name “is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran’s Ministry of the Interior”. Again I am perplexed at why these seasoned journalists would place any kind of credibility on an official Iranian government document when most experts familiar with the current Iranian regime know very well that any time lists of names are “complied by the Iranian government” they are used by different forces in the regime for nothing more than to attack another official, party or faction in the country. The most classic and detrimental way Iranian government officials have attacked one another is to claim that the “such and such official was born a Jew, or was once a Jew who converted to Islam, or his family was Jewish a generation ago and then converted”. The “Jewish identity label” is your classic textbook example of anti-Semitism at its prime that is thrown around as a type of public insult or verbal assault officials in Iran and in most Islamic nations used against one another in smear campaigns. The Iranian Jewish experts I interviewed this morning in L.A. informed me that for one Iranian government official to call or accuse another government official of being Jewish is the equivalent to individuals or groups in the U.S. to accuse an elected official in America of being a child molester or pedophiliac! This is the sad and unfortunately reality that being a Jew in Iran has a very derogatory meaning.

The negative connotation of claiming that someone Muslim in Iran is Jewish or has Jewish roots brings me to my final analysis of the true origins of this entire Ahmadinejad-Jewish story. Iran experts here in L.A. I recently interviewed said that even before Ahmadinejad, various “reformist” leaders during the “open era” of the past Iranian President Mohammad Khatami during the 1990s and early 2000s were using “Jewishness” as a verbal assault against other rival officials they hated or against other Iranian officials who presumably had Jewish blood. Frank Nikbakht, an L.A.-based Iranian Jewish activist and director of the Committee for Minority Rights in Iran, said the accusations Iranian officials make of each other being Jewish is nothing new for Iran’s current regime. “I remember in early 2000 when members of Khatami’s reformist party in Iran accused one of their hardliner rivals, a man named Habibollah Ashkaroladi Mosalman, of having Jewish roots,” said Nikbakht in a telephone interview today. “What we are seeing today with this story of Ahmadinejad being supposedly Jewish is the same smear tactics the reformists have used in the past against their hardliner opponents”. It seems as if even the supposed “reformists” in Iran, who Obama administration officials and other Western leaders have long hail as being supposedly “open-minded”, are also now showing their true anti-Semitic tendencies by vilifying Ahmadinejad with disgusting anti-Semitic rhetoric! Why else would Ahmadinejad be such an evil and horrible dictator trying to take over the world and kill people? He must no doubt be a Jew. Sounds like garbage you might read in the classic anti-Semitic book the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”! (By the way, the Persian language copies of the Protocols have long been best sellers in Iran with more than 400 pages added to the original Russian version published in the 1880s).

As an journalist I am shocked at the lack of accurate reporting and very poor journalism in McElroy and Vahdat’s story regarding Ahmadinejad in this instance. Shame on the Daily Telegraph’s editors for publishing such inaccurate claims with no real experts familiar with Iranian Jewry cited. The reporters and editors at this paper are either completely brainless or stooges and mouth-pieces for “reformists” officials in Iran who have begun this smear campaign against Ahmadinejad. It’s poor journalism like this story that fan the fires of anti-Semitism and hate around the world. Readers and bloggers worldwide should condemn this story published by the Telegraph, call for McElroy and Vahdat’s resignation and write letters to the newspaper about their poor journalism in this instance.

Lastly, even if this story is true (which I highly doubt) it is well known in Iran that those who have converted to Islam over the years have done so because of different family disputes including inheritance rights. According to Iran’s radical Shiite Islamic laws, new converts to Islam who came from a non-Muslim family, can automatically inherit all of their dead non-Muslim relative’s assets without the need to go to probate court and their non-Muslim family members are entitled to none of the inheritances. These new Muslim converts from Judaism (also known as “jadid-ol-eslam” or new to Islam) today and in the past have typically been the most anti-Semitic of Muslims living in Iran.

Were journalists always this lazy?

(h/t ahoova)

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Latest Haveil Havalim

Even though I never remember to nominate myself to be included in the weekly Jewish/Israeli blog carnival Haveil Havalim, somehow I sometimes find myself included anyway.

Here's the Sukkot edition; illustrated with the coolest Sukkah around. Enjoy!

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Happy PalArab bigamist with Jewish wife?

From Al-Arabiya:

Marriage is complicated enough with just one wife so add to the mix a second and things get even more complicated; but what if one wife is Jewish and the other an Arab, for one Palestinian man this rare marital arrangement is nothing but bliss.

Forty-year-old, Sami Abou-Sebaa says despite the obvious political and religious differences he and his two wives and their children all live in the same house with no problems.

Abou-Sebaa, who sells used clothes and electrical appliances, says everyone likes his Jewish wife, Lenor, who is also his business partner.

The couple own two cars, one with a Palestinian license plate and the other with an Israeli license plate.

“We use the Israeli one to go to Israel and bring the goods we need for our trade,” Lenor told Al Arabiya.

Although Lenor lives peacefully with her husband's Arab wife, she still faces problems with the Palestinian community around her.

“Many are afraid of talking to me although and I am the type that prefers dealing informally with people,” she said.

But in all seriousness both Abou-Sebaa and Leonor insist they will never allow their children to join the Israeli army.

“In the future, my children will throw stones at the Israeli occupation forces. Blood ties and the bond with the land are stronger than anything else,” Abou-Sebaa said.

This story might be true - there are unfortunately some Israeli Jewish women with incredibly low self-esteem who would go for such an arrangement.

It is curious, though, that the news story doesn't mention her maiden name, where she is from, or what town they live in. Similarly, why didn't the reporter ask Lenor/Leonor if she agrees with her husband as to the future aspirations of their kids?

Besides the obvious, something here ain't quite kosher.

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Ahmadinejew?

The Daily Telegraph reports:

A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.

A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.

The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.[Photo from Al Arabiya - EoZ]

The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad's birthplace, and the name derives from "weaver of the Sabour", the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran's Ministry of the Interior.

Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad's track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past.

Ali Nourizadeh, of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies, said: "This aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad's background explains a lot about him.

"Every family that converts into a different religion takes a new identity by condemning their old faith.

"By making anti-Israeli statements he is trying to shed any suspicions about his Jewish connections. He feels vulnerable in a radical Shia society."

A London-based expert on Iranian Jewry said that "jian" ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews.

"He has changed his name for religious reasons, or at least his parents had," said the Iranian-born Jew living in London. "Sabourjian is well known Jewish name in Iran."

During this year's presidential debate on television he was goaded to admit that his name had changed but he ignored the jibe.

However Mehdi Khazali, an internet blogger, who called for an investigation of Mr Ahmadinejad's roots was arrested this summer.

So now idiots will start saying that Ahmadinejad cannot possibly be an anti-semite....

It will be fun to see how this plays out in Iran. So far, not surprisingly, I cannot find a mention of this news in any official Iranian media.

Now, why didn't we leak this news before the election? I have to bring that up to the other Elders at our next meeting.

UPDATE: Story seems to be untrue.

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Daily Goldstone

A press conference by Israel's Foreign Affairs ministry a few days ago did a nice job encapsulating the problems with the Goldstone report. The entire thing is worth reading, but here is the core part by Deputy Legal Adviser Daniel Taub:

There are at least a dozen reports that I'm aware of that have been prepared about events in Gaza at the beginning of this year, and yet, of all the reports, it's this report, the Goldstone Report, that has generated the strongest response amongst the Israeli public, amongst the Israeli leadership and amongst supporters of Israel. And I think if we ask ourselves why that is, there are three main reasons.

The first one is the narrative that lies at the heart of this report. This is a report which says that Israel's operation in Gaza had nothing to do with 12,000 Hamas missiles on Sderot, it had nothing to do with self-defense, it had nothing to do with the smuggling of weaponry under the Egypt-Gaza border into Gaza. In fact, in the 500-plus pages of the report, there is not a single mention of the right of self-defense or the smuggling of weapons. It is a report that says that Israel's operation in Gaza was a deliberate disproportionate massive attack directed against civilians. And that is something that no one who knows Israel can really countenance.

This morning I read an article by the head of Betzelem who was saying that this is a conclusion which is simply not supported by the evidence in the Goldstone Report. And it's true; in order to come to this conclusion the report really does have to play fast and loose with the evidence. First, there's a tremendous amount of selectivity in choosing the incidents that it actually investigates. So, for example, the report admits that there have been allegations that Hamas placed its headquarters or one of its headquarters in the bases of the Shifa Hospital, but we can't address these because that wasn't one of the incidents that we chose to investigate. Or we can't confirm or deny allegations that Hamas used mosques for terrorist activity, because they only investigated one case that had to do with a mosque and found no evidence in that particular case. In fact, in parentheses I say "in that particular case, according to Palestinian websites," five of the people that were killed were actually terrorist activists, members of the Al-Qassam Brigades.

They play fast and loose with their sources, relying on almost every conceivable source that supports evidence against Israel and rejecting almost any evidence that is supportive of Israel or is detrimental to Hamas. And sometimes actually the same source is regarded as being reliable as far as its accusations against Israel is concerned but regarded as being unreliable when it points to, for example, Israel's humanitarian efforts or Hamas abuse of civilians, and so on.

And we have prepared an initial response to the report, some 20 pages, which highlights some of the most obvious legal and factual errors: There's reliance on Israeli laws that have been off the books for years; there's misquotations of United Nations Security Council Resolutions, and so on.

The reason that this narrative is so troubling is that it really leaves no room for genuine debate about how to engage in a conflict of this nature. You know, we generally don't think and the military doesn't think that we have all the right answers. But we are, by and large, asking the right questions. And asking ourselves whether an attack or an operation could have been more humane, more effective, is a genuine debate that we need to engage in with the international community as well. But with a body that says that your fundamental goal was to cause massive punishment on the civilian population, there is no room for any debate of that nature.

So that's the first reason. The second reason why I think this report has generated such a strong response is that it represents a full frontal attack on the Israeli legal system. And this is something that should worry not just Israel but also most Western and democratic countries that have very, very similar systems for actually investigating and checking their conduct in the course of military operations.

Israel, as I'm sure you know, has a multi-layered system for investigating allegations of wrongdoing; that consists of field investigations, criminal investigations, supervision by the Military Advocate General, upon that, supervision of our Supreme Court, and so on. In this particular case, in additional to all of those systems, following the operation, five large-scale command investigations were opened into general questions of principle arising in the conflict, things like incidents in which there was injury caused to medical facilities, caused to UN facilities when there are large numbers of civilians casualties, and so on.

In the course of those five command investigations, there were 30 specific incidents that came under investigation, and they're currently on the desk of the Military Advocate General who has to decide whether to open criminal investigations. And because of the sensitivity, the Attorney General has said that he will also review the decision of the Military Advocate General.

In addition to those command investigations and the specific investigations that came out of them, there are an additional 70 to 80 specific investigations that were opened up as a result of complaints received by human rights organizations, like Betzelem and Addala, direct complaints by individuals to the Military Advocate General or to the Attorney General.

Out of all of those complaints so far, 23 criminal investigations have already been opened and are in various stages. From the information that I received this morning, at least 11 of them have already proceeded to the stage of taking evidence from the Palestinian complainants and the others are at various stages.
Correlating those with the 36 incidents that the Goldstone Report chose to investigate, 12 of the incidents in the Goldstone Report are at various stages, either already of criminal investigations or investigations that may lead to criminal investigations.

I should mention that 12 of the incidents that are referred to out of the 36 incidents in the Goldstone Report were not known to the Israeli authorities until the publication of the report. Those are mainly dealing with damage to property and so on. And that means that no complaint had been received by the Israeli authorities. They were raised for the first time in the Goldstone Report, and those have been referred to the authorities for examination and investigation at the moment.

I'll just finish the legal aspect by saying that obviously all of the decisions along the way, whether it's the decision of the Military Advocate General or the Attorney General whether to open criminal proceedings or not open criminal proceedings, are all subject to review by our Supreme Court, which, as you know, can be petitioned for judicial review by Israelis, Palestinians, human rights organizations.

So, really, the dismissive attitude of the report for this entire system is very, very troubling, very troubling for Israel, very troubling for other countries that have similar systems, and troubling for other countries that often rely on the jurisprudence of our Supreme Court. I actually just received through my e-mail today, a decision of a Canadian Court, a Superior Court in Montreal, which last week relied on the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court. And so the attack on the legitimacy of this report is troubling from a legal point of view.

And, finally, I think the third reason why it's such a troubling report is its recommendations. Its recommendations, I think, are unprecedented, both in terms of their scope and in terms of their one-sidedness. There is an attempt in the recommendations of this report to harness not just the Human Rights Council but the Security Council, the General Assembly, the International Criminal Court, the domestic legal systems of almost every country – every country in the world, in fact – as part of a political campaign against Israel, and in a really blatantly one-sided manner.

We're talking about a recommendation that there be a moratorium on the use of certain weapons by Israel, but no restriction on the use of weapons by Hamas. We're talking about the establishment of an escrow fund it's called, a fund for supporting victims, but the victims are all Palestinians, and the only party required to pay into this fund, of course, is Israel. We're talking about the use of what's called universal jurisdiction, putting Israelis on trial abroad. But it's clear from the report the intention is only to put Israelis on trial abroad and not to put any other violators of human rights and so on. So, very, very damaging, very one-sided, very non-credible recommendations.

So I think those are the three main reasons why there's been such a strong response to the report. And I'll just finish with one final personal comment as a legal advisor within the government, within the system. And I think the role of any legal advisor, governmental or military legal advisor, is to be two-faced. Maybe all lawyers are two-faced, but by "two-faced" I mean spending part of our time being advocates of governmental policies to the world, but also turning round and doing the other half of our job, which is to be advocates of compliance of international law within the system, to our political leaders and to the military.

And a report of this nature, a report which pretends to represent international law but really perverts international law, really undermines the advocates of international law within the system because it really says that there is no lawful response to the charges of terrorism. And that's simply not true. It's not a workable proposition, and ultimately it's going to undermine respect for international law both in our region and probably elsewhere across the world. Thank you.

Also check out this piece by Soccer Dad.

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People really are trafficking Arab organs

But since they are Arabs, it barely makes the news.

From AFP, via Daily News Egypt:

Eleven Jordanians were charged on Wednesday with trafficking human organs and selling them illegally in Egypt, police said.

"Three other suspects are being interrogated, while seven more people are still on the run. We have been following on the issue with the Egyptian authorities for several months," he said.

The suspects, who were extradited from Egypt on Monday, are part of a group preying on poor people in the kingdom, a police spokesman told AFP.

In some cases, people were paid to donate organs while still alive, while in others organs were being removed from people who had died and sold on the black market, the official said.

"The group sold rich Arabs kidneys for up to $30,000 each. If convicted, they face 10 years in prison with hard labor," the source added.

In 2007, Jordan created a National Commission to Promote Organ Donation in a drive to crack down on illegal trafficking and also to encourage Jordanians to donate their organs after death.

That came after authorities uncovered more than 80 cases of trafficking that year.

Organ trafficking is banned in the kingdom, with jail penalties and up to 20,000 dinars ($28,000) in fines. –AFP

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Chag Sameach! !חג שמח

Another week, another holiday. Wishing all my Jewish readers a happy Sukkot, nice weather, and no bees.

I will not be blogging until Sunday night or Monday.

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My interview with The Forward

On Wednesday, a Forward reporter did an email interview with me for a story that he planned on writing about the substance of the Goldstone report. He indicated that he was working on the story for the rest of the week. I don't see it published yet, and it was driving me crazy not to blog about it, and since the holiday starts tonight I couldn't hold off any longer. Here is the interview:

--Do you think there is any merit to Goldstone’s findings? If so, where do you think he got things right?

The entire process was flawed, from the time of the formation of the Commission up through the release of the report. Although I do believe that Goldstone consciously tried to extend the mandate in order to look at both sides of the story, and I do not ascribe any maliciousness to him, the framework of the Commission was faulty from the start. This is the central problem. The very framing of the report adheres to the Palestinian narrative - just looking at the table of contents, we see that he chooses to start the "military operations" section with the "blockade," not with the rocket fire that preceded it by years. Similarly, he chooses December 27th - the day Israel attacked - as the start of "military operations" and ignores Hamas' declaration of war three days beforehand altogether. It could have been framed that Israel was counterattacking, but that does not fit the narrative that Goldstone adheres to.

These are just two examples of how the framework one chooses will inevitably color the results. In these two cases, Israel is assumed to be the aggressor and the initiator. The framework does not allow any other viewpoints to be seriously considered, as they are basic assumptions from which the rest of the report flows. There are other dimensions to the flawed framework he uses, for example he chose to highlight specific heart-wrenching stories to illustrate alleged Israeli war crimes rather than look at the full context of the operation (or to mention equally heart-wrenching stories from Sderot.)

--Having looked at the report thoroughly, if you had to boil down the main methodological errors that led to his findings being lopsided what would they be?

Besides the reliance on suspect "eyewitnesses," I would say that it is his inability to imagine or believe alternate Israeli explanations for various events. The report consistently shows more skepticism for Israel's viewpoint than for the viewpoints of the Palestinian side. It is difficult to accept "even-handedness" between a democracy that has every interest in (and history of) investigating and correcting its mistakes and an organization that has every interest in twisting facts for its own gain. It is even more problematic to see how Hamas statements are treated as more reliable than Israel's. (See here.)

--Other people I’ve spoken to point to the report’s reliance on Palestinian eyewitness testimony as its central problem? Do you agree? If so, why? Is there something inherently untrustworthy about Palestinian witnesses?

At the risk of breaking rules of political correctness, the answer has to be (in general) "yes." There is a script that Palestinian Arabs are conditioned to use, and when they speak to the press for the record they almost always adhere to it. I have a number of examples here, and in context of the Gaza operation the most telling are this story from an embedded YNet reporter and this story where an anonymous farmer tells another reporter that, yes, there were actually rockets from the area that every "eyewitness" claimed had none.

--Is there any way Goldstone could have carried out his reporting differently? What steps could he have avoided to keep him from ending up with the conclusions he reached?

One can argue as to whether Israel should have cooperated with Goldstone (I think they were correct in not doing so) but Goldstone penalized Israel for its non-cooperation. If he was after the truth, he should not weight the testimony of Palestinian civilians higher than Israeli claims; on the contrary, he should have worked extra to see Israel's perspective despite its official non-cooperation. He simply did not give Israel the benefit of the doubt, while he was rarely skeptical about Palestinian Arab claims.

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Self-death count update

I haven't been blogging all the PalArab murders and deaths from tunnel collapses lately, but I have been keeping track.

A few recent items include a mother who strangled her 16-year old daughter with a scarf while she was sleeping (don't know yet if it was an "honor" killing,) a 65-year old man murdered in a family dispute (both in Hebron), and a body found today in a garbage dump in Gaza City.

My count of violent deaths in PalArab territories this year is up to 198, roughly the same pace as last year.

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Who says that Fatah cannot compromise?

Ma'an reports:

Success of the peace process requires a halt to settlement construction including in East Jerusalem, Secretary General of the Palestinian President’s Office At-Tayeb Abed Ar-Rahman said on behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas Thursday.

While Abbas was earlier reported to have caved to American demands that he drop the “precondition” that Israeli settlement construction must be stopped as a gesture toward the seriousness of the new government before he would sit for talks, a demand by the Fatah party that negotiations not continue until settlements stop seems to have re-activated the demand.

Just because the Fatah-dominated PA has added a precondition to talks that it never had with previous Israeli governments doesn't mean that it is inflexible or incapable of compromise. Why, it is bending over backwards in another set of negotiations - with Hamas terrorists:

Member of Fatah central committee Jamal Muheisen revealed an agreement amidst his party Thursday to accept holding legislative elections based on 80% proportionate and 20% constituent, and noted Hamas had confirmed its acceptance a 70/30 split. “This means we are not only 10% off from each other now,” he said.

Muheisen added in an interview with Palestine Radio the decision was in the interests of reaching a unity agreement. He noted disagreement on the pass percentage remains, but that Egypt is currently working on a plan to resolve the difference. Fatah requested parties get at least 2% of the vote before they gain a seat in the Palestinian Legislative Council, while Hamas wants at least three.

Who can doubt that the PA wants peace when they are so willing to unify with a terrorist organization?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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