Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Video of Hezbollah hiding weapons

From Israel's MFA:

On the evening of October 12, 2009 a large explosion took place in the house of a senior Hizbullah member which was being used as an arms cache in Tayr Filsay, a village approximately 15 km east of the coastal city of Tyre and south of the Litani River. During the explosion, a number of people were injured, including the home's owner, Said Issa.

Following the explosion, Hizbullah began to remove the remaining weapons from the cache, isolating the scene and preventing UNIFIL or LAF (Lebanese Armed Forces) access.
Pictures taken by an UAV of the Israeli Air Force after the explosion of a Hizbullah weaponry warehouse on Monday (Oct. 12) in Tyre in southern Lebanon, show Hizbullah operatives smuggling Katyusha rockets and other weaponry out of the destroyed warehouse into another one in southern Lebanon.
The video filmed by the UAV that was directed to the location of the incident after the explosion, clearly shows a large number of people arriving at the scene and loading Katyusha rockets and other weaponry onto trucks. Afterwards they cover the weaponry in order to hide it and drive with it to another weaponry storage in the village of Dir Kanun A-Nahar, where they unload the weaponry. Later Lebanese army and UNIFIL forces are seen arriving at the site of the explosion.

UNIFIL=Useless.

UNHRC will meet on Goldstone this week

From Reuters:

The U.N. Human Rights Council will hold an extraordinary meeting this week on the occupied Palestinian territories, providing another chance for Israel's critics to discuss a Gaza war crimes report.

"The holding of the special session is at the request of Palestine," the United Nations said in a statement circulated on Tuesday in Geneva, where the 47-member body is based.

AP helpfully adds:

It will be the sixth time that Israel has been the subject of a special session by the Geneva-based council. Each previous session has resulted in a resolution critical of Israel.

Is there any chance the debate would say anything negative about Hamas? After all, the report does condemn Hamas rockets, right?

Of course not. Look at the UNHRC press release about the session:

The Human Rights Council will hold a Special Session on the "human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and East Jerusalem" on Thursday, 15 October 2009, starting 3 p.m. in Room XX of the Palais des Nations.

The holding of the Special Session comes at the request of Palestine. The request is co-sponsored by the following 18 Member States of the Human Rights Council, namely Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Senegal.

The session is only about the human rights of Palestinian Arabs, not the human rights of Jews who had been subject to years of terrorist and rocket attacks before Israel decided to put a stop to them.

For all of Goldstone's claims that he had the right to expand the mandate of the commission to cover all human rights abuses by all sides, it is obvious that the UNHRC is only interested in the parts that castigate Israel. This is why Hamas, the PA and their panoply of like-minded abusers of human rights are so keen on getting the Goldstone Report on the agenda of the UNHRC: because they know that this sham of an organization has as little interest in real human rights as they do.

Does anyone think that Goldstone will raise his voice to mention that Hamas violated human rights, too?

Syria's saber-rattling anti-Israel conference

There was a conference in Syria over the weekend called the Arab-International Golan Forum. Its purpose was pretty much to insult and incite against Israel as much as possible in a 48 hour period.

Among the charges leveled:

For his part, the liberated captive Medhat al-Saleh said that the Israeli occupation forces are applying a systematic killing policy against all the Arab prisoners through neglecting their health conditions.

"All Arab prisoners are subjected to solitary confinement and all forms of torture in the complete absence of the basic and minimum health and human conditions," said the liberated captive Amaal Mahmoud.

Head of the Mine Victim Rehabilitation Committee in the occupied Golan Omar al-Heebi pointed out to the high risk of the mines Israel planted in Quneitra before it was liberated, which caused lots of injuries and claimed many lives.

Israel steals around 800 million cubic meters of the occupied Golan water annually, and it has so far constructed 10 dams to transfer water to al-Naqab desert and Dimona reactor, thus making the amount of the stolen water exceed 31 billion cubic meters since the beginning of the occupation in 1967, said Arsan Arsan, director of Water Resources Department in Quneitra.

He also pointed out to the danger posed by the dams Israel has built on the rivers running towards the liberated part of the occupied Golan, particularly Ein al-Hamra dam and al-Mansoura dam 1 km to the west of Quneitra city.

They also accused Israel of contaminating Syria with nuclear waste, and the final resolution called on Syria to "liberate" the Golan via all means of resistance, meaning this Syrian sponsored conference called for war with Israel.

Needless to say, the world media ignored this.

One of the more interesting charges leveled against Israel was that it displaced a half a million Syrians since 1967. Given that the Golan had less than 200,000 people in 1967, this is a pretty amazing feat.

Perhaps more interesting is that these displaced people and their descendants are living in Syrian "refugee" camps over forty years later. Of course, displaced persons are not legally refugees, and there is nothing stopping Syria from building new towns for these people to live in.

Syria, like the other Arab nations, prefer to use people as political cannon fodder against Israel rather than helping them rebuild their lives. Syria's practice against this group is even more egregious and cynical, as these people are full citizens of Syria and should have equal rights. Syria chooses to let them fester so that they can whine about Israeli "ethnic cleansing" decades later.

It is instructive to compare the daily lives of these Syrian citizens with those of the Arabs who stayed in the Golan and now "suffer" under "occupation."

Abbas: Hamas leaders escaped Gaza in ambulances

Mahmoud Abbas, in a speech at the American University today, accused Hamas leaders of escaping Gaza in ambulances and hiding in the Sinai during Operation Cast Lead, according to Palestine Press Agency.

Abbas also said that the PA warned Hamas in Gaza a week before the operation that Israel was serious and that Hamas should extend the truce, and that Hamas ignored these warnings. Abbas says he then appealed to Hamas leadership in Damascus and was similarly rebuffed.

During the war there were a number of reports that at least one Hamas leader, Mahmoud al-Zahar, had escaped to Egypt via an ambulance. Even two weeks after the war people were wondering where he had disappeared to.

The Goldstone Report, not very convincingly, says it found no evidence that Hamas used ambulances illegally during the war.

The journalist who is trying to start an intifada

Throughout the events on the Temple Mount over the past couple of weeks, there was plenty of incitement by Palestinian Arab clerics like Sheikh Tamimi and Sheikh Raed Salah, who publicly claim daily that Israel is planning to divide and destroy the Temple Mount.

However, carefully reading the Arab news media, none of them were able to point to anything that the Israelis actually did that upset the Temple Mount's status quo. All news accounts showed that the Jewish (or foreign) visitors did nothing disrespectful and that the fighting began when Arab worshipers attacked the visitors after being whipped up with rumors from the previous week that extremist Jews were planning to "storm" the Al Aqsa Mosque. As Ma'an reported initially:

On Thursday, the Al-Aqsa Foundation had warned of an impending incursion. Officials in Jerusalem said extremists were preparing to break into the holy Muslim area, and accurately predicted that the break-in would occur on Sunday under the pretext of celebrating a religious holiday.

Confrontations erupted after groups of Israelis broke into the compound, reportedly under the guard of Israeli police. Palestinians hurled stones, chairs, and shoes at the Israelis, while police tried to disperse the Palestinians by force, injuring nine people right away, and four more throughout the morning.

Ma'an later changed the story but even now it is clear that the violence was started by the Arabs:

According to witnesses, clashes broke out after a group of about 150 Israeli settlers entered the Al-Aqsa compound on Sunday morning, reportedly under the guard of local authorities who also escorted the group away from the area when worshipers began to protest.

It turns out though that Khalid Amayreh, an Arab journalist who has a long history of insane hate against Israel, specifically lied about what happened at the time - to the Islamic world as a whole, at Islamonline.net:

Dozens of Palestinians were hurt, two seriously, on Sunday, September 27, when crack Israeli policemen attacked worshipers who had just repulsed an attempt by Jewish extremists to hold Talmudic rituals at al-Haram al-Sharif.
“When the zealots were repulsed rather peacefully, the police became very outraged,” Mahmoud Abu Atta, an eyewitness, told IslamOnline.net.

“As many as 70 policemen attacked us indiscriminately, young and old, with full force, using rubber-coated bullets, truncheons, tear gas and even poisonous gas.”
Eyewitnesses said tension began when dozens of Jewish religious zealots, disguised as tourists, stealthily entered Aqsa esplanade through its western gate, known as Bab el-Majles.

The intruders soon began, under police protection, performing Talmudic rites and making slogans calling for the destruction of the Islamic holy shrine.

Muslim guards as well as ordinary worshipers chased the Jewish zealots out.

“The police chased worshipers inside Aqsa Mosque, where the soldiers fired heavily into the holy place, causing many people to suffocate as a result of gas inhalation,” said Atta.

“I saw the police gang up on young people, beating them mercilessly. The police were not out to maintain law and order. They just wanted to retaliate and punish us for repulsing the fanatical settlers.”

Atta said the worshipers sought desperately to defend themselves against police brutality, using little stones, shoes and chairs.
“Hence it is the responsibility of the entire Umma to protect and safeguard this holy place from Zionist plots and evil designs,” Sheikh Sabri told IOL.
Israeli religious leaders, including Knesset members, are making no secret of their schemes regarding Al-Aqsa.

Amayreh, using the time honored journalistic method of finding an "eyewitness" willing to lie to fit his agenda, helped stoke the hatred throughout the Muslim world.

He, and other Islam Online reporters, regularly expose dastardly Zionist schemes to destroy Al Aqsa, doing everything they can to push Arabs to violence.

Amayreh followed up with a "man in the street" interview specifically asking Arabs if they want to see a third intifada in the face of these Zionist plots to have Jews visit their holiest site:

"There is no question that we need a huge uprising in order to extricate ourselves out of the present predicament.
"We need an intifada not only in occupied Palestine but all over the Arab world. We need an intifada against the Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority and the corrupt Arab regimes."
"In physics, excessive pressure leads to explosion or implosion. I think the frustration level in occupied Palestine has reached the explosive point."
"I think a religious intifada can be expected if Israel continues to provoke Muslims as it has been doing of late.
"If the cause of Al-Aqsa Mosque won’t provoke Muslims, then what would provoke them?

"However, we need more than just a willingness to die as martyrs for Al-Aqsa. We also need to carefully plan the outcome of any prospective intifada. We must carefully and thoroughly study the first two intifadas and make sure that we don’t repeat the same mistakes."
"I think if Israel goes too far in its efforts to take over parts of Al-Aqsa Mosque, an intifada, even a big one, will be inevitable.
"After all, Muslims, especially Palestinians, wouldn’t just sit idle while their holiest place is desecrated and raped by the herds of Zionism.

"But, let me be frank about his. The Palestinians alone can’t defeat Israel. We need to have meaningful and tangible Arab-Muslim support in order to be able to wrest our rights from Israeli hands."

Amayreh is also very much against the PA, moderate Arab governments and any peace with Israel, so he makes sure that the seemingly random interviewees adhere to his own politics and radicalism.

In short, Khalid Amayreh is waging a campaign to start a new wave of terror against Israel under guise of his being a "journalist."

Hamas loves Goldstone

From Ma'an:

A children's mock court in Gaza sentenced President Mahmoud Abbas to life in prison and removed him from office for the crime of delaying international action on a United Nations report on war crimes.

This latest expression of public outrage at Abbas was staged by the Palestinian Child Parliament, an organization said to be linked to Hamas.

In early October Abbas’ envoy withdrew a motion from the UN Human Rights Council calling for further action on Judge Richard Goldstone’s report on Israel’s winter assault on Gaza which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead. Palestinians have been outraged over the decision.

During the mock trial a child acting as “prosecutor” in the trial said Abbas was charged under Palestinian law with the crime of “high treason to the Palestinian people’s interests” under the Palestinian Basic Law and the Penal Code.

“Abbas insisted on withdrawing the resolution, despite support from 33 countries for report and this would clearly condemn Israel," the prosecutor said.

The judge then heard arguments from human rights organizations who explained their efforts to compile and propose the report, and their shock when it was withdrawn from the Human Rights Council.

This Hamas version of a show trial is of course meant for Hamas to score political points against Fatah, but it also shows clearly that Hamas is not frightened at all about any repercussions that it might suffer from the Goldstone Report.

Because it would not suffer any.

Hamas initially criticized the Goldstone Commission because it was led by a "Zionist" and it felt that the cards were stacked against it. Now that the report was released, Hamas is secure in the knowledge that the report is one-sided against Israel, despite Goldstone's insistence that he looked at Hamas crimes as carefully as he looked at alleged Israeli crimes.

Open wide thread

Weird family stuff kept me from blogging today, so have at it.

Goldstone Report website launches

A new website, set up by prominent bloggers and writers, goes into detail on the Goldstone Report's problems. The main organizer is Professor Richard Landes, historian and writer of the Augean Stables blog and Second Draft site. Many other people, including myself, contribute to the website. As the website says:

Those of us who have constructed Understanding the Goldstone Report, have been following the claims under contention since the events themselves almost a year ago, and have read the report in detail. We offer a wide range of analysis, from careful examination of specific incidents and controversies to broader legal and conceptual issues. In so doing, we have come to the following conclusions:
The report violates international standards for inquries, including UN rules on fact-finding, replicating earlier UNHRC biased statements.
The Commission systematically favored witnesses and evidence put forward by anti-Israel advocates, and dismissed evidence and testimony that would undermine its case.
The commission relied extensively on mediating agencies, especially UN and NGOs, which have a documented hostility to Israel; the report reproduces earlier reports and claims from these agencies.
At the same time, the Commission inexplicably downplayed or ignored substantial evidence of Hamas’ commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of terror, including specifically its victimization of the Palestinian population by its use of human shields, civilian dress for combatants, and combat use of protected objects like ambulances, hospitals and mosques.
The Commission openly denies a presumption of innocence to the Israelis accused of crimes (while honoring Hamas’ presumed innocence) and acknowledges that it made accusations of crimes without proof that would stand up in court.
The report contains numerous gratuitous digressions into issues beyond the purview of a fact-finding commission that are inaccurate and profoundly hostile to Israel and Jews.
The Commission distorted legal standards, imposing on Israel standards that reverse their generally understood and applied meaning, while ignoring important rules of international law that put the onus of responsibility on an organization as base, by Goldstone’s own standards, as Hamas.

Check it out.

Abbas' thin skin

PA president Mahmoud Abbas, known best for doing nothing and waiting for things to be handed him on a silver platter, really doesn't like criticism.

He's gotten plenty of it with his wishy-washy reaction to the Goldstone report, first saying he had no problem with delaying the report debate for six months, and then trying to switch gears under withering complaints from the entire Arab world who know that Goldstone is the best thing to happen to Palestinian Arabs in years. (It is notable that Hamas, supposedly "even-handedly" criticized by Goldstone, is in the forefront of criticizing Abbas for the delay, with very little worry about any negative fallout from the report.)

Former Ambassador to Egypt Nabil Amr lashed out at Abbas last Friday, blaming him for the fiasco. Abbas responded by withdrawing Amr's bodyguards who were paid by the PA.

Al Jazeera was also critical of Abbas, and now apparently Abbas had the brother of the network's director arrested as well.

PA leaders might tell the West what a great democracy they want to build, but they always end up acting like two-bit dictators.

Veiled criticism

From Al-Arabiya:

A group of MPs and an Islamist lawyer waged an unprecedented legal battle against one of Egypt's top Imams on Saturday after he issued a ban on women wearing the burka, or face veil, at any schools affiliated to al-Azhar, the world's top Sunni Islam institution.

A Muslim brotherhood lawyer, representatives of Egypt's lower house of parliament and the Sawaseya Center for Human Rights joined forces to file a lawsuit against Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar over what they called his "unconstitutional" ban that violates personal freedom and contradicts the principle of equality for all citizens.

The group also sought action against the country's minister of higher education and the president of Cairo University for their role in the recent decision to ban female students from wearing the burka in al-Azhar affiliated schools and in Cairo University dorms.

“We have a ruling from the Supreme Administrative Court to the effect that women have the right to wear the niqab (Arabic for face veil),” Muslim Brotherhood lawyer, Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maqsoud, told Al Arabiya.

“It might not be an obligation in Islam, but it is also not against Islam. So, women have the right to wear it when and where they choose,” Abdel-Maqsoud argued, adding that they would continue to fight the ban until the court annuls it.

Article 2 of Egyptian law states Islam is the religion of the state and is the main source of legislation while article 48 stipulates that freedom of expression is granted to all citizens and that they have the right to express their opinions in oral, written or visual forms.

Al-Azhar's Deputy Chairman, Mohamed Abdel-Aziz, slammed the Muslim Brotherhood and said they do not have the right to file lawsuits since they are an outlawed group and added the matter was an internal policy that they have no right to object to.

“The decision to ban the face veil was approved by al-Azhar's Supreme Council,” Abdel-Aziz told Al Arabiya. “This is none of their business.”

Abdel-Aziz added that the decision was not to impose an absolute ban on the burka, but only to regulate its use in certain places.

“Women can wear the face veil anywhere, but not in al-Azhar schools. If she does not want to show her face in front of men, al-Azhar schools are not co-ed. Therefore, there is no point in wearing the face veil in class.”

Supporting Tantawi’s argument, Abdel-Aziz stated that the face veil is not obligatory in Islam and that this is what they say to all detractors of the decision.

“The majority of senior scholars are in consensus that it is not ordained by God. Plus, I believe the lecturer should be able to see the faces of students,” he concluded.

It is not only extremist Muslim Brotherhood types who are criticizing Al Azhar for their ban. An article written by a woman in the Saudi Gazette justifies the face-covering in a fairly transparent slam at the school decision.

As is obvious from these narrations, Muslim women have a historical precedent of covering their faces that goes back to the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him) that is independent and completely exclusive of cultural or any other influence. May Allah enable the women of our time to follow those who have preceded them in faith, despite the discouragement and deviation of those who hate to see them doing so

This is turning into a fairly contentious issue.

How an Arab rumor gets started

Palestine Today reports that Republican congressional candidates were shooting at pictures of Yasir Arafat at a gun range in Florida on Sunday.

It illustrated the story like this:

If you look at the actual article and video, though, you would see that members of the Southeast Broward Republican Club held a meeting at a shooting range, and one of the targets had a rocket-propelled grenade and a keffiyeh , that the reporter helpfully said was "the kind of headdress worn by the late Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat." Here is what it really looked like:

Now, I personally would have no problems shooting at a target picture of Yasir Arafat. Still, this is a prime example of how false rumors get started in the Arab world and how poor some Arab media is at transmitting the truth (which is hardly unique to Arabic media, admittedly.)

Some of these rumors stick and some don't, but the ones that stick sometimes have deadly results.

Egyptian MP calls on Muslims to attack Israeli embassies worldwide

From AFP:

An Egyptian Islamist MP called on Sunday for the storming of Israeli embassies around the world if Israelis entered Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Subhi Saleh, an MP affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest but banned opposition group, said Israeli embassies "in every country" should be stormed if Israelis enter the site.
"Embassies have diplomatic immunity but our holy places have divine immunity, so if they enter Al-Aqsa let us enter their embassies," he said during a heated meeting of his parliamentary bloc.
Tensions over the compound turned violent on September 27 when Palestinians hurled rocks at a group of visitors whom they suspected of being rightwing Jewish extremists.

The Arabic version of the report translated "storm" as "attack."

Keep in mind that Israelis did nothing to disrupt the status quo on the Temple Mount before the rioting began.

Weekend-long open thread

For my readers who celebrate Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, have a great yom tov!

For the rest, here is a long open thread for the weekend. I hope to be back Sunday night.

An early Arab attack on Petah Tikvah

I just came across a book called New Judea, published in 1919, discussing what Palestine was like at that time from a Jewish perspective. This episode, about Petah Tikva, was interesting:

ln the course of a conversation, the old agriculturist related many episodes connected with the early history of the colony, one of which impressed itself on my memory. "It was a short while after we came to occupy this land," he said, "before a permanent buildings was completed, and we were all squeezed together in one old Arab mud hovel called "hushot." The place was then wild, and we were busy cleaning away stones, grading the land, making roads, defining the boundaries of our colony and ploughing the hard soil."

"l was watching a field of wheat whose green crops had just made its appearance. One day while patrolling the wheat field, I noticed the Arab Sheikh, of the neighboring village, El Yehud, had turned his horses into our wheat. I chased the horses away and went over to the intruder and warned him not to do it again, as we would hold him personally responsible for all damages. The Sheikh glanced at me scornfully and turned away. A few weeks passed, the wheat field was already proudly waving in the air. l saw from a distance one early morning the Sheikh wrapped in a black "Abba" and a large "Kephiyah" on his head coming toward the colony. l gave a signal to my comrades. In a few minutes they were up and we assembled behind a cactus hedge to decide what steps to take with the treacherous intruder. After some discussion it was decided that we must once for all show the marauding neighbors that we do not fear them and that we are ready to repell and punish all attacks made on this colony. While reaching this decision we noticed the same Sheikh leaving the highway and turning his horse into the wheat. A few of us immediately jumped on our horses and chased after the intruder. He began to run and we followed him until we brought him to a stop. We brought him and his horse back to the village, where he was given a good thrashing, and we sent him off to his home warning him that if this happened again his punishment would be much more severe. He stared at us with an expression of vengeance and then spirited away among the hills. About a month passed and nothing was heard of the Sheikh. One morning we learned from one of our Arab laborers that we were to be attacked on a certain night of that week by the tribesmen of the Sheikh. Not knowing how many were coming, we despatched one of our men to the neighboring colonies for assistance. We did not notify the authorities in Jaffa, thinking it would be more effective and would make a better impression on the Arabs if we convinced them once for all that we did not fear them and that we could use firearms better than they. Pretending that it was a holy day, we dismissed all the Arab laborers for a few days so as to be sure that our enemies would not be informed of our plans, for we discovered that they were spying on us. On the afternoon preceding the night of the expected attack, a score of men and women, comrades, from Rishon L'Zion, Ekron and Katra, mounted on fine horses and armed with new guns at their backs, revolvers at their girdles and belts with cartridges around their waists, rushed on our villaee like a company of trained cavalry ready to close in on the enemy. They dismounted from the horses and sat down to consult with us about our plan of warfare.

"Towards evening each man was assigned to a strategic position. We knew that they were coming down the main road and that they were to use our field of wheat as the fighting ground. Some of us concealed ourselves near the entrance of the village, behind piles of stones, other in ditches and behind hills; while still others were encamped behind the village houses that were in process of erection, and on the roof of the hut we were occupying.

"The expected hour came. The vanguards, who were patrolling about the fields, having heard from a distance the trotting of horses and wild voices of people, signalled to us, They are coming! Be ready for action! As soon as the enemy entered the grounds of the village two shots were heard. We knew it was the signal for action. A volley of fire from our comrades of the lower side of the colony broke out. The marauders were quickly encircled by our men and they surrendered before we had a chance to fire a shot at them. They were completely taken by surprise. We made prisoners of about twenty Arab ringleaders, including the Sheikh, bound their hands and feet and took them the next day to Jaffa, where we gave them over to the authorities. The others did not need much warning. They were glad to be allowed to get away.

"Since that incident," continued my new friend, "we gained the respect of our neighbors, and we have no organized attacks, except now and then individual robberies that may happen anywhere.

Keep in mind that the area of Petah Tikva was legally purchased around 1883.

Today's PalArab news

The PA shut down Gaza University after Hamas fired its president and replaced him with a Hamas member.

Firas Press reports that a settler shot and killed another settler in Israel. In fact, the shooting was between teenage Israeli Arabs. Are they saying that Arabs in Israel are illegal settlers? (It is obvious that Firas thought that the pair was Jewish.)

Haaretz mentions that Netanyahu may give some concessions to Abbas for his postponement of Goldstone report discussions at the UN, and an op-ed in Firas Press calls this "poison in the honey."

An Arab lawyer was stabbed at a Hebron court, the result of a family dispute. "The police urged the public to settle disputes through the judicial system, not through revenge."