Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Belated thanks and apologies

I have been so busy during my trip to Israel that I have not had the chance to even read all my emails, let alone acknowledge them.

But I wanted to say to those who wanted to meet with me while I am here that I really appreciate the offers. I wish I would be here long enough to meet everyone; I will be seeing a number of other bloggers at a couple of blog-centric events that are happening coincidentally while I am here but, unfortunately, I will be missing many of you.

(In addition, I am not nearly as fascinating in person as some people think I must be.)

Now, off to do some motzei Shabbat activities!

Abbas accuses Hamas of accepting $250m from Iran

In an interview with an Egyptian newspaper today, Mahmoud Abbas answered why he thinks Hamas stopped reconciliation efforts with Fatah at the eleventh hour earlier this year:

Al-Ahram: You signed the Egyptian-sponsored reconciliation agreement .. and Hamas agreed and then declined at the last moment .. what your explanation for their decision?

Abbas: Hamas' Damascus leaders are under pressure and taking instructions.

Al-Ahram: Where are these instructions from .. .. Iran, Syria?

Abbas: They take instructions from Iran.

Al-Ahram: Iran said "no"?

Abbas: Yes, Iran.

Al-Ahram: Iran suspended the reconciliation?!

Abbas: Yes.

Al-Ahram: What is Iran's interest in stopping reconciliation between you and Hamas?

Abbas: Iran is a regional player, while the same relationship with America and want to sell papers in her hand .. It is pushing the value of these securities. [not sure how to interpret this - EoZ]

Al-Ahram: How much did they pay for this paper?

Abbas: I know of $250 million.

Al-Ahram: Is this an annual payment?

Abbas: I do not know if it is every 6 months or every year. They claim that their funds come from charity but voluntary contributions are not equal to the amount they get from Iran, not a qurater or a fifth, or even 1% of what they get from Iran.

Al-Ahram: This is why Khaled Meshaal frequently visits Iran?

Abbas: Of course .. as he did last Wednesday there.

Also in the interview, Abbas again stated that 58% of the PA budget is being spent in Gaza even as Hamas controls all the major institutions there. There is one part where it appears that Abbas is admitting that Hamas is effectively taking the PA money, but I cannot get a good translation of that part.

Arab nations snub Palestinian Arab event

From Ma'an:

Palestinians have no answers as to why invited officials from all of the Arab states did not come to the closing ceremony of the Jerusalem Capital of Arab Culture 2009 events, organizers said.

Head of the organizing office Varsan Aghabekian told Palestine Radio on Friday that she was particularly perplexed over the absence of Qatar, whose capital Doha is listed as the capital of Arab culture 2010, and to whose official President Mahmoud Abbas was meant to hand over the ceremonial flag.

“I will send it to Doha," Abbas said of the flag and ceremonial flame he was set to hand over to Qatari officials during the televised event.

The only Arab state representatives at the closing ceremony on Thursday were Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Culture Naser Juda and Nabeeh Shaqam, as well as UAE Minster of Foreign Affairs Abdallah Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan. The closing events were held in Nablus.

Aghabekian said “frustration prevailed" among the organizers of the events because of the weak support and weaker presence of Arab states, particularly around Israel's attempts to quash events held in the city they were meant to honor. She confirmed that invitations had been sent to all of the Arab states, and organizers had attempted to coordinate with Qatar in particular.

In an interview with Al-Filistine TV on Friday, Abbas said "support from the Arab countries to the UN organization [UNRWA] had dropped," noting the hundreds of thousands Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria depended on the agency alongside the Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza.

“There are Arab countries who support Palestine," Abbas said, adding " there are many others who could support us but they do not.”

It has been evident for quite some time that Arab leaders are sick of Palestinian whining.They have seen the Palestinian Arabs squander opportunity after opportunity; they have seen the utter inability of Palestinian Arabs to maintain any sort of united front; they have seen billions of dollars wasted on the black hole that is the PA budget.

This snub is more direct than any previous one. Previously, Arab nations pledged to help publicly but privately didn't bother to honor those pledges; this was a public humiliation of an event that was meant to highlight the importance of Jerusalem to Palestinian Arabs. To imagine that a televised ceremony meant to show the world how much the Arabs support their Palestinian brethren ended up showing the exact opposite is as obvious an insult as can be imagined.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach!

I apologize for not blogging as much as I originally intended this week. It turns out that this is sort of a working vacation, and the "working" part has been all-consuming - but very rewarding. (Unfortunately, I cannot share the details.)

I was in a cab and heard over the radio the dispatcher saying "Shabbat Shalom Lakol." All over town this week I've been hearing everyone - religious or non-religious - saying "Chag Sameach" to each other.

It's just great.

So, I wish all my readers a Shabbat Shalom and a Chag Sameach.

Some observations on Samaria

Mrs. Elder and I were treated to a really interesting taxi driver, one of the very few Israeli cab drivers who willingly drives to the settlements on the "wrong" side of the separation fence.

Like most taxi drivers, Avinoam happily comments freely on everything. He made a couple of very simple and cogent points.

Here is a picture of an Arab village, one of many that dot the highway:

Ckick on it to see how beautiful some of the houses are, really more mansions. Indeed, assuming my driver was correct, this enormous and gorgeous building is a single-family house:

We saw dozens of these beautiful, huge mansions - and that was just what was visible from the highway.

These villages and towns were interspersed among many Jewish villages and towns, the type that the world media and politicians are fixated on as being "obstacles to peace."

After seeing many similar sights, it is very difficult to believe that the Jewish settlements are hurting the Arab economy one iota. (Avinoam was a bit more blunt, and colorful, in his descriptions.)

Some of the Jewish towns are quite attractive as well. We briefly visited Ariel, which is a simply beautiful community with an impressive recreation center (partially funded by Christian Zionists.) None of them have houses that approach the opulence of the Arab mansions we could see, but they do have impressive infrastructures, many with beautiful schools and playgrounds.

There is one glaring difference between the Jewish communities and the Arab communities, though. The Arab communities are quite open, while most of the settlements are fenced in with serious security in place. (h/t Batya for the clarification, Shiloh does not have a fence.)

If the existence of Jews in Samaria are such a danger to the Arabs, then why aren't the Arab communities fenced in to protect them from the Jews rather than vice versa?

Covered women get harassed in Arab world

From the Saudi Gazette:

The sexual harassment of women in the streets, schools and work places of the Arab World is driving them to cover up and confine themselves to their homes, said activists at the first-ever regional conference addressing the once taboo topic.

This is a neat inversion of what we are normally told by extremist Muslims. They claim that they want women to cover their bodies and faces because they respect them so much; in reality the women are being forced to cover themselves up in an attempt to avoid being treated like dirt by these "respectful" men.

However, these attempts are in vain:

The harassment, including groping and verbal abuse, appears to be designed to drive women out of public spaces and seems to happen regardless of what they are wearing, they said.

Amal Madbouli, who wears the face veil or niqab, said that despite her dress, she is harassed and described how a man came after her in the streets of her neighborhood.

“He hissed at me and kept asking me if I wanted to go with him to a quieter area, and to give him my phone number,” said Madbouli, a mother of two. “This is a national security issue. I am a mother, and I want to be reassured when my daughters go out on the streets.”

As many as 90 percent of Yemeni women say they have been harassed, while in Egypt, out of a sample of 1,000, 83 percent reported being verbally or physically abused.

... In Syria, men from traditional homes go shopping in the market place instead of female family members to spare them harassment, said Sherifa Zuhur, a Lebanese-American academic at the conference.

Abul Komsan described how one of the victims of harassment she interviewed told her she had taken on the full-face veil to stave off the hassle.

“She told me ‘I have put on the niqab. By God, what more can I do so they leave me alone,”’ she said, quoting the woman. Some even said they were reconsidering going to work or school because of the constant harassment in the streets and on public transpiration.

But even in Yemen, where nearly all women are covered from head to toe, activist Amal Basha said 90 percent of women in a published study she conducted reported harassment, specifically pinching.

“The religious leaders are always blaming the women, making them live in a constant state of fear because out there, someone is following them,” she said.

If a harassment case is reported in Yemen, Basha added, traditional leaders interfere to cover it up, remove the evidence or terrorize the victim.

In Saudi Arabia, another country where women cover themselves completely and are nearly totally segregated from men in public life, women report harassment as well, according to Saudi activist Majid al-Eissa.

The mezuzah on the revolving door

I am fascinated with the small things I see in Israel.

There is a rule in Judaism that most doors must have a "mezuzah" on them. This is a Biblical-level commandment.

Last night, I noticed that the hotel I am staying in had a mezuzah on the revolving door:

I had never seen a mezuzah on such a door before, and it struck me that the halachic questions of how exactly to place such a mezuzah almost all come from Israel. Does it tilt towards the door or the inside of the building? Is it placed on the round part or the flat part next to the door?

Halacha, Jewish law, must innovate to handle new circumstances, and Israel is the place that such innovation is coming from. While a mezuzah may seem a trivial example, it points to the fact that Israel is where the new questions are more pertinent and therefore the place that even the most religious interpretations of Judaism is forced to adapt to the modern world, out of necessity. This makes Judaism relevant to every day life here in ways that one cannot see anywhere else in the world.

PalArabs tell the world their strategy (Barry Rubin)

I was treated today to a very nice hour over coffee and iced tea with Barry Rubin, prolific author and analyst, in Tel Aviv. The least I can do to repay is to link to his latest article:

If you want to understand what's really going on in the alleged Israel-Palestinian peace process-beyond the babble that progress is being made, it's all Israel's fault, and everyone is working hard on it-here's what you need to know.

For the present, the Palestinian leadership isn't interested in pursuing negotiations with Israel because it has a different strategy: get everything it wants from others without making any concessions.

First, the Palestinian Authority (PA) came very close to obtaining a European Union (EU) resolution which made it sound like the Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem is an accomplished fact. The rejection of the Swedish-sponsored proposal by more moderate European states staved this off, along with a U.S. reminder that this kind of issue was supposed to be resolved by a negotiated agreement between the PA and Israel.

Nevertheless, the PA no doubt drew hope-albeit erroneously so--from this experience that with a little more time the EU will back its position completely and give it a state on a silver platter.

The other front is the UN. On December 15, a meeting of the Fatah leadership will discuss and probably endorse a plan to seek UN recognition of their state, with no preconditions.

In the words of one Council member, Munib Masri:

"We will ask the UN Security Council to endorse a two-state solution with east Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, to compensate Palestinian refugees and affirm their right to return to their homeland."

There is a very interesting phrase at the end of that statement. Masri was referring to the Palestinian demand that all refugees and their descendants can go live in Israel if they want, a formula for massive violence, chaos, and civil war in Israel. Of course, that's precisely what the PA wants--and will never get. The idea is that the "two-state solution" it is thinking about is merely a transitional step toward wiping Israel off the map, the real goal and the reason why there isn't any peace.

By defining Israel as the Palestinian homeland, or at least a part of it, Masri shows the two-state solution is not a serious Palestinian goal. If it were, a West Bank-Gaza Strip-east Jerusalem state would be defined as the homeland.

Read the whole thing, and check out the Gloria Center site which is chock-full of penetrating analysis that is simply not available anywhere else.

Saudi Vice member supports co-ed college; may lose job

In an interview with the Saudi Okaz news agency last week, the head of the Mecca division of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice spoke out on the topic of "ikhtilat," the mixing of the sexes, at a new Saudi science university called KAUST:

“The term ‘ikhtilat’ in this usage is a recent adoption that was unknown to the early people of knowledge,” Sheikh Ahmed Al-Ghamdi said in a lengthy interview with Okaz.

“Mixing was part of normal life for the Ummah and its societies.”

“The word in its contemporary meaning has entered customary jurisprudential terminology from outside,” Al-Ghamdi said.

“Those who prohibit the mixing of the genders actually live it in their real lives, which is an objectionable contradiction, as every fair-minded Muslim should follow Shariah judgments without excess or negligence,” Al-Ghamdi said.

“In many Muslim houses – even those of Muslims who say mixing is haram – you can find female servants working around unrelated males,” he said.

Sheikh Al-Ghamdi proceeded by citing numerous Ahadeeth – sayings of the Prophet – to support his position.

“Those who prohibit ikhtilat cling to weak Ahadeeth, while the correct Ahadeeth prove that mixing is permissible, contrary to what they claim,” Al-Ghamdi said.
On Kaust, Sheikh Al-Ghamdi described the university as an “extraordinary move and huge accomplishment to be added to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s record and the history of the Islamic Ummah”.

“It is a great step which the Ummah can look up to in recapturing its role in civilization and its scientific honor,” Al-Ghamdi said.

“It wouldn’t be too much to say that the scientific theories influencing nations have forgotten the creative role of the Islamic world for hundreds of years, leaving the Islamic world dependent on others, introverted, eaten away by difference and sectarian and ethnic disputes and self-interest, making in some parts the religion of Allah a pasture for discord, contention, and enmity in the course of turning in on itself and taking up fanaticism for unsubstantiated views to the point where differences have become part of a sorry program,” Al-Ghamdi said.

Sheikh Al-Ghamdi said the “blessed university” would help realize the “great hopes and ambitions of Muslims”.

“The university represents a natural extension of our Islamic civilization which led for a long time all the theoretical and corporeal sciences,” he added.

This breath of fresh air was met with great support by many Saudis and other Arabs:

Al-Arabiya noted that commentators responding to Al-Ghamdi’s views cited his words as “surprising” and “bringing light to the tunnel that has been darkness for years”, while some disapproval was “inevitably evident given that the sheikh was addressing subjects which until recently were taboo and which many were very hesitant to address”.

The network judged the overall response to be in support of Al-Ghamdi, saying he “showed the necessary daring” to broach the subject, “despite the fact that he is from the Hai’a, the body responsible for maintaining ikhtilat, and only until recently it no one would have been expected to discuss such sensitive and thorny topics the way Al-Ghamdi did”.

Some commentators were left somewhat confused by Sheikh Al-Ghamdi’s observations. “Why is it that the Hai’a is saying things that if they were put into effect would mean that its existence as a religious body would no longer be needed?” wondered Yahya Al-Maliki.

That is in fact the 64,000 riyal question, and it appears that Al-Ghamdi may have lost his job:

Sheikh Ahmad Al-Ghamdi, head of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai’a) in Makkah, was rumored to have been dismissed Tuesday following his controversial interview, published by Saudi Gazette last Friday, in which he spoke frankly on the thorny topic of “ikhtilat” – the mixing of the sexes. The confusion was exacerbated when Abdulrahman Al-Juhani, head of the Hai’a in Taif, appeared in Al-Ghamdi’s office, apparently ready to take up the duties of his new promotion as head of the Commission in Makkah.

Pictures of the "apartheid wall"

Here are some pictures of that awful "apartheid wall" separating Arab families from each other and causing big problems among Palestinian Arabs.

Hold on...whose flag is that on the last picture?

Oh, my mistake. These are pictures of the apartheid wall between Gaza and Egypt, built by the horrible Egyptians to imprison and starve their brethren in Gaza.

Never mind!

Gaza university closes in protest of Hamas

Al Azhar University in Gaza announced it is suspending classes on Wednesday, in reaction to Hamas actions that occurred on campus.

Contrary to university policy, Hamas supporters and members "stormed" the university and placed Hamas flags on walls and gates. Since the Hamas coup, the university has banned political activities to minimize the friction between students who support different factions.

The university's statement said "While our students prepare for final exams for the first semester of 2009/2010, the university is attempting to provide an appropriate learning atmosphere that helps students achieve their goals and build their future, and to distance them from any activities that may create confusion for the educational process. Members of the Islamic bloc at the university insist on actions that emphasize problems and differences between students through their insistence on political festivals that raise sensitivity among the student blocs, and pit them against each other. We are trying as much as possible to avoid these provocations."

(I took slight liberties in interpreting the autotranslation but this appears correct.)

Axis of Evil

Hamas political head Khaled Meshal, during his visit to Iran, declared that Hamas and Hezbollah will shower Israeli towns with rockets if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear plants.

Meshal had previously pointedly met with Iran's nuclear negotiator, indicating that Islamic terror groups are a specific part of Iran's strategy of controlling the Middle East by terror.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Lebanon, as the Lebanese parliament just reiterated its support for Hezbollah keeping its own independent army and, effectively, supporting Hezbollah against UN resolution 1701 which called for all non-government groups to give up any weapons in southern Lebanon.

This all makes President Obama's praise for Lebanese president Michel Suleiman appear somewhat tone-deaf:

"What [the US and Lebanese governments] do share is a commitment to resolve these issues through dialogue and negotiations, as opposed to through violence."

One can sympathize with Lebanon's difficulties in maintaining any sort of government altogether, but the reality is that there is a direct line between Iran and Hezbollah, and Lebanon's government supports the Iranian side, not only tolerating Hezbollah but tacitly supporting it.

All but forgotten is the smoking gun of a huge weapons ship that proved conclusively that Iran is arming Hezbollah on a massive scale and tried mightily to hide it. Obama noted the US concern with Lebanon not stopping such arms smuggling but that severely understates Lebanon's undeclared role in supporting such smuggling.

The result is that Iran can confidently rely on Hezbollah to act as a proxy army for it, much as Syria has done in the past. Its support for terror groups is open and unapologetic, and most of those terror groups are singlemindedly focused on Israel.

Another meeting between Hamas and Iran nuke head

Right after Iran's nuclear negotiator met with a series of Palestinian Arab terrorists in Damascus, he follows up with another meeting with Hamas leaders in Tehran:

The political leadership of Hamas Movement on Monday met with Sa’eed Jalili, the chief negotiator of Iran’s nuclear file, Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the expediency discernment council, and Manouchehr Mottaki, the minister of foreign affairs.

Ezzat Al-Resheq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said that the Hamas delegates briefed the Iranian officials on the latest developments in the Palestinian arena and discussed with them the failure of the settlement process.

He pointed out that the Iranian officials congratulated the delegation on the 22nd anniversary of its Movement’s inception and hailed its steadfastness and adherence to the rights of the Palestinian people, adding that the officials promised to increase Iran’s support for the Palestinian people.

In the same context, Khaled Mishaal, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, said during his meeting with Jalili that the steadfastness and fortitude of the Palestinian resistance would never hold back until the achievement of victory and expressed his appreciation to Iran for its ongoing support for the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation.

For his part, Jalili said that the resistance is the only way to restore the usurped rights of the Palestinian people, describing it as the good tree that blossoms day by day.

Hmmm. Iran's nuclear negotiator openly supports terrorism.

I'm sure that soon, a useful idiot in the West will use his honesty as a compelling reason that we should believe him when he says that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful.

Notable ElBaradei interview

A video of an interview that Mohamed ElBaradei, outgoing head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and prospective candidate for Egyptian president, has just surfaced. ElBaradei made this interview last summer.

I do not understand Arabic (and Google doesn't yet offer real-time voice translation) but two articles point out interesting things about the interview.

Firas Press says that ElBaradei stated that humanity could be destroyed by nuclear weapons in 5-10 years. Yet in their description of the interview, he doesn't once mention Iran in connection with this observation and only talks about Israel's nuclear arsenal.

An Egyptian writer in Global Voices likes what he hears in the interview, including that ElBaradei is a supporter of pan-Arabism, and that he liked the idea of the old United Arab Republic where Egypt joined Syria, but he said there were mistakes as to how it was implemented.

And while he supports peace, he was against the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, saying that Egypt should not have done it alone and saying that is caused serious isolation from the Arab world.

That's what I'm talking about.

Touring Israel is wonderful, of course, but I get just as much pleasure - and sometimes more - out of just soaking up the ambiance of being in a Jewish state. Listening to Hebrew and poorly attempting to speak it, being able to walk around with a yarmulka without a second thought of how people are perceiving me, noticing a Biblical reference on a truck, ordering a delightfully messy shwarma at a random kosher joint - this is what I love about Israel.