Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, January 02, 2010

Gaza's $2 billion a year budget

From AP:

Gaza's Hamas parliament approved a government budget of $540 million for 2010, legislators said Saturday, suggesting that a tight border blockade isn't stopping the cash flow to the Islamic militants.

Up to $60 million stems from local taxes and the rest from "gifts and outside assistance," said legislator Jamal Nassar. Iran is believed to be one of Hamas' main financial backers, with cash assistance hauled through smuggling tunnels under Gaza's border with Egypt.

...The Abbas government's budget for 2009 was $2.78 billion, funded in large part by foreign aid. Abbas' Palestinian Authority continues to pay the salaries for tens of thousands of Gaza civil servants and security officers who were sent home after the Hamas takeover. It also pays for fuel to run Gaza's power plant and supports hospitals and schools.

The Hamas government is also relieved of much responsibility because the United Nations runs dozens of schools, health clinics and gives food aid to around 1 million Gazans.

So Hamas has a budget of over a half billion dollars, mostly from Iran.

But we already know from numerous statements by Mahmoud Abbas that 58% of the PA budget goes to...Gaza.

That means that poor, impoverished Gaza is getting over $2 billion annually, not counting the money and other aid it gets from UNRWA and other NGOs.

And Hamas' hundreds of millions are free for buying weapons because they have never taken financial responsibility for the actual running of Gaza's infrastructure. The West still does that via the PA.

I wonder if those people who claim they hate Israel because it is a drain on their tax dollars are equally concerned with Gaza?

Iran's soccer team wishes Israel a happy New Year

From Al Arabiya:

The Iranian Football Federation accidentally sent a New Year’s greeting to its Israeli counterpart, which responded wishing “all of the good people in Iran a happy new year,” Israeli media reported late on Thursday.

Mohammad Ali Ardebili, head of Iranian football union’s foreign relations, told Israel’s Army Radio he sent the letter to all football unions around the world but he did not intend to send it to the Israel Football Association.

Ardebili sent the greeting letter by email and the Army Radio managed to reach him for comment by phone.

"This is a greeting sent to the entire world," he said, then he inquired quickly, "Are you speaking from Israel? I can't speak to you. This is a mistake, this is a mistake."

The Israeli Football Association (IFA) received the letter with surprise but did not hesitate to send a response, the union’s spokesman Gil Lebanony told the radio station.

The Iranian letter was received by the head of the IFA’s legal department, Amir Navon.

"He came into my office and asked me if it was a mistake. I said, 'I don't know, but let's send a response'," Lebanony said.

"So, we responded, 'We thank you for you Happy New Year greeting and wish all of the good people in Iran a happy new year,' and added a wink in the mail," Lebanony said. "We also expressed our hopes that they will have a good year for soccer."

The first comment on Al Arabiya's English site wishes for Iran to destroy Israel in this new year.

Fewer Arabs in Israeli prisons

A Palestinian Arab agency says that the number of Arab prisoners in Israeli custody has decreased this year to 7350.

6124 are from the West Bank, 768 from Gaza and 458 from within Israel.

3600 of the prisoners are affilitated with Fatah, 1840 with Hamas, 1150 from Islamic Jihad, 450 from the PFLP, and 110 from the DFLP.

In July, the group Adalah reported that there were some 13000 Arabs in Israeli prisons. However, looking at their data a little closer it appears that if we only count the prisoners who are classified as security prisoners (as opposed to criminals) the numbers are pretty close. (In fact, Adalah mentions that there are 6500 Jewish prisoners as well.)

In June, 2008, the Israeli Prison Service said that there were 10,000 security prisoners.

The Gazan slave trade

Firas Press has a lengthy article on how Gazans are taking advantage of poor Egyptian families.

Acting as middlemen, Gazans offer to smuggle underage Egyptian girls through tunnels to Gaza to get married to the better-off Gazans. For this service, they charge $1000.

Once the girls come over, more often than not they get married as second or third wives to Gaza men who treat them as maids for their extended families. These are the lucky ones: others are forced into prostitution or to work for drug dealers. One smuggler who was interviewed is getting so wealthy from the slave trade that he has bought a house in Rafah to facilitate the smuggling of more Egyptian girls.

The article claims that hundreds of girls have been taken advantage of this way, and they cannot afford to pay to escape back to Egypt.

Clearly, the poor, starving Gazans are being driven by sheer desperation to resort to taking advantage of even poorer Egyptian girls.

More on the 45th anniversary of Fatah terror

It turns out that the major speech that Abbas was to deliver last night commemorating the 45th anniversary of the first Fatah terror attack had nothing new. He reiterated that peace would be impossible without Jerusalem becoming the capital of a Palestinian state and that "there is now no country in the world, including the United States of America, defending the positions of the Israeli government."

He also again rejected the idea of a Palestinian Arab state with temporary borders and mentioned yet again that 58% of the PA budget goes to Gaza (where it effectively but indirectly bankrolls Hamas.)

In Gaza, meanwhile, Fatah activists who also wanted to commemorate the anniversary were beaten and arrested by Hamas.

I have just been looking over the Time magazine archives, and they mention that what really happened on January 1, 1965 was the creation of a "military wing" of Fatah, called Asifa, or "stormtroopers." As we have seen countless times, history shows that there is no real distinction between Arab terrorist group "political wings" and "military wings" and the fact that Asifa has not existed since the 1960s while Fatah terrorist attacks still happen today shows this to be the case. (It is interesting to note that Asifa was helped by a fifth column of Israeli Arabs called "Al Ard" in 1965.)

Fatah's penchant for lying has not changed either in the past 45 years. Here is how Time described them in 1968:

El Fatah has publicly taken credit for blasting the garage of former Israeli Chief of Staff Itzhak Rabin, even though he has no garage, and for wounding Defense Minister Moshe Dayan last March, who was actually hurt in an archeological cave-in. After Israel's independence day parade last May, El Fatah crowed that "a suicide force managed to reach the rear of the parade and shell it with rockets and mortars. Our forces destroyed a number of tanks that were seen to go up in flames." This remarkable event was entirely invisible to Israelis and foreign dignitaries watching the parade. When a $1,000,000 fire damaged Tel Aviv's Lydda Airport in October, El Fatah promptly took credit for setting it. The Israelis insist that the blaze was started accidentally by a welder's torch.

Martyr inflation

At the end of Operation Cast Lead, Hamas came out with a press release that claimed that only 48 "mujahadeen" had been killed during the fighting, while they estimated that they killed some 80 Zionist fighters.

Since then, they have kept adding more and more Gaza "martyrs" who were members of the Al Qassam Brigades to their website. At last count, Hamas has listed out the biographies of no less than 305 Al Qassam terrorists with details of their careers as fighters. (188 of them were listed as "civilian" by the PHCR.)

So in the end they understated their real casualties by an order of magnitude, and they also overstated Israel's casualties by an order of magnitude.

I'm sure that they are equally trustworthy in other areas.

What does a moonbat feed a starving Gazan?

From San Francisco's local ABC website:

A Watsonville art teacher and her husband are among three dozen people who have reportedly been detained in Egypt on their way to the Gaza strip.
Kathleen Crocetti had hoped to deliver a mural to a community center in Gaza, where a pro-Palestinian freedom march is planned for New Year's Eve.
Crocetti and her husband, Bill Lucas, have been ordered not to leave the hotel where they are staying, about 30 miles from Gaza, without a police escort.

"Clueless" is an understatement.

The IDF confirms that weekly demonstrations are always violent

A month ago, I wrote "Protests that happen in Bilin and Na'alin (weekly, not daily) are anything but peaceful, and IDF soldiers often get injured from the violence."

A commenter insisted that I was wrong, and said that "The overwhelming majority of demonstrations at both sites you mention have been thoroughly peaceful. Your claim to the contrary is not only not objective, but also not true. "

His evidence for this statement was a heavily edited video that didn't show any demonstrator violence and seemed to show the IDF shooting tear gas for no reason.

Well, I asked the IDF themselves. This response is from the IDF Spokesperson's Office, sent to me via email, and is on the record:

In 2009, there were weekly riots in both Nil'in and Bil'in every Friday, with the exception of 18.12.2009 in Nil'in. Every one of these protests has featured violence on the part of the protesters, for the most part that entails rock throwing, although firebombs, and burning tires are also a frequent occurrence.

These riots have been taking place on a regular basis at both locations for the past two years. In 2009, 57 defense force personnel were injured by rioters. The security forces take standard riot dispersal measures when the riots turn violent and in 2009 they arrested 20 rioters in Nil'in and 20 in Bil'in.

On several occasions during these riots, defense force personnel were seriously injured. In January, a Nil'in rioter hurled a rock, hitting a reservist in the face, causing permanent damage to his eye socket. In another incident during a Nil'in riot in April, both an IDF officer and Border Police officer were seriously injured by hurled rocks and had to be taken to a hospital to treat their facial injuries.

Administrivia open thread

I recently started a new job, and it will not afford me the ability to post as often as I have been. I've been trying to compensate this week by sleeping less, but that is not a very good long-term strategy! I have a couple of other non-blog related projects that I need to be spending some time on. Sorry!

In response to reader requests, I changed the comments to now open up in a new window rather than a pop-up, which messed some people up. Let me know if this is better.

Meanwhile, here is an open thread....

Today's PalArab news 12/31/2009

The PA seized 19,000 shekels worth of nuts that were supposedly grown in Israeli farms in the West Bank. Their goal is to stop all imports of West Bank Jewish products by the end of 2010.

Palestinian Arabs are dismayed at Jimmy Carter's pretend apology to American Jews. After all, they note, he had been such a friend to them; they are hoping that it is just a political move to help his grandson run for office and that it doesn't reflect his real feelings.

Palestinian Arabs are also complaining about an Israeli tourist campaign in China which include pictures of the Temple Mount. They are also upset that Chinese media sometime say that Tel Aviv is a "coastal city" and not the capital of Israel. Some 20,000 Chinese tourists visit Israel annually according to the article.

The 45th anniversary of...what?

Mahmoud Abbas will be giving what is billed as an important speech tonight, marking the 45th anniversary of the "start of the Palestinian revolution."

What momentous event happened 45 years ago?

Yasir Arafat co-founded Fatah in 1954 along with a number of other people, mostly Palestinian Arabs who were working in Gulf states and who went to college in Cairo. The PLO was founded in May,1964 and Fatah did not join it until 1967. There were other, mostly small, Palestinian Arab "liberation" groups that formed in the 1950s and 1960s.

So what, in Mahmoud Abbas' mind, was the seminal event that occurred 45 years ago?

Why, it's the anniversary of Yasir Arafat's first terror attack, an unsuccessful attempt to bomb Israel's national water carrier.

Out of all the events that Abbas could choose, it is notable that he chooses to commemorate the anniversary of a terror attack as the real beginning of the supposedly "national" movement.

Remember, in 1965, the PLO and Fatah's ambitions did not include the West Bank or Gaza at all. The original PLO Charter says:

Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area [part of the mandate that Syria seized - EoZ.] Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.

In this sense, I agree with Abbas that it is worthwhile to look at the history of the Fatah and PLO organizations that he heads. The goals have not changed, even if the tactics have.

UNRWA/Hamas lovefest

Palestine Today reports that outgoing UNRWA commissioner Karen Abu-Zayd met today with Hamas officials to say farewell.

According to the article, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh praised Abu Zayd in front of other Hamas officials, saying that she was daring in her role for the past nine years. He expressed hope that she would continue to speak out on behalf of Palestinian Arabs even after she leaves office.

Abu-Zayd, on her part, complimented Hamas on facilitating UNRWA's work , especially in the area of security, and she agreed to keep speaking out after she leaves her position.

UNRWA and Hamas - made for each other.

Israeli war crimes against Gazan sperm!

Palestinian Arabs keep trying to claim that Israeli weapons caused all sorts of genetic mutations in Gaza.

Dr. Muawiya Hassanein, director of the Emergency Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, tells Palestine Today that there have been over 75 cases of babies born with heart defects in Gaza since Operation Cast Lead.

A quick calculation shows that, in the US, about 0.9% of all babies are born with congenital heart defects (36,000 a year.) In Gaza, this would translate to over 500 babies born with such a condition every year. Perhaps those evil Israeli chemical and radiological weapons had a positive effect on Gaza children!

But more insidiously, Hassanein claims that these weapons have caused Gaza men to have abnormal sperm, low sperm counts and, tragically, infertility. To many Arabs, this could be worse than birth defects, as it attacks the very source of their manliness, and nothing is more important than that.

Perhaps some NGO will start keeping track of the number of dead and mutilated Gaza sperm, adding millions to the number of victims of Israeli aggression.

The "Holocaust survivor" moonbat

It is amusing to see how the Gaza Freedom March moonbats are acting in Egypt:

More than 1,000 people from around the world were gathered here on Tuesday for a solidarity march into Gaza despite Egypt’s insistence that the Gaza border crossing that it controls would remain closed to the vast majority of them.

The protest, the Gaza Freedom March, was planned for Thursday and intended to mark a year since Israel’s three-week military assault on the territory. On Tuesday, hundreds of the frustrated activists gathered to press their case on the front steps of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate here, holding “Free Gaza” signs and chanting, “Let us go.” Some declared a hunger strike.

About 100 French citizens staged a sit-in in front of the French Embassy, and some Americans pleaded for help at the United States Consulate.

The Egyptian government agreed to let 100 activists into Gaza on Wednesday, according to one of the organizers of the march.

The world of these moonbats is absurdly egotistical. Back in the good old days of protests, a hunger strike would be used to protest a real injustice. These guys are instead going on a hunger strike as a publicity stunt in order to be able to go and perform another publicity stunt - a purely symbolic entrance to Gaza that will provide essentially no real services to Gazans!

(Yaacov Lozowick shows two other examples of pure narcissism on the part of these protesters.)

The star of the protests is Hedy Epstein. As the New York Times writes (and includes a picture):

One protester, Hedy Epstein, 85, a Holocaust survivor, arrived in Egypt from the United States on Saturday. She said she started a hunger strike on Monday.
“My message is for the world governments to wake up and treat Israel like they treat any other country and not to be afraid to reprimand and criticize Israel for its violent policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians,” Ms. Epstein said. “I brought a suitcase full of things, pencils, pens, crayons, writing paper to take to children in Gaza — I can’t take that back home.”

The symbiotic relationship between the publicity-seeking and equally narcissistic Epstein and the group that is more than happy to trumpet her supposed Holocaust-survivor credentials is complete.

To call Epstein a Holocaust survivor is to stretch the definition of the term. While Epstein did lose her parents in the Holocaust, she herself spent all of World War II in England. Yet she has no problem using this non-experience as the moral fulcrum for her ego-driven moonbattery ("I can't take that back home!")

(Israel has shipped paper, pens and crayons into Gaza.)

UPDATE: Epstein has a telling interview in the Lebanon Daily Star. Regarding her hunger strike, she says:

“There comes a time in one’s life when one has to step up and risk one’s own body. We’re in a desperate situation here, but not as desperate as the people in Gaza.”

And here may be the key to her own hatred of Israel:

“I’ve been involved with the Israeli-Palestinian problem for many years. It probably goes back to my childhood, because I born in Germany and my parents were anti-Zionists,” she said.

“When Hitler came to power in 1933 I was 8 years old, and my parents very quickly realized that Germany is not a place to raise a family. So they tried to leave to go anywhere in the world, but there was one place they were not willing to go, and that was Palestine.”

It is possible that she is making this up after the fact, but if it is true, Epstein may be redirecting her own anger at her parents' decision - that may have led to their deaths - against the very nation that could have saved them.

Good news: Water desalinization plant goes online

From YNet:

The desalination plant in Hadera, which is considered the largest in the world, has commenced infusing water into the Mekorot system, Water Authority Chairman Uri Shani declared last Wednesday.

In recent weeks experts have been holding extensive testing aimed at ensuring the water's quality. The plant has been given the Health Ministry seal of approval confirming that the water being desalinated meet Israel's drinking water standards.

In the future, the plant will reach a maximum output of 127 [million] cubic meters per year.

The plant in Hadera is an addition to two existing active facilities in Ashkelon and Palmachim. When it reaches full productivity, accumulated desalination in Israel will amount to 300 million cm per year.

Abraham Tenne, desalination department head in the Water Authority told Ynet this week that the new plant will make a considerable contribution to the water economy in Israel and noted that as a result water reserves will be more secure in 2010.

He further added that the first benefactor will be Lake Kinneret which suffers an ever diminishing water level.

Charlie Ettinson has some good observations on the story.

And Israel21C has a story on how Mekorot is providing the desalination technology for California.