Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

The Guardian makes a slight correction; still wrong

The Guardian article I quoted this morning has been updated to include the death of an Egyptian guard from rioting Gazans. It took out its self-contradictory part, but kept a flat-out lie:

Israel's strict blockade of Gaza, which has been in place for more than two years, prevents all exports and limits imports to a few humanitarian items. Egypt has also kept its one border crossing with Gaza, at Rafah, largely closed.

The number of items that Israel allows into Gaza, while not a comprehensive list of everything needed, has included a wide variety of categories, way beyond a "few" items. And, as I noted, Israel has allowed flowers and strawberries to be exported from Gaza, both last spring for the flowers (if I recall correctly) and in the past week for both items.

Notice also that Israel "blockades" while Egypt simply "largely closes" its border. The Guardian could not bother to mention that 99% of all goods that enter Gaza is through the party doing the "blockading."

Anti-semitic C-SPAN video clip with Michael Scheuer

A helpful tipster managed to download the C-SPAN interview I mentioned yesterday. Here is the section with the unbelievably anti-semitic question by the caller, the clueless C-SPAN anchor not even blinking as he asks for comments, and then Michael Scheuer pretty much telling the world how Israel deserves to be the target of terror attacks.

Gazans recycling rubble

After a year of using rubble from Cast Lead as a huge prop for TV cameras, Gazans are finally starting to do something constructive:

They are recycling the rubble into new cement blocks.

This photo essay from Palestine Today shows how:

Which means that Hamas is now back building weapons bunkers under Gaza homes and schools.

Arab warns of Israeli rumors

An article in the Islamic Jihad-aligned Palestine Today warns that Israelis are trying to destroy the fabric of Palestinian Arab society by planting rumors. Ironically, the author brings no specific examples of an Israeli-started rumor, meaning that he is starting a rumor himself.

We should cut him some slack, though. After all, I hear that he acts as a collaborator for the Mossad and suffers from erectile dysfunction.

"Peace" protestors riot in Egypt

George Galloway's "Viva Palestina" convoy members started rioting in El Arish when the Egyptian government told them that some of the items that they planned to bring to Gaza must go through Israel.

A security official said the vehicles in question are carrying pickup trucks, sedans, generators and other equipment, which are not allowed to pass through the Egyptian crossing at Rafah and had to go via Israel. Only medical aid and passengers are allowed through, the official said.

While the Galloway group insists that the rioting was started by plainclothes Egyptian policemen throwing rocks at the group, other reports have the group abducting four harbor police officers. As many as 15 police were injured.

Palestine Press Agency reports that Egyptian TV showed injured Egyptian police, and said that police were injured by members of the convoy pelting them with rocks. It also adds that the agreement between the convoy and Egyptian authorities were that only buses would be allowed to enter, not private cars.

Non-violence!

The Guardian throws in this very inaccurate paragraph as background information:

Israel's strict blockade of Gaza, which has been in place for more than two years, prevents all exports and limits imports to a few humanitarian items. The policy has grown ever tighter since Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, won parliamentary elections in early 2006 and then seized full security control of Gaza a year later. Israel now regards the strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, as a "hostile entity".

I emailed to them, saying:

The two sentences contradict each other - the first says the blockade began in 2007 and the second says it began much earlier.

Besides that, Israel has recently allowed exports of flowers and strawberries from Gaza, and they also allowed a shipment of flowers last spring.

We will see if they correct the story.

Iraq seeking compensation for Osirak bombing

Palestine Press Agency quotes Maariv as saying that the current Iraqi government is seeking financial compensation from Israel for the damage caused by the bombing of the Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981.

Would the Iraqis agree to also pay Israel for the damage caused by their Scud missiles, the cost of gas masks for every Israeli citizen and compensation for the cost of every "safe room" in all Israeli houses and buildings that were built directly because of Iraqi actions and threats? Will they compensate Iraqi Jews whose property they expropriated in the 1950s and after the Six Day War? And once we are looking at compensation, how about compensation for the lives of 180 Jews murdered in the Farhud pogrom of 1941 during Shavuot?

Arabs: Don't visit our third holiest site!

From the Jordan Times:

Anti-normalisation activists on Saturday urged Jordanians to refrain from visiting Jerusalem and other sites in Palestine for religious purposes, but travel agents insisted they were within their rights to offer tour packages to these sites.
Hamzah Mansour, president of the National Committee for Anti-Normalisation, said the committee is considering holding a public event to condemn tourism to Palestine.

In a statement posted on the Islamic Action Front website, Mansour criticised travel agents who promote tours to Jerusalem and called for an end to this practice.

"We noticed an increase in the number of visits to Israel under the pretext of seeing holy sites in Jerusalem and other places. This must stop because it is an act of normalisation," said Mansour, who insists that obtaining a visa from the Israeli embassy in Amman is recognition of Israel's existence.

The Islamist movement opposes peace with Israel and refuses to recognise it.

Mansour, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood shura council and a former MP, accused travel agents of "preying on religious sentiments" by promoting travel to Israel.

Jerusalem is holy to all three monotheistic religions, being home to Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest site, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which Christians believe to be the site of Christ's death and resurrection.

This is the second time in less than two months that activists have spoken out against visits to Israel through tour packages.

There are no official figures on the number of Jordanians who visited Israel for religious purposes, but activists say more such trips were organised last year than in 2008.

Travel agents, however, insist they have committed no wrongdoing.

A travel agent from the city of Fuheis, who preferred not to be named, said the decision whether or not to travel to Palestine should be left up to individual people.

"We don’t force anybody. This is a personal decision. People have the freedom to do what they want. Moreover, even if these places are under Israeli occupation, we must see them because they belong to us, not the Jews," he told The Jordan Times.

The Al Jazeera version of the story was republished in Al Quds with some additional detail.

The entire story points to a basic truth about many Arabs that needs to be stressed: they hate Israel far more than they love Jerusalem. (And, as we have seen throughout history, their stated love of Jerusalem is directly proportional to the number of Jews there.)

This initiative to stop Arab tourism to holy sites also impacts some other people: the many Arabs who make their livings in the souks of the Old City. Ask them whether they would prefer to see Jordanian tourists or not. The supposed defenders of Islam who are railing against visits to Jerusalem do not care at all about the Palestinian Arabs who are hurt by their decision, showing again that they hate Israel more than they love their Arab brethren.

Former CIA analyst throws Israel to the dogs on C-SPAN

Incredible anti-semitism and Israel loathing on C-SPAN, noticed by Adam Holland:

In an interview televised on C-SPAN on January 4, former CIA bin Laden Unit Chief Michael Scheuer advocated that the United States should "dissuade" terrorists from focusing their anger on the U.S. by "persuad(ing) them to focus their anger on what they themselves perceive as their enemy: the governments that ... oppress them and Israel". His comment is viewable at 10:30 of the below-linked video:

C-SPAN Video Player - Michael Scheuer, Former CIA Bin Laden Unit Chief (1996-99)

Following this modest proposal to throw Israel to the wolves, Scheuer received the following grossly anti-Semitic question from a caller called John from Franklin, NY who identified himself as a political independent (viewable at 15:00 of the above-linked video). Question and answer are presented below in their entirety. Scheuer's response is instructive:

John from Franklin: I for one am sick and tired of all these Jews coming on C-SPAN and other stations and pushing us to go to war against our Muslim friends. They're willing to spend the last drop of American blood and treasure to get their way in the world. They have way too much power in this country. People like Wolfowitz and Feith an the other neo-cons -- that jewed us into Iraq -- and now we're going to spend the next 60 years rehabilitating our soldiers -- I'm sick and tired of it.

C-SPAN host: Any comments?

Scheuer: Yeah. I think that American foreign policy is ultimately up to the American people. One of the big things we have not been able to discuss for the past 30 years is the Israelis. Whether we want to be involved in fighting Israel's wars in the future is something that Americans should be able to talk about. They may vote yes. They may want to see their kids killed in Iraq or Yemen or somewhere else to defend Israel. But the question is: we need to talk about it. Ultimately Israel is a country that is of no particular worth the United States.

C-SPAN host: You mean strategically?

Scheuer: Strategically. They have no resources we need. Their manpower is minimal. Their association with us is a negative for the United States. Now that's a fact. What you want to do about that fact is entirely different. But for anyone to stand up in the United States and say that support for Israel doesn't hurt us in the Muslim world is to just defy reality.

Read the whole thing. I cannot figure out an easy way to capture the C-SPAN video, so you have to go there to see it.

UPDATE: Got the clip.

Abbas consolidates his power

Even though the West seems obsessed with Mahmoud Abbas' pretense of wanting to quit his job as PA President (saying that he will not run for elections that he knows will not happen anytime soon,) he has been quietly strengthening his own hold on power.

His latest move was to essentially depose Farouk Kaddoumi, who had been acting as the chairman of the political department of the PLO in Tunis. For years, Kaddoumi and his staff have been getting paid salaries for doing, apparently, nothing, and now Abbas has told them to move out of their offices and into the "Palestine" embassy, where Kaddoumi will continue to work as a PA minister but have apparently no role in the PLO.

And if you think that the PA elections are meant to decide who the leaders of "Palestine" are, you are sadly misinformed. The PLO controls the PA, Fatah dominates the PLO, and Abbas now officially leads all three.

"Siege" news

Israel today again allowed trucks full of strawberries and flowers to be exported out of Gaza, mostly for the European market.

On Sunday, Israel allowed a shipment of strawberries out, and it appears that this is going to become a regular occurrence.

Just like the Warsaw Ghetto, right?

One and a half million human shields (video)

Goldstone said there is "no evidence" that Hamas deliberately hid among civilians.

CNN and other videos prove otherwise.

Egypt calls George Galloway a liar

From The Daily News Egypt:

The Viva Palestina convoy intended for the Gaza Strip finally docked in the port of Al-Arish some 40 km away from the Rafah border crossing after a protracted delay due to a disagreement over its appropriate landing destination between convoy members and the Egyptian government....

[T]he Egyptian foreign ministry launched a scathing attack on convoy leader British Respect MP George Galloway, claiming that his comments regarding the hold up of the convoy defied “honesty and facts.”
“Being aware that Mr. Galloway loves media exposure, for various reasons, the ministry refrains from engaging in media arguments with someone who deliberately changes facts for personal objectives and masters the promotion of false championships that are based on wrong impressions leading to wrong conclusions,” it said.
In a fact sheet disseminated by Egypt’s State Information Service, the authorities said that the foreign ministry had sent at least four messages to Mr. Galloway starting Dec. 10, 2009, briefing him on “the Egyptian mechanism for receiving relief assistance convoys to the Gaza Strip,” through its London embassy, but that they were all ignored.

In this case, I tend to believe the Egyptians.

Iranian apology for horrible crime

From the Tehran Times:

President of Iran Football Federation (IFF) Ali Kaffashian apologized to the Iranian people over a New Year greeting email sent to Israel’s football federation.

Director of IFF foreign relations’ office Mohammad-Mansour Azimzadeh Ardebili inadvertently sent a New Year greeting message to his Israeli counterpart and was forced to resign because of it.

“It was a big mistake sending an email to Israel football federation, however I am sure the director of the foreign relations’ office didn’t do it on purpose,” Kaffashian said.

“IFF sends New Year greeting messages to all member federations of the world football governing body FIFA except the football federation of the Zionist regime. Nonetheless, some senior officials believe the email was sent intentionally,” the IFF president added.

Israel should go out of their way to send greetings to Iranian officials at every opportunity. They should call them up and just start shooting the breeze for five minutes before revealing who they are (recording the entire conversation, naturally.)

This would be especially effective if they call senior Iranian nuclear scientists and missile designers.

Who needs the Mossad when the Iranians will do the same job for free?

Israeli ISM co-founder admits she supports "armed resistance"

Neta Golan is the Israeli co-founder of the pro-terror (but ostensibly peaceful) International Solidarity Movement.

She lives in Ramallah with her Palestinian Arab husband and two kids.

An article in Palestine Today details how she wants to become a "Palestinian" citizen. One has to wonder why she wants to become a citizen of a Palestinian Arab state, but a million Israeli Arabs have no such desire.

The Arabic article also confirms that Golan believes the "Palestinian right to armed resistance," meaning terror attacks against Israelis, thus showing yet again that the ISM is not a "peace" organization.

Israel's PR failure

From Jonathan Dahoah Halevi in YNet:

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) published in its weekly summary a report on an incident in which three Palestinians were killed by IDF fire: “On Saturday, December 26, 2009 at around 00:30 Israeli forces opened fire on a number of Palestinians who approached the border. As a result, three of them were killed. They were unarmed and apparently trying to infiltrate Israel in order to look for work.”
The organization thus accuses the IDF of killing three innocent Palestinian civilians. In order to further exacerbate the Israeli “crime”, the organization added details in the service of Palestinian propaganda in relation to the economic distress in the Gaza Strip, which it claims is the reason that the group of Palestinians attempted to enter to find work.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Office issued a statement on December 29, 2009, which sheds some light on the incident:

“On Friday night an IDF force identified four terrorists approaching the border fence in northern Gaza in a military crawl, apparently in order to carry out an attack in Israel. The force fired at them using the ‘see and fire’ system, with the help of Air Force jets and forces from the Golani Brigade. The fire killed three terrorists and an additional terrorist was injured… In patrols held after the incident soldiers discovered a rope ladder and three explosive devices, among them a powerful device.”
The devices could have been intended for attacks on Israeli vehicles traveling on the road near the border, or as preparation for an attack intended to attract IDF forces to an area full of explosive devices near the border.
The story of the incident, as it is revealed by the IDF’s version, is totally different from the report published by the Palestinian human rights group. The four Palestinian youths, three of whom were killed by IDF fire, were not trying to find work in Israel due to economic distress, but were sent either by a Palestinian terror organization or the Hamas government’s security forces on a mission – to plant powerful explosive devices on the border with Israel.

PCHR is doing extensive damage to Israel in the international arena. The data it publishes are accepted as reliable by UN agencies, which use them to condemn Israel. It also played an important role in feeding figures to the Goldstone committee on Operation Cast Lead, and influenced its conclusions. In addition, in recent years the organization’s management has been conducting international legal battles against state and army officials in Israel, and was also responsible for filing legal claims against military officials in Britain, Spain, Switzerland, Australia, and other countries.

Israeli public relations organizations have so far refrained from contradicting the data published by PCHR, or confronting it with facts held by the IDF in order to harm its credibility. In the case of the four Palestinian youths all of the facts needed for a PR campaign exist, and according to the description in the IDF statement it can be deduced that the forces possess filmed proof of the gathering of weaponry from the incident.

So why doesn’t Israel take advantage of the opportunity before it to attack one of the organizations held responsible for the damage done to the state and its image? The answer to this is simple and unfortunate. No proper Israeli PR plan exists, and there is no PR strategy but for occasional ad-hoc treatment of momentary crises.

Read the whole thing.