Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, January 15, 2010

Ahmadinejad calls 9/11 "like a funny show"

Ahmadinejad accused the West of seeking to dominate the Middle East, saying the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States were used as a pretext to gain dominance over the region.

"The September 11 incident was very suspicious and complex ... One could see it was like a funny show," Ahmadinejad said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Let's hope that there's an even funnier show occurring soon, and simultaneously, at Iran's nuclear facilities.

Islamic Jihad admits it gets money from Iran

Asharq al-Awsat interviewed Abu Ahmed, spokesman for Islamic Jihad's Al Quds Brigades:

Abu Ahmed admitted that getting weapons into the Gaza Strip has become a difficult proposition, accusing some Arabs countries – who he refused to specify – and Israel, of cooperating to prevent the entry of weapons into the Gaza Strip. Abu Ahmed refused to disclose the state of the Islamic Jihad rocket stockpiles; however he did say that money and weapons reach the movement through "loyal sons of the nation."

Abu Ahmed confirmed that the majority of aid coming to the Islamic Jihad movement comes from individuals and organizations abroad, rather than states. He also said that Iran is the country that most aids the Islamic Jihad movement, saying "Our relationship with Iran is a relationship built upon mutual respect, like the rest of our relations with the resistance and opposition forces in all parts of the globe. Iran is the country that most supports the resistance in every place, not just Palestine. This is an honorable position, one that can be attested to by those near and far and that is why we respect and appreciate Iran."

Abu Ahmed described the Iranian support as being "first class financial support and it is directed specifically towards the families of martyrs, prisoners, and the injured and for charity projects."

Abu Ahmed refused to answer a question about whether Hamas gets more aid from Iran [than the Islamic Jihad movement], saying "I do not know [the answer] to this, I do not know how much Iran aids Hamas or other resistance forces."

Islamic Jihad has been described as "the Palestinian organization most loyal to the Iranian revolutionary ideology" even though it is Sunni, not Shiite.

Work accident!

From the English Al Qassam Brigades website:

Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas movement, mourned at dawn on Friday January 15th, 2010, one of its members who was martyred while performing a jihadi task in Deir Al Balah in central Gaza strip.

The Brigades confirmed in a military communiqué issued on Friday the martyrdom of the Mujahed Emad Sameer Al Salqawi (25) during his duty in the center of Gaza strip, noting that the Mujahed was martyred after a long path of jihad and sacrifice for the sake of their beloved Palestine.

As usual, the Arabic versions say that the terrorist was "wed."

There has been an increase in work accidents lately. In the past two months, I count nine terrorists who have been disappointed that there were no virgins for them where they went.

I count 20 deaths from such "work accidents" in 2009; there were 34 in 2008. We are up to 3 of them in 2010 already.

Mahmoud Abbas, drama queen

Mahmoud Abbas is really big on making big, dramatic statements that get headlines but are meaningless.

The most famous recent example was when he claimed he would not run for President again. He said this with the full knowledge that there will be no elections in the near future, and that the president of the PA is subservient to the chairman of the PLO - which just so happens to be Mahmoud Abbas. He has no intention of relinquishing power any time soon, but when he makes threats like these (and he has done it numerous times before) he gets headlines and a modicum of support from the Fatah faithful (for whom he is also the leader.)

Today, he came up with a new one. He told an Egyptian newspaper that it is possible that Israel will assassinate him, just like they assassinated Arafat. He compared himself to Arafat by saying that just like Arafat was a man of peace who signed agreements with Israel, so is he, and just like Israel killed Arafat, so might he be killed by Israel. But he believes in Allah so it's no biggie.

In the interview he also made the claim that 50% of the Jewish towns in the West Bank are empty.

Which brings up another thing he has in common with Arafat: he is a skilled liar.

(The claim that settlements are half empty reminds me of a speech given by the first head of the PLO, Ahmed Shukairy, in 1960 to the UN, where his proposal for peace was based on the idea that "There are now thousands and thousands of Jews who are clamouring to get out from this tyranny and misery which is called Israel, if they are only given an exit visa...When the alien Jews are allowed to quit the country, the situation will go back to normal." He actually claimed that Israel was preventing some half of its Jewish population from from leaving Israel. [And he compared Israel to the Nazis even then.])

Quick review of the Nexus One

Uncharacteristically, I bought the Google Nexus One phone without actually seeing it or waiting to see what problems other people have first. (This is mostly due to my wireless contract coming up and my desire to switch to T-Mobile anyway, where I save a lot of money using the family plan.) So this is my review after having it for a bit less than a day.

I already had an iPod Touch, so that is my main point of comparison.

So far, I think that the iPod has a better interface. Android isn't bad, but I miss multi-touch and sometimes the phone doesn't seem to register that I am touching the screen. The onscreen keyboard is almost as good as Apple's, but I don't seem to be able to type as quickly with it. Google has a much better system for guessing words, though.

I am indeed having the problems that others are complaining about with very spotty 3G coverage and the phone almost always goes to the very slow Edge network instead. I am assuming that Google and T-Mobile will get this squared away. (Junior Elder, who just got an older Android phone, is laughing at me as his is zipping along fine.)

The voice recognition is pretty nifty, but it requires a consistent Internet connection to work.

As I just discovered, I get zero coverage in the restroom at work, which is very frustrating (that is some of my best surfing time.)

Android Market is pretty good, but not nearly as complete as the Apple Store. for example, I couldn't find any free office automation apps.

The screen is gorgeous, but it attracts fingerprints.

Integration with Google applications (although not Google Apps) is pretty seamless. Google Talk, mail, contact lists and calendar work fine. It will automatically take the pictures from your Google contact list, which is cute. I was able to connect to other email sources, like an Exchange server, after a little playing. Yahoo Mail, for some reason, is not supported, but I downloaded a decent Yahoo browser app that makes it work well online. (I imagine Yahoo Mail Plus will work with POP.)

The battery seems to go low pretty quickly; I probably need to turn off some of the services to extend it. You need to be careful - if you keep Twitter on all the time, for example, that can suck out your battery quickly.

I am not a fan of iTunes, but I didn't like the interface to connect the internal MicroSD card to the computer. You have to "mount" the drive first, which seems silly, and I had problems accessing the files while it was plugged in to USB.

It uses a micro-USB cable, which is a bit of a pain.

The media player is competent but nothing spectacular. It can't play AVI files, for example (neither can the iPod, but I was hoping for better.) On the iPod I can change the size of the video display, but couldn't on the Nexus.

I love the form factor - it is only a little thicker than the iPod Touch and thinner than the iPhone. Don't have a good clip-on case for it, yet.

I still haven't gotten the GPS to pinpoint where I am, let alone get the supposed voice directions to work.

Still looking for a Siddur and the other Jewish texts I had on the iPod.

In short, it is not a bad phone, but not worth the amount I paid for it. Should have waited for the Nexus Two.

Israelis have 16,805 patents. Arabs have 836.

A Palestinian Arab researcher has written a study showing in stark terms Israel's technological edge over the combined Arab world.

Firas Press (Arabic) reports that Dr. Khalid Said, a Palestinian researcher from the Center for Informatics Research in Arab-American University in the West Bank, wrote a study comparing the scientific research and patents between Israel and all Arab countries.

Some of his findings:

[Research has] confirmed beyond reasonable doubt Israeli superiority in the field of science and technology to all Arab countries. Israeli universities have been centers are advanced at the global level by international classifications, especially the Hebrew University, which ranked 64 in the world, while no mention of any of the universities of the Arab League in the first five hundred.

There are nine Israeli scientists that have won Nobel Prizes, while the Arabs won 6 Nobels, three of them for political (not scientific) reasons.

Israel will spend on scientific research twice as much as the entire Arab world. The total amount spent in Israel on non-military scientific research is about 9 billion dollars, according to 2008 data.

Israel is spending 4.7% of its national output on research, and this represents the highest proportion of spending in the world, while Arab countries are spending 0.2% of their national income on research and the Arab States in Asia spend only 0.1% of their GDP on scientific research.

As for patents, the statistics are even more lopsided between the Arabs and Israel. Israel has recorded 16805 patents, while the Arabs as a whole have about 836 patents total, only 5% of the number of patents registered in Israel.

Just in 2008, Israel registered 1166 patents, more than all Arab states have done in history. [Arab nations had 71 patents in 2008. Luxembourg has more patents in history than the combined Arab nations.]

The article says that the number of research papers published between Israel and Arab nations is roughly equal, about 140,000 papers. However, the Israeli research is of a higher quality as judged by the number of times such research is cited by others, 1.7 million times versus Arab research being quoted 600,000 times.

More exports from Gaza; world media silent

Israel again today allowed shipments of flowers and strawberries from Gaza, which has become a regular occurrence over the past couple of weeks.

One would think that such a loosening of the "siege" would be worth at least one article in a major newspaper or Western website. it represents a significant change in Israeli policy and it shows that Israel is not arbitrarily hurting Gazans; that its goals aren't collective punishment but Israeli security.

Yet the only English language stories that mention the exports are from Ma'an, with a very few mentions from other Arab media. The only non-Arab mention I could find was from Xinhua.

There is a simple reason why the Western press is not eager to cover this story: it is because it contradicts the memes that they have carefully constructed over the years of a heartless Israel collectively and arbitrarily punishing the poor, starving, innocent Gazans.

It directly contradicts the accusations of Goldstone and NGOs like Human Rights Watch that Israel's goals are to hurt Gazan civilians.

Naturally, reporters who have spent so much time constructing their lattice of lies about Israel are not keen on demolishing it by publishing mere facts. In fact, the Guardian never corrected its story that claimed that Israel bans all exports from Gaza even after I emailed them about it with proof.

Is this not a story worth reporting?

Qaradawi kerfuffle

Last week, prominent sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi (who is on the record as supporting suicide terrorism) said that if Mahmoud Abbas can be proven to have instigated Operation Cast Lead as some Arabic reports have charged, he should be publicly stoned to death in Mecca. He clarified that it wasn't a fatwa, but just a call to research the circumstances.

The PA responded strongly, demanding an apology from Qaradawi. The PA also noted that Qaradawi had issued fatwas allowing Hamas to kill Fatah members in Gaza.

Hamas has now, predictably, come out in support of Qaradawi and it has slammed Fatah for instigating a campaign of slander against him.

Last year, Iran slammed Qaradawi for his anti-Shiite statements, calling him a "Zionist." Which just goes to prove that the world really is Zionist, as every Arab seems to have been accused of Zionism at some time.

Todays' influx of hate

The post I wrote about Michael Scheuer has been generating a lot of traffic, including from such wonderful neo-Nazi sites as David Duke, Stormfront and Vanguard News Network. Things slowed down a bit yesterday, but today the traffic is back up - mostly from Arutz-7.

The link that was published at Israel National News (that uncritically copied the transcript that I took from Adam Holland, including mistakes!) linked to my video excerpt has been the source for the additional traffic today from some rabid Jew-haters, so apparently some Nazi site has been linking to Arutz-7 and the secondary traffic to the video link is coming my way.

For now, I am leaving the hate comments from these visitors up. Generally the people who are coming here will not see any postings besides the one they are linking to, so they bravely follow the link here, leave a comment about how Jews are evil but it is not anti-semitic to mention that, and then they return to the hole in the ground they came from. I believe that it is instructive to keep these comments here as a reminder of how deep and wide the continuum of Jew-hatred is, as well as how entwined it is with Israel hatred.

I wonder if Scheuer is bothered that his comments resonate so strongly with such low-lifes, or if he feels that they validate his own hate?

Most of the anti-semitic comments so far have been from the US, with a smattering from Canada and Australia.

Fatah again taunts Hamas as being too Zionist

Even though Fatah is still regarded as a "moderate" group by the West, we have seen a number of times that Fatah leaders are more than willing to taunt Hamas for not being militant enough.

The latest example comes from Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf, who noted that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh urged Gaza factions to practice restraint and not shoot rockets at Israel - only a few hours after Israel warned Hamas to rein in these factions.

As in the past, the implication (and sometimes outright accusation) is that Hamas is acting as a Zionist stooge, or, in this case, puppet.

Both Fatah and Hamas keep blaming each other for the continuous failure of their national unity talks from being successful.

How NGOs misinterpret international law

NGO Monitor just published an excellent essay comparing how different NGOs try to read international law to claim that Israel does not have the right to defend itself. In summary:

The right to self-defense, including the right to combat terror, is a cornerstone of international law, enshrined in the UN Charter (Article 51) and numerous Security Council Resolutions.
In order to delegitimize Israel’s self-defensive measures, many NGOs have issued statements distorting international law or even inventing legal bases under which Israel’s rights are denied.
Al Haq and PCHR falsely claim that Israel cannot invoke self-defense in response to attacks from non-state actors in occupied territory. In making this legally incoherent argument, these NGOs misinterpret key passages in international law.
A second approach, taken by Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, alleges without any evidentiary basis that Israel’s exercise of self-defense is merely a pretext for punishing the Palestinians. There is no legal doctrine that establishes that an otherwise legal military action in self-defense becomes illegal simply because one of its alleged motives is to “punish” the aggressor.
Other groups, including Oxfam and FIDH, pay lip service to Israeli self-defense, but reject every Israeli action as a “violation of international law.”
The NGOs make no realistic suggestions of what would be considered lawful and effective measures, effectively nullifying the right to self-defense.
Palestinian NGO, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from European governments (EU, Denmark, Norway, Ireland, Netherlands), labels direct attacks on Israeli civilians as acts of “resistance.”

Read the whole thing.

Assassination attempt against PRC leader

From Ma'an:

Unknown assailants detonated an explosive device in the car of Salameh Al-Ghasseen on Wednesday, leader of the Popular Resistance's military wing, the An-Nasser Salah Ad-Din Brigades near Jabalia, northern Gaza.

An explosion was heard in the Ad-Durj neighborhood, near a Jabalia parking lot, according to sources within the de facto police, who added that no injuries were reported.

The An-Nasser Salah Ad-Din Brigades said they condemned the attack against its leader "by a group of outlaws and troublemakers," in a statement.

Not sure who is involved in this, but having terrorist leaders afraid that they will be killed by their own people can only be a good thing.

The PRC Saladin Brigades website prefaces their condemnation of the attack by implying that this was a Zionist plot and that they will cut off the hands of those who try to impede them. Big surprise, there.

Martyr funeral fight!

Palestine Press Agency reports of tensions between Islamic Jihad and Salafist Muslim groups in Gaza.

The Salafist group wanted to take credit for two of the three "martyrs" killed by Israel when they were shooting rockets on Sunday. During the funeral, arranged by Islamic Jihad, the Salafists infiltrated the procession and managed to wrap one of the bodies in their flag before being chased off by the IJ members who re-wrapped the body with their own flag.

Although the Salafists had been at loggerheads with Hamas, particularly during the mosque takeover by their Jund al-Ansar Allah group a few months ago, this is the first sign that they have problems with the Islamic Jihad terrorists as well.

I just want to see video of the terrorists fighting over the dead bodies at the funeral.

Qassam explodes in Gaza, and the launch site was...

Palestine Press Agency reports that an blast in northern Gaza came from a Qassam rocket that exploded before it got off the ground.

The explosion was near the Uthman ibn Affan school.

Just another war crime that will get no attention in the press.

Prisoner statistics fun

A Palestinian Arab organization has released the shocking information that 197 Arab prisoners have died in Israeli prisons since 1967, thus proving Israeli human rights violations against its Arab prisoners.

Terrible!

Until you look at the normal mortality rate for Palestinian Arabs. According to the UN, the normal mortality rate is 3.7 per thousand. if we assume that Israel has imprisoned an average of 5000 Arabs (probably a low number) at any time over the past 42 years, then the number of expected deaths over that time period would be 777.

Ah, but you might object, prisoners are usually young and healthy, and their mortality rates should be much less than the general population!

I don't have the breakdown of mortality rates for Palestinian Arabs by age, so I will use US figures. In recent years the rate for the age group 25-34 has gone between 100 and 140 per 100,000. I'm sure the numbers were worse in the 1970s, but there were more prisoners in the 2000s, so we can safely split the difference and conservatively estimate a mortality rate of 120 per 100,000 for Americans. (The real number for Palestinian Arabs in prison is undoubtedly higher because some prisoners are over 35, and their mortality rate is nearly double the 25-34 age group.)

With those numbers, we would expect 6 deaths a year in a prison population of 5000, or a total of 252 deaths since 1967.

In other words, typical Americans between 25 and 34 have a 27% greater chance of dying in any given year than their Arab counterparts in Israeli prisons!