Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, January 31, 2010

They (think they) found Arafat's invisible poison!

Bassam Abu Sharif, a former adviser to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, says that the toxic material that killed the late president is called 'Iim', a substance which is colorless, has no smell and was placed in food or drink that has given to 'Abu Ammar.'

Iim? (The word in quotes transliterates to "althalim.")

The investigation continues. They know who killed Arafat, they know why, they know how; all they need is the tiniest bit of ....evidence.

Once again, Mahmoud Abbas has rejected the idea of Israel being a Jewish state. The evidence he brings is the fact that the letter that Harry Truman wrote recognizing Israel had the words "Jewish state" crossed out and replaced with "State of Israel."

This is not the first time the PA brought out this argument; Saeb Erekat floated the same idea last April.

The argument is bogus, of course. The UN had declared the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state, and Truman was recognizing Israel based on the UN's language. He wrote the letter before Israel had named itself. Clark Clifford (not Truman) only changed the letter after Israel declared itself a state. It did not reflect any ambivalence by the US as to what exactly Israel was.

In fact, going through UN archives, one sees the terminology "Jewish State" used thousands of times. One interesting examples is the ICJ opinion against Israel's defensive barrier, which says "On 14 May 1948, the independence of the Jewish State was declared." (Admittedly, most of the more recent examples are usually Arabs who rail against the concept as being racist, at the same time that they reside in states that openly declare themselves Arab and Muslim.)

It looks like Mabhouh was assassinated

It appears that Ma'an's early story about the death of Hamas co-founder Muhammad Al-Mabhouh being from cancer was not accurate, and he was in fact assassinated. (I was waiting for the UAE police to say something on the matter.)

One Israeli media outlet says it was a Mossad hit. Inyan Merkazi says that Mabhouh was negotiating a deal to transfer arms from Iran to Gaza and was killed by four Mossad hitmen who first interrogated him and got lots of good information.

Two interesting Hebrew news stories (updated)

SShender links to two interesting stories in the Hebrew media.

One is a Ma'ariv article that quotes an analysis of the footnotes in the Goldstone report, done by Im Tirtzu, that are negative against the IDF, and finds that 92% of them come from Israeli NGOs who are funded by the New Israel Fund, which spends huge amounts of money - so far over $140 million - from abroad to fund these far-left, often anti-government NGOs. Examples include Adalah, Breaking the Silence, B'Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, HaMoked, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Yesh Din, and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.

The other is a Channel 2 video report about the "religious war" in Gaza, where Christians have been subject to abuse and worse by Hamas since the coup. The video shows where Christian holy books were burned and schools sacked.

Here is an English translation of that story: (h/t "Guest")

Happy Tu B'Shvat! Plant a tree in Israel!

YNet has some good stats on the eve of Tu B'Shvat the traditional Jewish New Year for trees) from the Jewish National Fund:

Israel is the only country in the world which has more trees now than it did 100 years ago. In 1901, the year in which JNF was founded, Israel contained only 14,000 dunam (roughly 3,500 acres) of forest land altogether.

By 1980 the figure reached 556,000 dunam and currently Israel contains 855,663 dunam of forestry. JNF has planted over 240 million trees in its years of existence.

"Each year JNF plants an average of 15-20,000 dunam. The plating period is between October and the end pf March," Stenzler said.

61 times as much forest in Israel compared to 1901!

Go here or here to plant a tree yourself.

Israel testing UAV "flying ambulance"

Coolness from the IDF page:

Rescue without human touch: The Air-Mule UAV which assists in medical evacuation has recently passed its initial flight tests. The new UAV, which weighs a ton, will be able to carry equipment and fly into complicated places, such as in urban areas and crevices. In addition to that, the Air-Mule takes off vertically, similar to a helicopter, and its stability will be guaranteed by a unique flight supervision system.
Urban Aeronautics, the company producing the UAV, is one of the world's leading companies in the development of propellers which are installed inside the aircraft instead of outside. The advantage of this location of the propeller is that it allows the aircraft to carry out a wider range of operations in narrow places as well – as opposed to conventional airplanes and helicopters which can only operate in open areas.

"The number one cause of aerial accidents is damage caused to the rotor, and we managed to overcome this obstacle," says the CEO of Urban Aeronautics, Dr. Rafi Yoeli.
During the tests, the Air-Mule succeeded in overcoming difficult weather conditions, and the test team was very satisfied with its flight abilities during a storm that occurred at the test area. The Air-Mule is currently undergoing additional tests further examining its stability and its ability to fly between two previously defined locations.

A manned variant of the actual machine, designed by Israelis, can be seen here:

X-Hawk: Medical Rescue and Evacuation

Medical emergencies arrive without regard to location or time. Unfortunately, emergency medical teams don’t have the same luxury. Both location and time are factors that can hamper their effectiveness and make all the difference between life and death. Medical technology may be miraculous, but it’s not much good unless it can get to you.

Traditional ambulances are subject to the whims of urban traffic patterns. Everyone knows the desperate sound of a wailing siren stuck in a rush-hour bottleneck. Even MEDEVAC helicopters have limitations. We’ve all seen footage of a helicopter, it’s rotor hovering precariously close to a mountainside, struggling to lower a medic to a remote mountain ledge.

X-Hawk, in its air ambulance configuration offers a revolutionary capacity for emergency rescue teams to reach their destination quickly, in spite of practical obstacles or complex landscapes.

What makes X-Hawk so much better?
‘Rotorless’ design eliminates the serious safety hazards associated with helicopter rotors and permits secure access to any location.

Arrival time is guaranteed and predictably speedy with effectively zero vulnerability to contingencies such as traffic or other access obstacles.

The capability to sustain a safe, stable hover adjacent to a window, wall or slope or to land safely in a congested space allows access and evacuation from virtually any location without the use of ladders or hoists.

X-Hawk is significantly quieter than any helicopter, an important consideration with regard to urban environments.

Cool!

UPDATE: Jameel beat me to this story by a few months.

Large IDF graffiti in Gaza

No one can doubt that IDF soldiers did do some minor but unprofessional things in Gaza, like leaving graffiti behind.

Apparently, one IDF soldier decided to leave graffiti on a much larger scale - a 60 meter Star of David in a field in southern Gaza carved out by some heavy, but maneuverable, vehicle:

I'm surprised that this was not mentioned as a war crime by Goldstone.

(From the UNITAR report commissioned by Goldstone.)

Hamas accuses Israel of assassinating co-founder

I reported last week that one of the co-founders of Hamas Al Qassam Brigades died of terminal cancer last week in Dubai.

Well, Hamas launched an "investigation," and determined that it wasn't cancer that got him - it was an assassination plot by the Mossad!

The high-tech Israelis apparently killed him through "an electrical appliance that was held to his head," according to his brother, who must be credible according to UN fact-finding standards.

Hamas doesn't mention the mysterious appliance, but does say that it "holds the Zionist enemy responsible" for Mabhouh's death and that it "will not go unpunished." The details of the Hamas forensics investigation will be revealed "in a timely manner."

I guess the Mossad is losing its touch, if it waits for a guy to have terminal cancer before dispatching a crack team to assassinate him.

Goldstone ignored his own UN-supplied evidence (UPDATED)

As we wait for the IDF response to Goldstone to be released, I looked a little further into the Al Badr flour mill incident that Goldstone chose as a perfect example of Israel trying to starve Gazans to death.

As the New York Times reported:

The Goldstone report asserts that the Bader flour mill “was hit by an airstrike, possibly by an F-16.” The Israeli investigators say they have photographic proof that this is false, that the mill was accidentally hit by artillery in the course of a firefight with Hamas militiamen.
The dispute is significant since the United Nations report asserts that “the destruction of the mill was carried out for the purpose of denying sustenance to the civilian population,” an explicit war crime.

It turns out that Goldstone had photographic proof that the flour mill was not hit by airstrikes as well - and purposefully ignored it.

The Goldstone commission asked UNITAR, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, to examine and analyze publicly available satellite images of various locations in Gaza to determine the dates and extent of damage. One of the sites was the infamous flour mill.

From Goldstone:

The Mission visited the site of the air strikes and surveyed the surrounding area in Sudaniyah, west of Jabaliyah. It met and interviewed the Hamada brothers, joint owners of the el-Bader flour mill, on four occasions. It spoke with representatives of the business community about the context and consequences of the strike on the flour mill. Mr. Hamada also testified at the public hearings in Gaza.493...

919. On 9 January, at around 3 or 4 a.m., the flour mill was hit by an air strike, possibly by an F-16. The missile struck the floor that housed one of the machines indispensable to the mill’s functioning, completely destroying it. The guard who was on duty at the time called Mr. Hamada to inform him that the building had been hit and was on fire. He was unhurt. In the next 60 to 90 minutes the mill was hit several times by missiles fired from an Apache helicopter. These missiles hit the upper floors of the factory, destroying key machinery. Adjoining buildings, including the grain store, were not hit. The strikes entirely disabled the factory and it has not been back in operation since.

922. The Mission found the Hamada brothers to be credible and reliable witnesses. It has no reason to doubt the veracity of their testimony

So, Goldstone reports based on the credible Hamada brothers that the flour mill was struck by F-16s and Apache helicopters on January 9th.

What did UNITAR say?

The Al-Badr Flour Factory of Sudaniyya appears in the satellite imagery to be composed of multiple building sites situated along the north side of El-Bahar Street. Based on the detailed assessment from the imagery, the only visible damages detected to the factory complex are to the southernmost building which was severely damaged along the southeastern side. The damages appear to have occurred between 16 and 18 January 2009. Within the immediate 500m vicinity of the factory complex there are a total of 43 detected damage sites, including 33 destroyed or severely damaged buildings. The majority of this identified damages occurred between 10 and 18 January 2009. There are clear indications in the imagery of extensive IDF tank movement and related damage to both buildings and vegetation cover in this area during the last three days of the conflict. It is probable, given
the damage signatures, that the majority of damage in this area was caused by intense IDF ground fire. It is important to note that because of the angle of satellite imagery acquisition, it is possible that severe damage to the north and eastern side of the flour factory buildings has not been detected.

UNITAR, based on a time sequence of satellite images, finds that all the damage seems to have occurred a full week after Goldstone's "credible witnesses" said it was strafed by multiple air attacks - while the IDF was on the ground, fighting. And damage on the upper floors done by Apache helicopters would presumably be visible on satellite images.

Here is UNITAR's image, and what Google shows there in an image copyrighted 2009 but that appears to have been taken beforehand:

As we have seen many times, Goldstone fully accepted testimony from Gazans as being credible, even when there was abundant evidence showing otherwise. And in this case, the evidence was information that he himself commissioned!

UPDATE: The IDF report is out, and it says that tank shells did hit an upper floor of the flour mill on January 9th, returning fire. Afterwards, it coordinated firefighters to come and put out the fire. No airstrikes as Goldstone asserts. The IDF report also states that no IDF soldiers were on the roof of the mill (where they would be exposed to enemy fire,) where Hamada testified he found multiple bullets.

So apparently there was fire on the 9th that would have not been picked up by satellite, but it was not from airstrikes as Goldstone and Hamada claimed. The fire was justified as part of a battle.

There was clearly fighting in that neighborhood, as PCHR records that every person killed in that area outside December 27th was a militant. The IDF could not say conclusively that the flour mill was used by Hamas but it says it has some evidence that it was so.

Oh, and another Hamas fact...

A little more proof that Hamas did target civilians during Cast Lead, notwithstanding their denials.

Omri at Mere Rhetoric points to the fact that Hamas sent SMS messages to Israeli civilians during the war. They didn't warn people to take cover - on the contrary, they said that the Qassams would reach them and that the shelters will not protect them.

Sounds like a pretty explicit threat and statement of intent. Too bad Goldstone missed that one, too.

What do you do with a used Qassam rocket?

If you are Yaron Bob, you make it into art:

And you donate some of the profits towards rocket shelters.

Details here.

(h/t sshender)

Israelis marking goods as "Made in Palestine"?

Firas Press reports on an (apparently) Arab study of Israeli settler policy.

Among its claims is that Jewish farmers in the Jordan Valley are labeling their produce as being "Made in Palestine," not so much for the European anti-Israel market as for selling the products in Arab countries. Some of the farmers will set up partnerships and front companies with local Arabs to sell their products to Arab consumers abroad. The products include dates, herbs and cherry tomatoes.

Well, they are made in Palestine by Palestinian Jews, even if those Jews don't refer to the area that way any more....

Really bad anti-semitism in Malmo, Sweden

Erik Johansson in the comments points to an interview with the mayor of Malmo, Sweden, Ilmar Reepalu, where he says, "We don't accept either Zionism nor antisemitism. They are both extremes that pose them selves above other groups and regard those [groups] as inferior."

And in response to a pro-Israel demonstration, he stated "I would have wished for the Jewish congregation [in Malmo] to take a stand against Israel's violations of the civilian population of Gaza. Instead they choose to hold a demonstration at Stortorget [a big square in Malmo] that could send the wrong signal."

In other words, Jews who support Israel are almost a legitimate target for anti-semitism.

The rest of the article points out how bad things are in this liberal enclave of Malmo. The mayor is asked about his opinion of Jews who feel so threatened by Arab and leftist violence that they are considering fleeing the city (the mayor is dismayed), and about Jewish children being harassed in schools (the mayor says this is a school matter.)

To the question mentioning that synagogues in Malmo are forced to hire their ownsecurity firms, the mayor responded that he has had swastikas painted on his apartment door as well and thatthe Right is responsible. The interviewer mentions that the Jews believe that extreme Left and Muslims are responsible for their harassment, and the mayor disagreed.

From other articles in the same newspaper, it appears that Jews in Malmo are in serious fear, and that the mayor's attitude is encouraging this. This article mentions how even blonde Jews are afraid, how Jews are hiding any public signs of their Jewishness, how the Jewish cemetery was firebombed, how that pro-Israel demonstration in the town square was met with eggs, bottles and firecrackers - while the police looked on.

A Jewish soccer team does not dare to play away games because of verbal and physical violence against them. Angry Jew-hating fans stormed the field last August forcing the players to retreat.

This article is about a Jewish family moving to Israel specifically because of the anti-semitism in Malmo.

Here are a number of incidents where Jewish students are harassed in schools, including a young man who was threatened with "Halal slaughter."

Anti-semitic crime doubled in the city in the past year, to 79 incidents,and most are probably not reported.

Things are in a really bad way in Sweden, and the attitude of the mayor is clearly not helping the Jewish community there in the least.

Hamas lies about Shalit in response to Goldstone

Palestine Press Agency says that Hamas' response to Goldstone also talks about how it is treating Gilad Shalit.

Their "commission of inquiry" claims that the armed groups holding Shalit are "committed to the Third Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, saying he has the proper amounts of food and was being held in a safe and clean manner that preserves his dignity."

The only problem is that the Third Geneva Conventions also specifically says in Article 125

Art. 125. Subject to the measures which the Detaining Powers may consider essential to ensure their security or to meet any other reasonable need, the representatives of religious organizations, relief societies, or any other organization assisting prisoners of war, shall receive from the said Powers, for themselves and their duly accredited agents, all necessary facilities for visiting the prisoners, for distributing relief supplies and material, from any source, intended for religious, educational or recreative purposes, and for assisting them in organizing their leisure time within the camps. Such societies or organizations may be constituted in the territory of the Detaining Power or in any other country, or they may have an international character.

The Detaining Power may limit the number of societies and organizations whose delegates are allowed to carry out their activities in its territory and under its supervision, on condition, however, that such limitation shall not hinder the effective operation of adequate relief to all prisoners of war.

The special position of the International Committee of the Red Cross in this field shall be recognized and respected at all times.

As soon as relief supplies or material intended for the above-mentioned purposes are handed over to prisoners of war, or very shortly afterwards, receipts for each consignment, signed by the prisoners' representative, shall be forwarded to the relief society or organization making the shipment. At the same time, receipts for these consignments shall be supplied by the administrative authorities responsible for guarding the prisoners.

Hamas has never allowed any third party to visit Shalit. As far as I can tell, Hamas never specified how Red Cross visitation would compromise Hamas' security.

Also, Article 13 states "prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity." This was violated with Hamas' parade mocking Shalit in front of thousands of Gazans in 2008.

Hamas frightened of Egypt (guest post by Zvi)

A couple of recent comments in response to my post about Hamas groveling to Saudi Arabia (the publication of that letter is making waves in PalArab media) are worth posting.

Sshender pointed out that Khaled Meshal was acting in at least a humiliating way to Egypt as well, pointing out a Hebrew link from Channel 10 to a hostile Egyptian interview with him and to general statements that Mubarak has been making about Hamas.

Zvi follows up with a worthwhile analysis:

Here's how I see this. It's not about the Saudis at all. It's about Egypt.

Hamas knows that if Egypt ever becomes REALLY SERIOUS about hurting Hamas, Hamas is going to be in extremely hot water. Egypt can shut down the tunnels if it wants to do that, both by building as deep and strong a wall as it wants to build, and (if Egypt gets really serious) by arresting or shooting anyone on the Egyptian side who participates in the tunnel "industry."

The Egyptian steel wall sends that signal very clearly. In fact, ever since the news about the steel wall became public, the Hamas leadership appears - to me, at any rate - to have shown increasing signs of panic. I can see why; if it works, then Hamas can't bring in weapons, can't tax the tunnelers and can't smuggle its people in and out. If it works, then Gazans really WILL have a crisis on their hands, and Hamas will be very clearly to blame.

Egypt, for its part, is furious with Hamas for two reasons: 1. Hamas humiliated the Egyptian government when the Egyptians tried to reconcile the factions, and again when Egypt tried to work out an exchange of prisoners between Hamas and Israel. 2. Hamas has kept parading in front of the world its closeness to Iran, at a time when the Egyptians are absolutely apoplectic to find that Hezbollah was planning for terror attacks against the Suez Canal, which is one of Egypt's primary strategic assets, and against other Egyptian targets. As of last week, Egypt's state prosecutor was asking for the death penalty for the terrorists.

The Hamas attempt to do what it did last time, and use civilians to camouflage an attack on the Egyptian border (I'm assuming that this is what happened) went very wrong when Hamas murdered an Egyptian border policeman in cold blood.

[Egypt has shown its displeasure not only with the wall but also by kicking out the pro-Hamas demonstrators and the public announcement that no more leftist aid convoys will travel through Egypt. - EoZ]

Egypt said earlier this week that it would consider *cough* throwing the Gazans under the bus *cough* withdrawing completely from Palestinian affairs. It has pretty firmly rejected Hamas flirtations.

So now Hamas is going back to the Saudis. Why? Most importantly, because if the Saudis (who have been flirting a bit with the Syrians lately) actually agree to get involved again, this will make the Egyptians look isolated and powerless. Hamas leaders may be calculating that the Egyptians will immediately try to restore their diplomatic prestige by rushing to mediate something (this is a guess, I will admit. ; - ) And an engaged Egypt is not going to simply seal off Gaza and let Hamas stew in its own violence and stupidity.

While Hamas made the Saudis look like useful idiots last time around, the Saudis are suckers for things that will make them look influential in the region, as long as it doesn't involve making peace with Israel. So under normal circumstances, I would expect them to go for it.

But at the moment, the Saudis are fighting a war against what they see as Iranian proxies in Yemen. While Huthi forces are apparently trying to request a truce at the moment, the Saudis are apparently having none of it (I'm reading only a little bit into this column: http://asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=2&id=19655). The little snipe at Hamas in the column also suggests that Hamas is very much out of favor in Saudi circles. So I'm expecting the Saudis to ignore this.

Hamas will keep trying to find mediators that it hasn't already humiliated. I'm betting that Hamas will try the Turks next, and the Turks are likely to go for it. It's unclear whether Fatah will accept Turkish mediation.

Meanwhile, Hamas has lost the so-called "legitimacy" of an "electoral mandate, weakening its position among Gazans." Useful idiots will continue to willfully forget that in 2007, Hamas gunmen violently overthrew the elected order, threw their opponents off of buildings and forcefully occupied Gaza, putting it under the control of people who are living in Damascus. Now that the parliamentary term has expired, the fig leaf is simply gone. Hamas has refused to cooperate with PA elections, and that's how things stand.

None of this means that Hamas is on its last legs or that it will change its behavior or its associates. Hamas leaders have been very clever liars and very clever when it comes to survival - all the while continuing to try to murder as many Jewish civilians as possible.