Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

PA declares honor killings to be murder

[PA] ministers voted to alter the penal code on "family honor" killings, upgrading the crime to murder.

"No one can take the law into his own hands," the cabinet said, adding that they agreed to the change "to ensure that the principles of equality and justice are in line with the Palestinian Basic Law, the Declaration of Independence, and the Palestinian Authority's commitment to national conventions and international treaties."

I find it interesting that this news item was buried inside a completely different story, and that the PA does not appear to want to make a big deal out if this, perhaps in fear of traditionalist reaction. Based on the wording, it might be that they are making this law more for Western consumption than for any real moral reasons.

We will see if it gets implemented.

The PA has been trying hard to stop any products made under Jewish auspices in the West Bank to be used in the territories under their control.

The cabinet of the Ramallah-based Palestinian government voted on Monday to approve a law prohibiting the entrance of settlement goods into areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

Today, the crack PA police hit paydirt, as they confiscated 400 turkeys in Bethlehem that supposedly came from Jewish settlements.

Presumably, they will kill the turkeys and burn them, as they have been doing with other Jewish West Bank goods that they discover.

Quick - someone tell PETA!

Today's incitement

Palestine Today quotes Sheikh Kamal Khatib, deputy head of Israel's Islamic movement, as saying that new cracks in the Al Aqsa mosque are certainly from Israeli tunnels being dug beneath the mosque, and that the Israelis are actively planning the construction of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount.

He added that if such a terrible thing should happen, it would be a curse on all Arabs and Muslims.

Mabhouh finger-pointing update

Everyone is blaming everyone else for the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai - but almost everyone blames the one country that there is no evidence for [yet].

The latest: Dubai police extradited two Palestinian Arabs from Jordan and arrested them in connection with the murder, and one of them is a PA official. So Hamas is accusing the PA of working with the Israelis in planning the hit.

The PA, meanwhile, says that Hamas members themselves must have been involved, and that Israeli intelligence has penetrated the highest leadership positions of Hamas (something that Hamas itself has been investigating.)

Dubai police had meanwhile given out photos of eleven people they say were involved, plus a very neat videotape showing parts of the operation (same link.) The eleven people had passports from England, Ireland, France and Germany.

For their part, the British are denying that any of their people were involved, saying it was the Mossad.

The only report I've seen that doubts the Mossad was involved was this same one from the Daily Telegraph which says "video footage and a series of passport photographs released by the Dubai police last night suggested a much more convoluted and bizarre operation than is normally associated with Mossad, which has a reputation for ruthless professionalism." I saw at least one report that said that all eleven people were staying in the same room across the hall from Mabhouh, which seems odd unless it was a huge suite.

PalArab "refugees" killing each other in Lebanon again

From Naharnet:

An uneasy calm has returned to Ain el-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon as a ceasefire halted clashes between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's mainstream Fatah faction and the Islamist movement Usbat al-Ansar.

At least two people were killed in the clashes which broke out following the murder of Fatah officer Mohammed Tamim in Ain el-Hiwleh.

A Palestinian official said the small Islamist movement Usbat al-Ansar ambushed Tamim at the main entrance to the camp.

He said the killing prompted gun battles between supporters of the two rival factions who were using rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons.

The other fatality was a woman identified as Nejmah Ali Younes.

Lebanese troops cordoned off all entrances to Ain el-Hilweh as many residents fled in fear, seeking refuge in a nearby mosque.

The Lebanese army does not enter Palestinian camps, leaving security inside the shantytowns in Palestinian hands.

Other sources say 4 were killed.

I cannot be certain, but I do not recall any UN fact-finding missions after the 2007 Lebanon fighting in the camps that killed hundreds. Maybe the UN only cares about Palestinian Arab lives when they are killed by certain, special types of people.

HuffPo prints MPAC lies

Israeli ambassador Michael Oren attempted to give a speech at University of California-Irvine last week, and he was continuously interrupted by screaming protesters who would typically say one word, get lots of applause from the anti-Israel members of the audience, and then get led away. As the Orange County Register writes:

Eleven people were arrested Monday evening during a raucous lecture at UC Irvine where Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren came to talk about U.S.-Israel relations. (UCI earlier said that 12 were arrested.)

Oren was interrupted 10 times Monday while trying to give his speech before 500 people at the UCI Student Center, where there was heavy security. Oren took a 20 minute break after the fourth protest, asked for hospitality and resumed his speech, only to be interrupted again by young men yelling at him every few minutes. Many members of the audience also applauded Oren.
After the 10th interruption, several dozens students who opposed Oren’s talk got up and walked out and staged a protest outside. It is not clear whether they were members of the UCI Muslim Student Union, which issued an email earlier in the day condemning Oren’s appearance on campus.
Oren continued talking, completing his speech at 6:42 p.m. Originally, he planned to take questions from the audience. But that wpicture-2as canceled after the repeated delays.
The second person yelled about “Zionism.”

The third yelled, “Israel.” The fourth could not be clearly heard.

UCI Police Chief Paul Henisey said it is not clear whether any of the protesters are UCI students.

Mark Petracca, a UCI political science professor, lost his temper and yelled, “This is embarrassing … Shame on all of you.”

UCI Chancellor Michael Drake also told the audience that he was embarrassed by the outburst.

Drake and Petracca were booed by many people, and applauded by others.

Hours earlier, UCI’s Muslim Student Union said in an email today that its members “condemn and oppose the presence of Michael Oren, the ambassador of Israel to the United States, on our campus today. We resent that the Law School and the Political Science Department on our campus have agreed to cosponsor a public figure who represents a state that continues to break international and humanitarian law and is condemned by more UN Human Rights Council resolutions than all other countries in the world combined."

In other words, the Muslim student Union was fighting against free speech.

Now, an MPAC leader writes in the Huffington Post that the fact that 11 students were arrested - for the charge of disrupting a public event - is itself a violation of free speech!

One may disagree with the style and tactics demonstrated by the 11 students, but the central issue is not responding to the disruption by the students. Rather, the main focus should be on understanding what led to that action. The protest of Ambassador Oren's speech did not occur within a vacuum, but rather as a reaction to a string of numerous attempts to stigmatize Muslim students of UCI and squelch their free speech.

The university needs to acknowledge the history of institutional harassment of Muslim students as they engage in campus activism. Muslim students complain that their requests for Palestinian speakers to be hosted by the university, similar to the hosting of Ambassador Michael Oren, are typically rejected or ignored.

Here is a list events that the Muslim Students Union have sponsored over the past few years, from DiscovertheNetworks:

MSU’s hatred of Jews and Israel is profound. At the organization's on-campus events, its members commonly wear green armbands to signal their allegiance to the terrorist group Hamas. MSU also has displayed posters on the UCI campus that equate the Star of David with the Nazi Swastika.

In February 2001, MSU hosted the radical cleric Imam Muhammad al-Asi, who told his UCI audience: “The Zionist-Israeli lobby ... is taking the United States government and the United States people to the abyss. We have a psychosis in the Jewish community that is unable to co-exist equally and brotherly with other human beings. You can take a Jew out of the ghetto, but you cannot take the ghetto out of the Jew.”

In 2002, a sign posted on the UCI campus by MSU stated: “Israelis Love to Kill Innocent Children.” That same year, MSU sponsored a speech by the radical Oakland imam, Abdel Malik-Ali, in the course of which he said: “Israel wants Palestinians to have their own state. It’s beyond that now. No. That’s off the table. One state. Majority rules. Us. The Muslims.”

On February 26, 2004, MSU again brought Malik-Ali to the UCI campus to deliver a speech titled “America under Siege: The Zionist Hidden Agenda.” According to UCI’s student newspaper, he “implied that Zionism is a mixture of ‘chosen people-ness and white supremacy’; that the Iraqi war is in the process of ‘Israelization’; that the Zionists had the ‘Congress, the media and the FBI in their back pocket’; that the downfall of former Democratic [presidential] front-runner Howard Dean was due to the Zionists; and that the Mossad [Israel’s intelligence agency] would have assassinated Al Gore if he was elected [in 2000] just to bring Joe Lieberman (his Jewish vice-president) to power.”

In the spring of 2004, MSU and the Society of Arab Students (SAS) co-sponsored their fourth annual “Zionism Awareness Week,” during which members of both groups again wore green armbands to show their support for Hamas.

In June 2004, MSU asked UCI’s graduating Muslim students to wear green sashes bearing the word “shahada,” the Arabic word for the “martyrdom” of a suicide bomber, to their graduation ceremony. Two dozen students complied with this MSU request.

At a February 2005 MSU-organized event held in the center quad at UC Irvine, Abdel Malik-Ali stood at a podium bearing the inscription “Desperation of the Zionist Lobby,” and told his audience of some 150 mostly Muslim listeners: “Zionism is a mixture, a fusion of the concept of white supremacy and the chosen people.” He complained about Zionist control of the American media, Zionist complicity in the war in Iraq, and Zionists’ ability to deflect justified criticism. “You will have to hear more about the Holocaust when you accuse them of their Nazi behavior,” Malik-Ali declared. “One state. Majority rule,” he added, to rousing applause. “Check that out. Us. The Muslims.”

At a March 2006 event at UC Irvine, MSU led as many as 1,000 Muslim students in protesting the decision of the event’s sponsors to publicly display the “offensive” Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, cartoons that had recently set off massive demonstrations and riots throughout the Muslim world. In front of several television camera crews, MSU members began the protest by rolling out green prayer mats and reciting a prayer in Arabic. Many of them wore their customary green, pro-Hamas armbands. When a crowd of counter-protesters stood behind an American and Israeli flag and sang “God Bless America,” the Muslim students responded by chanting: “Hey Republicans Stop the Hate! All You Do Is Instigate,” and “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho! The Prophet’s Cartoons Have Got to Go!”

MSU organized a May 2006 “Holocaust in the Holy Land” event which consisted of four days of anti-Israel lectures and presentations portraying the Jewish State as the modern-day avatar of Nazi Germany. The keynote speaker for the event was the Holocaust-denier Norman Finkelstein, whose speech, titled “Obstacles to Peace: Israelis or Palestinians,” identified Israel as the world’s worst human rights violator. Adjacent to a mock Israeli “apartheid” wall which they had set up in the center of the UCI campus, MSU students wearing leather sandals and taqiyahs (skullcaps) distributed fliers bearing the title “Exploiting the Holocaust to Justify Genocide.” A quote from Finkelstein himself appeared just below: “The Holocaust has become the ideological justification for the oppression of the Palestinian people.”

Other guest speakers at the week’s festivities included Abdel Malik-Ali, Muhammed Al-Asi (whose lecture was titled “Hamas: The People’s Choice”), and Rabbi David Weiss of Neturei Karta (whose speech was called "Zionism Hijacking Judaism).”

Abdel Malik-Ali was the featured speaker at an October 5, 2006 MSU event, where he told a crowd of roughly 200 cheering students: “They [Jews] think they are superman, but we, the Muslims, are kryptonite. They [Jews] know that their days are numbered.”

In May 2007, MSU held an “Israel: Apartheid Resurrected” week that featured twice-daily speeches and rallies condemning the State of Israel. On May 17, Abdel Malik-Ali delivered a lecture titled “UC Intifada: How you can help Palestine,” wherein he informed UCI’s Muslim students (who again wore green armbands as well as T-shirts reading “UC Intifada” and “Freedom Fighter”) that a martyr’s death is the most honorable form of death. “Victory or martyrdom,” Malik-Ali asserted, are the only two viable options available to the Palestinians in their battle against Israel. Refusing to recognize Israel’s existence, Malik-Ali referred to that country not by its name, but only as the “Zionist Apartheid State.”

In 2007, a UC Irvine student blogger identifying herself as “OC Apostate” (she had recently left the Muslim faith in which she was raised) was forced to shut down her blog (wherein she criticized Islam’s intolerance), for fear that members of the campus MSU would harm her family in retribution for her apostasy. She explained:

“I started a blog as way to express myself. Word finally got around that it was me [who was writing it] and my family got threats that if I didn’t shut up something might happen. I didn’t want them to suffer for something I had done. So I deleted everything. … They [other Muslim students] saw me with my hair out [of the hijab]. They knew who I was. The reaction was a lot of gossip and speculation about my upbringing. Women who I didn’t know gave me dirty looks. … I don’t underestimate them. … The notion of a traitor in your own community is the worse thing that could possibly happen. There is no room for ex-Muslims in a Muslim society. The punishment for being an apostate is death.”

MSU invited Yvonne Ridley, a reporter and activist for Iranian PRESS-TV, to speak at UC Irvine on November 12, 2007. Ridley, who also writes a column for the New York-based publication Daily Muslims, is a member of the Respect Party led by British Member of Parliament George Galloway. She was formerly employed as a senior editor by Al Jazeera and helped launch that website’s English-language version in 2003.

Ridley supports divestment from Israel, a nation she has described as “that disgusting little watchdog of America that is festering in the Middle East.” She says that her Respect Party “is a Zionist-free party,” adding that “if there was any Zionism in the Respect Party they would be hunted down and kicked out. We have no time for Zionists.”

In April 2008, MSU sponsored an event titled “Never Again? The Palestinian Holocaust.” It included presentations bearing such titles as: “Blood on Our Hands: American Involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”; “Gaza: Life in a Cage”; “Rachel Corrie: The Spirit of Sacrifice”; “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”; and “Death to Apartheid: A Farewell to Israel.” Among the featured speakers were Norman Finkelstein, Anna Baltzer, Ilan Pappe, Abdel Malik-Ali, Muhammad al-Asi, and the parents of the late Rachel Corrie.

MSU’s aforementioned Muslim student newspaper, Alkalima, once published a special report called “Zionism: The Forgotten Apartheid,” which glorified Hamas and Hezbollah as noble warriors fighting Israeli oppression.

Somehow, it seems that the MSU at UCI has been practicing "free speech" to the point of incitement. For them to claim that their free speech is being squelched is ridiculous - they have been allowed to push pure hate for nearly a decade.

Today's incitement

From Ma'an:

Palestinian Supreme Judge Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi warned on Monday that Israeli institutions, settler groups and the current Israeli government are working to fulfill the 18th century Rabbi Vilna Goan's prophecy declaring that the Third Temple would be re-built by 16 March 2010.

Although I am in awe of many Israeli technological achievements, I think that building a Holy Temple in a month might just be beyond their capabilities. And if the Temple ends up being built by God Himself, I don't think that Tamimi's protests will be worth much.

(Tamimi is purposefully misinterpreting an already very flawed Ha'aretz article from last year. The "prophecy" does not appear to be from the Vilna Gaon. See the comments here. )

Israeli tool to remove pomegranate seeds wins award

Not all Israeli innovations are high-tech.

From Fruitnet:

The international industry experts have chosen the winner of the FRUIT LOGISTICA Innovation Award (FLIA) 2010. It is a device designed to remove pomegranate seeds made by the company Mehadrin Tnuport Export of Israel. The coveted Innovation Award was presented for the Arils Removal Tool (ART). This device facilitates the quick, clean and easy removal of seeds from pomegranates, allowing consumers to conveniently enjoy this vitamin-rich fruit. Noa Ohad, Shoham Product Development, accepted the award. The company expects the development of the Arils Removal Tool to increase the sale of pomegranates.

According to a different fruit website, Fresh Plaza, the tool garnered some excitement at the expo:

With the ART you can quickly and easily remove the arils from the pomegranate, without getting sticky hands. The shape and size of the ART makes you think of a citrus press. The tool consists of a bowl to catch the seeds, grid and a silicone cover for good grip.

With great excitement we watched amongst the rest of the public during the presentation of the Innovation Award last Friday afternoon at Fruit Logistica in Berlin. This really fun tool has stolen all our hearts and we hoped that it would therefore be a deserved winner!

I mentioned a couple of absurd stories about how Saudi Arabia's religious police crack down on any semblance of Valentine's Day celebrations in the Kingdom. Here's one from Jordan where the traditionalists made their point in a much more humorous way.

Even though Jordan has no official problem with Valentine's Day, and Jordanian florists do a bang-up business every year, some Jordanian students in Irbid lampooned women who dress in red on February 14th.

They dressed up donkeys with red clothing, hearts and flowers, and paraded them up the street.

If only all Muslim conservatives would use humor to fight their battles!

Two US congressmen in Gaza. Or at least one.

From the Hamas Al Qassam website:

Two American congressmen Brian Bird and Nick Bilono, both Democrats, arrived in Gaza Strip on Sunday, the crossings and border authority said in a statement.

It added that a delegation of the UN in Gaza received the congressmen at the Rafah border terminal.

Bird said in a terse statement that his visit to Gaza is the third of its kind, noting that on the two previous occasions he entered through the Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in northern Gaza.

He added that the visit's itinerary includes touring hospitals, schools and other areas destroyed in the Zionist war on Gaza in a bid to have a close look on conditions of the Palestinian people in the Strip.

What's funny about this story is that the Hamas press release was copied worldwide in other news outlets - without even checking the names.

There is a congressman named Brian Baird who appears to be the first person referred to. Nick Bilono doesn't exist, however.

If a second member of Congress is in Gaza, it may be Nick Rahall, a congressman of Lebanese descent who is the top recipient of money from CAIR. There is no mention of either of them currently visiting Gaza on either of their websites, but at least Baird is in Gaza now.

Speaking to Gaza students, Baird called on the US to break the blockade of Gaza, saying, "We ought to bring roll-on, roll-off ships and roll them right to the beach and bring the relief supplies in, in our version of the Berlin airlift."

Is it not strange that Hamas press releases get reprinted without a minimal set of checks?

UPDATE: Both Baird and Rahall are darlings of J-Street.

What did Hillary Clinton say in Qatar?

According to Palestine Press Agency, Hillary Clinton yesterday said that the US is committed to a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, at the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha.

Not quite:

We support a two-state solution, with Israelis and Palestinians co-existing peacefully and with mutual security. We believe that through good-faith negotiations, the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.

She said a couple of things that are problematic, but she did not announce any change in US policy.

PA official says he was framed in sex scandal

Too funny:

Rafiq Al-Husseini, the former chief of staff to President Mahmoud Abbas, said Sunday he is innocent of allegations broadcast on Israeli TV days earlier.

Flanked by relatives, Al-Husseini told reporters that a videotape apparently showing him propositioning a job applicant for sex was a fabrication. He refused to answer questions.

In brief remarks, Al-Husseini read aloud a statement alleging that conspirators, who he did not name, dubbed his voice on the videotape for the purposes of blackmail, both political and financial. He described the videotape as manipulated, noted it was more than a year and a half old, and insisted he informed Abbas at the time. [that he was in a dubbed videotape? - EoZ]

...He also said he would not submit to supposed blackmail, which he suggested was intended to compel him to resign and "leave the homeland." Al-Husseini said he would "continue to fight corruption and confront the occupation in Jerusalem, my city, my battle, and my destiny, like all other Jerusalemites."

Al-Husseini termed the broadcast, which appeared Wednesday evening on Israel's Channel 10, "a meeting between corruption and collaboration with the occupation."

Ah, he was targeted because he is such a patriot!

The Mamilla Cemetery: Arab hypocrisy at its worst

The Arabs have a new alleged war crime that they are making waves about: the supposed desecration of the Mamilla Cemetery in order to build a new Museum of Tolerance for the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

They are claiming that the museum is being built on ancient graves, while the Simon Wiesenthal Center says that they are only building on top of the site of an existing parking lot and not touching the remaining part of the cemetery.

So, let's see how much respect Muslims themselves had for their own sacred cemetery 65 years ago. From the Palestine Post, November 22, 1945:

An area of over 450 dunams in the heart of Jerusalem, now forming the Mamilla Cemetery, is to be converted into a business centre. The townplan is being completed under the supervision of the Supreme Moslem Council in conjunction with the Government Town Planning Adviser. A six-storeyed building to house the Supreme Moslem Council and other offices, a four-storeyed hotel, a bank and other buildings suitable for it, a college, a club and a factory are to be the main structures. There will also be a park to be called the Salah ed Din Park, after the Moslem warrior of Crusader times.

...In an interview with "Al-Wihda." the Jerusalem weekly, a member of the Supreme Moslem Council stated that the use of Moslem cemeteries in the public interest had many precedents both in Palestine and elsewhere....

So, when Muslims build on top of a Muslim cemetery it is fine, but when Jews do the exact same thing (even when they are not!) it is a major crime.

Any questions?

(If you want to see how the Times-UK bought the Palestinian Arab narrative hook line and sinker, see here. The Wiesenthal Center response is here.)

A potential export market for PalArabs shut down

From Ma'an:

alestinian Authority Preventative Security Services in Hebron confiscated 1 million pills advertised as sexual stimulants, worth an estimated 20 million Shekels, from a warehouse in the city. According to the Ministry of Health, the pills originated from China and entered the West Bank without a required permit from the ministry.

Khaled Seder, Ministry of Health manager in Hebron, said the pills confiscated were unusual, a variety he has not encountered before during his 28-year career as a doctor, he said.

"We estimate the real value of these stimulants, of which 15 varieties were discovered, if sold on the black market could obtain about 20 million shekels" he added.

Seder added that the Palestinian market would not be able to absorb the large quantity of pills discovered, and speculated that they were intended for export to neighboring countries like Jordan.

Butane wars in Egypt

From The Majlis:

Cooking gas riots -- or, as Al-Masry Al-Youm has dubbed them (عربي), "the butane war" -- have killed at least one person in Egypt and sent the mayor of Tanta to prison.

Cylinders of butane gas are ubiquitous in Egypt: they're used in homes, in restaurants, and by street vendors hawking fuul and roasted nuts. But the country is going through a severe butane shortage right now, brought on by last month's deadly flooding, which disrupted supply lines from major ports on the Mediterranean coast. (Government officials say illegal businesses are also contributing to the shortage by using large amounts of subsidized butane.)

The shortage has sent prices skyrocketing -- from LE10-15 (US$2-3) per cylinder, the official price, to as much as LE60 (US$11) on the burgeoning black market. Smugglers are getting their gas cylinders direct from the distributors: Al-Masry Al-Youm published some photos this week (not available online, sorry) of two trucks, owned by Dakahlia governorate, selling butane cylinders to black market vendors.
The suppliers are trying to turn a profit, too: Two butane factories in Damietta were caught underfilling the cylinders they ship to retailers.
Egyptians who can't afford the higher prices have been queuing up in long lines across the country. One of those lines, in Imbaba -- a neighborhood in Giza governorate -- turned into a riot yesterday. A group of men attacked each other with chains and knives; one of them was killed, and two more were injured. Al-Masry Al-Youm reports that elderly people have been fainting in lines in several cities.
The independent newspaper Al-Wafd reported yesterday that six men were injured in a gunfight over butane cylinders in Tanta. The town's mayor shot six people -- two of them, ironically, were his cousins -- after they accused him of hoarding cylinders. The mayor was arrested.

The Daily News Egypt's Al Khan cartoon savagely describes the violence over butane this way today:

And, of course, there is an anti-Israel angle. Israel already has an agreement with Egypt to receive natural gas supplies for a low price over the next 15 years, and Egyptians are complaining “We export natural gas at a low price [to Israel] and import butane gas for a high price."