Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, February 26, 2010

10,000 tons of apples from Israel to Syria

Palestine Press Agency reports that the ICRC will be transferring 10,000 tons of apples from Israel's Golan Heights to Syria next week.

This has been an annual occurrence, as Israel has been selling their surplus apple crops to Syria since 2005, where the apples are often resold to Gulf states at a profit.

Druze communities in the Golan, which Syria considers occupied, grow most of these apples. And Syria supplies water to at least one of the Druze border towns for free.

MK Ayoub Kara, the deputy minister for the development of the Negev and Galilee, has suggested that these arrangements be increased. He suggests that if Syria would supply water to more Druze villages, more apples could be grown and the annual export could be increased tenfold.

"The two countries' economic interests will return the sides to the negotiating table, and from economic peace we will also reach true peace," said Kara.

Deputy Minister Kara is a member of that extremist, hawkish, racist political party known as the Likud.

He is also Druze.

New resources for college students

The annual hatefest known as "Israel Apartheid Week" is almost upon us. CAMERA has set up a very useful site that demolishes the claims of the Israel-haters and shows them to be anything but peaceful.

Also, check out this video about the "anti-Zionist" Jew-hatred on college campuses.

(h/t Jack)

Israel selling Iran booby-trapped material for nukes?

Palestine Today quotes French media as saying that Israel has set up dummy companies in Europe to sell components that could be used in the manufacture of nuclear bombs.

The purpose of these front companies is to take orders from Iran, ship them fake components, and when the Iranians open up the shipments ....boom.

According to this unconfirmed report, some Iranian experts were already killed in this manner.

I could not find the original source.

Islam's three tombs of Abraham

The New York Times, on November 9, 1902, had an interesting article, about two tombs of Abraham - and neither one was in Hebron:

Edward James Banks wrote a book in 1912 about his adventures in Babylon and he includes his attempts to excavate under the Tomb of Abraham in the village of Tel Ibrahim, and why he was stymied:

Tell Ibrahim, the Biblical Cutha, for which I had sought permission to excavate, is one of the ruins suggesting the crescent and star ; the temple is the star, but the crescent is very irregular. A canal bed, some three hundred feet wide, separates them. We rode up the steep slope of the temple mound and dismounted on the summit by the little tomb of Abraham. It was because of the sanctity of this tomb that permission to excavate here was denied me. Visible from the tomb are the date palms bordering the shores of the Euphrates, and over beyond them is Ibrahim Khalil, and there stands another sacred tomb of Abraham. The tomb is by no means impressive. The building, measuring about thirty by fifteen feet, is constructed of the square, Babylonian bricks from the ruins beneath it, and surmounted by a conical dome. The doorway, leading to the antechamber, has been partly walled up. The dust on the floor had long been undisturbed, for pilgrims seldom visit the place. The inner chamber, lighted by a small opening in the dome, contains only a plaster mound to mark the grave ; on it were lying a fragment of a marble slab, a broken earthen pot, and a faded green rag torn from the turban of some pious pilgrim. Rassam claims that while excavating at Tell Ibrahim, he rebuilt the tomb ; had he been less zealous, this one of the many sacred graves of Abraham would probably have been forgotten by now.

Ibrahim Kallil, the other site of a tomb of Abraham in present-day Iraq, was also mentioned in a much earlier travelogue by Claudius James Rich who visited there in 1811.

We arrived at the Birs about half-past eleven. There are vestiges of mounds all round it to a considerable extent, and the country is also traversed by canals in every direction. The soil round the Birs was sandy. To the north of it runs a canal called Hindia, dug for the use of Mesjid Ali, by order, and at the expense of, Shujah ud Doulah. Close to the Birs, or at about a hundred yards from it, and parallel to its southern front, is a high mound, almost equal in size to that of the Kasr. On the top of it are two koubbehs, or places of prayer. The one is called Ibrahim Khalil, where they show his burialplace, which is under ground, exactly in the style of Am ran Ibn Ali. The natives tell you that it was here that Abraham was thrown into the fire by Nimrod. This tomb has been lately repaired.

So it appears that the Arabs and Muslims have had a number of places they venerated as the burial places of Abraham, not only the one in Hebron.

It appears likely that the main reason they only talk about the Hebron tomb nowadays is because it also happens to be a place that Jews worship.

Mabhouh's use of passports and disguises

Firas Press reports:

A close friend of Hamas leader Mahmoud Mabhouh said Thursday that Mabhouh, who was assassinated in Dubai, resorted to the same method used by the killers as he used several false passports and means of deception during secret missions undertaken by him to bring arms to Hamas.

Mabhouh would take his personal security very seriously. "He used to wear contact lenses and dyed his hair while traveling to European countries," the source said, adding that he lived with Mabhouh for two years in exile.

The friend added: "He provided Hamas and other allied factions with money and weapons."

He said, "He had a lot of passports of different nationalities, all Arab", adding that Mabhouh had recent surgery to change the shape of his nose.

Dubai Police have not commented officially on the which passport Mabhouh used to enter the emirate.

The friend said, "He did not ever live a normal life. He never told anyone, even his wife, about his travel plans," adding that Mabhouh used Arab passports to enter the European countries because they are less suspicious.

Somehow, I don't think that any Arab countries are too worked up about the fact that Mabhouh used forged passports to get money and arms for a terrorist group.

Today's hypocrisy by Jonathan Cook

Jonathan Cook, the Nazareth-based writer who finds every excuse he can to lie about and bash the nation that allows him to write freely, has another perfect example of hypocrisy in his latest piece published by Ma'an.

You see, New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner recently revealed that his son was in the IDF.
Cook uses this as a springboard to accuse all Western journalists in Israel (outside of himself, of course) of having pro-Israel biases. He also manages to whine that they have better sources than he does.

There is another journalist who has written dozens of arrticles for Ma'an, as well as for many other Arab and far-left sites. His name is Ramzy Baroud, and his hatred of Israel is palpable. He doesn't even pretend to be objective any more.

He just wrote a book called "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter." Although he says this is a history book, his father was actually a member of the Palestine Liberation Army in the 1960s.

Will Jonathan Cook, or any other Ma'an writer, decry Ramzy Baroud for his obvious conflict of interest?

Given that Bronner clearly tries to be fair in his writing, and Baroud clearly does not, wouldn't it make more sense to go after Baroud?

Fat chance.

"Death of those who support mingling men and women"

From Al-Arabiya:

A prominent Saudi cleric has issued an edict calling for opponents of the kingdom's strict segregation of men and women to be put to death if they refuse to abandon their ideas.

Shaikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak said in a fatwa the mixing of genders at the workplace or in education "as advocated by modernisers" is prohibited because it allows "sight of what is forbidden, and forbidden talk between men and women."

"All of this leads to whatever ensues," he said in the text of the fatwa published on his website (albarrak.islamlight.net).

"Whoever allows this mixing ... allows forbidden things, and whoever allows them is an infidel and this means defection from Islam ... Either he retracts or he must be killed ... because he disavows and does not observe the Shariah," Barrak said.

"Anyone who accepts that his daughter, sister or wife works with men or attend mixed-gender schooling cares little about his honor and this is a type of pimping," Barrak said.

Part of this seems to have been prompted by the new Saudi KAUST university that allows men and women to attend classes together, and even allows women to go without the hijab.

Egyptian scholars denounced this fatwa.

Happy (almost) Purim!

Mabhouh circus update

The latest bizarre details in the Mabhouh assassination:

A third Palestinian Arab is being questioned by Dubai authorities for his involvement in the murder.

Two (or three) of the suspects left Dubai after a reconnaisance mission (or the hit) and went to Iran.

Iran is the only player in the region outside the Mossad that would have the means to do such an operation, and the ability to make it look like Israel did it.

However, I think it is more likely that we are seeing Dubai police incompetence, accusing anyone who was on Mabhouh's floor in the Rotana hotel, than a bizarre Iranian conspiracy to kill a business partner.

There is also this interesting tidbit from CBS:

The members of the hit team – at least a dozen men and two women – can be assumed to have been wearing disguises at every moment they were caught on camera. Antonio Mendez, former chief of disguises at the CIA, years ago revealed to CBS News that ultralight latex-type masks that fit completely over the face – and make you look like a completely different person – are real and not figments of the "Mission: Impossible" screenwriters' imaginations.

This would mean that the agents are not "burned" after being seen on camera in an operation like this.

PalArabs are protesting Jewish ties to ancient sites, not Israeli

If you think that the latest Palestinian Arabs are rioting over Netanyahu's including the Cave of Machpelah and Rachel's Tomb as Israeli heritage sites, read the Arab press.

They are upset that the sites are being called "Jewish heritage sites."

From Palestine Press Agency:

The city of Hebron in the West Bank called a strike this morning in response to the call by Fatah to protest the Israeli decision to annex the Ibrahimi Mosque and another mosque of the heritage sites of Judaism.

The strike affected all walks of life in the city of Hebron, including schools and universities, as the are protesting the decision of the Israeli Prime Minister to include the Ibrahimi Mosque and the Mosque of Bilal to the list of heritage sites of Judaism.

Palestine Today:

Clashes are continuing clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli occupation forces in the vicinity of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron in the West Bank, to condemned the Israeli government's decision to annex the Ibrahimi Mosque as a Jewish religious site.

Also Palestine Today:

Sheikh Kamal Khatib, deputy head of the northern wing of the Islamic Movement of Palestine occupied in 1948, warned that the declaration of Israel on Sunday night to include the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron to the list of so-called Jewish heritage sites is only a "rehearsal" to see the reaction from Muslims as they plan to Judaize the Al Aqsa Mosque in the middle of next month.

The secular Al Quds:

The Israeli government had decided at the weekend, the restoration of its landmark of 150 historic Jewish sites, as "sites of special heritage status," and carry out development of the expanded and transformed into tourist sites. Among these sites the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and Rachel's Tomb (near Bilal Ben Rabah mosque) in Bethlehem, outside the city walls of Jerusalem.

(It is interesting that Al Quds says that Rachel's Tomb is "near" the Bilal mosque, not in the same place, as Palestinian Arabs have been claiming for the past decade or so.)

These riots have nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with Jews asserting their rights to their holiest sites.

Even while the "hawkish," "extremist," "right-wing" government of Binyomin Netanyahu takes pains to emphasize that in no way is he interested in diminishing Muslim rights to their holy places, the Palestinian Arabs - even the supposedly secular ones - are trying mightily to keep all Jews out of every one of their alleged holy places, which, not coincidentally, are all belatedly considered Muslim holy places as well.

Every conciliatory move that Israel has done towards accommodation is taken as proof that Jews aren't as attached to their holy places as Muslims are, and it emboldens the Arabs more and more.

The harsh reality is that if Israel would have annexed these sites in 1967 - including the Temple Mount - the Arabs would have grumbled but they would have understood and respected it. They project their own attitudes towards the Jews and expect them to act the way they would have. Only when the government of the Jewish state wavers as to how important these sites are do the problems arise.

And keep in mind that the Muslims claim the Western Wall as well, so if Israel caves on this, it won't help "peace" - it will just move the battle towards Jerusalem.

How do you insult Al Jazeera?

By publishing its logo on top of an Israeli flag!

This accompanied a bizarre conspiracy theory article in Firas Press which seemed to link Al Jazeera with the assassinations and arrests of major Arab figures.

As far as I can tell, the article does not really claim that Al Jazeera ("The Island" in case you want to puzzle out the autotranslation yourself) is in cahoots with Israel, but it notes that both Mabhouh and Hamas leader Rantisi were assassinated very soon after they were interviewed by Al Jazeera, indicating a possible Mossad mole in the network.

I have a feeling that many Arabs are checking for Mossad agents under their beds before they go to sleep.

Are Muslims obligated to hate all Jews and Christians?

Last week, an op-ed was written by a Dr. Hamad Al-Majid in Asharq al-Awsat, calling on Muslims to interpret the Quran in liberal ways that would allow respect for non-Muslims:

I think that with a careful Shariaa reading of a number of texts on this subject, and by confining this [hatred] to specific cases, many problems and dilemmas would be solved, and this could even have help in consolidating social peace, especially in the Muslim countries where acts of violence are being carried out against their Christian minorities such as Egypt and Nigeria. This is something would also need to be taught as part of the academic syllabus, and this may be the key to solving this problem.

When I was working for the Islamic Center in London in the 1990s, I saw for myself the state of confusion in the British people who had recently converted to Islam when they were taught the principles of hatred, rather than [peaceful] disagreement. This had a negative impact in the way in which they treated other people; their parents, their brothers and sisters, their family and friends, and so Islam lost a number of potential converts who might have been attracted to the religion had they been treated with more respect and compassion.

It appears that many Muslims were very unhappy with Dr. al-Majid's liberal interpretation. So much so that he felt compelled to write a follow-up, possibly out of fear, saying that the Muslims that passionately hate Christians and Jews have solid textual evidence for their feelings:

Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal [founder of the Hanbali school of Fiqh] would turn his face away if any Christian looked at him, when asked why, he answered "I cannot look at anyone who lies about and slanders God." On the other hand Imam Malik ibn Anas [founder of the Maliki school of Fiqh] said that it was permissible for a Muslim to share a meal with a Christian. This is a clear example of the huge gap in the different understandings and diverse opinions that Muslim Imams have on this subject.

The principle of not loving those who resist and make war on Allah and his Messenger [pbuh] is a "firmly established" Islamic principle. However scholars disagree over whether this applies to peaceful Jews, Christians, and others, or whether believers should hate all non-believers regardless of how peaceful they are, whether this is a wife, a neighbor or a colleague. This issue is considered to be a "contentious" issue and clerics have adopted different opinions with regards to this recently as well as throughout the past. It is therefore unworthy for any scholar or seeker of knowledge to describe anybody who adopts either of these two opinions as being confused or capricious or influenced by the West or having a loose doctrine or responding to pressure; they should not consider them to be sinners or wrongdoers in need of correction. Similarly, those who follow the permissive option [of Imam Malik] should not label those who adhere to their own contrasting doctrine as hardliners or extremists.

In the end, nobody can be certain who is right and who is wrong; only God can know.

Dr. Al-Majid's credentials are "Journalist and former member of the official Saudi National Organization for Human Rights. Al-Majid is a graduate of Imam Muhammad Bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh and holds an M.A. from California and a Doctorate from the University of Hull in the United Kingdom. "

If a Muslim with such a comparatively liberal background feels compelled to excuse Muslim hate as just another valid opinion, it does not bode well for the chances that liberals in Islam will ever manage to gain ascendancy in their community. (And even with his seemingly conciliatory feelings, he mentions that he is a fan of hate preacher Yusuf Qaradawi.)

Ahmadinejad blames US for delaying return of the Mahdi

From Al-Arabiya:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed once again to "cut the hands" of Iran's enemies if the Islamic republic came under attack, AFP reported Tuesday.

In the speech, broadcast live on state television and circulated in several media outlets, Ahmadinejad reiterated his accusations that the United States was hindering the return of the redeemer of Islam, the Mahdi, local media reported.

“If the Mahdi does not come, this will mean that the battle of Karbala could be repeated. The Mahdi will face what the prophets faced and his life will be in danger,” he told the rally.

While pointing out that the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which ousted the Shah and installed the current religious regime, is a prelude to the appearance of the Mahdi, Ahmadinejad argued that the arrogance of the United States is one the main obstacles to the Mahdi’s coming.

Ahmadinejad accused the United States of planning and carrying out the September 11 attacks in order to gain the sympathy of the world.

“These attacks fed its propaganda and became an excuse for attacking Afghanistan under the pretext of fighting terrorism.”

In an earlier speech he gave in Esfahan in December, Ahmadinejad claimed he had documented evidence that the United States invaded Iraq in order to prevent the coming of the Mahdi and stressed that the Iranian people would prepare the ground for his coming forming the Mahdi Army.

In a meeting he held with cleric Ayatollah Jawadi Amuli, Ahmadinejad claimed a halo of light surrounded him while he gave a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, attributing this to the Mahdi’s support.

In Shiite faith, the Mahdi, an Arabic term for guided, is believed to be the redeemer of Islam who will come to earth before the Day of Judgment and, together with Jesus, rid the world of all tyranny and injustice.

So, according to Ahmadinejad, Obama is more powerful than his messiah. So was Bush. Cool!

If mere US presidents can stop the Mahdi from arriving, how can the Mahdi expect to rid the world of tyranny and injustice?

Dubai police now have 26 suspects

From Gulf News:

Police revealed 15 more suspects in the Al Mabhouh murder case on Wednesday.
The extensive investigation has led to a total of 26 suspects so far involved in the murder of the Hamas official Mahmoud Al Mabhouh at a Dubai hotel.

In addition to the previously released list of 11 suspects, Dubai Police has now identified another six suspects, who include a woman who used British passports, a man and three women travelling on Irish passports, two men who used French passports, and three people with Australian passports. The Australians included a woman.

The new list of suspects include 15 names, bringing the total identified suspects to 26.

Soon every European who ever visited Dubai will be a suspect.

By the way, this is not the first high-profile murder to happen in Dubai. Two years ago, famous Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim was murdered by a hitman hired by her ex-lover, a powerful and rich Egyptian businessman and politician.

Hillel Cohen responds to my review of "Good Arabs"

The author of "Good Arabs," Hillel Cohen, responded to my review where I questioned whether the word Nakba was used in the 1950s:

Thanks for your review. Just one factual comment - the term Nakba was in use in Arabic in the 1950s. As you might know, the book of Constantin Zureik 'Ma'na al-Nakba' (the meaning of the Nakba) was published in Beirut in summer 1948 (!). It is true that Jewish Israelis (and the elders of Zion?) became familiar with it only in the 1990s, but one should bear in mind that there are discourses beyond the Hebrew one.

I asked back:

Thanks for writing, Hillel. My only question is whether the term was used in the 1950s with the "capital N" usage that it is used today, even in Arabic. In other words, would the average Palestinian Arab have used it in that context in that decade to the extent of saying that "May 14th is Nakba Day."

And, if you would be so kind as to answer whether you believe that the word "collaboration" is the correct, consistent translation of the term in Israeli documents you cite, or whether "cooperation" was closer to the authors' intent in some or most cases.

Cohen answered:

As far as i understand, the term Nakba was rather widespread in the internal discourse among the Arabs in Israel in the 1950s-1960s, and was the common word to refer to the war of 1948 and refugehood.

As about 'collaboration' - Arabs who were involved with the Israeli security agencies were usually considered collaborators by all involved parties (, i.e. the general Arab community, themselves and the security agencies). Political cooperation with Mapai was termed 'collaboration' by those who opposed it, and 'cooperation' by those who advocated it (and I tried to present their arguments according to my understanding). Anyhow, it was frequently the same people who were involved in politics and security matters. Police and Shabak officers in many cases looked down at the people who assisted 'the system': sometimes view them as traitors, but not always.

There were changes in this respect througout the years, and what was considered treason in one period was not necessarily considered so in other, what complicates the definitions even more.

Personally, I'd add, I have no political goals in writing my books, and I don't try to prove anything - but to present and analyse historical sources that I read. This is not to say, of course, that I am not influenced by my (ever-changing) political views that support Jewish-Arab cooperation.

I appreciate that he came here and explained himself, and from reading his books it is clear that Cohen is intellectually honest he does intend to portray things as accurately as possible.