Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Gaza "mud houses" and UNRWA bias

UNRWA is doing something useful in Gaza, but it can't resist politicizing it.

Hassan al-Err is the head of a family of seven who are preparing to move into a mud house built by UNRWA in the Gaza Strip. UNRWA has resorted to building with mud because other building materials are not available.

The two-bedroom house in Jabalia, north of Gaza City, is an improvement on the tent in which the 67-year-old Hassan had been living with his family - next to the rubble of their former home. The family’s home was one of 4,036 houses in Gaza which were totally destroyed or damaged beyond repair last year in Israel’s 23-day military operation.

Since then, rebuilding has been almost impossible because Israel does not allow construction materials such as cement and steel into the Strip, saying they could be used for military purposes.

“I can’t forget how hard the past year has been for me and my family living in a tent in the cold winter and the hot summer,” Hassan explains. “Of course a mud house is much better than a tent, although it’s not a real solution because I can’t build another flat on top of it for my two married sons who live in a rented house in Jabalia town.”

UNRWA hopes to build around 120 mud brick houses for dozens of homeless families in the next few months in the Strip. Each house costs about US$10,000 and takes three months to build.

While not a long-term solution for homeless families, the mud houses offer better conditions than tents or partially destroyed buildings. They also provide employment for people UNRWA is training to make mud bricks and homes.

International donors pledged US$4.5 billion in aid for the Palestinian Authority, much of it specifically for Gaza, at a conference in Egypt in March 2009, but little has made its way to the Strip because of the continuing blockade and bitter Palestinian divisions between political parties Hamas and Fatah.

First of all, the last paragraph is an out-and-out lie. The majority of the PA budget is spent in Gaza, and Hamas' budget is considerable as well.

However, when reading this article, do you get the impression that these "mud houses" are miserable, temporary shelters that will disintegrate inthe first rainstorm and only marginally better than tents?

Check out what they look like, from the IRIN website:

The caption says that the houses can be used for more than 100 years with minimal maintenance! Why would UNRWA write that they are not a long-term solution?

The fact that one cannot build a two or three-story house out of mud bricks does not mean that the houses are not usable - in fact, they appear to be more durable than most houses constructed in the US, which are often made out of wood.

UNRWA, which is to be commended for this program, still can't resist reporting it with an anti-Israel spin. The house in the photo looks more than just utilitarian - it is a beautiful house, and many Westerners would love to live in such a building.

The Judge Ito of Dubai

Even though Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim hasn't revealed any substantive evidence in days concerning the Mabhouh hit, he still gets daily headlines.

While the world media still ignores his anti-semitism, he is still being quoted daily as if he had anything new to say. For example, from The National:

Gen Tamim described the methods used by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service suspected in the killing, as “primitive”.

“The majority of those working in Mossad are still stuck in a 1970s mentality,” he said, making reference to “basic disguises”.

Apparently, Tamim has succumbed to Judge Ito disease, where the constant presence of cameras and reporters makes one believe that he is far more important than he really is and that his statements are wiser than they really are.

He will also be the last to know that he has turned into a worldwide punch-line.

UK fatwa against terrorism looks pretty good so far

From the Independent:

British imams must do more to condemn terrorism without any "ifs or buts" and should pronounce suicide bombers as "unbelievers" who are destined for hell, a leading Islamic scholar declared yesterday.

The comments were made during a remarkable assault on the ideology of violent Islamist extremists by Pakistani-born Sheikh Tahir ul-Qadri, a prominent theologian who launched a seminal fatwa in London yesterday condemning terrorism in all its forms.
The 59-year-old scholar, who has written more than 400 books on Islamic jurisprudence, told fellow Muslims: "Terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it, or any kind of excuses of ifs and buts. The world needs an absolute, unconditional, unqualified and total condemnation of terrorism".

Although Sheikh Tahir ul-Qadri's fatwa against terrorism and suicide bombing is not yet online, from what I can see so far it does look comprehensive. The table of contents and preface are online.

Many of the previous such fatwas I've seen took pains to make sure that Palestinian Arab terrorism would fall into its own category and would not only be permitted but obligatory. So far, I have not seen any indication that Qadri's fatwa has the same shortcomings.

The reaction from more radical sheikhs will be interesting, as this is being presented as being solidly based on Islamic sources, and their answers would have to do the same.

"Mabhouh celebrated by standing on victim's corpse"

From Gulf News:

The right-hand man of a Hamas leader assassinated in Dubai has confirmed Israeli claims that his boss supplied weapons to Palestinian fighters. Mohammed Nassar spoke to Hamas' Al Aqsa radio in Gaza from Damascus. A transcript was released on Tuesday.

Nassar was an aide to Mahmoud Al Mabhouh, who was assassinated January 19. Israel is widely suspected, but has not confirmed or denied involvement.

Al Mabhouh allegedly smuggled weapons from Iran to Gaza.
Nassar says Al Mabhouh "never stopped thinking about how to fight the occupation by supplying quality weapons to the Palestinian fighters."
The aide also describes how Al Mabhouh celebrated killing two Israeli soldiers in the mid-1980s by standing on one of the corpses.

"Netanyahu ready to go to Damascus"

The Arabic press is buzzing with two items about Israel and Syria.

The first is that Syria has said that it is willing to accept a gradual withdrawal of Israel from the Golan Heights. Ha'aretz had this story, quoting Gabrielle Rifkind of the Oxford Research Group who met with Syrian officials in December:

According to Rifkind, who met the minister along with a group of conflict resolution experts, Muallem suggested that Syria was prepared to consider a phased approach to the return of the Golan Heights.

"There could be stages of withdrawal, the timing of which could involve a form of normalization," he reportedly said. "Half of the Golan could lead to an end to enmity; three quarters of the Golan, to a special interest section in the U.S. embassy in Damascus: a full withdrawal would allow a Syrian embassy in Israel."

While this story did not get much play in the Western press it has been quoted extensively in the Arabic press.

Asharq al-Awsat called up Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu's office and asked him for a comment, and the reply was that Israel is "ready to meet with the Syrians immediately and without preconditions" and that Netanyahu is "ready to travel immediately to Damascus to meet Bashar al-Assad, or to invite him to Jerusalem, or to meet him in a third country for this purpose."

While this is really not a new position, there seems to be some excitement in the Arab press over the issue.

The Western press, meanwhile, finally noticed the apples being exported from Israel to Syria that I mentioned last week.

Report: PalArab kids "forced" to visit Holocaust monument in the Netherlands (updated)

Palestine Today, which is an Islamic Jihad newspaper based in Gaza, quotes a Hamas news site:

A dangerous precedent was set today when UNRWA forced Palestinian children to visit a monument in Amsterdam for the so-called Holocaust, Zionism, during a trip organized by the Agency to the Netherlands for outstanding students.

The sources said that the children refused this request, prompting officials on the trip to threaten the teachers accompanying the students with dismissal from their jobs unless they could persuade students to visit the site.

The sources added that this was a special request of an employee named "Hannah"; to implement a program of psychological support to put pressure on children and supervisors for the implementation of the visit to this site. Failing to do so, the organizers of the program instead gave a lecture on the so-called "Holocaust."

Whether the story is true or not, it shows exactly how terrible Palestinian Arabs think teaching their kids about the Holocaust would be.

Thinking of Jews as victims, or as human beings who could be felt sorry for? Absurd!

UPDATE: UNRWA is strongly denying the story.

New UNHRC session will talk about "right to nationality"

One of the documents supporting the 13th session of the Human Rights Council that started yesterday is A/HRC/13/34, Report of the Secretary-General on the right to nationality.

It includes this interesting paragraph:

Birth on the territory of a State and birth to a national are the most important criteria used to establish the legal bond of nationality. Particularly in the context of migration, a child may therefore have a link to more than one State. In cases where States have adopted diverging rules on the acquisition of nationality, a conflict of laws between these States could leave the child stateless. In such cases, the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness contributes to resolve this type of conflict of norms by providing, in article 1, that contracting States must grant nationality to a person born on their territory who would otherwise be stateless. Article 4 also provides that contracting States must grant nationality if a person is born to one of their nationals outside of a contracting State and would otherwise be stateless. According to article 7 of the Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam, State parties should make every effort to resolve the issue of statelessness for any child born on their territories or to any of their citizens outside their territory. Obligations to grant nationality to children born in the territory of a State and that would otherwise be stateless are also contained in article 20 (2) of the American Convention on Human Rights, article 6 (4) of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and article 6 (2) of the European Convention on Nationality.

The UN has not been too successful in trying to push its agenda against statelessness but, given that Palestine is not and never has been a state, one can't help but notice the hypocrisy where the UN has never asked Arab nations to allow children of Palestinian descent born on their territory to become citizens.

The entire "Palestinian refugee" problem could be eliminated if the UN would just follow up on its own noble principles.

Iranian director set to make Mohammed film

From Screen Daily:

Highly regarded Iranian auteur Majid Majidi is lining up the historical epic Mohammad, which at $30m is by far the most expensive and ambitious project ever to be assembled out of Iran.
Pre-production is under way and Majidi and producer Mehdi Heidarian are aiming for worldwide distribution by mid-2011.
Majidi, whose Children Of Heaven earned Iran’s first Oscar nomination in 1999 and who most recently directed the comedy The Song Of Sparrows, co-wrote the screenplay with Kabuzia Partouvi, the writer of Border Café and The Circle.
It is understood the focus will be on what sources describe as a “visually rich and sensitive” account of the childhood years of Mohammad up to the age of 12, well before he became the Prophet of Islam.
Majidi and Partouvi spent three years writing the first draft and pored over historical detail. Sources claim the project has the support of an extensive team of highly qualified international historians and researchers, although any visual depiction of Mohammed by an actor is likely to spark controversy.
The film-makers are targeting a wide multi-faith global audience.

PA media continues its support for terror

A prominent UK Muslim cleric is set to issue a comprehensive fatwa against suicide bombing and Islamist terrorism.

His followers are mostly in southern Asia and the UK, and is a very welcome move. It will be interesting to see if there is any scholarly reaction from other, more extremist Muslim scholars.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority continues to glorify suicide bombers. Palestinian Media Watch recently found a fairly disgusting representative sample:

Palestinian Authority TV news recently chose to feature a Palestinian mother promoting her son's death as a positive goal.

Upon learning of her son's death in an Israeli air strike, the mother explained that she had always hoped for her son's Shahada - death as a Martyr -- and recommended that other mothers likewise "sacrifice their child for Palestine."

The words of another woman, chosen by PA TV news for the pre-recorded news report, described how Palestinian society sees Martyrs as grooms. This is based on the Islamic tradition, promoted actively by the PA and Hamas, that Martyrs will marry 72 virgins in Paradise.

PA TV news report:

Mother upon news of son's death in an Israeli air strike: "We had always hoped for his [my son's] Martyrdom (Shahada), knowing he wanted to die as a Martyr (Shahid). Every time he went out, we would say to him, 'May Allah be with you.' We knew that he wanted to die as a Martyr. Praise to Allah, he sought Martyrdom, and he achieved it. My message to every mother is to sacrifice her child for Palestine."
Second woman: "By Allah, we welcome every Martyr as if he were a groom among us."

[PA TV (Fatah), Feb. 11, 2010]

Palestinian Media Watch has documented that these two ideas -- that death is a higher value than life and that Martyrdom death leads to a wedding between the Martyr and the virgins of Paradise -- have been promoted actively by both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas for years.

Palestinian schoolbooks teach children that aspiring to death is better than life:

"O heroes, Allah has promised you victory ... Do not talk yourselves into flight...
Your enemies seek life while you seek death."
They seek spoils to fill their empty stomachs while you seek a Garden [Paradise] as wide as are the heavens and the earth...
Death is not bitter in the mouth of the believers. These drops of blood that gush from your bodies will be transformed tomorrow into blazing red meteors that will fall down upon the heads of your enemies."
[Reading and Texts Part II, Grade 8, p. 16. Schoolbook currently in use in PA schools.]

I wrote to the organization that monitors PA (as well as Israeli) textbooks to ask them if indeed this textbook is in current use and says these things, as I couldn't find it in any of their reports. They just replied and confirmed that the schoolbook is still being used, and pointed me to the report that mentioned it. Here is the larger context of what the moderate PA is teaching its schoolchildren today:

Read and Enjoy: [Excerpts] from the “Heroes Oration” by Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti:

O heroes. God has promised you victory and you have promised him patience. Keep your promise and He will keep His promise. Do not talk yourselves into flight…

Your enemies seek life and you seek death. They seek spoils to feed their empty stomachs and you seek a garden the width of which is both Heaven and earth [i.e., Paradise]. Do not be sad to encounter them, for [the taste of] death is not bitter in the believers’ mouth.

These drops of blood that flow from your bodies will be transformed into red fiery shooting stars that will come down upon the heads of your enemies.
(Reading and Texts, Grade 8, Part 2 (2002) p. 16)

“You probably know what a great reward God has prepared for the Muslims who fight the infidels.”
(Language exercise, Reading and Texts, Grade 8, Part 2 (2002) p. 15)

The Jihad Fighter’s Intention
The Jihad fighter should intend to support God’s religion and work for exalting His word, not [for obtaining] booty or fame. Jihad has not been enacted in Islam for the purpose of taking possession of other nations’ wealth, or for the purpose of forcing people to embrace Islam. The Muslims do not fight out of desire for fighting, or out of love of bloodshed, nor for the sake of national or tribal solidarity. Rather, Jihad has been enacted in Islam for the sake of exalted purposes such as:

1. Saving the oppressed and the weak and opposing tyrants and oppressors who make the people taste [all] forms of suffering and seize control over them.

2. Creating the proper climate for the worship of God. [That is to be done] by opposing the oppressive forces that entice the people away from their religion.

3. [Making] the Muslim nation strong and dreaded, [so that it will] not be harmed by the greedy and the malicious.

Activity
I will write a paragraph comparing the goals of Jihad in Islam and the objects of war among other nations.
(Islamic Education, Grade 8, Part 2 (2002) pp. 32-33)

There are dozens of other examples of texts that glorify terror, jihad and martyrdom.

The only counterexample that Impact-SE found that seemed to be against Jihad and martyrdom was this single case:

It is nice for a man to die for his homeland but it is nicer for him to live for his homeland.
(Linguistic Sciences, Grade 8, Part 2 (2002) p. 89)

This is the reality - the official PA policy, in its media and its schoolbooks, is to raise generations of children to love war and terror - nearly two decades after the PLO supposedly rejected terrorism at Oslo.

Is Google predictive search bigoted?

Asharq Al-Awsat mentions:

According to a study conducted by the London-based Arab Media Watch organization, the predictive searches suggested by the Google search engine with regards to the word "Arab" for the most part are a negative depiction of Arabs.
The results of this study which were also reported by the BBC suggested that the Google predictive searches when questions like "Why are Arabs…" and others are asked result in negative or stereotypical options for questions about Arabs. For example, in the case of the question "why are Arabs…" the predictive results include answers like rich, violent, and stupid, and even more insulting variations.

I just tried it, and indeed Google shows things like "rich," "violent," "ugly," "stupid" and "rude."

Perhaps this is because Google Predictive Search was invented in Israel?

Well, not quite. Because for "Why are the Jews" Google shows "so rich," "so powerful," and "so hated." For "Why do Jews..." we get "have big noses," "have glassy eyes" and "run Hollywood."

For better or for worse, Google is showing what people are searching on. To me, keeping it as it is would be far more valuable as it can track bigoted attitudes worldwide. In fact, I'd love to see a breakdown by country for predictive results like these.

Latest Mabhouh rumor - Assassins jammed hallway cameras

Firas Press quotes Arabic Asharq Al Awsat (couldn't find the original) as saying that the Mabhouh assassins had an electronic device that jammed the hallway cameras at the Rotana hotel.

They quoted an unofficial Israeli source as saying that some 19 minutes of camera footage is missing, between 8:24 and 8:43 PM, when the actual assassination took place.

The source said that there is no way that the assassins left enough evidence to prove who did it.

Gaza infighting update

From Ma'an:

A bomb was detonated in the car of the Gaza police operations chief on Monday morning, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) said.

“At approximately 06:00 on Monday, 01 March 2010, unknown persons detonated a bomb in a car belonging to Talal Banat, 44, chief of police operations in Gaza, when it was parked near his house in al-Nasser Street in the north of Gaza City,” PCHR said in a statement.

There has been a big increase in bombings of cars belonging to Hamas leaders this year, especially police.

English-language media still silent on Dubai anti-semitism

Earlier today I reported that the Arabic-language Al Khaleej (The Gulf) newspaper quoted the head of the Dubai police as ranting about how "Israelis" have been hated since the time of Pharaoh, how "Israelis" have had mental problems for thousands of years and how UAE authorities will now start looking for Jewish facial features and names to stop them from entering the UAE.

Every single English-language news outlet has been reporting his comments as saying that he was slamming "Israelis," not Jews, and some saying that he would be looking for "Israeli" facial features, not Jewish ones.

The Arabic American paper Al Watan tells it like it is in its headline:

Dubai announces prevent the entry of Israelis and Jews, holders of foreign passports after the assassination of Mabhouh

The Western media is simply not willing to accept that Arab anti-semitism is a regular fact of life, and they work overtime to portray it is simply anti-Zionism. A man that they have been quoting for weeks as their main source for the investigation into the Mabhouh assassination has been revealed to be a conspiracy-theorist nutjob and the English-language media are censoring his comments.

Is it because they do not want the world to believe that Arabs hate Jews, or is it because it would retroactively make their reporting of police work in Dubai look too credulous?

Hamas leader disowns his son

Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, in a letter written from prison in Israel, has disowned his son Mosab.

Mosab is the person who famously converted to Christianity and just wrote a book saying that he helped Israeli security services foil many terror attacks.

Dubai police chief: UAE to stop Jews from entering country

Dubai police chief Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim said today that the UAE will "deny entry to anyone suspected of having Israeli citizenship."

But his Arabic remarks went way beyond any English-language news agency that quoted him into naked Jew-hatred. From an Arabic interview in the Khaleej Times:

Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Commander in Chief of Dubai Police, said Israel is a rogue state, and that goes beyond international legitimacy and laws. Its leaders have sick mentalities, and they need psychologists, saying that its use of passports shows great arrogance and contempt for the world.

(Tamim said hat) the leaders of "Israel" have blood on their hands the blood of others throughout history, pointing out that the "Israeli" people are human beings like any other people who want to be loved and open to others but that the successive governments, the Governments of bloodshed and assassinations, and wars and the Governments of the occupation and aggression, are not interested in peace in the world at all.

He added that the vanity which haunts the "Israeli" mentality stems from the time of Pharaoh, and their hate comes up to this day and age.

He said that the entire world should study the mentality of the "Israeli" leaders throughout history. Their sick psyches needs to be analyzed by psychology professors, who need to examine why they launch crises, and why they brought on themselves hate from others, since the time of Moses, peace be upon him.

He said we will train our personnel in the passport of the forms and features of the Jewish people and their names, noting that no one can hide their features of Jewishness. He asked the appropriate departments to prepare nationality and residency sessions to familiarize the staff with [Jewish] forms and names, especially since most Jews hold dual passports [with Israel.]

He pointed out that the number of Jews, compared with the Europeans, is nothing, and even within Palestine itself.

This is the clown that is being quoted soberly by Western news agencies. One can only wonder why they didn't mention these other parts of his rant.