Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Gaza Salafist group threatens Jews

Al Hayat al Jadida (plagiarized by Firas Press) interviewed a spokesperson of one of the Salafist terror groups in Gaza.

The official, Abu Abdallah al-Ghazzi, is a member of the "Jaysh Al-Ummah" (Army of the Nation) group, one of the organizations that is pressuring Hamas from the religious standpoint. While some of the Salafist groups have apparent ties with Al Qaeda, al-Ghazzi denies that his group takes any money from them - although the group cherishes Bin Laden's activities.

al-Ghazzi said that there will be a war "against the Jews" from Southern Lebanon "at any time," but apparently not from his group. For now, Jaysh al-Ummah will be restricting its activities against Jews from Gaza.

His limiting terror attacks to Jews near Gaza is not ideological, but practical, as the group is too small (about 200 members) to attack Jewish interests worldwide right now. But in the future, he definitely wants to be able to attack Jewish and "Crusader" interests worldwide.

He also said that if there is proof that Mahmoud Abbas helps the "Jews" at all, he should be beheaded.

PalArabs complaining that Jews building too many synagogues

The leader of the "Islamic-Christian Front for Defending Jerusalem and its Holy Places," Hassan Khater, has issued a press release saying that there are now 218 synagogues in Jerusalem, and 70 of them in the Old City alone.

Khater also said that the synagogues are not being built because the Jews need them for religious purposes. He said that this is a clear plan by Israel "to change the image of the holy city, and change the inherent religious nature which distinguished it throughout its long history - the nature of the Arab, Islamic, Christian tradition."

Even assuming his numbers are correct (is he counting tiny "shtiebelach"? Is he counting different minyanim in different rooms in the same synagogue as one or many synagogues?), Khater also doesn't mention that his Arab brethren destroyed between 50 and 60 synagogues in the Old City between 1948 and 1967, so having 70 built in the past 43 years hardly seems excessive.

As usual, Khater and his compatriots are denying the Jewish connection to Jerusalem that predates Islam by more years than Islam has been in existence. This is, simply put, Jew-hatred.

On "moderation" and the Al Asharq al Awsat columnists (Zvi)

From Zvi, in commenting on my last post:

There's an important point to note here. A person can be a moderate or reformer when considering only Saudi local issues or some other topics, and still be an extremist regarding the Israel agenda. But Shobokshi is not a reformer in either sense.

I read Shobokshi's columns, but I don't expect him to penetrate the smoke-screen of anti-Israel incitement or abandon a long-term destroy-Israel agenda. In some cases, Shobokshi starts down a road that leads to some clear-headed analysis, but he always returns to the same old hostile mindset.

Of course, it's possible that Shobokshi really is smarter and wiser than this, but is forced by the constraints of Arab media and society to phrase things in a way that prevents others from labeling him a traitor. Your recent posts about Mira Awad and Ema remind us that Arab media figures who openly take unconventional stances on Israel or Jews are taking a risk.

But I don't see any evidence that Shobokshi thinks in this manner. Rather, he's deeply entrenched in the hatred of Israel and accepts without reservation the flagrant nonsense that is broadcast about it in the Arab media (examples).

I can laud Shobokshi's call to stop letting pursuit of "the Palestinian Cause" become the fig leaf that allows the leaders of the Arab world to run everything else into the ground. But he's no moderate.

At the end of the piece, Shobokshi shows that what affects him most deeply Shobokshi is Arab victory, not a better life for his people.

I do recommend reading several of the columnists on the English site. This is not because they agree with me on very much (I doubt that they do), but rather because I find that they have interesting opinions. I don't expect them to be friends of Israel or to support its point of view.

* Mshari al-Zaydi: I often find his columns to be very interesting, even when I don't agree with them (except that his most recent one embraces an easily-debunked myth - oh, well).
* Abdul Rahman al-Rashed is the general manager of Al Arabiya. Mr. al-Rashed sometimes gets muddled, and sometimes he does things for the wrong reasons, but regardless of my own opinion on a topic, his comments are often worth reading.
* Tariq Alhomayed is the Editor in Chief of Asharq al Awsat. Along with other sources, his comments can help to paint a picture about the regional hopes and concerns of modernist members of the Saudi elite. You do have to take what he says on some topics with a grain of salt, especially where the Saudi monarchy is involved.

As I said, don't expect these guys to be pro-Israel. I don't even expect them to be neutral; you'll just be disappointed. What I expect from them is that even when Israel is involved, they tend to have interesting analyses rather than engaging in knee-jerk ranting, bizarre flights of fancy or simplistic naivete. That's not true of some of the other columnists.

The most openly liberal commentator on the Asharq English site used to be Mona Eltahawy. But Ms. Eltahawy says that she was banned by the paper after she penned columns openly slamming the Egyptian government.

At least, with the Saudis and the Syrian/Iranian axis embroiled in a regional cold war, the paper seems to have stopped accepting regular contributions from the Syrian Minister of Expatriates and Paranoid Drivel, Bouthaina Shaaban.

Another Arab "moderate" who really isn't

An op-ed by Hussein Shobokshi at Asharq al-Awsat starts off this way:

In the Arab world, can we discuss any topic without mentioning Palestine? Though it is an odd question it is a perfectly legitimate one. It seems that raising important and complex issues such as education, health, public services, the judicial system, infrastructure and fighting corruption always comes to a dead end because of “the Palestinian cause excuse,” and because the battle must always comes “first,” as well other slogans that have been raised for a long time that aim to suspend any practical or positive action towards ultra-sensitive issues.

Under the Palestine umbrella, and with the calls for liberation and struggle, anything goes. Corruption has spread dramatically in all circles and in most fields. Educational backwardness has become a [distinguishing] attribute and a widespread phenomenon, not an exception. The deteriorating and deplorable infrastructure has become the butt of the joke and the source of mockery. Domination, despotism and the erosion of freedoms have become a way of life. The lack of an effective judicial system to guarantee people’s rights has turned into a painful reality in which people live without any real hope of changing it. Without exception, everything is being “postponed” because there is a more important battle that has now turned into a battle of tilting at windmills and because of this, despotism and tyranny have been further consolidated.

Forget about changing priorities! For that you would be labelled a traitor or regarded as one who seeks to divide the nation; a nation with a deteriorating education system, a broken judiciary and one with no agricultural or industrial potential and no sewage or electricity networks, etc.

Sounds like he has a clear vision of what Arab priorities should be, right?

But the irony is that he spends the rest of the article trying to convince his readers that the very reason they should be spending time on education, health, the judicial system and fighting corruption is...because they are prerequisites to "liberating Palestine:"

A nation with such “achievements” under its belt cannot by any means liberate Palestine. Most importantly, the correlation between deterioration and liberating Palestine is one that cannot be denied.

Yes, improving the education system, the judiciary and infrastructure will lead to “spontaneously” liberating Palestine. Yes, it’s that simple. If you liberate yourself, you will liberate your land. ... Crying and wailing in the name of Palestine has turned into a permanent state of mourning instead of aiming towards the “final” target with a continuous series of numerous, small victories and achievements within the country and within one’s self. Though it is such a long journey, it is one of utmost importance.

Which means that even the most moderate Arabs consider "Palestine" to be the most important issue; just that they differ on how to get to the point of "liberating Palestine" (which means, of course, destroying Israel.)

Death threats silence Israeli-Arab singer

From TheJC:

The woman who sang for Israel at the last Eurovision Song Contest, has pulled out of the ZF Israel Independence Day Concert in London following death threats.
Mira Awad, is an Arab-Israeli and one half of a duo with Achinoam Nini, otherwise known as NOA, with whom she performs to sell-out internationally audiences, promoting a message of peace and co-existence.

The ZF who have organised annual Israel Independence Day events in Britain for years invited them to headline the show on April 19.

Ms Awad now has round-the-clock security at her home in Tel Aviv. Her family, who live in Kfar Rameh, a small Arab Village in the north of Israel, is also under close watch.

Her Manager, Ofer Pesenzon, said: “Mira and NOA’s message is about finding a peaceful way forward. It is tragic that when both sides try to come together by any means possible to build a better future for Israel and its citizens, there are those prepared to use violence and intimidation to destroy it.”

Yes, extremists on both sides always mess up prospects for peace.

Oh, wait....

Meanwhile, in Lebanon...

From Ya Libnan:

The local media has reported fierce clashes between members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command in the Beqaa region near the Syrian border
The Syrian- backed leader of PFLP-GC , Ahmed Jibril has reportedly dismissed one party official and this led to the inter Palestinian clashes. Al-Arabiya television reported about the dismissal of the official but did not name him.

PFLP-GC has a military base at the Qousaya camp camp near the Syrian border. This is the area which witnessed most of the fighting

Future News branded the incident as a “rebellion” among PFLP-GC members in the military base of Qousaya.

LBC satellite channel said at midday that the PFLP-GC military outpost in Ain Baida was coming under shell fire from Qousaya.

“Fierce clashes are taking place among Palestinian factions at Qousaya camp,” OTV reported.

The Voice of Lebanon radio station said in a news flash at 2:20pm that PFLP-GC rebels in Kfarzabad turned themselves in to the Lebanese army.

Firas Press mentions that at least one person was killed.

In 2006, Lebanon vowed to disarm all Palestinian Arab armed groups outside the camps and to regulate weapons within the camps. This obviously never happened.

Canadian TV blames Israel for women stranded in S. Arabia

From Jonathan Kay in the National Post:

I don’t get much of a chance to bash the CBC for anti-Israeli agitprop anymore: The network has done a good job cleaning up its more tiresome Zionophobes over the last few years. But every now and then, they pop up -- often on The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti.

On today’s show, the subject was the very sad case of Nazia Quazi, a dual Indian and Canadian citizen who made the mistake of visiting her father in Saudi Arabia two years ago. Under the country’s Medieval rules, he has been able to assume “guardianship” over the 24-year-old woman, which means he is able to block her exit from the country on his whim. (Following the usual tribal/Islamist obsession with women and “honour,” the underlying issue is, of course, Nazia’s selection of the “wrong” mate back home.)

All in all, it was a good piece of CBC journalism -- until they brought in the usual, disgruntled Liberal-era suspect to blame the whole thing on Harper and his lack of “balance” on Middle East policy. To quote from Canadian Foreign Service veteran Gar Pardy, whom Tremonti interviewed:

“The other issue [aside from oil] that I think has diminished what little bit of influence we have in Saudi Arabia is our current policy toward Israel. Saudi Arabia plays a very important role on Middle Eastern issues, and they have been very active over the last five years in terms of trying to negotiate some sort of agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and Syria for that matter. And the fact that we have taken ourselves out as a balanced observer on those issues, I’m sure is not looked at with any degree of friendliness in Saudi Arabia.”

Tremonti, naturally, seized on this:

“Let me just clairfy then: Are you suggesting that Canada’s Israel policy could leave young Canadian women in limbo?”

Pardy: “Yes.”

So there you have it, folks. We’re not a “balanced observer” -- which I guess is the same as an “honest broker.” Which means that when a repressive Arab Muslim theocracy seizes a Canadian citizen under cover of blatantly misogynistic Wahabi Islamic rules governing women, the real villain can be traced back to … Israel.

Now you know.

The camera angle that the Dubai police withheld

Al Arabiya is showing an investigative report on the Mabhouh assassination tonight, and parts of it can be seen on their website.

It does not appear that anything new is being revealed, although there are new claims that DNA of the supposed killers have been found and hair of the alleged assassins were recovered from the room across the hallway.

One of the fascinating parts of the report is that Al Arabiya managed to get the hotel to cooperate and use their closed-circuit TV cameras to tape part of this show, as the reporter goes through the hotel tracing Mabhouh's footsteps, interspersing her footage with the same camera angles we had seen from the Dubai police.

There is one closed-circuit camera angle that is new, however - the one that looks directly at Mabhouh's room!

Here is the reporter seen from her normal video camera outside Mabhouh's room 230 (around seven minutes into the report):

And here she is from the closed-circuit view:

As you can see, the hotel cameras had a clear, direct shot of the hallway where, supposedly, some 27 (or more) spies were hanging around.

And yet we have not yet seen any of that critical footage. All we have seen has been heavily edited scenes from dozens of other cameras, with captions that may or may not be accurate, constructed to tell a narrative.

Why has the Dubai police not released any video from this camera angle? Did the assassins disable that camera? Or was there something else going on that the Dubai authorities do not want the world to know about Mabhouh and his assassination?

Syria asks Britian to apologize for Balfour Declaration

Palestine Today reports that Syrian politician and former adviser to Hafez al-Assad, George Jabbour, is asking the UK to apologize for the 1917 Balfour Declaration that promised a Jewish national home in Palestine.

Jabbour is asking British political parties, ahead of the upcoming elections, to put this apology in their platforms.

He says that Britain, through the Balfour Declaration, was "responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians and of depriving the people of their Palestinian identity."

This is amusing because at the time of the declaration, there was no political entity called "Palestine" and practically no Arabs who identified themselves as "Palestinian." Palestine was simply part of Southern Syria and, until France took over Syria, the Arab nationalists in the area worked towards a pan-Arab nation, not an independent Arab "Palestine."

In other words, Great Britain didn't destroy the Palestinian Arabs' identity as such - they helped create it from scratch.

Egyptians sue to change name of "Tel Aviv Street"

Palestine Today reports that a lawyer from Ras Gharib, a town on the western shore of the Red Sea, is suing the local government to change the name of a "Tel Aviv Street."

He says that the street, termed a main street in the city, reminds residents of Israeli war crimes in the 1956 and 1967 wars. Even if the street signs are changed, he wants to make sure that residents are not subject to seeing the words "Tel Aviv" on their mail and bills.

I could not find this street, major or otherwise, in the town listed on Google Maps, although there are a lot of areas that have very small, winding streets that Google does not name.

View Larger Map

Ma'ariv: US not giving visas to Israeli nuclear techs (updated)

Ma'ariv is reporting that every nuclear technician at Israel's Dimona reactor who had submitted visa requests to visit the United States for ongoing science education has had their visa applications rejected, specifically because of their association with the Dimona reactor.

Up until recently, it was routine for Israeli nuclear scientists and technicians to receive such visas and to study at US universities.

Israeli security officials have confirmed that these technicians are being denied visas solely because of their employment at the Dimona reactor.

More details here.

UPDATE: Pajamas Media seems to have mistranslated Ma'ariv; the original article does not say that every nuclear tech was denied nor does it blame the administration.

Al Mezan Center upset at Qassams - that injure Gazans

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights has condemned Qassam rockets - but not those against Israel:

Al Mezan Condemns the Injury of Four Palestinians by a locally Made Rockets in Beit Hanoun

On Tuesday 6 April 2010, four Palestinians, including a father and two children, were injured when a locally made rocket fell on Beit Hanoun town.

Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights asserts the government is legally obliged to provide protection to civilians and civilian objects under the international humanitarian law (IHL). Therefore, Al Mezan calls on the Gaza government and law enforcement persons to take necessary procedures to protect civilians and their properties.

Since the Al Mezan Center has no similar press releases when Israelis are injured or killed by Qassam rockets, it is apparent that they are only asking the Hamas government to make sure that the rockets hit their intended targets, not to stop firing them altogether.

Al Mezan does make noises in English about how rockets are not legal under international law, but at least one of their reports includes a large BUT:

There is no legal or moral justification for firing rockets at civilian targets, and such behavior violates both IHL and international human rights norms associated with the rights to life, health and adequate housing, among others, as well as constituting a war crime. At the same time, the nature of the offence should be evaluated within the context of its occurrence.

Hamas troubles detailed in secret internal memo

The anti-Hamas Palestine Press Agency quotes an Algerian News Agency report on a letter sent to Khaled Meshal, Hamas' political leader in Damascus, from a Gaza Hamas committee, that reveals serious flaws and problems within the terrorist organization/pseudo government.

The memo warned of "tremors of violent internal organizational stability" within Hamas. It complains of a lack of "unity of intellectual and organizational discourse" between parts of Hamas as different Hamas leaders say different things to the media.It mentions a widening gap between Hamas' stated goals of resistance and its more recent policies to try to rein in rocket fire and other terrorist acts.

The document further calls Hamas' attempts at establishing relationships with Arab countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen and the UAE a failure, as was its attempts to leverage its relationship with Iran, Syria and Hezbollah into leverage with Russia and Turkey. These failures are causing some in Hamas to question the wisdom of continued "resistance" even though no progress has been made on reconciliation or Gilad Shalit.

The Gaza public is also apparently losing confidence in Hamas, as the report warns that its early success of maintaining law and order has been disintegrating lately. In addition, Hamas' taxes and extortion has not improved the lot of average Gazans, causing increased displeasure with the Hamas government.

In addition, it warns of increased influence of the Salafist Islamist groups who are against Hamas from an ideological, religious viewpoint, causing the Islamist Hamas some discomfort as they have to defend their actions against those who are even more extreme.

Finally, the report mentions that the previous "blind obedience" that Hamas fighters had exhibited is disappearing. The report mentions some semi-autonomous Hamas gangs who are taking the law into their own hands.

The document gives a number of recommendations. A couple of them:

Concentrating the media discourse is much more important than the concessions we offer so as not to provoke the body [Israel] to attack us, particularly since the end of the resistance is for tactical reasons, to serve the big strategic goal to make Gaza a base for breakthroughs to restore the glories of the Caliphate. We must try to persuade the [other Islamic] factions of this tactic, so we cannot be accused of protecting the borders [on behalf of Israel.]

Beat with an iron hand all aspects of security chaos ...

We must eradicate the Salafi Jihad from Gaza, because the process of containment and reconciliation has failed. They are dangerous; a broad campaign to finish them, no matter how much blood, because silence means disaster the more time passes.

If this is legit, it means that the much maligned policy of containment is paying dividends - right at the time that the West is getting more uncomfortable with it.

New Arab myth: "1936 strike was non-violent"

Alex Kane, a MondoWeiss blogger, writes in the Indypendent:

[I]n fact Palestinians have been nonviolently resisting Zionist colonization even before the State of Israel was founded, and well after. The 1936-1939 revolt against British colonial rule and Zionist colonization began with a “six-month general strike” that involved “work-stoppages and boycotts of the British-and Zionist-controlled parts of the economy” and was the “largest anticolonial strike of its kind until that point in history, and perhaps the longest ever,” as Rashid Khalidi writes on page 106 in The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. The revolt did have an armed component, though, that followed the general strike.

According to Kane, for six months the Arabs of Palestine engaged in a non-violent strike, and only afterwards it became violent.

Khalidi, in the book being quoted, implies that he "armed revolt" only started in September 1937. I exposed some of Khalidi's dishonesty in that same book here and here.

When was the exact beginning of the Arab strike? According to some Arab sources, it started on April 3rd, but the Palestine Post didn't notice any announcement until April 20, the day after a massacre of Jews in Jaffa.

Here is what the Palestine Post looked like on Tuesday, April 22, the day after the strike was announced publicly:

By Friday, some 6000 Jaffa Jews had evacuated their homes for Tel Aviv because of the "nonviolent" demonstrations:

The next few days saw no fatalities but much violence - arson, beatings, gunshots and threats against both Arabs and Jews by the strikers and demonstrators.

The following week was also largely quiet, although Arabs who were forced to strike were becoming increasingly upset at their loss of income. Many Jaffa dockworkers clandestinely started working in Haifa.

The week of May 10th saw increasing acts of arson and bombs being thrown at businesses that stayed open, as well as fires set at Jewish farms. The British police enforced curfews.

By Wednesday, there were three people murdered - two Jews and an Arab strike-breaker.

And that weekend, a bomb was thrown at the Edison Cinema in Jerusalem, killing three more.

This was just the first month of the "nonviolent" 1936 protest that Palestinian Arab admirers are now mooning over.

The facts are clear - the "strike" was the background of the violence, but the violence was prevalent throughout Palestine during what was euphemistically described in the English-language press at the time as the "disturbances."

Palestinian Arab supporters, however, are fond of rewriting history in whatever fashion they find convenient. While the Arabs congratulate themselves over the violence of the 1936-39 riots (which resulted in the death of thousands, mostly Arabs,) their Western allies are trying to reclassify them as a Gandhi-style set of peaceful demonstrations - to appeal to a different constituency.

Rep. Rothman details Israel's value to the US

From Bloomberg via Business Week, by US Rep. Steve Rothman:

The argument that American military aid to Israel is damaging to the U.S. is not only erroneous, it hurts the national security interests of this country and threatens the survival of Israel.

U.S. support for Israel is essential, not only for Israel's national security, but for America's. Every bit of that support -- and more -- withstands all reasonable scrutiny.

Under the 2010 U.S. budget, about $75 billion, $65 billion and $3.25 billion will be spent on military operations and aid in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan during this fiscal year, respectively. Israel will receive $3 billion, in military aid only. There is no economic aid to Israel, other than loan guarantees that continue to be repaid in full and on time.

There isn't enough space here to discuss the relative merits of the expenditures in these other countries, but we already know the critically important return the U.S. gets for helping its oldest, most trusted ally in the strategically important Middle East -- the most powerful military force in that region, the pro-U.S., pro-West and democratic Jewish state of Israel.

Here's how.

First, it's important to remember that about 70 percent of the $3 billion aid must be used by Israel to purchase American military equipment. This provides real support for U.S. high- tech defense jobs and contributes to maintaining our industrial base. This helps the U.S. stay at the very top in the manufacturing of our own cutting-edge military munitions, aircraft, vehicles, missiles and virtually every defensive and offensive weapon in the U.S. arsenal -- with the added contribution of Israel's renowned technical know-how.

Second, the U.S. and Israel are jointly developing state- of-the-art missile defense capabilities in the David's Sling and Arrow 3 systems. These two technologies build on the already successful Arrow 2, jointly developed by our two countries, which is already providing missile defense security to Israel and U.S. civilians and ground troops throughout the region. The knowledge the U.S. gains from these efforts also has a positive multiplier effect on applications to other U.S. military and non-military uses and U.S. jobs.

Third, given Israel's strategic location on the Mediterranean, with access to the Red Sea and other vital international shipping and military lanes of commerce and traffic, it is critically important to the U.S. that Israel continues to serve as a port of call for our troops, ships, aircraft and intelligence operations.

Israel also has permitted the U.S. to stockpile arms, fuel, munitions and other supplies on its soil to be accessed whenever America needs them in the region.

Fourth, America's special relationship with Israel provides the U.S. with real-time, minute-to-minute access to one of the best intelligence services in the world: Israel's. With Israeli agents gathering intelligence and taking action throughout the Middle East and, literally, around the world, regarding al- Qaeda, Hezbollah, Iran and Hamas, among others, the U.S. receives invaluable information about anti-U.S. and terrorist organizations and regimes.

Fifth, imagine the additional terrible cost in U.S. blood, and the hundreds of billions more of American taxpayer dollars, if Saddam Hussein had developed nuclear weapons, or if Syria possessed them.

Then remember that it was Israel that destroyed the almost- completed nuclear reactor at Osirak, Iraq, in 1981 and Syria's nuclear facility under construction at Deir-ez-Zor in 2007.

And think about the many operations that Israel's Defense Forces and intelligence agents have undertaken to foil, slow and disrupt Iran's efforts to develop a nuclear weapons capability. A nuclear-armed Iran would threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans in the region, all of Iran's Arab neighbors, the world's largest oil supplies and those who rely on that oil. It also would provide anti-U.S. terrorists with access to the most lethal Iranian technology and probably set off a nuclear arms race in the region.

For about 2 percent of what the U.S. spends in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan this year, Americans can take pride in the return on our investment in aid to Israel.

And with Israel's truly invaluable assistance to America's vital national security, we can take comfort that -- in actions seen in Tehran and Damascus and noticed by al-Qaeda and other anti-U.S. terrorists everywhere -- the U.S. is safer and made more secure because of the mutually dependent and beneficial relationship between the U.S. and Israel.