Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 19, 2010

Brief Hamas/Fatah lovefest ends badly

Fatah and Hamas held a rare joint press conference on the occasion of "Prisoners Day" about the need for Israel to release some 7000 prisoners. (No one mentioned the small fact that a couple of years ago, there were 10,000 prisoners.)

For a couple of hours the PalArab press was impressed with this show of unity. Then reality set in, as the two groups traded the worst possible insults that Arabs could hurl against each other - that the other side is in cahoots with Israel.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused Fatah of being a US lackey in refusing to go along with Hamas demands for a unity government. He also quoted Fatah official Azzam Al Ahmad's threats to cut off all security cooperation with Israel as proof that Fatah was cooperating with the Zionist enemy "to protect the security of the occupation." He said that this vindicated Hamas' position that Fatah was "fully dependent upon the dictates of the United States and Zionism."

Not willing to take these insults sitting down, Israel's fake "peace partner" struck back at Hamas, hard.

Fatah spokesman Osama Qawasmi slammed the Islamic movement, saying that the Hamas government was the worst government in Palestinian history. He then went for the jugular, saying that Hamas has clamped down on the resistance in service to the Zionist entity, accusing Hamas of having a secret agreement with Israel to maintain security for the Zionists and of helping Israel maintain a 400-meter buffer zone inside Gaza. He also mentioned Hamas' forcing Islamic Jihad terrorists to sign a pledge not to attack Israel and the recent cooperation between Gaza water waste treatment officials and Israel.

He didn't stop there, also accusing Hamas of limiting goods that are smuggled to Gaza, of doing the United States' bidding by suppressing Islamic Jihad, and of killing scores of people in a mosque in Rafah last year.

Qawasmi said that Hamas "looted institutions, stole from the banks, and imposed a tax in violation of the law, and divided the national territory, and suppressed the violent traditions of the community, and violated civil liberties and [citizen] privacy, and made of the resistance just a slogan, with talk of rockets only via satellite channels."

Finally, Qawasmi cited Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood as having urged Hamas to abandon governing Gaza, using this as proof that even Hamas' parent organization recognizes its failure as a governing body.

Ouch!

Israel offers Egypt free meat; rejected

According to an Egyptian newspaper quoted by Palestine Today, Israel offered to send 150 tons of meat to Egypt free of charge.

Egypt has been suffering a major shortage of meat, and prices have soared recently.

The Egyptians spurned the offer, saying that it is an artificial crisis and asking consumers to boycott meat until the prices go down.

However, Egypt apparently has begun accepting some 15,000 heads of cattle from Ethiopia.

Rising from the ashes

Last week I was at Ground Zero for the first time in about a year, and a couple of the new buildings are now above street level.

On Church Street. Not sure which building this will end up being.

I'm pretty sure this is the beginnings of the new Freedom Tower, on Vesey Street near West Broadway.

Another view of the same building:

Taken with my camera phone, so the quality is not the greatest.

Today's lying caption

From Getty Images via Daylife:

Israeli settlers from the settlement of Har Gilo, built on the land of the village of Walajeh near Bethlehem, look at a Palestinian man attaching his national flag on a fence surrounding the settlement during a demonstration against Israel's controversial separation barrier on March 16, 2010.

Was Har Gilo built on top of Walajeh, or next to it?

According to POICA, an anti-settlement organization which monitors all Jewish towns and villages in the West Bank, Har Gilo is next to Walajeh:

While Har Gilo is controversial for the strategic location in which is was built, no one says it was built on top of a Palestinian Arab village.

Except for this caption writer.

It appears that the picture was taken by an AFP photographer, Musa Al-Shaer.

The Mossad sure is busy

An Algerian newspaper is "reporting" that the Mossad is working at poisoning the relations between Palestinian Arabs and some Arab governments, including Algeria.

Firas Press quotes El Khabar as saying that Israel is spreading rumors about rifts between Hamas and Fatah, as well as stories about how PalArabs in various countries are breaking local laws.

News from the Palestinian Arab "moderates"

Ma'an reports:

An Israeli military court at the Ofer detention center near Ramallah sentenced a Palestinian Authority security officer from Bethlehem to 10 years in prison and another five under probation.

The officer was charged and convicted of affiliation to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed group that claims affiliation to President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.

Among the charges, 22-year-old officer in the Palestinian national security forces Salim Hamad Ubayyat, faced firing at Israeli targets in the West Bank, plans to detonate a booby-trapped car and other explosive devices at the Israeli bypass road west of Beit Jala, known locally as the tunnel road.

The moderate Fatah group has been busy lately:

A small militant brigade aligned with the Fatah movement announced its committment to continued resistance in a statement made public on Friday.

The group, known as the Sami Al-Ghoul Brigades, last claimed an attack on Israel one year ago, on Friday 17 April 2009.

The latest statement called on all resistance brigades to stay committed to resistance and stay faithful to martyrs and detainees.

The statement also noted that they remain loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the caretaker Palestinian leadership.

They are openly advocating violence and they are also loyal to the peaceful Abbas? How can we possibly explain this contradiction?

It must be that peaceful PA President, whose nom de guerre is Abu Mazen, has made many statements dissociating himself from, and condemning, these Fatah militant groups.

I admit that I cannot find any such statement, but we all know from the media that he is a man of peace committed to negotiations and, at worst, non-violent resistance. He certainly must have made his negative feelings about these splinter groups, who pledge their full allegiance to him, well known. If not, wouldn't the free Palestinian Arab press and the mainstream media have mentioned that obvious fact? I mean, come on! Obviously, he has strenuously condemned them, publicly, many times. It must have been done in Arabic which would account for the paucity of news items mentioning these condemnations. Q.E.D.

Speaking of these Fatah movements that have long ago given up on violence, this happened last Friday:

A Palestinian militant was killed in a clash with Israeli forces in the northern Gaza Strip, Gaza’s emergency chief said.

The clash occurred after Israeli soldiers saw a Palestinian gunman trying to plant a bomb near the border fence, an army spokesman said, speaking anonymously according to regulation. The gunman threw a hand grenade at the soldiers, who fired back “and identified hitting him,” he said.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah’s armed wing, said one of its militants had been killed and another wounded in a “fierce gun battle” with Israeli soldiers in an area east of Gaza city.

Hamas member denies financial crisis

Days after a Hamas MP confirmed a financial crisis in Hamas, a Hamas deputy minister is strongly denying it.

He says that the stories about Hamas levying new taxes on consumer goods and on smuggled items from tunnels are false.

He said that Hamas does indeed watch the items being imported into Gaza from both the tunnels and from Israel, but that this oversight is simply quality control. You see, Israel dumps inedible food and illegal drugs and contraband to Gaza, and Hamas is bravely protecting its citizens from having to worry about being exposed to such dangers.

I wonder if he is referring to the evil Zionist sex gum?

Jews a big issue in - Malaysian election!

From the Malaysian Insider:

The first day of the official Hulu Selangor campaign saw the main contenders, Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat, exchange allegations of Jewish links against each other in the race for the majority Malay vote.
Malays form more than half of the 64,500 voters who will have to pick between BN, PR and two independents contesting the April 25 by-election, the 10th since Election 2008.

A BN campaigner from Johor, Rosdi Amir slammed Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, claiming it was ironic that the opposition leader himself was linking the ruling BN government with Israel for hiring communication consultant, APCO Worldwide.

“His media adviser is an Pakistani-American, who is funded by the Jews,” Rosdi bluntly told his audience in Kampung Pasir Kerling without giving any names, while campaigning for P. Kamalanathan.

Speaking in the constituency located more that 7,000 kilometres from Tel Aviv, Rosdi alleged that Anwar’s tenure as visiting professor at an American university was funded by Jewish groups.

“[More] proof that he is funded by the Jews was when he was appointed as lecturer John Hopkins University with the financial assistance from the Jews,” he added.

He claimed that Anwar would end up as a ‘Jewish puppet’, should he takes over the government.

“They like to manipulate weak leaders from various countries,” Rosdi said.

Citing more Jewish links for PR, he accused DAP of being under Jewish control as it is a member of the Socialist International.

Rosdi described the International Jewish Labour Bund, World Labour Zionist Movement, Israeli Labour Party and New Movement-Meretz, all members of the Socialist International as the backbone of the organisation.

“Do we want them or their friends to become our leaders,” said Rosdi, a practicing lawyer.

“I’m only presenting facts here,” he told the all-Malay crowd while showing his prepared notes.
Some 300 metres away at a PKR-organised rally, Anwar used Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s criticism of APCO to support his argument against what he called a company with strong links to the Israeli military.

PKR Youth chief Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin also repeated accusations that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s government is close to the Israelis.

“For the first time in the history of our country the government hires Jews, Zionists as consultants,” said Shamsul before hundreds of party loyalists.

“They accused Anwar of being a Jewish agent but they hired a Jewish company, when we showed the contract in Parliament, they chose to be silent,” he told the crowd.

The Malaysian section of the Elders International Division (Eid) is working overtime!

Elie Wiesel's full page ad on Jerusalem

Here's the text of the full-page ad that Elie Wiesel took out in the The International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal on Friday and in The New York Times on Sunday:

It was inevitable: Jerusalem once again is at the center of political debates and international storms. New and old tensions surface at a disturbing pace. Seventeen times destroyed and seventeen times rebuilt, it is still in the middle of diplomatic confrontations that could lead to armed conflict. Neither Athens nor Rome has aroused that many passions.

For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture—and not a single time in the Koran. Its presence in Jewish history is overwhelming. There is no more moving prayer in Jewish history than the one expressing our yearning to return to Jerusalem. To many theologians, it IS Jewish history, to many poets, a source of inspiration. It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain. When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming. The first song I heard was my mother’s lullaby about and for Jerusalem. Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory.

Since King David took Jerusalem as his capital, Jews have dwelled inside its walls with only two interruptions; when Roman invaders forbade them access to the city and again, when under Jordanian occupation, Jews, regardless of nationality, were refused entry into the old Jewish quarter to meditate and pray at the Wall, the last vestige of Solomon’s temple. It is important to remember: had Jordan not joined Egypt and Syria in the war against Israel, the old city of Jerusalem would still be Arab. Clearly, while Jews were ready to die for Jerusalem they would not kill for Jerusalem.

Today, for the first time in history, Jews, Christians and Muslims all may freely worship at their shrines. And, contrary to certain media reports, Jews, Christians and Muslims ARE allowed to build their homes anywhere in the city. The anguish over Jerusalem is not about real estate but about memory.

What is the solution? Pressure will not produce a solution. Is there a solution? There must be, there will be. Why tackle the most complex and sensitive problem prematurely? Why not first take steps which will allow the Israeli and Palestinian communities to find ways to live together in an atmosphere of security. Why not leave the most difficult, the most sensitive issue, for such a time?

Jerusalem must remain the world’s Jewish spiritual capital, not a symbol of anguish and bitterness, but a symbol of trust and hope. As the Hasidic master Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav said, “Everything in this world has a heart; the heart itself has its own heart.”

Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul.

- Elie Wiesel

"Earthquakes caused by sex"

But only if it is done right....

From AAP:

A senior Iranian cleric has claimed that dolled-up women incite extramarital sex, causing more earthquakes in Iran, a country that straddles several fault lines, newspapers reported on Saturday.
"Many women who dress inappropriately ... cause youths to go astray, taint their chastity and incite extramarital sex in society, which increases earthquakes," Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi told worshippers at Friday prayers in Tehran.
"Calamities are the result of people's deeds," he was quoted as saying by reformist Aftab-e Yazd newspaper. "We have no way but conform to Islam to ward off dangers."

Work accident!

Two terrorists were killed in the Deir al-Balah camp in Gaza, in what is an apparent "work accident" where the explosives they were working on blew up a bit earlier than they had intended. Their bodies were literally blown to bits, and they have not yet been identified, and we do not yet know which group they belonged to.

This makes at least ten terrorists killed this year so far in "work accidents."

Human rights officials rushed to condemn the fact that terror groups place innocent Gazans at risk by building bomb factories in densely populated areas.

Just kidding!

Quran ripped. Nobody rioted.

From the Gulf Daily News (Bahrain):

A female inmate faces an extra year in jail and BD200 fine for ripping up a copy of the Quran.

The Bahraini woman was already serving a one-month jail sentence for insulting police officers and trying to assault them.

However, she was seen ripping pages out of the Quran and throwing them into the bin by staff at the Dry Dock Detention Centre. The defendant, who has admitted desecrating the Quran in the Lower Criminal Court, said she did it without a reason and had no regrets. A judge yesterday adjourned the trial until April 27 to issue a verdict.

When a Muslim desecrates the Quran, the reaction seems to be a bit lighter than when a Christian is accused of doing so.

ElBaradei interview appears to have been faked

YNet reported on Wednesday:

Former IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who is considering contending in Egypt's presidential elections next year, expressed his support for the "Palestinian resistance" while slamming Israel.

In a report published Tuesday, the experienced diplomat said that Palestinian violence was the only path open to the Palestinian people, because "the Israeli occupation only understands the language of violence."

According to the report from the UPI news agency, ElBaradei started the ball rolling with a meeting Monday with members of his movement, thus making it clear to Israel how relations between the states will be after the elections – if he wins. According to Ibrahim Nawar, a senior figure in the movement, ElBaradei also said, "The peace process has become a stupid joke which we talk about without achieving any progress."

The former International Atomic Energy Agency leader criticized the fence which Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak set up along the Gaza Strip border. The fence "hurts Egypt's reputation," he said. "It appears to be participation in the siege of Gaza, which has become the world's largest prison."

"The logical solution to the problem," he continued, "would be to close the tunnels and open border crossings while creating a free trade zone in Rafah where Palestinians can trade and then return to Gaza."

Where did this story come from? A search on the UPI website finds no such interview with ElBaradei.

As far as I can tell, the first place that this story was published was in the Al Qassam Brigades (Hamas) website, although it might have been first published by Iran's PressTV, whose story is identical to Al Qassam's.

If the story was true, it would be a bombshell - a Nobel Peace Prize winner saying that he supports terrorism, and someone who wants to be the Prime Minister of Egypt suggesting that Egypt's sovereignty be compromised by opening the border with Gaza?

However, it looks like it was made up. From Bikya Masr:

Upon further checking and a message received by Ali ElBaradei, the opposition leader’s brother and press contact, it appears the entire “interview” was made up.

“If you are referring to the interview with that Palestinian media agency, it is total bogus,” the brother told Bikya Masr. “He never gave such an interview.”

It begs the question as to why an organization would create a false interview with such a high profile Egyptian politician. According to Mohamed Latif, a Palestinian media analyst and blogger based in Ramallah, the idea was probably to create solidarity with the Palestinian cause, “after so much frustration with Egyptian political leaders.”

However, Latif believes that fabricating such interviews will do more harm than good to other Palestinian news organizations and agencies who seek proper news gathering.

“Now, it will be even harder for Palestinian reporters and organizations to deal with ElBaradei because there will be a lot of suspicion as to how the quotes will be used and rightfully so,” he added.

Here in Cairo, activists are dumbfounded, as the interview shocked many who wondered why ElBaradei would have said such comments in the first place.

So was it Hamas that made it up, or Iran?

And more importantly, why did YNet (and Arutz-7) believe the story without even checking with UPI?

Hillary's wishful thinking

Here is part of what Hillary Clinton said yesterday at the dedication of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace:

I am one of those people who does believe that peace is possible, not out of any misplaced idealism or whatever remnants of naiveté may still pulse somewhere in one or two cells left in my body – (laughter) – but because it has to happen. It has to happen.

Is this the thinking of the Secretary of State of the United States? That the reason peace is possible is because "it has to happen??"

This sounds like the thinking of an abused woman who married her abuser because, after all, he has to change.

This is not only naivete - it is the triumph of wishful thinking over reality. This is not only a problem with this administration or even this nation, of course, but it has rarely been so succinctly and explicitly put.

To hear one of the most powerful people on the planet spewing such nonsense is a very frightening thought. The reality is that the current generation of Palestinian Arabs are not able to adhere to any real peace with Jews controlling what they consider Arab land forever. The peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, while wonderful in the sense of quieting down the borders, are very far from the real definition of "peace" - in fact, the level of hate for Jews in those countries are higher than in most Arab countries that do not recognize Israel. This is not a problem that can be solved in this generation.

Realizing that some problems are not solvable is not a failure; it is an acknowledgment of reality. Once this is understood, then problems no longer need to be solved - they need to be managed, which is a very different issue and requires a very different approach.

Unlike the illusory "peace," it also has the potential of being possible.

"Iran could produce missile that could hit the US"

From AP:

Iran could build a nuclear bomb in a year's time if it wants to, but would need more time to make the weapon usable against an enemy, U.S. officials told Congress on Wednesday.

Having said that Iran could amass sufficient highly enriched uranium to build one bomb in roughly a year, Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that a nation driving for a weapon generally needs three to five additional years to make the leap to a bomb it can field.

The timeline Cartwright cited Wednesday could be shortened if Iran pursued ways to deliver a weapon at the same time as it worked to build a bomb.

It seems that Cartwright is saying that Iran is 3-5 years away from having the ability to deliver a nuclear bomb on a missile. (The idea that Iran is not working on a delivery system in concert with building the bomb appears dangerously shortsighted to me as well. Why on earth would the systems have to be developed serially?)

He seems not to be concerned that such a bomb could be delivered easily over land or via a ship.

Imagine, for example, another Iranian weapons ship being discovered by Israel like last year's boat with thousands of tons of weapons. Israel took that ship into port to catalog the weapons. What if one of them was nuclear - with a remote trigger?

Or what about Free Gaza's upcoming flotilla of ships meant to go to Gaza - but with a high probability that Israel will intercept it?

Iran doesn't need a missile to deliver a nuclear bomb to its most likely intended target. It just needs a person willing to kill himself for jihad.

I don't think there is a shortage of such people.

Iran is also pursuing an aggressive ballistic missile program, and with outside help could produce an intercontinental missile capable of reaching the United States, a top intelligence official told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

It already has missiles that can reach much of Europe, as well as most of the Arab world. While I'm not a rocket expert, the fact that Iran has sent satellites into space seems to me to be an indication that they already have the know-how to build an ICBM even without outside help.