Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The other gangs of Gaza (Zvi)

From Zvi, commenting on the article that claimed that many "work accidents" in Gaza were really from infighting:

Gaza is controlled by one vicious terrorist gang, but there are other, equally vicious criminal and terrorist gangs running around. These people have no concern whatsoever for the welfare of Gazans. They focus either on profit, or on serving their foreign masters, or both.

The Army of Islam, which held Alan Johnston hostage and which Hamas violently crushed thereafter, was an example. These people are mostly members of the Doghmush clan, a Turkish criminal family that moved to Gaza in the 1920s. (Incidentally, by what right are a bunch of criminals from Turkey in Gaza at all, and exactly how can they, of all people, justify attacks on Israel? But they are not at all unique. There are many Palestinians who actually hail from other places. It's one of those elephants standing around in the room, which everybody pretends do not exist).

In addition, smuggling tunnels are often controlled by smuggling gangs (though some seem to be controlled by "legitimate businessmen"). In the past, when Gazans have attacked the border crossings with mortars, the culprits have sometimes been identified as smuggling gangs. The attackers were attempting to force closures; by cutting off the flow of aid and trade goods being imported legitimately through the crossings, they hoped to raise the prices that would be paid for their smuggled goods.

With criminal gangs involved in the tunneling business, it is quite reasonable to expect the competition between tunnel operators to turn violent.

Hamas is the ruling gang. It has used either intimidation or violence to suppress political opponents, a number of jihadi groups and also a number of gangs. Some of the incidents have been large and well-publicized (the violent coup against Fatah, the violent suppression of the Army of Islam, the extermination of the al Qaeda group that holed up in the mosque, and so on) but some of them have received little media attention.

Hamas has won itself some friends by being the strong guy in Gaza, but by killing people, it has won itself enemies, too.

And Hamas taught its enemies well. It rose to power in part by carrying out terror bombings and assassinations against Fatah and its supporters. I rather think that others - especially Fatah supporters - would like to do the same to it, though Hamas is not the eternally disorganized and inept rabble that was Fatah, and it seems unlikely that such tactics will make much of a difference against Hamas. The significance of Cast Lead was not lost on many Gazans; Hamas forces proved themselves to be rather worthless in real combat. There are enough crazy idiots on the Fatah side who see the Hamas coup as a stain on their honor, and we all know what that means...

Did Avigdor Lieberman say "Al Quds is our capital"?

The International News of Pakistan refuses to write the word "Jerusalem," instead replacing it with "Al-Quds". This means that some of its articles are a little, um, strange sounding:

OCCUPIED-AL-QUDS: Israel’s foreign minister warned on Tuesday that foreign pressure would further intensify the Middle East conflict and insisted al-Quds will remain forever the country’s undivided capital.

“Any attempt to force a solution on the parties without establishing a foundation of mutual trust will only deepen the conflict,” Avigdor Lieberman told diplomats at a reception to mark the 62’nd anniversary of Israel’s creation.

“Peace cannot be enforced, it must be built,” the right-wing minister said at the event held at the presidential residence in al-Quds.

Lieberman recalled the words of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who said 30 years ago, that “the city, north and south, east and west, is entirely under Israel’s sovereignty, our eternal capital city. It cannot be divided. And will never again be divided. Neither directly, nor indirectly.”

“Today,” Lieberman said, “I stand before you in al-Quds, as Israel’s foreign minister, and reaffirm late Prime Minister Begin’s statement: al-Quds is our undivided, eternal capital.”

Meanwhile, Israelis fired up barbecues in packed campgrounds and beaches across the country on Tuesday as they celebrated the 62nd anniversary of the illegal creation of the Jewish state.

Did we find an authentic Palestinian Arab dish?

From Ma'an:

Prime Minister Salam Fayyad seen testing a massive dish of musakhan, a traditional Palestinian food, in the West Bank village of Arura, near Ramallah on 19 April 2010. The dish has a diameter of 4 meters.

Chefs are hoping to win an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest dish of musakhan ever made. It contained 500 chickens, 500 kg of onions, 250 kg of flour, 170 liters of olive oil, 70 kg of almonds and 50 kg of spices and sumac.

Is musakhan a Palestinian food?

It seems that this depends on your definition of "Palestinian." Mentions of the food in the media in the past decade or so generally call it Palestinian, but that was not always the case. In this fluff piece for the Saudi Aramco World magazine from 1975, it is identified as Jordanian:

Jordan’s Legendary Musakahan

To people with a desert heritage, the idea of cooking on or in earth, by the heat of the sun, a twig fire, or hot stones, is the natural way to a meal. From Aqaba to Baghdad, the bread baking in the ashes, tea bubbling on hot rocks, the bird roasting in a jacket of mud, this has been cookery through the millennia.
Not that that Dior-dressed lady over there is going home to fashionable Jabal Amman to poke up a fire among hot rocks. She may not even turn on her electric stove if she's having people in to dinner. She'll probably send out for that legendary Jordan Valley specialty, musakhan —literally "heated"—a succulent concoction of chicken, bread, onions and sumac baked in a tabboun.

The tabboun is the mud igloo once found in the back yard of old Jordanian homes. Its dome, over a mud-and-stone baking surface, over a fire trench, builds up and holds an intense, even heat which demonstrably adds a different flavor to baked bread, roasted meat. This venerable institution is sometimes found today even in cities, where neighborhoods have hung onto their ancient communal tabboun, the local bakery. After the baker has finished his day's allotment of loaves, the oven stays hot for hours, and in it will be found the dinners of his neighbors—a whole lamb at the back, a stuffed chicken, a casserole of eggplant.

So it appears that Musakhan originated in the Jordan Valley, which includes parts of British Mandate Palestine and parts of today's Jordan.

Palestinian Arabs are now claiming the food as pretty much exclusively their own (see Wikipedia's stub entry.)

Proud to be a Zionist - 5770 edition

I wrote the original essay around 2002 and I have been modifying it since then. Here is this year's edition:

Every year, the State of Israel seems to be up against yet another unsolvable crisis. Whether it is war against terrible odds, a wave of terror attacks, a new feeling of isolation as friends seem to turn hostile, or the threat of nuclear-armed enemies, there are always new challenges that she faces - sometimes simultaneously.

Yet, here she is, 62 years old and more beautiful than she was at birth.

In prayers every morning Jews say a phrase praising G-d, describing Him as המחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית - He who continually renews the act of Creation. In other words, the Jewish concept of G-d has him in an active role keeping the universe running, and as such it is appropriate to praise Him.

It is a little hard to conceptualize this idea, that the very laws of physics, of the world turning and revolving around the sun is not automatic, but only occurs due to the constant will of G-d. But perhaps it is easier to understand this phrase if we apply it to the modern state of Israel.

Every single day that the Jewish state continues to exist cannot be explained adequately with historical or social or military reasons. Which means that we are witnessing a miracle every day.

The most recent years have been very hard for Zionists, as well as for religious Zionists. Yet when we step back and look at the big picture, Israel remains something to be very proud of.

Yes, I am a Zionist and I am proud of it.
I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, just like - and possibly more than - any other country.

I am proud of how the IDF conducts itself during the war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet, save the US, that would try to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened, shot at, mortared, rocketed, and murdered in cold blood. At times there are discussions whether the IDF's moral standards end up being counterproductive - and what other army could one even have that conversation about?

I am also proud that Israel investigates any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keep trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the Palestinian people. This is not done because of "human rights" organizations - it is done because it is the right thing to do. Even when everyone knows that the world will accuse it of "war crimes," the IDF retains an incredibly high moral standards.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while in a constant war situation. Any other nation, again besides the US, would have imposed martial law to maintain peace.

I am proud of how the IDF responded to the terror attacks of the early days of the intifada, managing to bring deadly suicide attacks from 60 in 2002 down to a single attack in 2007 and one in 2008. The enemy has not stopped trying, and if Israel hadn't acted decisively things would look like Iraq or Afghanistan today. For every "successful" attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous.

I am awed and humbled at how ordinary Israelis responded to the dark days of 2002-2004. Rather than demanding revenge, the victims of terror worked hard to help others - building institutions, creating scholarships, volunteering their time, all to help other victims of the same horror. To Israelis, it is not a zero-sum game, and every new setback is an opportunity to improve the world.

Of course, I am proud of Israel's many accomplishments in building up a desert wasteland into a thriving and vibrant modern country, with its many scientific achievements, world class universities and culture. A tiny nation, under constant siege, with almost no natural resources besides breathtaking beauty, has used its brains - and strength - to build a modern success story. In a short period of time Israel made itself into a strong yet open nation that its neighbors can only dream of becoming. At a time that people are trying to hurt Israel economically, it has thrived.

I am proud that the vast majority of Americans support Israel as I do, and that the rabid terror-lovers we see on the Internet are the aberration.

There is a right and a wrong in this conflict, and I am proud that Israel is in the right.

Immediately after the prayer mentioned above we see the phrase 'מה רבו מעשיך ה , "How great are Your works, O G-d." It is easy to find faults but in the big picture, the accomplishments are remarkable and need to be highlighted.

The word "Zionist" is not an epithet - it is a compliment.

Followup on Saudi preacher and Jerusalem

Asharq Al Awsat has an op-ed by Hamad Al-Majid from which we can piece together what happened after the Saudi TV preacher, Mohammed al-Arifi, apparently changed his mind about visiting Jerusalem under pressure from Saudi clerics.

After all the criticism, Al-Arifi claimed that he was misunderstood - he never intended to broadcast his show from Jerusalem to show solidarity with Palestinian Arabs. Oh, no. He was just going to go to the Jordanian border and look at Jerusalem from afar.

In fact, al-Arifi said, it was all merely a misunderstanding and he could never visit Jerusalem as long as it remains under Zionist occupation and that he would never appeal to or beg the Israeli consulates to grant him an entry visa. He added that he would never enter Jerusalem except by the sword "just as the Zionists seized it by the sword."

The columnist, a seemingly moderate Saudi who is active in human rights and has received degrees from universities in the US and the UK, says that he was surprised at the number of young people who supported the idea of al-Arifi visiting the city. He finds a silver lining in the episode:

Dozens of Arab satellite television channels dedicated hours of live broadcast to cover the issue of the Jerusalem visit and to explain its broad impact, danger and [potential] repercussions on the Arab-Israeli conflict. A number of Muslim sheikhs and scholars appeared on television and warned against this. It was one rare occasion where the entire intellectual and political spectrum including Islamists and liberals shared the same view and criticized the idea of a Muslim scholar visiting Jerusalem.

Though the statement made by Sheikh al Arifi about visiting Jerusalem caused unease, discontent, confusion and strong reactions, it must be stated that it was not all bad. The question ‘what’s wrong with visiting Jerusalem’ was finally answered in a detailed and comprehensive manner through debate, discussions, articles and fatwa shows in response to Sheikh al Arifi’s proposed visit to Jerusalem. It was a good opportunity to shed light once again on the issue of anti-normalization with our Zionist enemy and to revive the idea among the younger generations that are sadly unaware of the significance of the anti-normalization campaign and the necessity of keeping it alive.

Sadly, I was not privy to the many hours of debates he mentions, so I do not know the Islamic legal issues involved in banning Muslims from visiting Islam's supposedly third-holiest site.

But the question must be asked: If there is such a consensus that Muslims may not visit Jerusalem - even to help boost the morale of their poor, oppressed Palestinian Arab brethren - then why are Palestinian Muslims allowed to visit the city? If the only way to visit is "by the sword," then shouldn't they also withdraw as soon as possible until that glorious day arrives?

In fact, wouldn't the same logic apply to the entire West Bank and Gaza? After all, the PalArabs must suffer humiliation daily from the Zionist occupiers, and they must show their dependence on the Jewish state for travel and other daily activities. Wouldn't it be better if they joined the "anti-normalization" movement and refused to even live in an area that is under occupation until the Muslim world awakens from its slumber and pushes the Jews into the sea?

Obviously, maintaining hatred for Israel is much more important than showing love for Jerusalem and love for Palestinian Arabs. The Palestinian Arabs themselves do not seem to be showing the correct levels of hatred by continuing to live under the oppressive Zionists, as opposed to the lucky ones who live under the benevolent Lebanese or remain stateless after being in Syria for three generations. Isn't it time for them to do something about it and eliminate their ties to Jewish-occupied territory altogether until they could enter it "by the sword?"

I must be missing something.

Report: "Work accidents" really murders

Firas Press reproduces a report from some other newspaper (which they never cite, but this one might be Egyptian) that claims that many of the recent "work accidents" and tunnel collapses in Gaza have really been murders.

The article goes through a number of specific examples going back to November. For example, one of the supposed victims of a tunnel collapse had a gunshot wound. The family of a"work accident" victim also from November disputes Hamas' account.

Even some of the explosions were engineered by other Hamas members, the report says, as some victims were targeted in their cars (and, indeed, there has been a marked increase in the number of car bombs in recent months, usually directed to security forces, that Hamas dismissed as being done by "teenagers.")

The report also details a story about a woman, who had considered Hamas to be her "brothers," abducted by Hamas. Her family found her in the hospital where she says that she was beaten and her abductors threatened to publicize indecent photos of her.

Top PA official says Israel doesn't want peace - while dedicating Abu Jihad Street

Tayeb Abdel Rahim, director-general of the Presidency of the Palestinian Authority, gave a speech criticizing Israel for a host of issues, such as the fallacious idea that it was planning to deport tens of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from the West Bank (which he claims has already started!) as well as building the separation barrier.

One of Rahim's points was that Israel was more interested in building settlements than in peace.

And where did he make these statements?

At the public dedication ceremony of Shahid Khalil al-Wazir 'Abu Jihad' Street in Ramallah!

Abu Jihad was the architect of a number of terrorist attacks, including the Savoy Hotel and Coastal Road massacres. He is generally referred to as the "prince of martyrs."

Apparently, the irony of claiming that Israel is not interested in peace as he represented Mahmoud Abbas in honoring a master terrorist was lost on Rahim.

At the ceremony, the mayor of Ramallah emphasized that they will continue to name streets after their heroes and martyrs, no matter what Israel says - a clear reference to his support for naming other streets after terrorists like Dalal Mughrabi.

Just a little more intransigence

From Ma'an:

Senior-most Hamas leader Khalid Mash'al said Monday that Arab officials had urged the movement to accept the International Quartet's condition and recognize Israel, in exchange for amendments to the Egyptian-backed unity deal.

"Whoever asks us to recognize Israel will be disappointed," Mash'al said during a speech marking a week of Prisoners Day activities in Damascus.

"I tell the Americans, the Zionists, and everyone ... we will not succumb to your terms. We won’t pay a political price no matter how long the blockade lasts. God is with us and he will grant us victory."

Addressing Palestinian prisoners, the Hamas leader vowed to ensure their release....

"We only have one solution now, we will detain your soldiers as you detain our men and women," he added. "Gilad Shalit will not be the last [captured soldier], this is a promise," the leader said.

As the enlightened world pushes the "peace process" forward and demands more and more concessions from Israel, they all make sure that they pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Gaza medics (forced to) celebrate Hamas

The medical establishment in Gaza has violently been taken over by Hamas over the years. Hospitals have turned into torture chambers, medical officials have been replaced with Hamas supporters, medical supplies have been turned into bombs, and ambulances confiscated and turned into military vehicles. Hamas has refused to receive blood from Israel and has politicized the sending of Gazans to Egypt and Israel for treatment, resulting in deaths. It arrested, tortured and humiliated doctors. It has even attacked the Red Crescent headquarters.

Keep all of this in mind when reading this Ma'an story:

The Palestinian Military Medical Services marched toward Gaza's legislative council building on Monday, marking over four years since Hamas' electoral victory in the January 2006 general elections.

Crowds of doctors, nurses, and administrative staff participated in the rally and were welcomed by a number of the Palestinian Legislative Council members in Gaza City.

Abdul Qader Al-Arbid, general director of medical services, said staff "came today to assure [the government] that the medical services stand beside Palestinian legitimacy."

Doesn't that sound like a spontaneous expression of their love for their terrorist overlords?

A cynical look at Obama's Independence Day Message

This seems to be the text of President Obama's message to Israel on Yom Ha'atzmaut today, although I have not been able to find an official version:

On the 62nd Anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel, I join the American people in congratulating the government and people of Israel on this celebration of their independence. Minutes after David Ben-Gurion declared Israel’s independence, realizing the dream of a state for the Jewish people in their historic homeland, the United States became the first country to recognize Israel.
To this day, we continue to share a strong, unbreakable bond of friendship between our two nations, anchored by the United States’ enduring commitment to Israel’s security. Israel remains our important partner and key strategic ally in the Middle East, and I am confident that our special relationship will only be strengthened in the months and years to come.

I look forward to continuing our efforts with Israel to achieve comprehensive peace and security in the region, including a two-state solution, and to working together to counter the forces that threaten Israel, the United States, and the world.

On this day, we once again honor the extraordinary achievements of the people of Israel, and their deep and abiding friendship with the American people.

I offer my best wishes to President Peres, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the people of Israel as they celebrate this happy occasion.

All in all, a very nice message (although, as Aussie Dave points out, putting Peres ahead of Netanyahu might be interpreted as a tiny snub.)

However, in light of the problems between the White House and Israel this year as well as the pressure that Obama has been feeling from members of Congress and prominent Jewish leaders, this message was clearly important for the White House to get right.

How about last year's message, before the current mini-crisis? How effusive was Obama then?

From the White House web site:

Statement on the 61st Anniversary of Israel’s Independence

On behalf of the people of the United States, President Obama congratulates the people and government of Israel on the 61st anniversary of Israel’s independence. The United States was the first country to recognize Israel in 1948, minutes after its declaration of independence, and the deep bonds of friendship between the U.S. and Israel remain as strong and unshakeable as ever. The President looks forward to working with Israel to advance our common interests, including the realization of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, ensuring Israel’s security, and strengthening the bilateral relationship, over the months and years to come.

Let's compare this short 2009 message with Pakistan's:

At the stroke of midnight on August 14, 1947, a new Nation emerged from the plateaus of Balochistan and the mountains of the North West Frontier Province. More than one hundred years after colonial rule had arrived, it departed. The Quaid-i-Azam would later explain, "The story of Pakistan, its struggle and its achievement, is the very story of great human ideals..." Over the course of its history, Pakistan has encountered and overcome great challenges, and Pakistanis have brought life to the great ideals that Muhammad Ali Jinnah described.

In the earliest days of the Independence Movement, Muslims, Hindus, and other religious groups banded together to turn back the yoke of British rule. In the early 20th century, many Muslims began to pursue a separate homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims. This pursuit, lead by the Muslim League, ultimately pointed a people towards self-determination and, out of this effort, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was born.

Since its founding, Pakistan has changed a great deal, but its people still carry forward the proud traditions of their forbears. The unmistakable rhythm of the qawwali and melody of the ghazal reverberate and inspire audiences in Pakistan and across the globe. Pakistani artists and poets elucidate the human experience as they explore time-honored themes such as devotion and love. World-class cricket, field hockey, and polo players participate in regional and international competitions, impressing all those who witness their skill.

The United States has been a friend to Pakistan over the course of much of this storied history, and the American and Pakistani people share deep ties and common aspirations. Americans and Pakistanis have both made sacrifices in the service of justice, democracy, opportunity, and the rule of law. Our Nation knows well the heritage of Pakistanis because of our own proud Pakistani American populations. Living in cities large and small, from the shores of New York to the sands of Hawaii, Pakistani Americans enrich our Nation’s diversity. Their professional contributions, family values, and religious traditions have strengthened our economy and enriched our culture.

As Pakistan enters the next chapter in its history, the United States supports the great human ideals to which we both aspire. Our children deserve the opportunity to receive an education and to achieve their dreams. Our families deserve the right to live freely in peace, to practice their faith without fear of insecurity, and to enjoy respect for the full range of their human rights. Today, as we mark the proud birth of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the American people recognize our common future, and reaffirm our unyielding support for Pakistan’s democratic institutions and the Pakistani people.

Working together, we can ensure that Pakistan rises above its challenges just as it has so many times before.

To be fair, there are very few such national messages at the White House web site; it appears that the job of congratulating countries on their independence falls to Hillary Clinton. And Pakistan is hugely important.

Even so, I cannot help but be cynical about the message from the White House today.

The "peace process" is a false religion (Aaron David Miller)

Aaron David Miller, one of the staunchest proponents of the failed "peace process," has started to see the light.

In a lengthy Foreign Policy piece, he deconstructs what has become a cornerstone of American diplomatic thinking:

Like all religions, the peace process has developed a dogmatic creed, with immutable first principles. Over the last two decades, I wrote them hundreds of times to my bosses in the upper echelons of the State Department and the White House; they were a catechism we all could recite by heart. First, pursuit of a comprehensive peace was a core, if not the core, U.S. interest in the region, and achieving it offered the only sure way to protect U.S. interests; second, peace could be achieved, but only through a serious negotiating process based on trading land for peace; and third, only America could help the Arabs and Israelis bring that peace to fruition.
I can't tell you how many times in the past 20 years, as an intelligence analyst, policy planner, and negotiator, I wrote memos to Very Important People arguing the centrality of the Arab-Israeli issue and why the United States needed to fix it. Long before I arrived at the State Department in 1978, my predecessors had made all the same arguments. An unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict would trigger ruinous war, increase Soviet influence, weaken Arab moderates, strengthen Arab radicals, jeopardize access to Middle East oil, and generally undermine U.S. influence from Rabat to Karachi.

From the 1940s through the 1980s, the power with which the Palestinian issue resonated in the Arab world did take a toll on American prestige and influence. Still, even back then the hand-wringing and dire predictions in my Cassandra-like memos were overstated. I once warned ominously -- and incorrectly -- that we'd have nonstop Palestinian terrorist attacks in the United States if we didn't move on the issue. During those same years, the United States managed to advance all of its core interests in the Middle East: It contained the Soviets; strengthened ties to Israel and such key Arab states as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia; maintained access to Arab oil; and yes, even emerged in the years after the October 1973 war as the key broker in Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

Today, I couldn't write those same memos or anything like them with a clear conscience or a straight face. Although many experts' beliefs haven't changed, the region has, and dramatically, becoming nastier and more complex. U.S. priorities and interests, too, have changed. The notion that there's a single or simple fix to protecting those interests, let alone that Arab-Israeli peace would, like some magic potion, bullet, or elixir, make it all better, is just flat wrong. In a broken, angry region with so many problems -- from stagnant, inequitable economies to extractive and authoritarian governments that abuse human rights and deny rule of law, to a popular culture mired in conspiracy and denial -- it stretches the bounds of credulity to the breaking point to argue that settling the Arab-Israeli conflict is the most critical issue, or that its resolution would somehow guarantee Middle East stability.

I don't agree with everything he says, but it should be required reading for the current administration.

Social butterfly open thread

I never really looked at Blogger's social network features before, but when I noticed that I had 53 followers without even trying, I figured I might as well see what I can do.

So far I added a "Followers" widget on the bottom of the left sidebar so you can see who is following this blog, and I just added a blog-wide comment tool on the top bar of the blog so you can have general comment conversations that don't necessarily have to be related with the posts.

Not sure if I really want to maintain two different comment systems but let's try it for now and see how people like it. For now, the topbar comments require you to be a member of the blog. You can also upload YouTube videos there, just as you can in the regular comment system.

Give it a shot and we'll see how it goes.

Jewish Jerusalem, before and after: June 1948

Ben Atlas has an amazing collection of images from LIFE Magazine from Israel and Jerusalem in 1948. One of his more interesting finds was these two images, which were not archived together, of the same street in Jerusalem, taken a few days apart:

Jewish families waiting outside their homes to be evacuated by Arab troops. Jerusalem, Israel. June 1948. John Phillips

Rubble lying in the streets after Arab looting of Jewish homes. Jerusalem. June 1948. John Phillips

Do Muslim men have a monthly cycle?

Firas Press brings us this eye-opening information:

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings be upon you

This information is very strange - men have a menstrual cycle

When the full moon is bright in days 13 - 14 - 15 of the lunar month, the human body is filled with fluid and blood seethes. In this case, the person is psychologically volatile.

This was observed in Germany, Britain and America in this period among a lot of people, in bars and places of drinking an increase in their barbarism of behavior.

Police report more problems on these days than any others.

Scientists have been studying the psychological state of some of these people and have shown that people in this period have a higher rate of fluid in their bodies, leading to undesirable behavior!

It is here that we see the wisdom of the (Sunni Muslim custom of) fasting on the "white days" of the 13-15th of every month - because the fasting is congruent with the presence of fluid in the body!

This also reflects the wisdom of cupping on the 17 - 18 - 19 of the month, because in those days the blood has reached a stage Frenzy!

People should think carefully before making any decisions or actions on these days. This is crucial because of their psychological effects on the person - he might regret it later when it is too late!

Glory to God Almighty on the wisdom of creation

Wow!!

Unfortunately, there is no valid scientific proof of people acting differently on different days of the lunar month.

However, I don't know if Muslims were included in these studies, so it is always possible that some groups of people do have a monthly cycle.

It could explain a lot.

Khaled Amayreh foams at the mouth about Wiesel

The anti-Israel crowd is up in arms over Elie Wiesel's full-page ad published over the weekend. (This includes that paragon of dishonesty, Richard Silverstein.) But if you want to see a classic example of sputtering, insane Arab anger, you have to check out Khaled Amayreh, the pseudo-journalist whose entire purpose in life is to make Israel Judenrein.

Writing in AlJazeerah.Info, he can't even pretend to hide his disgust at Wiesel:

But pornographic crimes, such as last year’s genocidal atrocities in the Gaza Strip, require at least equally pornographic lies to whitewash them or at least mitigate their brutal ugliness. Needless to say, this task was left for people like Wiesel to carry out which he has been trying to do.

In a full-page add [sic] published in the Jewish-Zionist newspaper, the Washington Post, Wiesel regurgitated another dose of lies about Palestinian plight. He criticized what he called American “political pressure” on Israel , saying that such a pressure wouldn’t produce a solution to the issue of Jerusalem .

Then what would produce a solution to the issue? Allowing the mad dogs of Zionism to expel the Arabs, the true natives of the city, to the Arabian desert ? Or perhaps accelerating and completing the process of ethnic cleansing now under way in Jerusalem ? Or, maybe, the destruction of Islamic and Christian holy places in the city to make it goy-free?

So, what is the lie that Wiesel wrote in his ad? Certainly Amayreh has a good example:

“For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scriptures and not a single time in the Koran.”

Well, first of all, a liar has no right to even allude to the scriptures which teach “thou shall not lie.”

Second, it is not true that Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran. In fact, Jerusalem was the first Qibla (direction of prayer) for Muslims. Moreover, there is an entire –and large- Quranic chapter called “Suratul Israa” which deals with the prophesized corruption by the Children of Israel.*

The following are the first few verses of the Suratul Israa, Chapter XVII of the Holy Qur'an:

“1. Glory to ((Allah)) Who did take His servant for a Journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem), whose precincts We did bless,- in order that We might show him some of Our Signs: for He is the One Who hears and sees (all things).

Hate to break it to you, Khaled, but the only place you mention Jerusalem is in your parenthetical comment, not in the text itself. (Not to mention that many Quranic scholars believe that "Al Aqsa" is not referring to Jerusalem, see Daniel Pipes for a great article on the topic that I have never seen rebutted.)

You see the deceitful, morbid discourse of this man who calls himself a “moralist.”! He would like to see the international community, principally to give the Judeo-Nazi regime in Israel more time to effect more ethnic cleansing until the criminal entity reaches a stage at which there will be nothing left to talk about. That would signal the liquidation of the Palestinian cause.
I Wonder why some people in the West still object when Zionists are called “the Nazis of our time.”

There is a sickening, immoral liar being quoted here, and it sure isn't Elie Wiesel.