Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 19, 2010

LOL

My post on the Gaza Mall has been getting tons of hits from all over - it is as close to going viral as anything I've ever written.

One great link is from The Roadkill Diaries, which titles its post about the mall

Free Gaza

....with every $100 purchase.

And that's only the first joke.

Guess who bans the burqa?

Recently, France's lower house of Parliament voted to ban women from wearing the full veil, or burqa. The vote was 336-1, with 200 abstentions.

The reaction from Muslim leaders was predictable:

Ibrahim Hooper is a spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. He says that the French vote is a thinly-disguised attempt to discriminate against all Muslims, not just those who wear the burqa.

"It's really a new type of law targeting a particular minority faith based on the prejudices of the majority. And my religious rights should not be dependent on a majority vote,” said Hooper.

The interesting thing is that France was not the only government to restrict women from wearing the veil.

From AP:

Syria has banned the face-covering Islamic veil from the country's universities.

An official at the ministry says the ban affects public and private universities and aims to protect Syria's secular identity. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

The niqab is not widespread in Syria, although it has become more common recently. It's growing popularity has not gone unnoticed in a country governed by a secular, authoritarian regime.
Last month, hundreds of primary school teachers who wear the niqab were moved to administrative jobs, local media reported.

Is Ibrahim Hooper saying anything negative about Syria?

Last January, an Egyptian court upheld a ban of the veil during university exams. And last year Al Azhar University's religious head banned the veil at all Al Azhar schools altogether.

Is Ibrahim Hooper saying anything negative about Egypt's respect for Islam?

It seems that Syria and Egypt are nervous about growing Islamic fundamentalism, as shown by a custom that is not legally sanctioned in Islam. In the words of another Al Azhar scholar, ""We all agree that niqab is not a religious requirement. Taliban forces women to wear the niqab. ... The phenomena is spreading and it has to be confronted. The time has come."

So France does not seem to be exhibiting any Islamophobia. French politicians are merely following in the footsteps of two nations whose very constitutions invoke Islam as the major source for their laws!

New hysterical PalArab complaints about Jaffa Gate

I mentioned last April that Israel had re-opened Jaffa Gate after a two-month renovation project. Andm of course, Palestinian Arabs objected.

They knew that it had to be evil, because the hated Jews were doing it, but they couldn't quite figure out the reason that they should seethe. The best reason they could come up with was:

“It is an attempt to hit hard at commercial life in the Old City, especially the Muslim Quarter,” said Hatem Abdel Qader, an adviser on Jerusalem affairs to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

That reason made no sense at all, and it showed how infantile Palestinian Arab leaders are in reflexively attributing anything Israel does as being aimed purely at hurting them.

Well, three months later, the Al Aqsa Foundation finally came up with more reasons to be upset at Zionists renovating a Muslim-built gate: because the Jews are trying to redirect people from the Damascus Gate (which abuts the Muslim quarter) with Jaffa Gate.

Of course, Israel is planning to renovate Damascus Gate too, so that logic doesn't quite fly.

Even so, the Al Aqsa Foundation - which comes out with hysterical press releases about the "Judaizing" of Jerusalem every day - adds a few more problems. They say that the Jews are putting Biblical and Talmudic sayings around Jaffa Gate, that Israel is working to help tourists enter the Old City in opposition to local Arab Jerusalemites, that Israel is trying to "blockade" the Old City.

One gets the impression that the Al Aqsa Foundation spends all its time flinging mud and hoping that some of it will stick to the wall. The entire organization is one giant incitement factory.

The problem is, even though they have a track record of making predictions that never come true, they are still treated with respect and their press releases still get prominent coverage in the Arabic press

Terrorist kills after daughter is saved by Jews

Remember the story about the Palestinian Arab mother who declared, in an Israeli hospital where her son's life was being saved, that she hopes he grows up to kill the very Jews that were saving his life?

Well, that attitude is not exactly an aberration.

From YNet:

Policeman's murder solved. The Shin Bet has arrested a Hamas cell believed to be behind the shooting attack in which Yehoshua Sofer was killed in June, it was cleared for publication on Monday.

Two other policemen were injured in the attack when terrorists fired at their patrol car driving near the settlement of Beit Hagai, south of Hebron.

One of the cell's heads said in his interrogation that just two weeks before he embarked on the attack, his six-year-old daughter was hospitalized in Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, where she had a tumor removed from her eye. The operation was funded by an Israeli organization.

Jameel at The Muqata adds:

Walla reports that some of the terrorists in the cell were released from Israeli prisons just weeks before the terror attack.

Much of the "peace process" is based on the idea that "goodwill gestures" would, invariably, be reciprocated by the other side. That is, after all, how normal human beings function - they show appreciation for any good that is done to them.

Here we have two examples of "goodwill gestures" - one, a private Jewish organization that funds and facilitates expensive medical procedures for Palestinian Arabs. The other, where Israel releases prisoners - even without a swap. (In fact, Israel has released thousands of Palestinian Arab prisoners in the past couple of years.)

Both goodwill gestures were reciprocated - but with murder.

It is not racist to realize that the mentality of Palestinian Arabs is fundamentally different from that of most Westerners. It is a result of the culture they were brought up in; it is the result of decades of the most disgusting incitement imaginable - it is hardly genetic. The differences are there and they should not be papered over with wishful thinking. The assumption that "we are all the same under the skin" is a fatal error. The ugly truth is that, in some cultures, "goodwill gestures" are interpreted as weakness, not goodwill, and the obvious response to kindness by an enemy is violence.

Just ask the family and former fiancee of Yehoshua Sofer.

YNet: Hamas brags that it swaps fake shekels to Israel for real ones

From YNet:

The Bank of Israel is about to transfer tens of millions of shekels to the Gaza Strip this week. It has been less than six months since the last time this occurred. Hamas' website claims that the amount to be transferred is NIS 81 million (about $21 million).

A senior official in Israel's banking system claimed that the sum will be smaller than what Hamas claims, but confirmed that tens of millions of shekels will be cashed for residents of the coastal enclave.

The Hamas website asserts that the Bank of Israel is cashing money of two kinds for banks in the Strip. Firstly, it is exchanging worn-out banknotes for fresh ones, and, secondly, it is cashing money that Salam Fayyad's government in the Palestinian Authority transfers to Gaza as part of its aid program to the Strip.

Officials in the Israeli and Palestinian banking systems confirmed Hamas' claims.

The Bank of Israel declined to comment.

Deputy finance minister in the Hamas government Ismail Mahfouz boasted on the movement's website, "We are transferring counterfeit money to Israel, and they transfer real money to us in exchange."

I'm not sure if this is true. The screenshot that accompanied the story was not a Hamas website, but rather the PA Ministry of Finance site, in a story from a few weeks ago about paying salaries and quoting Mahfouz about the possibility of a new Palestinian Arab currency, plus a few other topics, but nothing about counterfeiting.

The YNet story is mentioned in a number of Arabic media, but without attribution, so it might be that YNet got it from a Fatah site, or vice versa. At any rate, I cannot find any Hamas site that says this.

On the other hand, the Hamas-linked Felesteen site says that Hamas denies the charges that it sends counterfeit money, saying that Israel checks the worn-out notes. It also has a story about Hamas itself busting a counterfeit money operation over the weekend - where someone was printing out US currency on his laser printer.

YNet might be mistaken in this case.

(I updated this with new information about the YNet screenshot.)
(h/t Jed and Ali)

Swastikas in Lebanon. Germany not amused.

My apologies for not mentioning this earlier. It was all over the Lebanese blogs and I simply missed it before.

Before the FIFA World Cup started in June 2010, a German flag with a swastika was seen on a house in Bteghrine, Lebanon (Germany prompted the Lebanese authorities to take these flags and swastika's down):

Unfotunately it's not just one incident.

Another Lebanese blogger shows us this picture of a guy wearing a shirt with a swastika on July 3rd:

and comments:

"While having dinner at Napoletana in ABC Dbayyeh, a guy walked in wearing the Swastika symbol on his tshirt. If i were the manager, i would have definitly kicked him out of the restaurant. Surprisingly, he turned out to be friends with the manager who sat with him for a short while.

Ignorance is indeed a virtue"

A day later a Lebanese (?) blogger wrote the following:

"One thing that really bothered me during the World Cup in 2006 was the occasional German flag with a swastika painted on it, mostly flown from passing cars. So you can imagine my disgust to see this banner flying in Bourj Hammoud, a predominantly Armenian Christian neighborhood east of Beirut today:"

(In German it reads: Germany (though misspelled) and "we live together, we fall together")

The blog Now Lebanon did some investigation and found out that the guy who hung the German flags with swastika-banners in the streets of Bourj Hammoud in Beirut is not an ignorant fool, but one sick dude:

Self-described “ferekh teis” (“stubborn bull”) Carlos Demien is celebrating Germany’s World Cup presence in a manner many around the world would find appalling. For the past few weeks, the 38 year-old Bourj Hammoud resident has displayed huge Nazi banners – swastikas and images of internationally-reviled Adolf Hitler included – across the Armenian district’s Zanco Street.

“I would not take [the banners] down if I was asked to,” said Demien, a Lebanese antiques dealer. “If anyone were to get upset, then for sure it is someone passing by. And, if this is the case, then he should just change his route.”

Demien insisted that he was not part of a neo-Nazi movement, but was simply praising what Hitler “had accomplished historically.” He claimed that the Nazi leader improved Germany’s standard of living, economics and agriculture. His reasoning took some sinister turns.

Demien lamented that Hitler was not allowed six more months in power. He also expressed no sympathies for the victims of the Holocaust and said he approved of the genocide. “Just look at the world and what is happening, and you would know why Hitler was right,” he said.

and..

“I make them myself,” said Demien of his signs. “I buy the material, design them and oversee their sewing.”

The German ambassador Birgitta Siefker-Eberle told The Daily Star that although the embassy didn't wish to cause a stir, she had been disturbed by the phenomenon:

“I find it very sad when this sort of thing happens,” the ambassador said. “Hitler is an extremely difficult legacy for Germany, and we have worked hard to atone for the crimes of the past – these flags simply negate that.”

Combining the current German flag with a swastika is also “historical nonsense,” she said, as the two have never coexisted. Although she put people’s fascination with Hitler largely down to ignorance, the ambassador stressed that the swastika was the symbol of a dictatorship for Germans, and one that reminded them of the darkest chapter in their history.

Update:
Zvi quotes part of the Daily Star in the comment section which I overlooked in the first place, but is important to mention:

"According to Nabil Dajani, a professor of media studies at the American University of Beirut, hostility to Israel also plays an important part in the endorsement of Nazi insignia.
“Most Arabs conceive the Israeli treatment of Palestinians as similar or worse than what the Jews faced in Nazi Germany,” he told The Daily Star.
“What the Germans feel today has nothing to do with how Arabs conceive of Germany. They still want to remember Germany as the country that [achieved revenge] for them from the Israelis,” despite the anachronism, he said.

I wonder if the German ambassador is aware of this.

Zvi also reveals some extra info on the Syrian-sponsored SSNP and wonders whether Demien is a member of this party rather than just a Nazi-obsessed nut-case:

"The SSNP has strong historical ties to the Nazis. Its anthem, for example, used to be Deutschland über Alles, its symbol is a reversed, swollen red swastika and its colors are black, white and red (reverse of the Nazi RWB). Those associated with the party tend to revere the Nazis."

New papers discovered from John Roy Carlson

John Roy Carlson, the pen name of Avedis Boghos Derounian, made a name of himself by infiltrating and exposing a number of Nazi and other groups in the 1930s and 1940s.

In 1948, he pretended to be an Arab fighter and observed Israel's War of Independence - from the Arab side. His observations were published in 1951 as "Cairo to Damascus." You can read most of the book online here, and it is fascinating. For example, he writes about dinner with London anti-semite, Nazi admirer and Arab supporter Robert Gordon-Canning:

Similar anecdotes about Arabs in 1948 abound. Here is one right after the Arabs captured Castel, but at the cost of losing their commander, Abdel Kader Husseini:

It turns out that Carlson has an unpublished manuscript from right after the war, and JStreetJive has part of it. Here is some of what they have published so far, from his interviews of Arab refugees in UNRWA camps:

Follow the rest at JStreetJive.

Sunday open thread

I'm having a minor case of blogger's block, so I'll work on other projects and let you guys take over.

Uproar in Lebanon over Nasrallah speech

Last Friday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah made a speech that prompted a number of Lebanese observers feel that he might be planning a coup.

Right now, the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon is coming closer to announcing the results of its investigation into the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri in 2005. According to an investigation by Der Spiegel last year, the STL has found strong evidence that Hezbollah was behind the assassination.

At the same time, Lebanon's internal security forces have arrested a number of people in the past few weeks as Israeli spies, most recently members of Lebanon's telecommunications carrier Alfa Telecom.

Nasrallah's speech slammed the STL as working for Zionist interests. Moreover, he charged that the Lebanese government itself was infiltrated with Zionist spies, pointing to an incident on May 5, 2008, when the government decided to declare Hezbollah's internal telecommunications network illegal.

Hezbollah responded to that incident by staging a bloody takeover of West Beirut, killing dozens.

Nasrallah also bragged that his organization could not be infiltrated by collaborators with Israel the way that Lebanon's government was, and he called for the death penalty for Israeli spies.

Phalange MP Sami Gemayel said that Nasrallah's speech could be asignal for a repeat of the May, 2008 events, as did March 14 General Coordinator Fares Soueid. An article in Ya Libnan warns of the same scenario.

Meanwhile, Lebanese security forces say they have identified three Hezbollah officials who were collaborating with Israel!

Lebanon remains a powder keg. No one dares to confront Hezbollah on its virtual stranglehold on the Lebanese, but the results of the tribunal may ignite another civil war.

I seriously wonder how this new measure will influence Hamas' popularity in the Gaza Strip:

In its latest attempt to try to impose a conservative Islamic way of life on Gaza, Hamas started this weekend to enforce a ban on smoking water pipes in public.

A spokesman for the Hamas police, Ayman al-Batniji, said that the ban applied only to women and that it was in line with “the Palestinian people’s customs and traditions.”

But many cafe owners said they had been ordered to ban water pipes for both men and women.

Smoking large water pipes called shisha, usually with bowls of flavored tobacco, is a longstanding pastime here.

Plainclothes members of the Hamas security services have been inspecting cafes along the Gaza City beachfront, including men-only establishments like Al Shera Café, where men go to drink coffee, tea and soft drinks while playing cards.

Ahmed Yazji, manager of the Orient House Hotel in Gaza city, said the conflicting orders were confusing. Plainclothes policemen “come to check and still order us not to serve shisha to anybody,” he said, “though we hear the order has been amended to include only women.”

Hamas are bad policy makers in the first place, but what else could you expect from a militant group?

Hamas has a vague and bewildering record when it comes to such campaigns.

Last year, for example, the authorities issued similar verbal orders against women smoking water pipes, but the ban was not enforced.

There have also been orders for female lawyers to wear Islamic head scarves in courthouses, men not to work in hairdressing salons catering to women, and girls to wear long Islamic robes at schools, but these orders either have not been enforced or were quickly reversed.

Some have ascribed the confusion to disagreements within Hamas, as guardians of religious morality, some self-appointed, others within the government, have sought to impose their own views.

On Friday night, a bearded man in plainclothes with a pistol entered the Al Shera Café, and nodded his head in satisfaction that no shisha was being smoked.

The receptionist asked him how long the ban would stay in place.

“Until a different, new order is issued,” the man with the pistol replied.

Grand Opening of the Gaza Mall

On Saturday night, the starving people of Gaza opened up a luxury mall.

At opening ceremonies attended by ministers and government officials, the Gaza Mall is a multi-story shopping center that includes food, clothing, perfumes, shoes, household appliances, office supplies and more.

The mall has a website, where we can see that it has air conditioning and parking, as well as delivery and other amenities that one would expect in any major mall.

The mall web page advertises "Israeli men's trousers at an attractive price," men's shirts from the US, girl's dresses from France and boy's pants from Turkey.

More pictures here.

The humanitarian crisis continues to grow in Gaza.

UPDATE: AP had pictures as well - but no accompanying story.

Also, i just emailed Catherine Ashton, European Union's foreign policy chief, who is now visiting Gaza, if she will have the opportunity to visit this mall.

UPDATE: More heartbreaking photos here.

UPDATE 2: And now we have video! Truly tragic!

Look how happy Gazans are at the easing of the blockade!

h/t MENW

Good News Friday: Save a Child's Heart

From Israel21c:

While the world's focus was out to sea, an Israeli-based charity was busy performing open-heart surgery on children from Gaza.

"The international media was talking about the flotilla, while Israeli hospitals were treating kids from Africa, Iraq and Gaza," says Simon Fisher, executive director of SACH (Save a Child's Heart), an Israeli-based international humanitarian project with a mission to save the lives of children from developing countries with cardiac ailments.

"That's the Israel I know - nothing like the one portrayed in the media. It deserves acknowledgement," Fisher tells ISRAEL21c.

"We hold a free cardiology clinic at the Edith Wolfson Medical Center in Holon every Tuesday for Palestinian children from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, regardless of the regional political atmosphere. The clinics took place even during the war in Gaza [18 months ago]. Even in the worst of times, out programs continue. We find that on both sides, regardless of Hamas, Fatah or any other organization, there is always cooperation."

"The day after the flotilla incident, the kids from Gaza turned up as usual. We treat an average of 10 each week, referred to us by 10 Palestinian physicians in the West Bank and Gaza."

This summer, SACH is launching two projects: The Israeli Ministry for Regional Cooperation has committed NIS 1 million (some $260,000) to supporting life-saving heart surgery for 100 Iraqi, Palestinian and Jordanian children in the coming year. Meanwhile, the European Union has allocated Euro 400,000 to fund heart surgery for 150 children from the Palestinian Authority and provide in-depth postgraduate training in pediatric cardiac care for eight Palestinian physicians under the 'Heart of the Matter project, which is part of the EU's "Partnership for Peace" Program. This is the third time the EU has co-sponsored 'Heart of the Matter' - a cooperation that began in 2005.

The two projects were launched on June 20 at the Wolfson Medical Center with a ceremony attended by Minister for Regional Cooperation Silvan Shalom and the EU's Ambassador to Israel, Andrew Standley.

"At a time when the world is debating Israel's actions in Gaza, our answer to the next flotilla is this project and saving children from Gaza," Shalom said during the ceremony. "We are not engaged in a conflict with the Palestinian people." Standley added that the project proves that Israel and the Palestinians can cooperate.

Read the whole thing.

Links and videos and more!

Notable stuff for a Friday afternoon:

The Daily Inquisitor on the NYT's "revelation" of the link between IHH and Turkey's government

The Definition of a Horse on his first visit to Israel.

Sweden's Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt, has been adamantly opposing even mild sanctions against Iran. Why?