One great link is from The Roadkill Diaries, which titles its post about the mall
And that's only the first joke.
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.
Syria has banned the face-covering Islamic veil from the country's universities.Is Ibrahim Hooper saying anything negative about Syria?
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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).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.
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."
"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.A day later a Lebanese (?) blogger wrote the following:
Ignorance is indeed a virtue"
"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:"
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.and..
“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.
“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.
"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.I wonder if the German ambassador is aware of this.
“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.
"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."
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.Hamas are bad policy makers in the first place, but what else could you expect from a militant group?
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 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.
While the world's focus was out to sea, an Israeli-based charity was busy performing open-heart surgery on children from Gaza.Read the whole thing.
"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.
Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
If you want real peace, don't insist on a divided Jerusalem, @USAmbIsrael
The Apartheid charge, the Abraham Accords and the "right side of history"
With Palestinians, there is no need to exaggerate: they really support murdering random Jews
Great news for Yom HaShoah! There are no antisemites!