Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Asian massage therapy for deprived Gazans

AFP reports via Al Arabiya:

In the steamy depths of a centuries-old bathhouse beneath Gaza's crowded streets, Murad Awad channels positive energy by prying toxins from tired flesh.

The bathhouse, known as Hamam al-Samra, has survived centuries of conflict, and these days Awad uses Asian massage therapy to ease the more recent pain of war and isolation in the beleaguered Palestinian enclave.

As he smears rosewater on fingers and squeezes lemon juice over toes, he speaks of a symbiosis of mind, body and universe and discusses forces that transcend the toxic political disputes gripping the territory.

"This place has nothing to do with the outside world. It's for people who love beauty," the heavy-set 33-year-old says as he applies sharp pressure to the feet of a young man laid out on a stone bench, who moans from the pain.

A stone plaque on the wall says the bathhouse was last renovated in the 13th century during the Mameluke empire that ruled from Cairo. Its owner, Selim al-Wazir, claims it has stood for 1,000 years.

On the main wall hangs a huge portrait of the iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his one-time deputy Khalil al-Wazir, better known as Abu Jihad, one of the owner's famous relatives who was assassinated in Tunis in 1988.

Al-Wazir family mostly supports the late Arafat's secular Fatah movement, but the hamam welcomes Palestinians of all political persuasions, including the Islamist Hamas which has ruled Gaza since 2007.

"Hamas comes here all the time. Their men and their women come here," says Wazir, a jovial man who enjoys good relations with everyone.

The hamam has survived decades of Israeli incursions, unscathed except for a bomb dropped during the 1956 war with Egypt that punched a hole in the roof, Wazir says. The damage has since been repaired.

"They know that the man who built this hamam was a Jew from near Nablus, so they don't attack it," he says, adding that Israelis used to come before the outbreak of the first Palestinian uprising in 1987.

The name al-Samra refers to the Samaritans, an ancient religious community in the northern West Bank with close ties to Judaism.

Al Arabiya reports that a number of Palestinian Arab hunger strikers are now in hospitals in Norway, as they seek political asylum there.

According to a UNHCR report:

Palestinian Mahmoud Hegazy, who has been on a hunger strike for a week will strike until he gets an answer on his asylum application. Hegazy has been waiting a year and a half for a decision from the Norwegian Immigration Appeals Board (UNE). Five other strikers have already ended their hunger strike as they believe they have already made their point clear. Hegazy sought asylum in Norway since he fears for his life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The six Palestinians started their hunger strike after that UNE needed four months extension to decide on their asylum applications. Both reception center staff in the city of Svolvær and the Directorate of Immigration (UDI) would prefer that Hegazy ended his strike, but he will continue for as long as he receives a decision from the authorities.

The Al Arabiya article says that the problem is that Norway requires a valid passport to prove that they were Palestinian. Apparently, in the past there have been many illegal Arab immigrants pretending to be Palestinian in order to get into Norway, so they have tightened up the requirements.

The Palestinian Authority has been withholding passports as a form of political football with Hamas.

It is unclear what danger Hegazy is claiming to be in, and why he fears for his life in the territories. Putting the facts together, it is possible that he is affiliated with Hamas or another terrorist organization, although maybe he is just caught in the Fatah-Hamas passport conflict.

Dutch taxis with anti-Israel message (updated)

Arabic sites are talking about a European taxi company that has put anti-Israel messages on its fleet:

It includes a decal with an Israeli flag dripping blood and another with a "universal no" symbol slashing through an Israeli flag.

An indirect mention of the story I found on Facebook indicates this is happening in Holland.

UPDATE: Eric and Suzanne in the comments say that it was only a single driver, the message has been removed and the company apologized.

It is noteworthy that the way the Arab sites are framing this is in terms of "Arab nations would never do this - we are not as pro-Palestinian as Europeans are!"

Starving Gazans hold a speedboat race

Ma'an (Arabic) reports that there was a speedboat race off the coast of Gaza today.

12 boats participated in the competition.

The boats have 40 hp engines.

They want to be able to compete internationally.

I think they have a good chance to beat the teams from the other starving nations of Congo, Somalia and the Sudan.

On the other hand, don't count the Congo out of the competition. They're really hungry.

Malmö, Sweden synagogue attacked

From the JC:

Members of the Swedish Jewish community have expressed sadness after an attack on a synagogue in the city of Malmö.

Security has been stepped up after a bomb threat was left at the synagogue and the following day a firecracker exploded outside, shattering three windows.

It was reportedly the second threat to the synagogue in as many weeks.

Sweden, Israel and the Jews adds:

As reported by the local newspaper Skånskan, since the beginning of the year there has been an increased threat against Jewish families in Malmö. The feelings of insecurity and lack of personal safety are today so strong that some Jewish families have chosen to leave the city, or even to leave Sweden. Following the public outcry by the Jewish community in Malmö and the formation of a group to foster communication among various ethnic groups in the city, Chairman of the Jewish Community Fred Kahn had reported that hopes were that the situation now looked a little brighter.

Until now…

In an interview after this recent attack against Malmö’s synagogue, Fred Kahn stated to Skånskan’s reporter:
“We see this as an attack, alternatively as an attempted attack. This is not the case where somebody accidently happened to set off some firecrackers.”

The local police force feels that it is not necessary to enforce security around the synagogue although it is evident that the Jewish Community remains in a state of constant threat. How long the small Jewish community can persist under threat in Malmö while being forced to bear the cost of intensive security protection, and without the freedom to openly identify as Jews, is anybody’s guess. Despite Mayor Reepalu’s belief that this is the Jews’ problem, evidence shows that violence is everybody’s problem in Malmö.

The Forward went to Malmö a few weeks ago, and its lengthy report showed that anti-semitism there is endemic and growing:

At some point, the shouts of “Heil Hitler” that often greeted Marcus Eilenberg as he walked to the 107-year-old Moorish-style synagogue in this port city forced the 32-year-old attorney to make a difficult, life-changing decision: Fearing for his family’s safety after repeated anti-Semitic incidents, Eilenberg reluctantly uprooted himself and his wife and two children, and moved to Israel in May.

Malmo, Sweden’s third-largest city, with a population of roughly 293,900 but only 760 Jews, reached a turning point of sorts in January 2009, during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. A small, mostly Jewish group held a demonstration that was billed as a peace rally but seen as a sign of support for Israel. This peaceful demonstration was cut short when the demonstrators were attacked by a much larger screaming mob of Muslims and Swedish leftists who threw bottles and firecrackers at them as police seemed unable to stop the mounting mayhem.

“I was very scared and upset at the same time,” recalled Jehoshua Kaufman, a Jewish community leader. “Scared because there were a lot of angry people facing us, shouting insults and throwing bottles and firecrackers at the same time. The sound was very loud. And I was angry because we really wanted to go through with this demonstration, and we weren’t allowed to finish it.”

Alan Widman, who is a strapping 6-foot-tall member of parliament and a non-Jewish member of the Liberal Party who represents Malmo, said simply, “I have never been so afraid in my life.”

There are an estimated 45,000 Muslims in Malmo, or 15% of the city’s population. Many of them are Palestinians, Iraqis and Somalis, or come from the former Yugoslavia.

But the problem is not just Muslims, and not just Malmo’s.

A continentwide study, conducted by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, released in December 2009, found that that 45.7% of the Europeans surveyed agree somewhat or strongly with the following statement: “Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians.” And 37.4% agreed with this statement: “Considering Israel’s policy, I can understand why people do not like Jews.”

“[There is] quite a high level of anti-Semitism that is hidden beneath critics of Israel’s policies,” said Beate Kupper, one of the study’s principal researchers, in a telephone interview with the Forward, citing this data and a tendency to “blame Jews in general for Israel’s policies.”

Most of Malmo’s Muslims live in Rosengard, the eastern part of this de facto segregated city, where the jobless rate is 80%. Satellite dishes dot the high-rise apartments to receive programming from Al-Jazeera and other Arabic-language cable networks that keep Malmo’s Muslims in constant touch with the latest Arab-Israeli developments.

Sylvia Morfradakis, a European Union official who works with the chronically unemployed, those who have been without work for 10 to 15 years, said that the main reason that 80% to 90% of Muslims between the ages of 18 and 34 can’t find jobs is that they can’t speak Swedish.

“Swedish employers insist workers know Swedish well, even for the most menial jobs,” Morfradakis said. She added, “The social welfare concept for helping without end does not give people the incentive to do something to make life better.”

Some Jewish parents try to protect their children by moving to neighborhoods where there are fewer Muslims in the schools so that confrontations will be minimized. Six Jewish teenagers interviewed recounted anti-Semitic abuse from Muslim classmates. According to their families, though the incidents were reported to the authorities, none of the perpetrators was arrested, much less punished.

One victim was Jonathan Tsubarah, 19, the son of an Israeli Jew who settled in Sweden. As he strolled through the city’s cobble-stoned Gustav Adolph Square on August 21, 2009, three young men — a Palestinian and two Somalis — stopped him and asked where he was from, he recalled.

“I’m from Israel,” Tsubarah responded.

“I’m from Palestine,” one assailant retorted, “and I will kill you.”

The three beat him to the ground and kicked him in the back, Tsubarah said. “Kill the Jew,” they shouted. “Now are you proud to be a Jew?”

“No I am not,” the slightly built teenager replied. He said he did this just to get them to stop kicking him. Tsubarah plans to go to Israel and join the army.

Meanwhile, 86-year-old Judith Popinski says she is no longer invited to schools that have a large Muslim presence to tell her story of surviving the Holocaust.

Popinski found refuge in Malmo in 1945. Until recently, she told her story in Malmo schools as part of their Holocaust studies program. Now, some schools no longer ask Holocaust survivors to tell their stories, because Muslim students treat them with such disrespect, either ignoring the speakers or walking out of the class.

“Malmo reminds me of the anti-Semitism I felt as a child in Poland before the war,” she told the Forward while sitting in her living room, which is adorned with Persian rugs and many paintings.

“I am not safe as a Jew in Sweden anymore,” a trembling Popinski said in a frail voice. But unlike others, she intends to stay in Sweden. “I will not be a victim again,” she said.

It is very worth reading the whole thing.

Elder sells out

I'm still looking for ways to "monetize" this blog without negatively impacting the reader experience. Here's what I've been trying.

I added a Google AdSense ad in my left sidebar, but way down the page, because I didn't want to push down my other widgets. Not surprisingly, practically no one is clicking on it. This is resulting in a whopping profit of about $0.05 a day.

I added a customized Google search engine on the right side that searches a list of Zionist blogs and Israeli newspaper websites. So far, so good, but I am sure I will be adding sources to that search to make it better. The results page, which opens in a new window, has ads. It does add some value, IMHO, especially when you are looking for that one thing you know you read somewhere....

I also added Google AdSense ads in my RSS feed. It also is generating a couple of pennies a day.

The Amazon search engine I had placed way out of the way generated pretty much nothing after the first couple of days, so I just placed it on the right sidebar so it will be visible to everyone. If you want to buy a book or video from Amazon, consider a search from my site I will get a minuscule cut of the profits.

I'm looking at tip-jars, but haven't found anything that I like yet.

Let me know if any of these things are screwing up your webpage or slowing down the site even more than it already is.

In other administrivia, I got rid of the EoZ Message Board page and added an EoZ Video Page.in case you want to see (most of) my videos in one place, including the ones I didn't put on YouTube.

The Independent spins the Gaza Mall

The Independent (UK) has an article about the new Gaza Mall:

Hila Abdul Wahad, a new graduate in commercial accounting from the Islamic University, was enthusiastic as she window-shopped her way round the eight new stores on the second floor of the shopping mall. "It's great that this is happening in the situation we're in," she said. "We should be proud. It feels that we are outside of Gaza, it's like ... [she paused briefly] ... being in Egypt."

Ms Wahad was among the 3,700 visitors who flocked to Gaza's first shopping mall in the eight hours after its televised grand opening, attended by the Labour Minister in the Hamas de facto government, Abu Osama al-Kurd. The Gaza Mall is small – just two floors, with a supermarket and fast food restaurant at ground level – but air conditioned. It has no lift – as yet – but above the staircase, a screen displays real-time images of shoppers from the closed-circuit security television cameras.

...The mall has electrified the conservative blogosphere, now seething with claims that it makes a mockery of the idea that its residents are suffering from the blockade which Israel imposed on the territory three years ago and last month decided to partially ease.

But in fact the shops are selling much the same wares that have long been available in other stores and at a lower price, an important plus when unemployment has been running above 40 per cent and over 60 percent live below a poverty line of $2 per day.

That's the entire point! The problem in Gaza has never been available goods - it has been poverty for the many unemployed people, unemployed in a large part because of Hamas policies. Remember the Erez Industrial Zone and what happened to that? Israel kept it open as long as it could until the terror attacks that Hamas performed there became too much. Thousands of employees lost their jobs as a result.

We seething conservative bloggers, as the Independent condescendingly refers to us, are pointing out that all the "aid" ships that the British newspaper fawns over were based on the same lies that the Independent itself peddled - that Gaza was a large prison camp. Now that the absurdity of that characterization has been destroyed by the Gaza Mall and other quite nice hotels, restaurants and tourist spots that we have discovered and publicized, the Independent refuses to admit its mistakes and instead reframes the discussion to minimize its lies.

The Independent is now moving the goalposts, not willing to admit that the myth of Gaza as a "prison camp" was one that it helped to push and now deriding those who proved that this very newspaper was among the worst purveyors of that very myth.

(h/t Zach)

About that PLO flag in Washington

Over the past few days, we have found out that the White House has decided to give the PLO mission in Washington a symbolic upgrade of status:

The Obama administration will allow the PLO office in Washington to fly the Palestinian flag and assume the title of "delegation."

The change in status comes with no enhancement in diplomatic status, U.S. officials said.

The new privileges for the Palestine Liberation Organization office do not mean the representation has "any diplomatic privileges or immunities," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said last Friday.

"At the request of the PLO representative, which we have granted given the improvement in the relations between the United States and Palestinians, they have requested permission to fly the Palestinian flag," he said. "And they have requested permission to call themselves the General Delegation of the PLO, which is a name that conforms to how they describe their missions in Europe, Canada, and several Latin American countries."

Crowley said the steps have symbolic value and reflect improved relations between the United States and Palestinians, but they have no meaning under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

A White House spokesman suggested the changes would help spur the Palestinians toward direct peace talks with Israel, a key demand of the Israeli and U.S. governments.

Why does the PLO have a mission in Washington, and not the pseudo-democratic Palestinian Authority?

The answer to that question is terrifically important.

The Palestinian Authority is extraordinarily limited in what it can do. It reports to the corrupt, non-democratic, terrorist PLO.

The Palestinian National Authority was meant to be merely a temporary administrative entity to govern areas of the territories that Israel abandons. It has no independent power. It cannot engage in foreign policy. It does not claim to represent any Palestinian Arabs outside the territories.

Only a couple of months ago, PA prime minister Salam Fayyad admitted that the PLO has the official mandate of all affairs of the Palestinian Arab people, and that the PA was just a tool of that organization.

The Palestinian Authority has no independent power.

When Israel negotiates, directly or indirectly, with Mahmoud Abbas, he is not representing the Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank when he puts forth his positions. He represents the PLO and Fatah, both of which he leads. He is constrained not by the will of the people but by the members of the other two groups - most of whom are more extreme than he is.

The official delegations of the PalArabs to all countries are from the PLO, not the PA. And the PLO, not the PA, is recognized internationally as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."

The PLO, of course, has never really repealed its charter that calls for the destruction of Israel. It claimed to have repealed the sections that call for Israel's destruction, but never spelled out what those sections were or what they were replaced with, and until it publishes a new charter, the old one should be regarded as the only official charter that they adhere to.

And the PLO is dominated by Fatah, which still calls to "liquidate the Zionist entity politically, economically, militarily, culturally and ideologically." (The leader of Fatah, as we mentioned, is Israel's "peace partner" Mahmoud Abbas.)

[There was some talk in January that a translation of the Fatah charter written last summer did not mention destroying Israel. However, a careful look at that charter shows that it is only called an "internal charter." It refers to the "Basic Charter ratified by Fatah's Fourth General Conference held in Tunis in 1989" and defines its scope as purely "to regulate the relationship between the members, cadres, frameworks, and leaders of Fatah, and to define their tasks, duties, and methods of struggle to achieve the goals of Fatah." In other words, the published charter was not a new Fatah charter but rather a replacement of parts of the charter. The previous clauses to destroy Israel were not eliminated.)

The PLO mission in Washington is exactly what it appears - an official US recognition of an organization that is still sworn to destroy Israel, filled with members who are also sworn to destroy Israel through their party affiliation. As much as Westerners love Salam Fayyad, he is a technocratic puppet to put a moderate face on what is a fundamentally rotten infrastructure. Fayyad couldn't visit Washington or Paris or London without permission from the PLO.

And the only "moderation" that the PLO and Fatah exhibit is their refusal to explicitly call for Israel's destruction in English as Hamas and other groups do, and Westerners are keen to seize on that as proof of their pragmatism and peaceful intentions.

Lebanese "flotilla" might sail this week

Israel's Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has a brief paper that analyzes the latest on the Lebanese women's and reporters' ships that were supposed to have sailed a month ago. They agree with my reporting that Hezbollah is behind the ships and that the purpose of these ships may be to provoke a deadly Israeli response:

1. Yasser Qashlaq, chairman of the Free Palestine Movement and organizer of the Lebanese flotilla to the Gaza Strip, said the ships would leave within a few days. Qashlaq asked Lebanese politicians not to make difficulties, but rather to cooperate so the flotilla might succeed (DayPress news website, July 20, 2010). His previous declarations about its sailing were not realized, but nevertheless it is possible that this time the ships will set sail, despite a large number of international objections.
2. The current situation of the flotilla is as follows:
A. The ship called Maryam reached Tripoli and is currently participating in the routine processes required by law before a ship set sail. Rima Farah, ship spokesperson, said that contacts had been made with a number of countries to acquire authorization for the ship to be received at their harbors, because it cannot sail directly from Lebanon to the port of Gaza. Samar al-Hajj, coordinator for the organizing committee, is the director of the ship's logistic activities. Note: The ship will carry only women passengers (Al-Diyar website, July 21, 2010).
B. The ship called Nagi al-Ali (formerly Julia) is ready to set sail, and according to the organizers all that remains to be done is to load the cargo. Most of the passengers will apparently be correspondents.
C. The organizers may have another ship, but they are not divulging any information about it.
3. Yasser Qashlaq said he did not rule out the possibility that Israel would try to halt the flotilla because "there is no limit to the crimes of the entity of the occupation." He also said that there would be peace activists aboard the ships and that the cargos would include humanitarian equipment, and that any attempt to stop them would be "a terrorist action" (DayPress news website, July 20, 2010).
4. In our assessment, the ships were purchased and the flotilla organized with the involvement and support of Syria and Hezbollah, although both do not want to expose their roles and use organizations like the Free Palestine Movement as fronts for their activities.
5. Qashlaq revealed his position in an interview with Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV on June 19, 2010. He said that "the day will come when the ships [which arrive at the Gaza Strip] will take the remainder of the European garbage which came to my country [i.e., Israel] back to their homelands, Gilad Shalit will return to Paris and they [the leaders of Israel will return to Poland. Let the murderers go home. After they return we will pursue them everywhere all over the world and try them in court for the slaughters they have carried out from Dir Yassin to this day."
6. Considering the stated positions of Qashlaq and some of those involved in the flotilla, and especially their close ties with Syria and Hezbollah, he apparently wants a violent confrontation between the passengers and the Israeli Air Force and Navy with a lot of media coverage. His intention is to defame Israel, even if his agenda is not necessarily that of the other passengers aboard the ships.
7. More proof that this flotilla, like that of the Mavi Marmara, is meant mainly to create a media circus and incite anti-Israeli propaganda, and not to bring humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip was made public by an Al-Jazeera TV investigative report.
8. The Al-Jazeera TV's Gaza Strip correspondent, revealed that the Gazans responsible for the ministry of health of the de facto Hamas administration were resentful because 70% of the medicines which arrived in the Gaza Strip from the aid convoys from various countries, especially Arab countries, could not be used. They were either unfit for use or their expiry dates had passed by months and sometimes years. They said that one of the convoys had brought dialysis machines which could not be used. The report was also quoted by a daily paper affiliated with the de facto Hamas administration (Al-Jazeera TV, July 20, 2010).

Left: Useless dialysis machines. Right: Drugs whose expiry dates have passed
(Al-Jazeera TV, July 20, 2010).

(h/t Israel Matzav)

Gazans aren't paying their electric bills

Palestine Today reports that a new plan will be put into place to collect overdue electric bills from the tens of thousands of PA employees in Gaza.

The plan, announced today, involves garnishing up to 25% of Gaza employees monthly wages.

As we have mentioned before, Gaza's power plant suffers from a shortage of fuel - but not because of any Israeli policy that limits fuel distribution, but rather because they aren't paying for it.

This new policy will attempt to make a dent in the huge debt that the electric company is under - some 5.2 billion shekels ($1.3 billion.)

New PalArab computer training center

PalPress reports that a new computer training center was opened in Ramallah.

It was named after Mamdouh Sabri Saydam, "one of the most prominent leaders of the Palestinian revolution...who gave his soul the redemption of the homeland" on the 39th anniversary of his "martyrdom."

Who was Saydam?

Mamduh Sabri Saydam [Abu Sabri]:

Former Fatah field commander. Refugee from ‘Aqr (al-Majdal) to Gaza; taught in Algeria and trained in its army in 1964. Recruited through Wazir, and moved to join Fatah field command in Damascus (1965). Member of first Fatah-CC, heading Fatah forces in Jordan in 1970. Died in Jul 71 of cancer.

I wonder if Jordan is happy that Palestinian Arabs are naming institutions after people who tried to topple its government.

Nasrallah continues to make Lebanon nervous

From Ya Libnan:

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered a speech during a ceremony honoring children of the party’s martyrs.

He started out by defending the resistance and pointing out its achievements in 1982 , 2000 and 2006 .

He said :” [Lebanon's enemies] may bargain on gas and oil but they can never bargain on the Resistance.”

He concluded that the “Resistance is the most precious of what we have. We will not allow any small or big person in this world to touch any of its dignity. ”

Nasrallah used the occasion to attack the Special Tribunal for Lebanon for the third time in 10 days.

He accused the UN investigation team of being formed from officers closely associated with Israeli Mossad spy agency :

“Should an Investigation Committee made of Americans and the British government where investigating officers are brought from intelligence services closely linked to the Mossad be entrusted with a big issue at this level?” , he said.

Nasrallah also attacked the March 14 leaders who were critical of his previous two speeches:

“Is the behavior of some political forces in Lebanon and the Attorney General and the International Tribunal the behavior of those who seek the truth?, he said

Nasrallah suggested setting up a Lebanese committee to investigate the issue of false witnesses, who he said “misled the investigation for 4 years.”

“Distortion of the Resistance, the dearest to us, will not be allowed,” he added.

As an editorial in Now Lebanon put it after Nasrallah's second speech attacking the STL:

On the face of it, Thursday night’s speech by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah marked another milestone in the party’s proud policy of intimidation. Those of us who lived through the attempted coup of May 7, 2008 know only too well what Hezbollah and its allies in the opposition March 8 bloc can and will do if they feel their agenda is under threat.

Nasrallah’s speech, the second in which he has sought to discredit the Special Tribunal for Lebanon – the court formed to find the killers of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others as well as the victims of subsequent political violence – targeted the March 14 bloc and urged its members to reconsider the “choices they made.” In short, as March 14 General Secretariat Coordinator Fares Soueid said in an interview on Saturday with Radio Free Lebanon, Nasrallah was suggesting March 14 surrender the ideals forged in the heat of the 2005 Independence Intifada.

If we follow Hezbollah’s advice, we will have allowed threats and intimidation to derail justice, even if it is sold as a move to avoid civil violence. Nasrallah wants us to believe that the Resistance is more important than justice and that we should give up our pursuit of it because he will allow nothing to harm the Resistance.

Meaning what? That Hezbollah and its allies will take their gunmen onto the streets once again? That the government will be toppled and another more pliant cabinet installed to derail the tribunal? Both courses of action are hardly likely. They would not only be an admission of guilt to all but the most blinkered supporters, but would also once again prove that Hezbollah has no policy for advancing Lebanon as a modern state and no blueprint for building state institutions. It can only offer violence and conflict on behalf of its Iranian clients.

In fact, since 2005, Hezbollah’s contribution to the national whole has been one war, one downtown sit-in and one bout of murderous, civil violence. Let us also not forget the vast array of tools it has at its disposal for obstructing basic constitutional processes, such as elections, the selecting of a president and the forming of a government.

However, Nasrallah's threats may be masking his own nervousness:

But short of throwing out the tried and tested, but ultimately weary Zionist card, Nasrallah has few options. This has been demonstrated by the mixed signals he has sent in the previous 24 hours. He will not allow the Resistance to be harmed, and yet he will enter into talks on the matter, either within the cabinet or at the national dialogue table, but only on the condition that the talks do not start on the basis of Hezbollah’s presumed guilt. These provisos have all the hallmarks of desperation.

First female Arab combat soldier in IDF is proud to serve Israel

From the IDF:

“Look at the beret,” says Elinor, smiling from ear to ear, showing off the bright green beret that she earned after completing the trek which is part of her combat training in the Karakal Battalion. Her excitement is accompanied by a new historical precedent, since Elinor is the first Arab female combat soldier in IDF history.

Cpl. Elinor Jozef was born and raised in an integrated neighborhood of Jews and Arabs in Haifa, but attended a school in which all her classmates were Arab. She later moved to Wadi Nisnas, an Arab neighborhood where she currently lives. Despite the fact that she would always wear her father’s IDF dog-tag around her neck from when he served in the Paratrooper’s Unit, she never thought she would enlist. “I wanted to go abroad to study medicine and never come back,” she said. To her father it was clear that she would enlist in the IDF, as most citizens in Israel do. This was something that worried her very much. “I was scared to lose my friends because they objected to it. They told me they wouldn’t speak to me. I was left alone.”

Despite their opposition, she decided to move forward and enlist. She explained her motive: “I decided to go head-to-head, to check who my true friends are, to do something in life that I have never done before. I understood that it was most important to defend my friends, family, and country. I was born here.” At the end of the day, she says she realized it was the right thing to do, “With time, when you do things from the heart, you begin to understand their importance.”

Al Arabiya has a lengthy and flabbergasted Arabic article on Jozef. When asked if she would kill Arabs if necessary, she answered that she would hardly be the first Arab to kill other Arabs.

She also said that while she doesn't celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut, she doesn't sit and cry either.

Jews don't visit holy sites - they "storm" them

Palestine Press Agency says,

Hundreds of extremist settlers stormed the Tomb of Joseph after midnight last night, in the eastern city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, in the latest attack in the province.

Witnesses said that approximately 700 settlers arrived in the area under the close protection of the occupation army, and entered the shrine, which is exposed to these sorts of incursions from time to time.

Witnesses added that the settlers performed religious rituals inside the place for about 5 hours before they withdrew in the early morning hours.

Keep in mind that under Oslo II, Jews have the right to visit Jewish shrines under Palestinian Arab control.