Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, August 06, 2010

UNIFIL's silence [updated]

You would expect that after the deadly confrontation at the Lebanon-Israel border that UNIFIL would write an article or a press release about the incident. But nothing like this has happened at all. The website of UNIFIL has a press release dating May 27th, 2010. The capital letters top of the page on the left read: "LATEST NEWS", but there's nothing in the ticker. [UPDATE: The website of UNIFIl has been updated. It has now two articles on their homepage. No official press release yet, however]

However, it's not that the UN did not say anything. It's hard to find, but there is an article about the event. And also a statement by Ban ki-Moon.

The article leaves nothing to imagination as it uses the word "triggered":

During the meeting, both parties renewed their commitment to the cessation of hostilities and to resolution 1701, which ended the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hizbollah and calls for respecting the Blue Line, as well as to work with UNIFIL to ensure that incidents of violence are avoided in the future.

The incident was triggered by Israel’s announcement of its intention to cut down a tree in the proximity of the Blue Line. UNIFIL said in a statement issued earlier today that the tree is located south of the line on the Israeli side.

“The exchange of fire started although we did our best to prevent it,” Alain Le Roy, the top UN peacekeeping official, told reporters in New York, stressing that UNIFIL helped to mitigate the violence, which lasted some 30 minutes, negotiating a ceasefire to end the fighting.

One might wonder how close to the truth that is. I mean... Israel did it with knowledge of UNIFIL and the next day, on August 4th, 2010 it was not a problem for Israel to do their routine work very close to the Blue Line:

The UN website has also a section "News Focus" on the Middle East. Surprisingly these are the mentioned latest developments:

Secretary-General condemns deadly rocket attack in southern Jordan
UN official calls for return of Palestinian families one year after eviction
UN urges restraint after rocket from Gaza hits Israeli city
Kites fly high over Gaza as children at UN summer camp soar to new world record
UN envoy deplores takeover of Palestinian homes by Israeli settlers

No mention of the border clash which left 4 people dead. No mention of the other rockets at Eilat which fell on the 2nd of August.....

Anyway, an interesting passage in the UN article I mentioned before, is the following:

Mr. Le Roy, who serves as Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, called the existence of the tripartite mechanism bringing together UNIFIL, Israel and Lebanon an “important achievement.”

He said that he is very glad that the two sides accepted the UN’s proposal for an urgent tripartite meeting.

If this is as good as it sounds (if it comes from the UN I have my doubts) I feel pity for torn Lebanon by sectarian military and ideologically conflicts.

Hallucinatory anti-Israel ads

I just saw that Foreign Policy magazine published an ad from a group called "Goals for Americans," which seems to have an interesting agenda.

Its ads are a case study in poor design and breathless rhetoric, mostly against Israeli policies and the ever-present Jewish lobby.

Here is one of their many ads reproduced on their website. It is so over the top, it is hilarious. The puppet might be a little overused, but the gorilla more than makes up for it.

Naturally, I was wondering what "K.A.S.M." mentioned in the upper right stands for.

Luckily, the site has an illustrative definition:

The entire site is filled with this stuff, including their plan for cutting Israel in two parts to allow "Palestine" to be contiguous.

If the government taxed exclamation points, these guys could pay the national debt.

Yes, these nutcases are who Foreign Policy is accepting ads from!

Guess who is teaching a course on Zionism?

From the University of Chicago website, Department of Political Science, Courses for 2010-2011:

28500. Zionism and Palestine. PQ: Enrollment will be limited and by consent of instructor. This course has three broad aims, the first of which is to explore the various strands of early Zionist thinking in Europe during the late 19th and early 20th century. The second aim is to analyze how the European Zionists who came to Palestine created the Jewish state in the first half of the 20th century. The third aim is to examine some key developments in Israel’s history since it gained its independence in 1948. While the main focus will be on Zionism and the state of Israel, considerable attention will be paid to the plight of the Palestinians and the development of Palestinian nationalism over the past century.

The instructor?

John Mearsheimer, co-author of perhaps the most highly visible anti-Israel (and, some argue, anti-semitic) tract of the past decade.

He has said publicly that any Zionist Jew is a "new Afrikaner" and explicitly anti-Zionist Jews are "righteous Jews." He knowingly lied when he wrote that the US support for Israel was the major motivation for 9/11.

As The Weekly Standard points out, Mearsheimer is known as an expert on international relations, but in not known to have any expertise whatsoever on the subject of Zionism.

But since the enrollment is only by Mearsheimer's consent, maybe he won't have to worry about being called to task by a student who knows more than he does. After all, he just has to exclude the students with Jewish or Hebrew sounding names.

A new map of the attack

A source emailed me with a map showing where the IDF was working, where the Lebanese RPGs were fired from and where the IDF officer was hit by a sniper. I am not quite sure how to square this away with the videos and photos we have seen, but I would tend to trust this person. (For example, the place shown below would be consistent with the curve in the road from the initial AP photo.)

I recreated this map based on information I received, overlaying on top of Google maps. I might be a little off in the position of the RPG squad because I don't think they would be on the other side of the Blue Line.

The blue line is The Blue Line. The black line is Israel's fence. The yellow dots are significant - they may be sniper positions or other LAF positions - but I am awaiting clarification.

If you want to play with Google Maps, the link to this map is here.

(And on a side note - yes, it is really cool to get inside information!)

A whole new open thread

Looks like I won't be able to post much for a while, so here's a place to deposit all your rumors, facts, suppositions and hunches.

Photo of the area of border incident

CIFWatch has an very informative article from Israelinurse, who went to the IDF briefing yesterday at the Lebanese border.

The posting includes a high-res photo of the entire area (click to enlarge):

And if my guess is right, the tree-pruning happened where I drew the arrow:

This shows that the Lebanese were much closer to the IDF than it looked before, and also that they are on significantly higher ground,which could be seen from the video I had posted as well.

You can also see that there is a fence on the Lebanese side as well, adjacent to the road:

Once again, Arabs go crazy over Jews praying

Palestine Press Agency reports yet again:

Last night, about 500 settlers stormed the area of Joseph's Tomb in Nablus.

Sources said the local settlers practiced biblical rituals at the grave in a provocative way, and they were under the protection of a large force of Israeli soldiers who helped them to break into the area.

Joseph's Tomb is supposed to be available for Jewish worship under existing agreements between Israel and the PA. These visits are always coordinated.

There is no reason to assume that the worshippers are all "settlers."

Hamas was really ticked off:

Minister of Waqf in the Gaza government Taleb Abu Sha’ar called the visit of 300 settlers to Joseph's Tomb in Nablus a "violation" and "provocative."

The visit, which saw military patrols enter a residential area south of Nablus at midnight and close off streets, culminated in the arrival of 20 military vehicles and six buses of religious Jews who remained under heavy guard at the tomb betwen 1 and 5a.m.

Abu Sha'ar said the military measures and the forceful visit to the holy place, believed to be the burial area of patriarch Jospeh and his two sons, was a "violation of the holy place," and took place on the "pretext that the area belongs only to them [Jewish worshipers]."

In 1993 the mosque was partitioned, half was designated for Jewish use and the other half for Muslim use.

I guess that all that talk about how Hamas has no problem with Jews is not quite accurate.

Lebanese general arrested as Israeli spy

From Ya Libnan:

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television reported on Wednesday that Brigadier General Fayez Karam, who is a senior Free Patriotic Movement official, confessed that he has been spying for Israel since 2005 and that he has met several Israeli officials during his trips to the European Union.

Karam was arrested earlier on Wednesday on suspicion of collaborating with Israel according to local reports

Al-Manar also said that the Internal Security Forces (ISF) are still investigating with the detainee to better understand the extent of the damages incurred by Karam.

Police arrested several suspects over the past month in an expanding probe into an alleged network of Israeli spies employed in the country’s telecom sector.

The alleged spies discovered over the past month have been mainly concentrated in Lebanon's wireless and landline telecommunications networks; as far as I know this is by far the most senior person accused of spying for Israel. (Al Manar is a Hezbollah media outlet so I am not going to assume yet that the story that he admitted being a spy is true.)

Lebanese leaders continue to contradict themselves

The backtracking of the Lebanese to save face for what was a premediated, unprovoked attack continues.

They have abandoned the lies of Israel crossing the Blue Line, of them only shooting "warning shots," and others. The latest statement from Lebanese General Jean Kahwaji shows yet again how they cannot keep their story straight:

Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) commander General Jean Kahwaji on Wednesday said that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops entered on Tuesday a disputed area along the Blue Line, despite objections from the Lebanese army and UNIFIL, the National News Agency (NNA) reported.

Lebanese and Israeli soldiers exchanges fire Tuesday at the border village of Adaisseh in the fiercest clashes since the 2006 July War. The clash resulted in the killing of two Lebanese soldiers, a journalist and a senior Israeli officer.

The clashes started after Israeli units attempted to cut down contested trees along the border, which the UN said Wednesday were within Israeli territory.

Kahwaji said the Israeli decision was a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adding that “the army agreed to cutting down the trees today after necessary conditions were met.”

UNIFIL units supervised on Wednesday morning the removal of trees along the southern border in coordination with the Lebanese army.

So the trees that were supposedly in Lebanese territory on Tuesday were allowed to be cut down by Israel on Wednesday? Plus he claims that UNIFIL was objecting to the tree cutting even though it had all been coordinated with them?

The IDF did say that UNIFIL asked them to delay the cutting, twice, for unspecified reasons, and the IDF complied.

The only part of the IDF story that I believe might be slightly inaccurate is the map they handed out:

Looking at the famous picture of the cherry-picker, we see a curve in the road just north of the famous tree:

At the point where the road curves, the Blue Line is somewhat closer to the road (Google Maps yellow line only approximates the Blue Line; you can see what is apparently the real Blue Line right above it):

There is still no doubt that the IDF was within its side of the Blue Line, but the Lebanese were much closer - which may account for the accuracy of the sniper gunshot that hit the IDF officer in the head.

Reuters had 5 photographers plus stringers to cover a tree being cut

Backspin, the Honest Reporting blog, notices the amazing fact that Reuters had no fewer than five photographers and some unidentified stringers covering Tuesday's events. After examining the 25 photos that Reuters had of the incident, including graphic images, they ask:

1. How were five photographers encouraged to cover routine IDF maintenance work -- which is simply non-news? Who tipped them off, and why?

2. How did Reuters photographers get such wide, unrestricted access to the combat zone?

3. Who are the unidentified stringers? Do they, or any of the five identified photographers, have any conflicts of interest requiring disclosure, in the interests of ethical journalism? Why did Reuters break with journalistic norms and not credit seven images with the photographer's name?

4. Is it fair to say that the Lebanese source who tipped off journalists to be in the Adaisseh area of the border bears responibility for the death of Assaf Abu Rahhal?

5. Did any higher ups in the Reuters chain of command raise any questions?

Remember, these are just the photographers - Backspin isn't even counting any other Reuters journalists who might have been there.

Suzanne and others had noticed the fact that so many journalists were at the scene ahead of time, but Reuters' coverage is so over the top that it merits serious scrutiny as to whether its Lebanese journalists are also associated with the LAF - or Hezbollah.

IDF releases timeline of events. Juan Cole praises Lebanese murderer.

A senior IDF source provides us (via email) with a background and narrative of the events of Tuesday that was given at a briefing earlier Wednesday.

Hezbollah’s Influence on the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF)

· Since mid-2007, there has been an increased in activity of Global Jihad in the area of Southern Lebanon.

· Recently, we have seen more incidence of violence by Hezbollah directed against UNIFIL’s peacekeeping force.

· LAF brigades in the past were often majority Christian soldiers. ≈ this has changed. The LAF policy now dictates that different brigades will rotate responsibility for the area, and this includes brigades with varying ethno-religious composition.

· There are now a number of brigades of Shiite commanders in charge of forces in the border area. It is likely, given where these soldiers are from – that many of them have relatives who are Hezbollah activists or supporters.

· There has been increasing influence of Hezbollah upon LAF forces, and growth in this has been seen in recent years, as more violations of Res. 1701 have occurred by the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Provocation, Intimidation & Tension in Recent Months:

· Over the past three months, the Central and Eastern Brigades of the LAF have acted with increasing aggression towards Israeli forces stationed along the border. IDF forces have been threatened verbally, as well as with physical gestures by Lebanese troops, aimed at escalating tension in this already sensitive border area. Certain LAF companies have in fact made threats and sought to provoke the IDF through threatening gestures with heavy weaponry, including machine guns and RPGs.

· Israel has informed the UNIFIL Liaison of the LAF’s demonstrations of aggression and attempts to enflame the situation, and has expressed the IDF’s concerns that such behaviour could spark a deterioration into violent confrontation – something which the Israeli side wishes only to prevent.

· Nevertheless, such provocative behaviour has taken place so often that it has in fact become a regular dangerous routine. This behaviour, over a number of months, laid the framework for the tragically violent incident that took place on Tuesday.

* The LAF is the sovereign army of Lebanon, and receives its orders through a standard military central command structure, in coordination with the Lebanese government in Beirut.

· Tuesday’s tragic events did not take place out of the blue. The increasingly risk-prone aggression and provocation by Lebanese forces over the past three months demonstrated clearly – both at the time and now with the benefit of hindsight – the intention for violence by the Lebanese forces.

The Incident:

· Tuesday began with plans by the IDF, coordinated in extreme detail with the UNIFIL Liaison Officer, to carry out a routine pruning of shrubbery near the fence which lies at a distance of 200-300 metres behind the “Blue Line” internationally recognised border between Israel and Lebanon.

· Such maintenance work is of absolute necessity for the safety and security of not just the Israeli military, but rather also the civilian residential areas and agricultural areas, which lie in, close proximity to the border area. It should be noted that Hezbollah forces using similar shrub growth as cover after illegally infiltrating Israeli territory facilitated the kidnapping of two IDF soldiers during the 2006 Lebanon War.

· Despite Israel’s absolute right to maintain this border area, which lies in undisputed Israeli territory, the IDF coordinates all such activities with the UNIFIL Liaison Officer, and often makes changes to its own plans due to UNIFIL’s concerns.

· In order to prevent any misunderstanding, prior to Tuesday’s planned maintenance work the Israeli officer in charge personally patrolled the relevant area together with the UNIFIL Liaison Officer to demonstrate, in an explicit and specific manner, which trees and shrubbery the IDF intended to work on. All such plans were approved by UNIFIL before any activities by the IDF took place.

· On Tuesday morning, the planned commencement of the maintenance work at 08:30am was postponed by a number of hours as per a request by UNIFIL. When the later time already agreed upon had come, UNIFIL once again requested that the IDF delay such activities a number of additional minutes, and the IDF further complied.

· Subsequently, the IDF sent crane equipment down to the site, in order to demonstrate exactly what activities it planned to carry out.

· At this point, the Lebanese Armed Forces opened fire with snipers towards Israel. It must be noted, however, that such fire was not aimed at the soldiers located by the fence, but rather directly aimed at IDF officers who were standing in a separate area, on higher ground. These officers were wearing helmets and flack jackets. The officer who was killed by this fire was shot in the head, despite the armour he was wearing. This demonstrates the premeditated, planned and deliberate nature of the Lebanese attack.

· Following the Israeli forces’ coming under unprovoked attack by the LAF, the IDF opened fire against the specific parts of LAF forces who had fired against Israel. The IDF made a clear distinction between such LAF forces, and any UNIFIL personnel or civilians that may have been in the area, thus compromising Israel’s capabilities out of genuine concern to prevent any innocent casualties.

· The Lebanese Army cynically manipulated Israel’s goodwill in coordinating all activities with UNIFIL observers, as well as Israel’s ongoing desire to avoid any deterioration into violent confrontation with our neighbours.

Juan Cole, furiously spinning the Lebanon border incident, reveals not only his (purposeful) ignorance of the sequence of events, but also that he revels in the death of any Israeli:

One surprising thing is that the Lebanese army showed such spunk in the face of the perceived Israeli affront. They know very well that they are vastly outgunned, and of course the Israeli military hit them with fire from helicopter gunships and artillery pieces. What made them so bold, that they shot and killed an Israeli officer over the tree removal?

Wow, isn't a pre-meditated and unprovoked sniping of Israeli officers standing in the open a couple of hundred yards away, "bold" and "spunky"?

(h/t Dan)

Evening open thread

Administrivia:

After the novelty wore off, my big experiment in advertising is netting me about ten cents a day. Woo-hoo!

My Gaza Mall video (both versions combined) are now past 65,000 YouTube views.

The Invest in Gaza video, after a disappointing start, seems to have caught on - mostly in Germany - and now has over 3700 views.

On the same topic, don't forget my older video, Save the Gazans. That was made 19 months before the current fashion of the media to admit that Gaza isn't quite starving.

I'm overdue for an open thread....

Reuters notices Gaza has water parks too

I missed this story from Monday, where Reuters - just like Sky News - suddenly discovers that there seems to be a middle class in Gaza, that has money to spend.

The most astonishing thing about this story, by Nidal al-Mughrabi, is that is doesn't try to find a way to make this look like an Israeli crime.

This might be the reason why it is not easy to find any newspaper website that has published this article.

New leisure projects and restaurants have been springing up in the Gaza Strip, some partially funded by Hamas Islamists ruling a territory long seen as a symbol of Palestinian hardship.

The construction boom in recreational facilities has prompted some Palestinians in the enclave to complain that Hamas should have channeled such investment into rebuilding homes and infrastructure destroyed in conflict with Israel.

Some 800 visitors a day flock to Al-Bustan, a resort built by a Hamas-linked charity, to enjoy its swimming pools, restaurants and cafes.

In keeping with strict Muslim tradition, women are veiled and non-Islamic songs are not on the playlist of music blaring from loudspeakers.

"The atmosphere is Islamic. It's a place where you feel relaxed," said Umm Gaafar, wearing head-to-toe black garb and a veil.

It's a different scene at Crazy Water Park.

Secular music echoes across its three swimming pools and men and women smoke water pipes around tables placed under umbrellas made of palm branches.

With Gaza unemployment estimated by the United Nations at more than 40 percent [actually 34% - EoZ], and by local economists at 60 percent, most of the crowd at Crazy Water are relatively well-paid professionals and employees of foreign aid organizations.

Bissan City, a former garbage dump on land owned by the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, has been turned into a 46-acre (19 hectare) zoo, a large entertainment park for children and gardens.

Hamas has not disclosed the scope of its investment in numerous projects in the Gaza Strip and the government in the territory has not released a budget. Hamas receives money from some Islamic and Arab allies, especially Qatar and Iran.

At a recently inaugurated Gaza shopping mall, the enclave's first such project, stores are filled with clothing, shoes and other consumer goods. Supermarket shelves in the mall are packed with Egyptian and Israeli merchandise.

Of course, it would be too much to ask for Reuters to point out that Gazans, including the adults with their water pipes poolside at the water park, are the biggest per-capita recipients of humanitarian aid in the world.

The utter inability to tell the truth

I've been looking at the Lebanese coverage of yesterday's events. Even though the facts are plain and obvious, the Lebanese media - across the board - is standing by the absurd story that Israel went into Lebanese territory and the LAF was defending their country.

The anti-Hezbollah March 14th coalition declared that this proves that the LAF can defend their country, and (by implication) it doesn't need Hezbollah.

The Lebanese Army warned Israel that they will do it again in the face of any Israeli "aggression."

Pan-Arab daily Dar al-Hayat said that it is likely that Israel wanted to test Lebanese reaction (by deciding to cut down trees on the Israeli side and giving them two weeks' notice, I suppose.)

No one is mentioning that, you know, Lebanon shot first at Israelis over the border who were doing nothing remotely wrong.

The lies do not end at this incident, of course. Ya Libnan starts off a "news" story this way:

Israel which received over $1.6 Trillion from the US since 1973 is now blaming U.S., France for arming Lebanon.

Say what? $1.6 trillion? That means that every Israeli household has received a million dollars from the US!

Well, it seems that Ya Libnan published an article about this claim just last week, from some blog by someone purported to be a CIA operations officer.

Although he doesn't cite the source, the figure comes from an absurd Christian Science Monitor article from 2002, where Israel is blamed by an analyst and "friend of OPEC" for the cost to the US economy of the Arab oil boycott, among other things.

Yes, the Arabs attacked Israel and initiated an oil boycott against the US, and Israel is blamed for their actions.

Although that author died in 2005, others have used his ridiculous methods to inflate Israel's supposed cost to the US to as much as $3 trillion, by considering the entire cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars as being aid to Israel as well.

Ya Libnan, with its journalistic skill, takes a ridiculous blog post, publishes it as fact, and then a week later extends it to translate "cost to US" to "aid to Israel."

Which just goes to show that no lie is too big to be published by the Arab media when it comes to Israel.

UPDATE: Since I queued up this post this morning, Lebanon's Naharnet has reported that UNIFIL declared the tree was on the Israeli side.

But now Lebanon is backpedaling, saying that while they admit it was on the Israeli side of the Blue Line, that is still Lebanese territory:

Lebanese Information Minister Tareq Mitri insisted the trees were in Lebanese territory.

"Lebanon has always expressed its respect for the Blue Line but always affirmed that the Blue Line is not the international border and there are areas south of the Blue Line that are Lebanese territory," Mitri told journalists in Beirut.

"The trees ... were south of the Blue Line but in Lebanese territory," he added.

Which means that if we are to believe him, the supposed Lebanese "respect" for the Blue Line is nonexistent if they are willing to shoot people on the other side.

Hot, unveiled women for Hezbollah

AP publishes a number of photos from Hezbollah's rally yesterday, apparently celebrating the fourth anniversary of their role in destroying southern Lebanon:

A Hezbollah supporter holds a poster of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah during a rally marking the fourth anniversary of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, in Beirut's southern suburb, Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2010.

A Hezbollah supporter, holds a poster of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallahduring a rally marking the fourth anniversary of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, in Beirut's southern suburb, Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2010. Nasrallah praised the army for their "heroic" stand against Israel on Tuesday. He warned in a televised speech to thousands of supporters south of Beirut that his fighters would intervene if Israeli troops ever attack Lebanese forces again.

Why are unveiled women so prominent at Hezbollah rallies?

An interesting 2008 story from Now Lebanon might help explain this phenomenon:

In its first issue of 2007, the Lebanese weekly current affairs magazine Ash-Shiraa, in a story on the newly-initiated downtown sit-in that would eventually last for over 18 months, published a statistic showing that that while Hezbollah paid veiled – or muhajjabat –supporters $15 per day for attending the demonstration, those who agreed to go unveiled were paid a little over $33 or 50,000 LL.

Dr. Hilal Khashan, professor of political studies at the American University of Beirut (AUB), suspected that this unique privileging of unveiled women by a party that encourages the wearing of the hijab among its women followers was because it “wanted [them] to look like Christians.” The appearance of unveiled women would have helped make the protest look like a national movement rather than a sectarian one.

(h/t Snapped Shot via tweet)