Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The Other Side, part 4

I thought that this installment was very powerful, but I imagine that different people have different tastes.

This video project now has a website.

For a while it looked like Hamas had a pretty strong grip on security in Gaza, but recent reports indicate that things might be fraying at the edges.

PCHR (Arabic only as of this writing) reports on three separate bomb attacks since Friday. On Tuesday, a lawyer's car was damaged by a bomb after he received a threat on his phone; a bomb targeted a pickup truck outside someone's home on early Monday morning, and on Friday a bomb damaged the house of a 63 year old woman who happens to be the sister of a senior Fatah official in the West Bank.

Palestine Press Agency reports that a peaceful PFLP protest against the power shortages in Gaza were violently broken up by Hamas police with batons. Many were arrested and beaten.

Last week an Al Jazeera reporter was attacked and insulted by Hamas police, in front of his children.

There was also a major clan clash earlier this week in Gaza City, where one was killed and seven injured.

A couple of years ago, this would have been a typical week in Gaza, but things had certainly seemed to be calming down internally. More troubling is that some of these attacks were not mentioned in the daily Palestinian Arab press I monitor, so it is possible that the Arabic media is missing some of them.

A solution to the "Made in Israel" problem

Things are really bad in England.

In just the past few weeks, we saw:

A judge instruct a jury to acquit vandals who damaged a factory because they said it was manufacturing weapons to be used by Israel;

An appeal to the British Advertising Standards Authority to overturn a ban on Israeli tourist posters showing the Western Wall was defeated;

and, today,

Four anti-Israel activists were today cleared of all charges after they locked themselves onto concrete-filled oil drums inside the Israeli-owned Ahava shop on Monmouth Street in Covent Garden forcing it to close down for one day in September 2009 and another day in December 2009.

Taherali Gulamhussein, Bruce Levy, Tom Ellis and Ms Crouch were found not guilty of failing to comply with a police officer’s orders to leave the shop.

The activists insisted that they were legally justified in their actions as they claim the shop’s activities are illegal because the products on sale in the shop originate from Mitzpe Shalem, an Israeli settlement on the West Bank and are deliberately mislabeled as “made in Israel”.

At this moment, the word "Israel" is essentially purged from the Ahava (US) website. They are clearly worried and the effects of the BDS movement is affecting them. This is a problem.

However, I think there is an easy solution.

Stop using the phrase "Made in Israel."

Instead, replace it with "Made in the Land of Israel."

The phrase "Land of Israel" is not political at all. It comprises most of the State of Israel, all of Judea and Samaria and even parts of Jordan and Lebanon. (OK, so Eilat would have to continue advertising itself as being part of "Israel." ) It refers to historic boundaries, not current political boundaries.

No one can dispute that the Dead Sea or all of Jerusalem are within the boundaries of the Land of Israel.

Even better, the phrase is evocative of the entire reason why Jews want to live on that land to begin with - because of their strong historical and emotional connection to the Land.

Imagine how well Ahava would do if they proudly advertised that all of their products were made in the Land of Israel!

Similarly, Israel's Tourism Board should advertise "Come to the Land of Israel." The statement is completely accurate and it is more effective than "Come to Israel" would be. The Advertising Standards Authority should have no problem with the accuracy of that statement.

If the corrupt British court system has a problem with that phrase as well, then they might have no choice but to dust off the old Jewish Agency tourism posters.

Hatikva at a Jethro Tull concert in Israel

From JPost:

Ask Ian Anderson a seemingly innocent “what’s new?” or “have you acquired any favorite sites or restaurants on your many trips to Israel?” and you’re likely to get a 10- minute multi-faceted treatise on global warming, the finite resources of the Earth and the noisy, disgusting habits of infants.

Just shy of his 63rd birthday, the gregarious front man of veteran British rockers Jethro Tull showed no signs of slowing down or mellowing as he prepared to leave home in England on Wednesday for two weekend Tull shows in Caesarea and Binyamina, and one more on Monday night in Jerusalem. In a phone conversation with The Jerusalem Post, he especially minced no words about efforts to convince him to join the loosely-knit artistic boycott of Israel – efforts which prompted him to write a note on the band’s official Web site defending his decision to perform here.

“I didn’t feel the need to make any statement until I started receiving some very hateful communication from people representing different sides of this ongoing issue – from supposed human rights supporters to individuals, bodies and groups… there was some pretty nasty stuff,” said Anderson.

“Basically what I wrote was, ‘don’t f***ing tell me what to do.’ And I have to say that since I posted the letter on my site, over the last two or three weeks, nobody has uttered a peep.”

What Anderson actually wrote was his commitment, ala Leonard Cohen’s initiative in 2009, to donate his proceeds from the three shows to “bodies representing the development of peaceful co-existence between Muslims, Jews and Christians, and the fostering of better Palestinian/Israeli relations.” The letter added that he didn’t “feel pressured by human rights groups, national interests or any individuals to perform or not to perform in Israel or anywhere else.

“I make up my own mind in light of available facts, with my own experience and a sense of personal ethics.”

Wow, an artist who actually thinks for himself! The fact that this is refreshing is scary.

Anyway, here he is performing last night with the band, with special guest keyboardist Shlomo Gronich. Gronich plays riffs from Israel's national anthem Hatikvah at about the 4:00 mark and then at about 5:10, bookending one of his own popular jazz pieces:

Send it to all your friends who support boycotting the only state with a decent human rights record in the Middle East. With luck, it will make their heads explode.

(h/t Yerushalimey)

The Gazans who are in an open-air prison - in Jordan

Did you know that there were well over 100,000 Gazans in Jordan with limited rights - and no easy way to get out?

An Arab researcher named Oroub El Abed has been documenting the plight of two little-known groups of Palestinian Arabs - the Gazans who live in Jordan and the PalArabs who live in Egypt.

Here is an excerpt from an article she wrote in Forced Migration Review about the Gazans in Jordan:

Gazans in Jordan are doubly displaced refugees. Forced to move to Gaza as a result of the 1948 war, they fled once more when Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967. Guesstimates of the number of Gazans in Jordan range between 118,000 and 150,000. A small number have entered the Jordanian citizenship scheme via naturalisation or have had the financial resources to acquire citizenship.

On arrival in Jordan, the ex-residents of Gaza were granted temporary Jordanian passports valid for two years but were not granted citizenship rights. The so-called ‘passport’ serves two purposes: it indicates to the Jordanian authorities that the Gazans and their dependents are temporary residents in Jordan and provides them with an international travel document (‘laissez-passer’) potentially enabling access to countries other than Jordan.

The ‘passport’ – which is expensive – has value as an international travel document only if receiving states permit the entry of temporary passport holders. Few countries admit them, because they have no official proof of citizenship. Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and some Gulf States are among those who refuse to honour the document. Any delay in renewing the temporary passport or in applying for one puts an individual at risk of becoming undocumented.

Since 1986 it has been harder for Gazans to compete for places in Jordanian universities as they must secure places within the 5% quota reserved for Arab foreigners. Entry to professions is blocked as Gazans are not allowed to register with professional societies/unions or to establish their own offices, firms or clinics. Only those with security clearance can gain private sector employment. Those who work in the informal sector are vulnerable to being exploited. Many Gazans are keen to leave Jordan to seek employment elsewhere but are constrained from doing so. Some have attempted to leave clandestinely.

Rami was brought up in Jordan, studied law and worked for over two years for a law firm in the West Bank city of Hebron. Lacking a West Bank Israeli-issued ID, he was forced to return to Jordan every three months to renew his visitor’s visa. Due to the high cost of living he returned to Jordan in 1999 only to find himself stripped of his Jordanian temporary passport. Now without any form of identity, he notes that “being Gazan in Jordan is like being guilty.”

In Jordan, as in most other Middle-Eastern countries, women cannot pass on their citizenship to their children. Neither is citizenship granted to a child born on the territory of a state from a foreign father. Married women are forced to depend on their fathers or husbands to process documents related to their children. Because of this patriarchal conception of citizenship, children of Jordanian women married to Gazans are at risk of being left without a legal existence.

Heba, a Jordanian national, married Ahmad, a Gazan with an Egyptian travel document. A year after their marriage, Ahmad was arrested for being in Jordan without a residence permit. Deported from Jordan, he was refused re-entry to Egypt and ended up in Sudan. Heba had a child but has been unable to register the birth due to the absence of her husband. She cannot afford to go to Sudan to be with him.

So there is a significant population of up to 150,000 Palestinian Arabs, living in the one Arab country that has granted other Palestinian Arabs full citizenship, who are left in legal limbo and danger of being deported. They are discriminated against and cannot leave. Even worse, most major Arab countries do not recognize their "travel documents" and effectively discriminate against them, forcing them to stay in Jordan or get deported forever.

How many times have you read about this "open-air prison?" How many human rights groups have championed the cause of Jordanian Gazans? What op-eds have ever been written, shaming the Hashemite Kingdom on how poorly they treat their Arab brethren? How many flotillas and convoys are being organized to help out the women and children? How many people are working to divest from Jordanian products because of this shameful discrimination?

Zero, zero, zero, zero and zero.

The obligatory Ashton Kutcher post

OK, so talking about celebrity airheads is not obligatory, but Jameel at The Muqata tracks Kutcher's visit to Efrat and Hebron where he is no doubt single-handedly ticking off thousands of BDSers.

Under the initiative of project "Mashiv HaRuach" which deals with strengthening the values of Zionism, Kutcher visited the community of Efrat, listened with great interest to a historical review of the community and the Gush Etzion area, dined at a Glatt Kosher restaurant, and even dipped in a local natural spring "Mikva" no less than 151 times! (151 is the numerical equivalent "gematriya" of "Mikva")

The project's director, Rafi Even D'aan briefed Kutcher and the history of settlement in Gush Etzion and spoke to him at length about the region's Jewish history. Rafi told Kutcher about the establishment of the new Jewish settlements after the Six Day War and explained the spiritual and historical significance of Gush Etzion.

Jameel also has photos and Ashton's tweets.

Jews planting the 'Tree of Jews'. ALL OVER THE PLACE!

"Jews planting trees. An abomination! How are we ever going to find them?" or a similar thought must have gone through this forum contributor's head when he posted this:

"I would like to show you the trees of the Jews (al-Gharqad) and now they have increased their cultivation in the occupied areas (...)"

He then refers to the following Hadith:

“The Last Hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews. The Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: ‘Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him;’ but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.”
(Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Fitan wa Ashrat as-Sa'ah, Book 41, 6985)

And then he says:

"But few of us know the form of this tree."

Now you also know how the "Tree of the Jews" looks like. Go sit behind it. No need to worry.

Arab oil billionaires criticized in Arabic op-ed

Last month, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet started an initiative where the world's richest people would donate half their fortunes to charity.

They so far signed up some forty super-rich people to join this "Giving Pledge."

Pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds al-Arabi looked at this list and noticed one thing missing: Arabs.

Not only that, but the richest man in the world, Carlos Slim, who ridiculed the entire idea, is an Arab - his father was a Maronite Christian.

Here is part of the scathing op-ed:

There is no accurate survey of the number of Arab billionaires and how rich they are, but there are several known names that emerge from time to time in the pages of foreign magazines that care about such things, some of them princes or kings or businessmen, not to mention the tens of thousands of millionaires. But we do know that that most of these are featured in the glossy magazines because their private jets are outfitted with gold faucets or toilets, or their luxury yachts moored in southern France or southern Spain, competing with each other on their length and number of rooms.

Even if they donated some of a few tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, these contributions are always done for PR, in front of an array of cameras that record this great event, and broadcast to dozens of television stations and newspapers that belong to the donor, which were established mostly for this purpose...

There are more wealthy Arabs than rich Americans, yet Westerners set aside a portion of their wealth to charity. Most of the Arab wealth is built up through illegal activities, or they got kickbacks for arms deals of weapons that have never been used...

The vast majority of Arab billionaires made their fortunes because of the massive corruption of the regimes that belong to, and lack of accountability, transparency, and the encroachment of looting public funds, or money laundering, or all of these methods combined.

We hear about the tens of millions were invested in the pornography channels but not about about the establishment or the construction of scientific or humanitarian cultural institutions.

More than half of the Arab world live under the poverty line, on less than two dollars a day, and we saw the Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz visited the slums surrounding the city of Riyadh, the capital of the richest oil state in the world, showing misery in the ugliest forms and manifestations, and in a manner can is unbelievable.

If we went to sister Arab countries such as Yemen, which occupies a prominent place on the list of the twenty poorest countries in the world, we find that hunger and disease is the common denominator for the vast majority of citizens, and all they get from their brothers are crumbs.

Meanwhile, foreign billionaires pledge half of their wealth to charity, wealth ways that they earned legitimately as the result of their creativity, and they paid taxes to the coffers of their country, under a strict, transparent accounting system - yet they did not hesitate to commit to helping the needy and the vulnerable not in their country only, but in all around the world, without distinction or discrimination.

Do not begrudge our millionaires, and do not be surprised if we say just the opposite: we feel for them when they live in mansions or yachts or private jets, isolated from humans, in lives of plastic with no taste or smell, surrounded by a group of hypocrites and hangers-on.

We write this essay on the occasion of holy month of Ramadan, the month of mercy and blessing and sacrifice, when we need to help the poor and disadvantaged. We are not preachers, but we are ringing a bell to awaken the public conscience of the sleepers, and remind them of the minimum level of their duties.

Stoning 101 (Slate)

Slate has a helpful article on what exactly is involved when women adulterers are stoned in Iran. Sort of like a "Stoning for Dhimmis."

First, you get buried. Iran's Islamic Penal Code states that men convicted of adultery are to be buried in the ground up to their waists; women, up to their chests. If the conviction is based on the prisoner's confession, the law says, the presiding judge casts the first stone. If the conviction is based on witness testimony, the witnesses throw the first stones, then the judge, then everyone else—generally other court officials and security forces. Stones must be of medium size, according to the penal code: Not so big that one or two could kill the person, but not so small that you would call it a pebble. In other words, about the size of a tangerine. The whole process takes less than an hour.

Something to think about the next time Ahmadinejad declares that Iranians have superior human rights to Westerners.

(h/t Israeligirl)

Nasrallah's "evidence" that Israel murdered Hariri is a joke - but....(UPDATED)

Yesterday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah went on TV for two hours, trying to spin a convoluted case that Israel was behind the assassination of Rafik Hariri.

The most interesting parts of his speech were where he said that Hezbollah had captured an Israeli drone in 1997, and they managed to analyze it in order to capture IDF surveillance footage.

"The secret I want to reveal tonight is that before 1997, Hezbollah was able to catch an Israeli spy plane photographing South Lebanon and sending them to an Israeli operations center," Sayyed Nasrallah went on to say.

"Before 1997, the Resistance managed to capture the transmission of an MK drone and we managed to access this transmission which enabled us of capturing the images transmitted by the drone as the enemy's operation room was receiving them," Hezbollah Secretary General explained.

"The capturing of the MK drone images by the Resistance's operation room led to the foiling of the enemy's amphibious assault on Ansariyeh on September 5, 1997," Hezbollah Secretary General revealed, before showing details of the Ansariyeh operation and explaining how this tactic helped the Resistance fighters foil the Israeli attempt.

He showed what looks like convincing aerial video footage of that failed 1997 assault.

Al Manar has the speech on video here.

Then he goes on to say that Hezbollah continued to capture video from Israeli drones up through at least 2005, and this footage supposedly shows that Israel was surveying the route that Rafik Hariri took when he was killed.

Hezbollah Secretary General then turned to the most sensitive part of the press conference: tangible proof showing the Israeli enemy carefully monitoring the movements of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and his locations.

In this regard, Sayyed Nasrallah unveiled footage intercepted from Israeli surveillance planes of the site of the 2005 murder of ex-Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri prior to his assassination.

"Israeli drones had carefully monitored the movements of Hariri's motorcade in Beirut and on the Farayya-Faqra road," Sayyed Nasrallah pointed out. "Was that a coincidence?" his eminence wondered. "Such footage generally comes as the first leg of the execution of an operation."

Several clips, each minutes long and undated, showed aerial views of the coastline off west Beirut on various days prior to the Hariri assassination. "Are there any Hezbollah offices in these areas monitored by Israel? Why is Israel monitoring these locations?" Sayyed Nasrallah wondered.

The videos are undated, so if Hezbollah did capture drone videos for years then they pretty much have aerial video from the IDF over all of Lebanon. Nasrallah does make a convincing case that certain turns in a specific roads that Hariri supposedly used were videoed from various angles.

Nasrallah also claimed to have evidence of exactly when Israeli planes were over Beirut on the day that Hariri was assassinated, and that an Israeli spy was in the area.

That's pretty much his evidence.

The evidence was far from convincing for at least some in Lebanon:

Commenting on the evidence that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah presented during his 2 + hours press conference Elias Zoghbi told “BBC:” What has Nasrallah presented was a political case . This is not the kind of concrete and convincing evidence that we expected from him that will prove Israel was behind Hariri’s murder. Nasrallah ’s presentation was interesting …. he acted like a news anchor ”

What I have not yet seen from Israel is any confirmation or denial that, for what may be years, Hezbollah was able to intercept Israeli drone transmissions. Clearly what Nasrallah showed indicated that Hezbollah captured video from multiple drones over a period of time. Some of the footage was in color.

This would be an outrageous security failure on the part of the IDF. It is not difficult to encrypt transmissions in such a way that they would be virtually unbreakable. If the IDF didn't change their methods of transmission or their encryption after the 1997 drone capture, someone should be fired.

UPDATE: See the comments. Apparently Israel radio is speaking about this; one IDF general says that Nasrallah's claims might be true, others seem to be denying it.

UPDATE 2: Apparently, you can intercept sensitive stuff yourself for $26 plus your satellite dish. Again, if this was known since the 1990s, why would transmissions remain unencrypted? (h/t Pesach)

The popular Tunisian singer Saleem Bakkoush has been forced to cancel a concert at the annual Carthage festival, after a video surfaced showing him performing at a synagogue.

Mr Bakkoush accused his rivals of publishing the tape to tarnish his reputation.

Tunisia is one of only two Arab states with a sizeable Jewish community.

But pro-Palestinian sentiments remain strong and the country has no diplomatic ties with Israel.

It's merely anti-zionism of course... nothing to do with anti-Semitism.... right?

Anti-Israeli sentiment in Tunisia - especially in cultural and artistic circles - was already running high following the emergence of another remarkable tape.

It showed another popular singer, Mohsen El Sharif, performing at the wedding of a Jewish couple of Tunisian origin in Israel.

What angered people most in Tunisia was Mr El Sharif's readiness to please the Israeli public by shouting "Long Live Netanyahu", referring to the Israeli prime minister.

He later tried to defend his action by saying that he thought that was the bridegroom's name.

The Other Side, part 3

The video series of Jews from Judea and Samaria continues.

This one interviews people familiar to the Jewish and Zionist blogosphere: Yisrael Medad of My Right Word, and his wife Batya of Shiloh Musings fame. They're not quite "typical" revenants, as Yisrael likes to refer to Jews of the area, but they speak English well and are articulate.

The project now has a website: http://www.theothersidevideo.com/

Latest Latma

I liked this one.

New video of Gazan suffering, starvation and prison-like conditions

Middle East News Watch captured an Israeli Channel 10 report on both the Crazy Water Park that we mentioned last week and the Al Mat-haf Museum and Restaurant we blogged about in late July.

Both of these torture chambers are in the prison camp known as Gaza.

I know it is hard to watch all these videos. I understand how many people want to turn away and pretend that these unspeakable places don't exist. But the world must be forced to see the suffering of the Gazans for themselves; the screams of the children frantically sliding down the long, cramped tube into the Waters of Hell will haunt you forever.

Brace yourself. It's ugly.

ITIC releases report on Lebanon incident

The ITIC released a report on the incident last week, with a little new information, some good background and some new analysis, including confirmation of my source's map showing the location of the IDF crane and where the officers were shot.