Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, August 13, 2010

Will Southern Sudan establish relations with Israel?

In January, Sudan plans to hold a referendum on the secession of Southern Sudan from the country.

A representative of the Southern Sudanese stated in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat that he saw no reason that the new country should not to establish relations with Israel, saying that other Arab states have done so and that Southern Sudan does not want to antagonize any other country.

It is not clear whether Southern Sudan would be considered an Arab country. Arab states seem to be ambivalent about supporting the secession.

Media ignores Turkey's use of chemical weapons (updated)

Yesterday, Der Spiegel published a report indicating that Turkey used chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels.

German experts have confirmed the authenticity of photographs that purport to show PKK fighters killed by chemical weapons. The evidence puts increasing pressure on the Turkish government, which has long been suspected of using such weapons against Kurdish rebels. German politicians are demanding an investigation.

It would be difficult to exceed the horror shown in the photos, which feature burned, maimed and scorched body parts. The victims are scarcely even recognizable as human beings. Turkish-Kurdish human rights activists believe the people in the photos are eight members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) underground movement, who are thought to have been killed in September 2009.

In March, the activists gave the photos to a German human rights delegation comprised of Turkey experts, journalists and politicians from the far-left Left Party, as SPIEGEL reported at the end of July. Now Hans Baumann, a German expert on photo forgeries has confirmed the authenticity of the photos, and a forensics report released by the Hamburg University Hospital has backed the initial suspicion, saying that it is highly probable that the eight Kurds died "due to the use of chemical substances."

German politicians and human rights experts are now demanding an investigation into the incident. "The latest findings are so spectacular that the Turkish side urgently needs to explain things," said Claudia Roth, the co-chair of Germany's Green Party. "It is impossible to understand why an autopsy of the PKK fighters was ordered but the results kept under seal."

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has rejected the accusations, according to the Berlin daily newspaper Die Tageszeitung, which reported on the case Thursday. Turkey is a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, and its armed forces do not possess any biological or chemical weapons, the ministry reportedly said.

The newspaper also reports that it has obtained additional, shocking pictures in the meantime, supposedly autopsy photographs of six other killed Kurds. These images, too, have now been submitted to the Hamburg-based experts.

So far, outside of Armenian, Kurdish and Israeli websites, the rest of the English-language media has ignored the story. It has been a full day since the initial report was published in English and German.

But I guess that if the mainstream media doesn't report it, it cannot be very important. Sorry for wasting your time.

(h/t jarh)

UPDATE: Islamic Jihad mouthpiece Palestine Today mentions the story, saying it is a "smear campaign" by Israel similar to what they did to Saddam Hussein, in order to pressure the world to invade Turkey and to deflect Israel from criticism for the Mavi Marmara.

Those wily Jews, submitting the photos months before the flotilla!

Gazans forced to stay in their "open air prison" - by their leaders

The idea that Gaza is an "open air prison," which was ridiculous all along, has become farcical ever since Egypt opened the Rafah border in July.

Gazans can freely visit Egypt, as long as they follow Egyptian rules. And those rules include having a valid passport from the PA.

There is only one problem: Hamas refuses to create passports for Fatah members, and the PA is refusing to give out blank passports to Hamas.

Ma'an tells us more about the PA's forcing Gazans to stay in Gaza:

The Palestinian Authority is depriving citizens in Gaza from obtaining passports, a rights group said Thursday.

The Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights wrote to Ramallah-based Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in June urging him to comply with Palestinian Basic Law and issue passports to all citizens without discrimination.

Since June, the center has issued further complaints on behalf of citizens denied passports, none of which have received responses from the PA, a statement said.

The complainants included cancer patient Ahmed Abu Fou'ad, Mohammed Subeh who needs an eye-transplant, and paramedic, Alaa' Sarhan, who needs surgery to remove shrapnel from his body as well as urinary surgery, Al Mezan said.

The Palestinian Human Rights NGOs Council has also written to Fayyad requesting he address these cases, but has not received any response, the report added.

Al Mezan called on the PA, and particularly the Interior Ministry, to respect citizens’ rights, noting that discriminating between citizens on the basis of their political affiliation or opinion constituted “flagrant violations to human rights and to the principle of the rule of law.”

I can't wait for all those "human rights" activists to start rallying in European capitals against this inhumane policy of the PA that forces Gazans to be stuck in Gaza.

Odds and ends

Some links people have sent me, via email or the comments:

Israel National News (Arutz Sheva) has quoted this blog as a straight news source, and linked back to me. (Even so, they slightly mis-characterize a clan clash as if it was a Hamas activity.) Hey; it's better than being ripped off!

Juan Cole wrote on his blog the interesting "fact" that "despite being Shiite fundamentalists, Hizbullah has consistently supported a strong, united Lebanon and is among the foremost purely Lebanese nationalist forces in the country." Sure - as long as they are in charge. (h/t Dan)

The German Foreign Minister traveled to Saudi Arabia without his boyfriend. Since Saudi Arabia has a death penalty for homosexuality, this might have been a good move. (h/t Silke)

Sky News reports that researchers in Israel have invented an "electronic nose" that can sniff the existence of cancer from people's breath. In fact, the lead researcher is an Israeli Arab. (h/t Jacob)

There is evidence that Turkey used chemical weapons against the PKK Kurdish group. No word on whether there will be a UN inquiry on this war crime, or whether the story will even last a week. (h/t Jacob)

AFP catches the fake Muslim grave story

I blogged last week about how the Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation, an organization that is pretty much dedicated to lies, claimed that the Jerusalem authorities were destroying ancient Muslim graves - when they were, in fact, fake.

AFP has picked up on the story:

Around 300 Muslim gravestones destroyed by Israeli bulldozers in a Jerusalem cemetery earlier this week were "fake" and set up in a bid to snatch government land, the city charged on Thursday.

The allegation was flatly denied by the Islamic Movement which earlier this week accused the municipality of razing recently renovated Muslim graves in a centuries-old cemetery in a large park in mostly Jewish west Jerusalem.

In its first official response to the claims, the Jerusalem city council on Thursday acknowledged it had removed some 300 tombstones, but said they were not erected over any human remains.
"The municipality and the (Israel Lands) Authority destroyed around 300 dummy gravestones which were set up illegally in Independence Park on public land.

"The court approved the removal of all the dummy gravestones which were laid in the last seven months," the municipality said in a written statement sent to AFP.

"This is a fraudulent set up, one of the biggest in recent years, whose aim is to illegally take over state land."

Underneath the tombstones excavators found only "plastic bottles, cigarette packets and parts of a sprinkler system," the statement said. It accused "Islamic elements" of trying to pull off a huge scam.

It is remarkable, for AFP, to give coverage to the Israeli side first and then have the other side dispute it. Usually you have to wait for paragraph 8 to read the Israeli side of the story, by which time most readers have already moved on to the sports page.

By the way, this is the same cemetery that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem had moved bodies from when building his hotel on top of it, the same cemetery that the same mufti had redirected sewage towards, and the same cemetery that the Supreme Muslim Council had explicitly allowed building an Arab business park on top of.

In other words, Arab lies about this cemetery have a long pedigree.

Arabs consider the western part of Jerusalem to be "occupied" as well

Many Arab media outlets reflexively put the word "Occupied" in front of "Jerusalem," even if the news story takes place entirely within the part of Jerusalem that was inside those supposedly "internationally recognized borders" before 1967.

Examples:

The Lebanon Daily Star changed the location of an Reuters story about a new exhibit at the Israel Museum. They also put the words "Holy Land" is scare quotes, which is not in the AFP original.

The Yemen News Agency, Middle East Monitor, and Gulf News follow the same standard.

Lebanon Daily Star ridicules Nasrallah's "evidence"

From the Daily Star:

Marvel at the contempt Hizbullah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, must feel for us all, that he would expect us to believe his presentation last Monday telling us that Israel was behind the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister. But that contempt may also in some ways be justified, because far too many Lebanese actually believed him, even as they observe the rapid erosion of their slender sovereignty with lethargy.

Do we Lebanese deserve independence? You have to wonder. Israel has killed many people in Lebanon, and will doubtless kill many more, but we would only be abasing ourselves by abruptly reinterpreting the Hariri assassination in the light that Nasrallah chose to shine on the crime. We would have to believe that Syria did not threaten Hariri in 2004, was untroubled by Resolution 1559, for which it held Hariri partly responsible, did not control Lebanese security in 2005, and did not appoint or approve all senior officials in the security and intelligence agencies. We would have to disregard that these agencies tried to cover up the scene of the assassination, that Hizbullah sought to stifle the emancipation movement by organizing an intimidating demonstration on March 8, 2005, to defend Syria’s presence in Lebanon, and that virtually all of those assassinated after Hariri (not to mention Marwan Hamadeh, who barely escaped assassination before) were critical of Syria.

And, of course, we would have to forget that Hizbullah and its Amal allies twice left the government because it was preparing measures to establish the tribunal – the second time kicking off an 18-month Downtown sit-in to bring down Fouad Siniora’s government.

Nasrallah now offers an explanation for this: the tribunal was politicized. Yet that was not the excuse Hizbullah and Amal used in 2006 when they withdrew their ministers. At the time, their beef was that Siniora and March 14 had undermined governmental procedure by not consulting properly with them. But we can conveniently forget that, too, as well as Syrian President Bashar Assad’s warning issued to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, at a meeting in Damascus on April 24, 2007. According to a detailed account leaked to the French daily Le Monde, Assad told Ban that approval of the tribunal under Chapter VII authority “might easily cause a conflict that would degenerate into civil war, provoking divisions between Sunnis and Shiites from the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea.”

Perhaps Nasrallah had not yet shared his information about Israel with the Syrian president, who, with amazing prescience, found himself echoing revelations about a Shiite connection in the Hariri assassination more than two years before Der Spiegel made a similar reference – one that Nasrallah now sees as proof of an Israeli plot.

It would take an awful lot of forgetting to buy into Nasrallah’s theory, but that is precisely what the secretary general is demanding. He wants Lebanon, above all its prime minister, to forget the overwhelming evidence from the past and bury the Hariri tribunal for good. Let’s just blame Israel, Nasrallah is telling us, so that we can all live in amnesic harmony.

MEMRI also has a rundown on Lebanese reaction, which predictably follows party lines.

Iran again met with terrorist leaders yesterday

Not that this is newsworthy any more, but yesterday the Iranian Foreign Minister met with the Damascus-based leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as the leaders of eight other Palestinian Arab terrorist groups.

Even if you subscribe to the loony left characterization of Hamas as a legitimate political leader of Palestinian Arabs, there is no way that you can consider Islamic Jihad and the other groups as anything other than pure terrorist organizations.

The world really doesn't seem to have a major problem with a UN member state openly collaborating with and funding terror groups. Admittedly, next to Iran's nuclear ambitions this is small potatoes, but nevertheless every such meeting needs to be publicized and condemned, over and over again, at all levels of diplomatic channels - including the UN.

IDF Chief of Staff: IHH shot first

From the New York Times:

Israel’s top military chief said Wednesday that activists on a Turkish ship were the first to open fire as Israeli naval commandos raided the vessel, part of a six-boat flotilla bound for Gaza, fomenting a bloody confrontation on board that left nine activists dead.

Testifying before an Israeli commission of inquiry, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli Army chief of staff, gave the most detailed description yet of the military’s version of the events in late May.

General Ashkenazi said that mistakes had been made. The main one, he said, was that the soldiers, who rappelled onto the ship from a helicopter one by one, lacked the manpower to create a sterile area quickly enough. They were immediately set upon by the activists, some wielding axes, knives, iron bars and clubs, he said.

Though stun grenades were fired first, from the air, they failed to disperse the dozen or so activists on the roof of the boat. What was lacking, according to the army chief, was preparation for the use of “precise fire,” by which he appeared to mean snipers, “to neutralize those preventing the soldiers from boarding the boat.”

The army chief staunchly defended the actions of his soldiers. He said that they had displayed “cool-headedness, courage and morality,” opening fire only when necessary, and that the Israeli use of force was proportionate.

According to the general, the second soldier who fast-roped onto the roof of the boat, the Mavi Marmara, was shot in the abdomen and fired back. Activists who were on board have given very different accounts, saying the soldiers opened fire as soon as they came on board, or even before.

An Israeli military investigation of the episode concluded a month ago that Israeli soldiers most likely fired only after having been fired upon. A video in two separate parts, produced by the army and shown to the commission, stated that the shot fired at the second soldier was “probably” the first shot fired on the ship.

But General Ashkenazi said it was “clear and established” that flotilla participants opened fire first.

The weapon used may have been snatched from the first soldier who landed on the ship.

A gun belonging to one of the soldiers was later found on board, empty of bullets. In addition, the military said it found ammunition, cartridges and bullets that were not from the Israeli Army, suggesting that there might have been at least one other gun on the ship. According to the general, the boat’s captain told the Israelis that it might have been thrown overboard.

General Ashkenazi stated that the army had prepared for the possibility that the activists could open fire, though the military “did not assess correctly the strength of the resistance” the commandos would meet when they came down the rope. According to the video, soldiers trying to approach the Mavi Marmara on rubber lifeboats said they were fired on from both sides of the ship. As clashes broke out on the boat, commandos fired at the feet of their “attackers.”

When the commandos met resistance as they tried to rush the bridge, they responded with fire. And at one point, at least 15 minutes into the struggle for control of the ship, the force commander allowed the soldiers to use accurate and precise live fire against violent activists, to permit more soldiers to climb aboard from the lifeboats.

The stun grenades from the helicopter, which I hadn't heard of before, would explain why the passengers thought that the IDF was shooting at them from the air.

Of course, the "activists" have no problem telling their lies to the world. Here's their graphic of the events, from the Free Gaza page:

Somehow, they must have forgotten to draw their prepared axes, knives, clubs, chains and slingshots. Must have been an oversight.

Abbas claims US contacts with Hamas

Mahmoud Abbas gave a wide-ranging interview to the Arab press yesterday.

Abbas said that Washington is putting him under "unprecedented" pressure to resume direct negotiations. He stated that he was still insisting on a precondition of acceptance of the 1949 armistice lines (usually referred to as the 1967 borders) as the basis of the borders of another Arab state, but he may be willing to accept a statement by the Quartet - rather than Israel - that this is the aim of the negotiations. He says that the March 19th Quartet statement affirmed that goal (I couldn't see an explicit reference to the borders in that statement, although it refers to UNSC 242.)

He again spoke about the PA's financial woes, warning that it will collapse if it doesn't get the usual amounts of money from the West. he also complained about how Arab nations are not fulfilling their pledges, without naming names.

He criticized the fatwa by Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi prohibiting Arabs from visiting Jerusalem. He said that he was politicizing religion, and that such visits are meant to show solidarity with the "prisoner," not the "warden."

Abbas said he had information from "reliable sources" about contacts between the U.S. administration and Hamas. He added: "I understand it, this is politics, and countries change their positions according to their interests." Smiling, he added: "If we refuse to go to the negotiating table tomorrow, perhaps [the US] is looking for others [to negotiate.]"

That sarcastic statement indicates that Abbas knows that he is considered the "moderate" no matter what, and that in that position he can call the shots because no one wants the alternative. And since the word "moderate" is used in relative rather than absolute terms, he knows his intransigence will never get criticized.

Freedom of the press, Hamas-style

Yesterday, when Hamas broke up a demonstration by the PFLP against power outages in Gaza, two reporters were beaten and their equipment confiscated.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned the attack, which came on the heels of another attack by Hamas on an Al Jazeera reporter a few days earlier.

The syndicate is inviting a delegation from the International Federation of Journalists to Gaza to discuss the erosion of press freedoms in Gaza.

After the arrest of the Al Jazeera reporter, Reporters Without Borders finally wrote a report on the lack of press freedoms in both Gaza and the West Bank. (I had mentioned the absence of such a report in late July.)

Incidentally, IFJ has a condemnation of the death of the Lebanese journalist who was covering the ambush of the IDF last week. It mentions that three Lebanese soldiers were killed in the exchange of fire - but was silent on the Israeli officer killed by a sniper.

Poor Arabs forced to sell their children

The poverty is overwhelming.

Parents cannot afford to feed their children. Basic supplies are too expensive. Proper healthcare is not accessible.

So they are selling the children to Europeans, especially Italians, hoping that they would have a better life there. Hundreds of children have been sold this year alone.

Is this in Gaza?

No, of course not. Gazans have easy access to food and healthcare.

It is across the border, in poor Egyptian villages.

The government is concerned and views these sales of children as simply human trafficking and is working to stop it, after an expose of the phenomenon by Al Masry al Youm where they discovered that the court systems regularly approved the adoption of these children by Europeans.

This episode highlights what real poverty is like. And it also shows how the thousands of "human rights activists" who pretend to care so much about Gaza children are indifferent to real poverty, real suffering and real deprivation.

There are no flotillas for the poverty-stricken in Egypt or Yemen. There are no campaigns to raise money or awareness. Their troubles are ignored, lost in the glare of GAZA GAZA GAZA. And as millions of dollars are poured into a place that is better off than much of the planet, the Arabs who are really deprived would kill to be incarcerated in that "open air prison" of Gaza.

UNRWA upset at Israeli TV (updated x3)

From Ha'aretz:

The United Nations' relief agency for Palestinian refugees, lashed out Tuesday at the Israel Broadcasting Authority for airing what it called a a dishonest portrayal of the organization on Saturday in "Ro'im Olam" on Channel 1 television.

Right-wing journalist David Bedein's "For the Nakba", UNRWA said, contains numerous inaccuracies about its operations in Palestinian refugee camps and educational institutions. It depicts large graffiti that lionize Palestinian suicide bombers and includes an interview with Palestinian children who profess a desire to become "martyrs."

"Ro'im Olam" presenter Yaakov Ahimeir sought comment from UNRWA's Christopher Gunness, who watched the segment before it aired. Gunness said he warned of numerous inaccuracies, which were never corrected.

In a letter written prior to the airing, Gunness said UNRWA schools do not contain murals of suicide bombers, and that the textbooks shown are for use by 12th graders, while UNRWA schools do not go beyond ninth grade.

Gunness said students making derogatory statements about Israel are not enrolled at UNRWA schools, whose pupils are identifiable by their school uniforms. The spokesperson added that UNRWA does not sanction events that officially mark the Nakba, as the segment suggested. Gunness denied the film's assertion that a student in an agency-run school was an 18-year-old suicide bomber.

Gunness accused Channel 1 of airing "a stack of lies," and said editing the errors was "a matter of integrity."

In response, Ahimeir said: "Chris Gunness viewed the film before the broadcast, and his response was broadcast in full." After he sent me additional material, Ahimeir said, "This was also read on the air by me as UNRWA's response."

Bedein denied Gunness' claims. Palestinian kids, he said, study the materials from the textbooks at a young age, and the mural of the suicide bomber was seen at the entrance of the UNRWA school at the Deheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem.

I am not in a position to determine who is telling the truth for most of these issues, but I did find out one fact.

Gunness claims that UNRWA "does not sanction events that officially mark the Nakba," according to the article. I was surprised to see no evidence of UNRWA activities on Nakba day in the territories. However, UNRWA in Lebanon definitely commemorated "Nakba Day". This is from a UNRWA newsletter:

In remembrance of the 1948 Nakba and what the community describes as the “Second Nakba” caused by the conflict in Nahr el Bared in 2007, the Factions and Popular Committee will be running a series of activities including marches, sit-ins and distribution of black flags to commemorate the plight of the Palestinians.

Nazareth School in cooperation with Palestinian Arab Cultural Club held on May 13 an exhibit day to commemorate AL-Nakba anniversary.

To Set a New Guinness World Record in Commemoration of Al Nakba

On May 15, a group of Palestinian youth will draw the UN resolution 194 that endorses the Palestinian right to return with 6000 scarves. By that they will attempt to beat the current Guinness world record for the longest chain of scarves. The attempt is designed to commemorate the anniversary of Nakba day. A Guinness World Records Adjudicator will be present to officially verify the record attempt, which will involve a drawing of six thousand scarves connected in the shape of the UN Resolution 194, in an effort to break the current record of 2,932 m 5 cm (9,619 ft 6.81 in) made of 5,000 scarves and set in Spain on 29 August 2009. Art bands presenting folkloric dances, songs, and heritage sketches will entertain participants at the festivities, while organizers connect the scarves to achieve a total length of 6,000 m. All are invited to go commemorate Al Nakba in Beirut.

When: Saturday May 15
What Time: 3:00pm
Where: Sportive city of Beirut- Bir Hassan

The Nazareth school in Beddawi is a UNRWA school.

UPDATE: Here is the video (h/t Jed)

UPDATE 2: Adam at CiFWatch just happened to have a snapshot of a heroic Palestinian Arab throwing an incendiary device at the entrance to a UNRWA community center in Deheisheh:

UPDATE 3: The Arabic phrase has these peaceful words: (h/t Ali)

"My enemy, enemy of the sun, I will not compromise and I will resist till the last pulse in my veins"

Apparently, UNRWA has some 'splaining to do.

Arab League asks its members to pay their pledges to the PA

Al Masry al-Youm reports that Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa is urging League members to pay up on their pledges to help out the Palestinian Authority.

For years now, Arab nations have been quick to promise financial aid to the PA, but very slow to deliver. Similarly, they make great promises to fund UNRWA, but by and large fail to pay up.

The PA claims to be suffering from a financial crisis, as they always are. However, they continue to fund infrastructure and pay salaries in Gaza - which sucks up 60% of the PA's budget. This frees up Hamas to buy more weapons and not to worry about an uprising that would dislodge them from power, and there is of course zero oversight on the sources or outlays of the Hamas budget.

Meanwhile, in Ramallah....

There is money here, plenty of it, and those who have it are not hesitant to flaunt it.

New cars, beautiful residences, fancy stores and restaurants will startle any outsider arriving here with his head filled by the mainstream media in the West about the misery of the West Bank occupation by Israelis.

There is also poverty, Israeli checkpoints, the fence or wall separating Palestinian territories from Israel and the Israeli settlements.

And there’s the politics of resentment that spill over any conversation with ordinary Palestinians fed on a diet of half-truths and endless lies by their leaders.

But visiting with Palestinians is also an invitation to hear their bitterness about Arab leaders, and of their experience with discrimination and violence in places such as Lebanon and Kuwait.

They speak of how the Palestinian leadership resembles Ali Baba and his 40 thieves robbing the people of the money that has poured in as aid from the West.

The term limit of the president and the legislative assembly has expired, and no new elections are scheduled to provide Palestinians with any say on how they are being governed.

In effect those in authority have no mandate, and their fear that Hamas will likely win an election whenever held underscores the contempt of ordinary Palestinians for Mahmoud Abbas — the president of the Palestinian Authority – and the men around him.

This explains why the Arabs don't want to fund the PA - because it is money that will go right down the drain, whether into the pockets of the politicians or indirectly to Hamas.

Plus, the ever-hopeful Westerners are more than happy to take up the slack.

Administrivia/open thread

Happy Ramadan!

I just wanted to thank the people who have been emailing and messaging tips to me. I've been really busy and every time I can save research time by getting a tip, I really appreciate it!

Similarly, I would like to apologize if I do not acknowledge (or use) every tip.

I just put a toolbar on the bottom from an Israeli company called Wibiya. I had tried it once before and took it off, but they seem to have made some improvements so I'll test it again. Let me know if it is a problem. It looks like it has some nifty features.

Meanwhile, this is as good a time as any for an open thread....