Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, September 03, 2010

New terror coalition to kill Israelis

13 terrorist groups are establishing a "joint operations room" to coordinate attacks on Jewish civilians in Israel.

Since this is the 21st century, they called a press conference to announce themselves.

Since they are terrorists, here's how they looked:

Look at all those microphones!

They promise to come up with new and novel ways of killing Jews, with "iron and fire," and they stressed their intention to stop the PA from any compromise in negotiations.

Lebanese residents change name of "Jewish" neighborhood

From The Daily Star:

A Sidon neighborhood referencing the Jewish people was renamed by locals in honor of the besieged Palestinian Gaza Strip on Thursday.

Residents of the southern city of Sidon raised a metal sign that read “Haret Gaza,” Arabic for Gaza neighborhood, in an area known as “Haret al-Yahoud,” Arabic for neighborhood of the Jews.

The redubbing of the street was organized by a number of locals who wished to show solidarity with the International Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day, which falls on Friday.

“The move to rename the neighborhood is concurrent with the launching of negotiations between the Zionist entity and Palestinian authorities … It also expresses our refusal of the unjust siege that has been imposed on Gaza for more than four years,” said Sheikh Khoder al-Qabsh. Qabsh called on Sidon authorities and all officials to fully adopt the new name.

The original name of the neighborhood dates back to when most of its residents were Lebanese of Jewish religion. They started leaving the country in the 1950s and were absent by the time the Civil War erupted.

The new name given to the neighborhood stirred the interest of young people and many children carried plastic weapons and acted out battle scenes between the Resistance and Israel. “The Resistance won of course,” said the child leader of the make-believe Resistance Mahmoud al-Rifaii.

Nah, no anti-semitism here.

Don't tell Fareed Zakaria!

Meanwhile, in Lebanon... (updated)

Three breaking news ticker items from Naharnet:

1:00pm Security sources to VDL: Sounds of explosions were heard in one of Hizbullah’s bases in the southern town of Shehabiyyah

1:07pm Future News: A fire erupted in Shehabiyyah and sounds of blasts were heard.

1:15pm Al-Jazeera TV: The Shehabiyyah explosion went off at a house that is believed to be an arms depot.

Work accident!

I'm sure UNIFIL will get right there and condemn Hezbollah for violating the terms of UNSCR 1701 by openly bringing arms into southern Lebanon.

UPDATE:

1:30pm Future News: Ambulances and firefighters rushed to the scene where the blast went off.
2:00pm MTV: Sounds of blasts continue to be heard in Shehabiyyeh.

2:15pm VDL: The 3-storey building in Shehabiyyeh is owned by a man from the Salloum family.

It wasn't too hard to find a connection between people named Salloum and Hezbollah.

Spanish Muslims upset over "Mecca" nightclub

From Al Arabiya:

The inauguration of a discotheque called Mecca in Spain infuriated Muslims in the country and raised questions about the position of Muslim workers offered jobs in the controversial place.

After 10 years of renovations, an old discotheque in the city of Aguilas in the southwestern province of Murcia opened its doors on June 18 under the name La Meca amid protests from Muslim individuals and organizations, the Arab Spanish newspaper Andalus Press reported Wednesday.

Mohamed Ali, head of the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities (Federación Española de Entidades Religosas Islámicas- FEERI), said Mecca is the most venerated place for Muslims all over the world.

“Muslims pray towards Mecca and it is there that the prophet received the holy Quran,” he said in a statement. “Calling a place for dancing and drinking by that name shows disregard to the feelings of Muslims.”

A little research shows that there have been at least three nightclubs called "Vatican" in the world. I couldn't find anyone protesting. (Although a poster for a British nightclub called Berzerk, which featured a Photoshop of Pope John Paul II dancing with a young blonde and holding a beer, did receive complaints and it was withdrawn.)

Interestingly, there is a bar called "Jerusalem" in London. As far as I can tell, Muslims have never protested that. Perhaps they don't venerate Jerusalem as much as they claim?

Mother of 4 terrorists honored by "moderate" PA (PMW)

Palestinian Media Watch has been finding new examples of PA incitement and honoring terror just about every day. Here's the latest:

"The Palestinian mother is a central partner in the struggle...
It is she who gave birth to the fighters, and she deserves
that we bow to her in salute and in honor."

Those were the words of the Palestinian Authority's Minister for Prisoners' Affairs, Issa Karake, when he honored a Palestinian woman by awarding her "the Shield of Resoluteness and Giving."

The Minister of Prisoners' Affairs, Karake, honors mother of 4 terrorists with PA Shield. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 28, 2010]

She received this honor because she is the mother of four sons who are serving a total of 18 life sentences in Israeli prisons. They all killed Israeli civilians in terror attacks.

The Minister also "praised the Abu Hamid family as a model of willpower and of the struggle for the independence of Palestine" when he visited the family with a ministry delegation, human rights organizations and released prisoners, the official PA daily newspaper reported.

The four sons are serving life sentences for the following crimes:

Nasser Abu Hamid - 7 life sentences + 50 years - commander in Fatah's military wing the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Ramallah. Convicted of killing seven Israeli civilians and 12 attempted murders.
Nasr Abu Hamid - 5 life sentences - Member of terror faction of Fatah, Tanzim, and convicted of involvement in two terror attacks and arms dealing.
Sharif Abu Hamid- 4 life sentences - a member in one of the brothers' units carrying out terror attacks against civilians and soldiers. Accompanied a suicide bomber to his attack in March 2002.
Muhammad Abu Hamid - 2 life sentences + 30 years - involvement in terror attacks.

Minister Karake also chose this week to visit the home of the suicide terrorist Ayyat Al-Akhras who in 2002 entered a Jerusalem supermarket and detonated a bomb murdering two Israelis and killing herself. The minister's visit took place on the occasion of the Palestinian "National Day for Returning the Bodies of Palestinian and Arab Shahids and MIA's."

The mother who received the award for having four terrorist sons was described as "Khansa of Palestine," which is a reference to Al-Khansa, a woman from the earliest period of Islam who sent her four sons to battle and rejoiced when they all died as Martyrs. Calling the Palestinian mother by this name reinforces the message that seeking death as a Martyr is a worthy and honorable goal and that parents should proudly sacrifice their children.

Today's heroic terror attack - against a 12-year old girl

This one might not make the news, because it wasn't a gun. And this sort of thing happened often before the current round of negotiations.

From JPost:

A 12-year- old girl was injured in moderate to serious condition after being hit in the head by a rock thrown at her vehicle near Tapuach junction in Samaria Thursday night.

Magen David Adom Yarkon crews evacuated the girl to Belinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.

IDF soldiers are scouring the area for the perpetrators.

Aren't terrorists so macho? They try as hard as they can to kill women and children - and then they celebrate, hand out candy, create heroic posters, and give military-style names to these operations when they succeed.

I guess they are frustrated since they had so little luck in battling against "Zionist boars."

EU commissioner warns of the dangers of the "Jewish lobby"

From Philosemitism blog:

Karel De Gucht, the European Commissioner for Trade, one of the highest ranking officials at the EU, warned this morning on Belgian (Flemish) radio that the Jewish lobby (not pro-Israel lobby) had a grip on US politics. Belgium holds at the present the presidency of the EU. The belief that the US is controlled by Jews is widespread in Europe ...

Source: Luc Van Braekel (Karel De Gucht over de Joden)

"One should not underestimate, for instance, the [power] of the Jewish lobby, at Capitol Hill, the American parliament. It is the best organised pressure group there. In other words, one should not underestimate the grip the Jewish lobby has on US politics. Be it with the Democrats or the Republicans, there is little difference.

"One should not underestimate the opinion - outside the lobby - of the average Jew who does not live in Israel. There is indeed among most Jews a faith [geloof] - I cannot think of a better way to put it - that they are right. And faith is something difficult to disprove with rational argumentation. It doesn't depend on them being religious or not. Even secular Jews [vrijzinnige] share the same faith of being right. It is therefore not easy, even for a moderate Jew, to talk about what's happening in the Middle East. It's a very emotional issue [for them]."

Christian anti-semitism in Palestine, 1864

We have noted that Arab Christians in Palestine are often more anti-semitic than the Muslims, and in fact traditional Palestinian Christian anti-semitism seems to have influenced the more general anti-Semitism of Palestinian Muslims in the 20th century.

This book shows that this hatred goes way back.

From "Customs and traditions of Palestine: illustrating the manners of the ancient Hebrews", by Ermete Pierotti.

In Palestine, as in the whole of Syria, especially among the ignorant Christian population, a most unfortunate prejudice is current, that the Jews, just before their Passover, try to get hold of Christians, especially of children, in order to mix their blood with unleavened bread; since, without this condiment, it would not be prepared according to the directions in the law of Moses. Unhappily this absurd fancy is not scouted as it ought to be by too many of the priests and monks of the Eastern Churches; so that sometimes the Jews are exposed to insults which give rise to serious disturbances, without having afforded by their conduct the slightest ground for such an imputation. If the Eastern clergy studied their Bibles, they would soon discredit these fables; but, as few of them know anything about that book, they are not the persons to abolish prejudices, which they foster by their preaching to the faithful from morning to night; certainly they cannot know that it was the blood of a lamb, not of a man, which was to be sprinkled on the door-posts and lintel1, and they even seem to believe that heathen leeches prescribed baths of children's blood as a cure for leprosyz; perhaps too they have heard of some Rabbinical books' in which it is said that Pharaoh bathed in the blood of children to cure his leprosy, and that his magicians ordered the same remedy for another disease, and have transformed Pharaoh into a Jew, and the children into Christians.

This is no exaggerated accusation, for I have heard greater absurdities from the lips of the Greek and Armenian monks in Jerusalem: for example, they have shewn me the place where Melchizedek planted the first olive after the Deluge, and where he first made bread, and a thousand similar absurdities.

However I will give an instance of the popular belief in this falsehood, which fell under my own notice. One day in 1858, on going out of my house in Jerusalem, I saw a very respectable Jew running at full speed, pursued by some Arabs, who as soon as he reached me claimed my protection against his assailants. These tried to drag him away from me; I asked what was the matter; but had only yells and incoherent exclamations in reply; so I determined to place the Jew inside my own doors for security. The Arabs, however, resisted, and though I was close to home I should not have been able to defend him had not my European servants arrived upon the scene; this reinforcement turned the tide of battle, and the enemy quickly fled, not without torn beards and conspicuous bruises from our cudgels, as a warning for the future.

When I got the Jew safe within, he told me the reason of the disturbance. As he was walking through the town he found a little boy crying, and stopped to ask what was the matter. He found that the child had lost his way, so he took him by the hand and went to help him to find his home. Some men, however, came up, and rudely snatched the child from him, saying, " You have taken him to kill him, and you shall smart for it!" Thereupon he took to flight, and happily met me.

After hearing this I returned to the street and found that the vanquished enemy had returned with reinforcements, and were waiting to demand the Jew from me. I shewed them very plainly, more by actions than words, that they were not going to have him; and to pacify them suggested that I would take him to the governor to be imprisoned. This proposal was joyfully accepted. I took the frightened man, and, accompanied by the Arabs, went to the governor's house; where I placed them all in the custody of the police, and then went to see Surraya pasha. I informed him what had happened, and after a short examination the Jew was released and the Arabs sent to prison.

On Good Friday the Jews cannot quit their own quarters, as the Latins, Greeks, and Armenians would insult and otherwise illtreat them. On some occasions the pasha has been obliged to guard the entrances of their streets with bodies of soldiers and police to protect them from the fanatical Christians, who would have made an attack upon them. No Jew, who lives at Jerusalem, dares to pass in front of the court of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, for he well knows how great a risk he runs of suffering for his curiosity. If, on an occasion like this, he were murdered, the malefactors would not be severely punished; for all the native population unfortunately hold the opinion that to injure a Jew is a work well pleasing in the sight of God. This is due to the fact that the Jews, although numerous, do not know how to make themselves respected; and to the sermons constantly delivered by the Latins, Greeks, and Armenians, in which the most opprobrious and unseemly epithets are heaped upon them, even in the churches themselves, and of course still more in less sacred places. These are all believed by the faithful, who are thus excited by their priests to insult all whom they meet. Again, the poorer Jews when going or returning from pilgrimages between Jerusalem and Hebron, avoid passing through Bethlehem to escape the insults which the "good Christians" of that place, excited by their monks, always inflict upon them. The rich, however, are free from all these inconveniences, for the bakhshish which they liberally distribute soothes down all party spirit; so that they are not only tolerated, but even honourably entertained in the convents of these Christians, their liberality making them welcome guests to both monks and people. They can visit the Tomb of Christ, the mosques and churches in Jerusalem itself, and be received everywhere with respect, paid not to their personal excellencies, but to their gold. Some of the wealthier members of the Jews now in England know full well that this is true.

"I am a refugee" (Danny Ayalon)

From JPost, somewhat shortened:

As a sitting member of a democratic government, it might appear strange to declare that I am a refugee. However, my father, his parents and family were just a few of the almost one million Jews who were expelled or forced out of Arab lands. My father and his family were Algerian, from a Jewish community thousands of years old that predated the Arab conquest of North Africa and even Islam. Upon receiving independence, Algeria allowed only Muslims to become citizens and drove the indigenous Jewish community and the rest of my family out.

While those Arabs who fled or left Mandatory Palestine and Israel numbered roughly 750,000, there were roughly 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands. ...

An important distinction between the two groups is the fact that many Palestinian Arabs were actively involved in the conflict initiated by the surrounding Arab nations, while Jews from Arab lands were living peacefully, even in a subservient dhimmi status, in their countries of origin for many centuries if not millennia.

Financial economists have estimated that, in today’s figures, the total amount of assets lost by the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, including communal property such as schools, synagogues and hospitals, is almost twice that of the assets lost by the Palestinian refugees. Furthermore, one must remember that Israel returned over 90 percent of blocked bank accounts, safe deposit boxes and other items belonging to Palestinian refugees during the 1950s.

EVEN THOUGH the number of Jewish refugees and their assets are larger than that of the Palestinians, the international community only appears to be aware of the latter’s plight.

There are numerous major international organizations devoted to the Palestinian refugees. There is an annual conference held at the United Nations and a refugee agency was created just for the Palestinian refugees. While all the world’s refugees have one agency, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Palestinians fall under the auspices of another agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

UNWRA’s budget for 2010 is almost half of UNHCR’s budget.

Equally impressive is the fact that UNHCR prides itself on having found “durable solutions” for “tens of millions” of refugees since 1951, the year of its establishment. However, UNRWA does not even claim to have found “durable solutions” for anyone.

If that is not distorted enough, let’s look at the definitions and how they are applied: normally the definition of a refugee only applies to the person that fled and sought refuge, while a Palestinian refugee is the person that fled and all of their descendants for all time.
WITH DIRECT negotiations about to resume between Israel and the Palestinians, the spotlight will be returned to this issue. The so-called Palestinian ‘right of return’ is legal fiction. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, the supposed source for this ‘right’ does not mention this term, is not legally binding and, like all other relevant United Nations resolutions uses the intentionally ambiguous term ‘refugees’ with no appellation.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, still seen as the primary legal framework for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict asserts that a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement should necessarily include “a just settlement of the refugee problem.”

No distinction is made between Arab refugees and Jewish refugees.

In fact, one of the leading drafters of the resolution, Justice Arthur Goldberg, the United States’ Chief Delegate to the United Nations, said: “The resolution addresses the objective of ‘achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem.’ This language presumably refers both to Arab and Jewish refugees.”

In addition, every peace conference and accord attended or signed between Israel and its Arab neighbors uses the term “refugees” without qualification.

During the famous Camp David discussions in 2000, president Clinton, the facilitator and host of the negotiations said: “There will have to be some sort of international fund set up for the refugees. There is, I think, some interest, interestingly enough, on both sides, in also having a fund which compensates the Israelis who were made refugees by the war, which occurred after the birth of the State of Israel. Israel is full of people, Jewish people, who lived in predominantly Arab countries who came to Israel because they were made refugees in their own land”.

In 2008, the US Congress passed House Resolution 185 granting, for the first time, equal recognition to Jewish refugees, while affirming that the US government will now recognize that all victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict must be treated equally.

Before 1948 there were nearly 900,000 Jews in Arab lands while only a few thousand remain. Where is the international outrage, the conferences, the proclamations for redress and compensation? While the Palestinian refugee issue has become a political weapon to beat Israel, the Arab League has ordered its member states not to provide their Palestinian population with citizenship; Israel absorbed all of its refugees, whether fleeing the Holocaust or persecution and expulsion from Arab lands.

People like my father, the hundreds of thousands who came to Israel and the millions of Israelis descended from these refugees are entitled to redress. It is vital that this issue return to the international agenda, so we don’t once again see an asymmetrical and distorted treatment of Arabs and Jews in the Israeli-Arab conflict.

PA threatens Arabs who want real peace

Ami Isseroff has, pretty much single-handedly, written an encyclopedia of everything related to Israel and the Middle East conflict and put it on-line, along with news, a blog, and who knows what else. Although the sites are difficult to navigate, there is an enormous trove of information an reference material there.

Isseroff is a centrist. He wants a two-state solution. He desperately wants peace. He is in contact with the Palestinian Arab "peace camp."

Which is why his latest post is worth reading:

It hurts me to admit this. As a Zionist, I really wish that the much hoped-for peace was really just around the corner. I wish that Israel could give up a few square meters of real estate and obtain peace. I know it will not happen. I am compelled to admit that by every indication, the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that begin this week will be a farcical charade. They cannot be saved by any amount of Israeli concessions. ...

One certain indication that the peace talks must fail is the flood of mail that I have gotten of late from Palestinian peace and dialog groups, and from every Palestinian or other Arab who ever spoke out for peace or sanity. They beg me to remove this or that article or section from a Web site where they are quoted as advocating peace with Israel or coexistence. They say - not for publication - that they are subject to a reign of terror: Emails; Hints; Phone calls in the night; Officials of the '"clean-as-a-whistle" "moderate" "not-like-Arafat" Palestinian National Authority telling them they had better toe the line - or it will be bad for their organization or their personal health.

My Palestinian and Arab friends and others who have asked me to remove their Web pages and demanded that I be silent about it, can be thankful that I do not follow their wishes: Speaking out is the only way to expose state terror. My advice to all those who are threatened is to speak out, loud and clear. But it is their decision. I will not name names. I can only decide what is right for myself.

Everyone who is in any way active in peace and dialog has to have heard echoes of the whisper campaign. The Palestinian youth orchestra that was dismantled because it played for Israeli Holocaust survivors, the One Voice event that was canceled because of death threats, are public manifestations of the same terror. All this happened not in Hamas - ruled Gaza, but, embarrassingly, in the West Bank, ruled by the "moderate" Fatah and the Palestinian National Authority, Israel's "peace partners." The people who are terrorized into begging me to remove their names, their articles and their organizations from any Web site that has the remotest connection with Israel, all are from the West Bank, the land of the Palestinian National Authority, not Gaza. Think about what this means.

This is one of the most under-reported stories out there. The PA is not close to moderate by any objective measure - in fact, they are far more intransigent than any Israeli government in history. Yet the media chooses to highlight how "moderate" they are in order to fulfill what they believe is a greater good of promoting a mythical "peace." The result is that stories like these are ignored or minimized, and the PA is presented as a moderate government in opposition to the right-wing, hard-line Likud.

Centrist Zionists know the facts, and they yearn for a two-state solution anyway. Yet they are not willing to give up anything close to what the PA is demanding, knowing that on the ground, such concessions would lead to disaster. These simple facts are not reported at all.

Peace - real peace - cannot be built on lies and obfuscation. The ugly reality of the so-called "moderates" of Fatah and the PA needs to be exposed. When the media doesn't do its job, it is not serving the cause of peace - it is instead endangering many, many lives.

Islamists in Jordan call for teaching schoolkids to hate Jews

Al Quds al Arabi reports that the Islamic Action Front in Jordan, which is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, has called on Jordanian schools to add more incitement in their textbooks against Jews and Israel.

In 2006/2007, Jordanian schools started teaching a little bit about Jewish history, and this is regarded as unacceptable.

The announcement calls for a return to the curriculum that Jordanian textbooks have had until then (and that were used in Palestinian Arab schools as well) where the Jews were regarded as dishonest and corrupt. The IAF also calls for schools to teach about Israeli threats to Jordan, the true face of "world Zionism" (which means world Jewry) and alleged Jewish destruction of Muslim holy places.

Correction: Algerian ship arrived in El Arish Thursday

Last Sunday I noted that the "blockade busting ship" that the media said was headed for Gaza - and that I said was headed for El Arish - never seemed to make it. I had assumed that it had arrived without any fanfare.

Well, it turns out it was just delayed. The ship arrived yesterday afternoon - in El Arish, naturally.

al-Zahar says terrorism unrelated to negotiations

Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, trying to publicly distance the Hamas Gaza leadership and the al-Qassam Brigades, bizarrely claimed that the two terror attacks this week in the West Bank were not related to the resumption of negotiations in Washington this week.

This despite the fact that the al Qassam Brigades made that exact link.

Zahar said that Hamas has no interest in stopping the negotiations, although it is skeptical about the results and will not accept any compromise with Israel.

He stopped short of saying that the attacks were a coincidence; just that the Al Qassam Brigades happened to take the opportunity to kill Jews when it presented itself. He also claimed that it was a reflection of the "pressure" that Palestinian Arabs suffer in the West Bank, as if things have not been improving steadily there for the past few years.

The article seems to imply that Zahar is trying to forestall any Israeli retaliation in Gaza itself. Or maybe he's just trying to make sure that he is not personally targeted by a drone missile.

Arab leaders have proven time and time again their ability to lie effortlessly. The question is, why does the media still take anything they say at face value?

Tomorrow is al-Quds Day!

Tomorrow is the last Friday of Ramadan, and therefore it is time for the annual al Quds Day, a holiday declared by the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran in 1979.

Officially, the holiday is meant to strengthen Islamic ties to Jerusalem and show solidarity with Palestinian Arabs.

In reality, it is just an excuse to bash Israel and the Western world.

There are lots of Iranian news articles about the day, and some of them reveal the festival's real theme.

The Head of Iran's Parliamentary Commission on Foreign Policy and National Security, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, said "the key issue for Palestine is to revive the memories of the Zionists' atrocities." Not a state, not Jerusalem, but the key issue is to talk about "Zionists' atrocities." How's that for incitement?

Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, realizing that inter-Muslim unity is a myth, blames their discord on the West and "called for an epic turn-out on al-Quds day to foil world power's plot to sow discord among Muslims."

Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri said that Quds Day "appears to pave the way for the collapse of Israel and its allies, namely the US and Britain."

The Iranian foreign ministry said that they "hoped for high demo turnout in the demonstrations in a bid to disappoint the Zionist enemy."

Sorry, but nothing that they can do can disappoint us. One cannot be disappointed in people who are already beneath contempt.

But since the topic has come up, here is my annual Quds Day video:

Fareed Zakaria a bit inconsistent on religious tolerance

Recently, Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakaria publicly returned an award that he had received five years ago from the Anti-Defamation League called the Hubert Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. He was upset that the ADL had publicly urged the Muslim community in New York to consider moving the proposed mosque/Islamic community center near the site of the destroyed World Trade Center to another location where the sensitivity of families of the victims would be respected.

Zakaria's argument is that the people behind the proposed building are moderate Muslims whose views should be supported. He was unclear on how their views cannot be supported from a few blocks further away, or even how the entire controversy had already made it impossible for most Americans to be able to listen objectively to these supposedly moderate Muslims - something that would have been accomplished very well had they publicly acknowledged the pain that the chosen site was causing.

Zakaria's viewpoint, as flawed as it is, is legitimate. He is taking an absolutist position on freedom of religion and that can be considered an admirable position in the abstract.

Recently he said something interesting on CNN. At the end of a segment where he discussed the restoration of a synagogue in Beirut, Zakaria said (from Big Journalism:)

So why did this nation, often teetering on the brink of religious hostilities and hostilities with Israel, restore a Jewish house of worship? To show that Lebanon is an open and tolerant country.

And indeed, the project is said to have found support in many parts of the community, not just from the few remaining Jews there, but also Christians and Muslims and Hezbollah. Yes, Hezbollah — the one that the United States has designated a foreign terrorist organization.

Hezbollah’s view on the renovation goes like this. “We respect divine religions, including the Jewish religion. The problem is with Israel’s occupation of Arab lands … not with the Jews.” Food for thought.

To the uninitiated, this might sound consistent with his position on the Islamic center - freedom of religion for all.

Others have pointed out the incongruity of Hezbollah's calls to destroy the Jewish state with its supposed respect for Judaism as a "divine religion." Others have also pointed out the small fact that there is a reason why the Jewish community in Lebanon has almost disappeared, and that this reason is rather contradictory to the soothing words being said in English by a Hezbollah spokesman. One can also mention that the very idea that the Jewish people, alone among all nations, have no rights of self-determination is an inherently anti-semitic position.

Yet if Zakaria had done a tiny amount of homework he would have seen that Hezbollah and its leader really are pure anti-semites completely out of the context of Israel.

Remember the Buenos Aries bombing of a Jewish community center? 86 people were killed, and Hezbollah together with its Iranian allies was behind it.

Moreover, Nasrallah said "If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide". (Lebanon Daily Star, Oct. 23, 2002)

Also in 2002 he said

If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli.

And MEMRI quotes him as calling Jews "grandsons of apes and pigs" and "Allah's most cowardly and greedy creatures."

(Quotes are from CAMERA.)

Is Zakaria so naive as to think that Hezbollah's public support for a synagogue that will have no worshippers to serve a community that fled religious persecution is an example of religious tolerance? Doesn't all evidence seem to support the idea rather that Hezbollah holds Jews must remain, at best, second-class citizens, dhimmis under Islamic rule?

For Zakaria to quote this Hezbollah official and ignore the massive amounts of evidence of clear anti-semitism on the part of Hezbollah's leadership indicates that Zakaria's position on religious intolerance is not quite as clear cut as his denunciation of the ADL would indicate.

(h/t Joel for the original Big Journalism link)