Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Good news coverage from PA newspaper

In case anyone thinks that Palestinian Media Watch only highlights stories that make the PA's media look anti-semitic, xenophobic or politically extremist, here is a counter-example of what can only be described as positive coverage - of Jews who live in Judea and Samaria.

Last week a fire was set to carpets and copies of the Quran inside a mosque near Bethlehem. In a positive move, the PA official daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida gave prominent first page coverage to the solidarity visit of Israeli "settler rabbis" and "dozens of settler-supporters of peace" who came to the mosque to express condemnation of the arson. The PA daily published a picture of the visit and reported that the rabbis brought new copies of the Quran to replace the burned copies.

In another positive note, two days later the same PA daily showed a picture of Israeli - Palestinian coexistence by publishing a picture of a Palestinian harvesting his olives to the accompaniment of an Israeli sitting right next to him under the tree playing his guitar.

The caption to the picture was:
"Settler from Kiryat Arba plays his guitar while a [Palestinian] resident gathers the olive harvest."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 8, 2010]

The following are texts from two articles in the official PA daily giving prominence to the rabbis' visit:

"Six settler rabbis conducted a solidarity visit to the village of Beit Fajar, near Bethlehem, bringing with them copies of the Quran. Dozens of settler-supporters of peace and hundreds of Palestinians, expressing solidarity, gathered to receive them at the entrance of the village. After handing over a box containing 20 copies of the Quran, to replace those which had been burned in the mosque, Rabbi Menahem Fruman said: 'This land is the land of peace, and Allah will take revenge on those who set fire to the mosque.'"
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 6, 2010]

"Yesterday, a delegation of Jewish religious leaders visited the town of Beit Fajar and examined the destruction caused by the fire two days ago. They emphasized that the Jewish religion is innocent of the perpetrators.

The delegation included Fruman, rabbi of the settlement of Tekoa - a settlement which is situated on the land of the Taqoa village and in which settlement construction work is continuing, as well as Rabi Aharon Lichtenstein and Rabbi Alex [sic - should be Shlomo] Riskin.
Bethlehem District Governor, Abd Al-Fatah Hamail, received the delegation inside the mosque, and said that the Palestinian side appreciates the visit, but wants real actions that will help towards the capture of the criminals who carried out [the vandalism]. He described the fire in the mosque as a cheap act, far removed from human moral values, and reflecting the degree of hatred and animosity of the perpetrators, who represent a great threat to both Palestinians and Israelis...

Hamail said that the Palestinian people desires a just peace... and emphasized that the three [monotheistic] religions are tolerant religions, far removed from fanaticism and hatred, since all of them have explicitly established freedom of religion and the need for mutual respect.
Hamail called upon the Israeli side to investigate the circumstances of this action, and questioned whether the Israeli security [forces] have really been unable so far to discover the perpetrators.

The delegation of rabbis emphasized that the aim of their visit to the town of Beit Fajar was to express solidarity with the residents and with the Muslims of Palestine. They said that those who had carried out the action are singularly far removed from the Jewish religion, and announced that the expression, "Allah is great" is an expression that belongs to all three [monotheistic] religions, since God is greater than all such actions. They emphasized that they seek peace and justice.

They expressed the hope that peace will be attained in the Holy Land, because the monotheistic religions are based on coexistence and peace."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 6, 2010]

(h/t Joel. See also Jeffrey Goldberg's take.)

2000 blue and white balloons to greet Ahmadinejad (updated)

Arutz-7 reports that Ayoub Kara, a Likud Druze member of the Knesset, plans to launch 2000 blue and white balloons at the northern border when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits Lebanon:

“We are planning to fly 2,000 balloons across the northern border to Lebanon when Ahmadinejad comes for a visit Wednesday,” Kara told Voice of Israel radio. “The balloons represent the fact that the Jewish people have come home after 2,000 years of exile, and they are not going anywhere.” Kara, who is himself not Jewish, said that he appreciated Israel's freedom and democracy – and that were it not for the Jewish people, the entire Middle East would look like Iran.

“It was my idea to organize the event, and I am hoping that thousands will come,” Kara said of the rally, set for 11 a.m. Wednesday in the northern border town of Metulla.

This is a major headline in Asharq al-Awsat.

(And, yes, I just designed the graphic.)

UPDATE: Speaking of Israeli balloons over Lebanon, remember this? The hate-Israel crowd at Mondoweiss still believe it.

"The Girl of Adnan and the Fortitude of the Arabs"

Looking a little further at the joint Zionist/Palestinian Arab narrative history book, I see something I had never heard of (page 9, Arab side)

[Ormsby-Gore's] report ignored an important incident which reflects the political mood in Palestine at the time. This incident was a theatrical event, “The Girl of Adnan and the Fortitude of the Arabs,” which took place in Jerusalem on the nights of the eleventh and twelfth of April 1918 as part of the Al-Rashidiyyah Forum. Lights were focused on a large relief map of Palestine. Under the map the following verses were written:

Oh land of Palestine which was blessed
Oh auspicious land of the children of the Arab nation,
Oh God’s own beloved land, don’t lose hope.
I love only you.
We will redeem you with our souls
And travel the road of travail
Gathering light from Arab East and Arab West.
Until Palestine will shine,
Radiant as the sunrise.

Now, it is true that there was a smattering of specifically Palestinian Arab nationalism before 1920. However, the mainstream Arabs of Palestine supported a pan-Syrian nationalism, and Palestine was traditionally a part of southern Syria. Even the Mufti supported a Syrian Arab state that included Palestine. So while this event may have occurred, it is an overstatement to say that it was an "important incident."

Outside of this book, I cannot find a single reference to this event on the Internet, in English or in Arabic (assuming I am translating it right.) I think it is far more likely that this event, if it happened at all, was of minor significance and its importance is being pumped up now in order to strengthen the near-myth of Palestinian Arab nationalism.

(I would also love to know what the boundaries of "Palestine" were in this "large relief map." Certainly it was not congruent with British Mandate Palestine, so the map itself would be highly interesting - begging the question of why Palestinian Arabs are no longer interested in the portions of Palestine that lay beyond the Jordan.)

One would think that a history textbook would use facts that are easily verifiable. Terming this event an "important incident" when that incident is nearly impossible to corroborate seems to be more the domain of history researchers, not textbook publishers, and if they are going to assert this event they should point to a source.

A tiny glimpse at the Arab narrative

Commenter T34zakat points to an early English draft version of the history textbook that is supposed to show both the Arab and Zionist narrative.

I commented back that I was not thrilled with the book beginning its history with the advent of modern Zionism leading up to the Balfour Declaration, because it gave short shrift to thousands of years of Jewish history beforehand.

But glancing at the Arab narrative, I saw this gem on page 6:

The Balfour Declaration is considered a political gain for the Zionist movement at the expense of Arabs and Muslims, who originally owned the Holy Land.

How anyone can write such a sentence without their head exploding from cognitive dissonance, I have no idea. The implication is that Islam predates Judaism, which might be the Islamic perspective but no real historian could ever say that with a straight face.

If I have the stomach and the time for it, I'll keep looking through it.

But Israel should teach the truth about the Nakba

Continuation from previous post...

Of course, we still need to grapple with what Israel teaches its students. It seems to me that only one thing needs to be taught: the truth. If Israeli schools completely ignore talking about some 600,000 Palestinian Arabs having left their homes, some of them (but far from the majority) forced out by the Haganah and IZL, they are failing. If they teach the skewed Palestinian Arab narrative of forced dispossession and unending massacres, they are failing worse.

Yes, teach the Nakba - but teach what really happened. Of course it was a catastrophe for hundreds of thousands of people, but the continuing catastrophe of what has happened to them since 1948 at the hands of their Arab brothers needs to be taught as well.

Yes, there were some massacres and Israel should be embarrassed - but there was also heroism, there were also miracles, there was also the overriding moral imperative to survive and beat back an onslaught that was literally meant to be genocidal.

Teach about how Palestinian Arab nationalism was weak to nonexistent in 1948. Teach how Jordan and Egypt's occupations of "Palestinian" land were not protested. Teach the history of the Mufti and his terror sprees against Jews (not Zionists - Jews.) Teach about how Arab refugees in Israel were integrated into society while those in Arab lands were treated like garbage, and still are. Teach about how UNRWA has ensured that the "refugee" problem will fester until Israel is destroyed.

All of these need to be taught. It doesn't mean that Israeli youngsters shouldn't feel the appropriate sorrow for the suffering of their enemy, but it also doesn't mean that they should forget that they are still the enemy, and the moral imperative is to ensure your own survival before worrying about that of those who tried, and still desire, to destroy you.

For an example of what must be taught, here is an article that I have quoted years ago, from Dorothy Bar-Adon in the Palestine Post, August 17, 1948. In it she discusses how she feels bad over the fact that her neighboring Arab village fled - but also says exactly why they cannot return. It strikes the perfect balance between humanity and self-preservation. Acknowledging the fact that 1948 was a disaster for Arabs in Palestine is not a violation of the Zionist narrative; it should be part and parcel of it - but it must be put in the proper context of the time and the place.

Because the alternative was unimaginably worse.

PA throws away huge PR victory. Because they hate Israel that much.

Ha'aretz had an exclusive story today that looked very embarrassing to Israel:

The Palestinian Authority's Education Ministry approved the use of a history textbook that offers the central narratives of both Palestinians and the Zionist movement, marking the first time that the accepted Israeli position is being presented to schoolchildren in the West Bank.

The textbook, which has been banned from use by the Israeli Education Ministry, is the result of a joint Israeli-Palestinian-Swedish collaboration to promote coexistence through education. It will be taught in two high schools near Jericho, the Palestinian Education Ministry said.

Next week, the Education Ministry is scheduled to summon the principal of a Sderot area high school for "clarification" after he had permitted the use of the textbook by students in a special supplementary educational course.

Aharon Rothstein, the head of the Sha'ar Hanegev high school, may be reprimanded for allowing students to reference a textbook entitled "Learning the Historical Narrative of the Other," a project initiated by Prof. Dan Bar-On of Ben-Gurion University and Prof. Sami Adwan of Bethlehem University.

"Unfortunately, the Palestinians are further along than the Israeli Education Ministry when it comes to acknowledging the other side of the conflict," said an official involved in administering the textbook in the Sha'ar Hanegev school. "While [the Palestinians] approved the project, here they are summoning the principal for clarifications. This is a highly embarrassing situation."

Any news story that would make Palestinian Arabs look more liberal than Israelis would be a huge PR victory; a devastating riposte to those who contrast the openness and liberalism in Israel and the hate and intolerance in the PA administered territories.

So, predictably, the PA threw it all away:

A Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education official denied on Monday approving a textbook which teaches schoolchildren the Zionist and Palestinian narrative.

A member of the PA ministry's curriculum committee Thwarwat Zaid rebuffed a report in Israeli daily Haaretz that the textbook had been approved and said the committee neither knew of the book nor read it.

The PA had a choice to win a huge propaganda victory - or let some of their high school kids learn the Zionist narrative along with their own. The thought of teaching anything remotely resembling Zionism was so repulsive that they'd rather throw it all away.

(to be continued - what Israel needs to teach)

UPDATE: See also my posts on the textbook itself.

A Jordanian who gets it

From The Qudosi Chronicles, an srticle by Mudar Zahran:

Israel’s relationship to the Palestinians has always been globally approached with standardized heavy criticism made to Israel. The main charges waved in Israel’s face have always been “the Disapropriate use of force” and “discrimination”.

Israel’s critics, either willingly or out of ignorance, choose to overlook the way many Arab countries mistreat Palestinians. Some Arab countries are almost never blamed for what they have been doing to the Palestinians for decades. Such selective recognition of facts by Israel’s critics is bizarre when weighed by truth instead of myths.

In December of 2008, Israel launched operation “Cast Lead” against Hamas which was launching rockets on Southern Israel on a daily basis. This operation has resulted in the death of more than 1,400 Palestinians, many said to be civilians; an absolute tragedy, nonetheless, those criticizing Israel fail to recognize that the number of causalities is small comparing to Gaza’s population of 1.5 million, considering the high density of Gaza’s population per square kilometre, the number suggests the Israeli forces were very cautious in carrying out their attacks, despite the fact that they were chasing a moving target, Hamas militants. If Israeli forces were targeting Palestinian civilians, the number of the dead would have reached tens of thousands.

On comparison; in 1976, Lebanese militiamen butchered 2,000 Palestinians; almost wiping out the entire population of Tell al-Zaatar refugee camp within days. This was revisited again in 1982 in Sabra and Shatelah massacre; where, in less than four days, Lebanese militiamen killed thousands of women and children who posed no threat as most Palestinian fighters had left then to Tunisia. Two years ago, al-Jazeera satellite network aired rare footage of Palestinians running to Israeli soldiers for refuge from the massacre.

Furthermore, most Arab atrocities against Palestinians have included documented rape cases, even of children, while not a single rape case has been reported against Israeli forces in more than sixty years of operations.

Arab governments’ oppression of the Palestinians does not stop at bloodshed and wholesale slaughters, in fact the more troubling aspects of the way they treat Palestinians is in the systematic long-range exclusion and discrimination. In Arab countries where Palestinians make up a good percentage of the population; they are deprived of all basic necessities, starting with education, down to basic healthcare. Even at countries that have granted the Palestinians citizenships, the Palestinians stand helpless and banned from every potential to improve their livelihoods.

Israel, on the other hand, has always allowed Palestinians to work there and to get paid in Western standards, and even had allowed them generous access to healthcare. In fact, Israel has also welcomed Palestinians as visitors, patients and even as investors, this generosity was only limited when Hamas started bombing Israeli civilians with no signs of an end in sight.

The complexity Israel has with Palestinians revolves around security rather than ideological issues; Israel does not have an aim to enslave the Palestinians for life or purposely degrade their humanity. While many Arab countries have designed their systems to discriminate and humiliate the Palestinians, squeezing them into illiteracy and poverty while milking them for tax money.

This has become most visible recently with calls in some Arab countries to revoke citizenships of all Palestinians there and actually to force them to seek local guarantors to obtain residency, thus enslaving them for life.

This comes as a deeper shock for Palestinians when they see Israeli Arabs, with many of them describing themselves as “Palestinians in Israel”; those are full citizens of Israel with access to all privileges. Israeli Arabs are fully represented inside the Knesset while Palestinians, in their Arab homeland, are allowed only symbolic presence in parliaments, even at countries where they are the majority. And while some Arab countries selectively withdraw citizenships from Palestinians, many Arab Knesset members do not hesitate to speak against Israel with no fear of losing their citizenships or entitlements.

Still, while the world is most vocal about Israeli military operations, it fails to recognize that Israel has been dealing with non-stop unrest on its soil since the breakout of the Intifada in 1987. Had that Intifada taken place in any Arab country, it would have ended within the first couple of weeks with an Arab army killing more than ten thousand Palestinians, most being civilians. Examples of this are countless and in all Arab countries hosting Palestinians; yet the world seems to think this reality is too overrated to recognize.

Today, with peace negotiations up and running, some Arab governments seem to want to butcher the Palestinians again on the altar of dictatorship by worsening their living conditions and making their lives more miserable, just to secure a better negotiating position or merely a seat at the negotiations table. Not to mention that many of those actually would rather see the negotiations fail in order to keep more international aid money flowing to them for “hosting” the Palestinians.

Quoting a commentator on one of my articles; “the Palestinians, do obviously need a break from their sworn Arab friends”, and perhaps they can reconnect to them when they have learned a lesson or two from their Israeli “enemies”.

Meanwhile, the world will remain silent about the Palestinians’ suffering at the hands of some of their “brothers”, as it’s too occupied with Israel.

Mudar Zahran is a Jordanian of Palestinian heritage. Zahran attended Southern New Hampshire University, graduating with two masters. He has served as a strategist for the American Embassy in Amman, reporting to it and the American Embassy in Baghdad until recently. During his time there, Zahran covered major political issues for the embassy. His work has been reported to senior officials in DC, including the Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Treasury and DHS.

Zahran writes for several Arab media outlets and has been basically banned from many for his approach towards taboo issues in the Middle East, nonetheless, his articles are available on the Arab Times, the most read Arab newspaper online, and they are highly circulated on Arab internet media. Zahran writes op-eds for the Jerusalem Post. Zahran has also served as an economist and a researcher respectively at the Japanese and the Australian Embassies in Amman. He is considered an insider on Jordanian and Iraqi politic. Zahran is currently a researcher at the University of Bedfordshire, where he will secure a Ph.d in 2011.

(h/t EBoZ)

Al Jazeera thinks I'm an expert in Egyptian politics?

I just got this email:

Hello,

Greetings from London. I hope you are well. This is Gouri and I work at the Listening Post, Al Jazeera's weekly media review show. Our broadcast takes a critical look at global media.

For this week's broadcast we are preparing a report on press freedom in Egypt following the sacking of one of the country's most critical editors Ibrahim Eissa. I came across your blog post and your knowledge of the report would strengthen the analysis of our report. Would you like to take part in the show as a GVV?

If so, you could consider the questions below:

1) Why do editors like Ibrahim Eissa pose such a threat to authorities in Egypt? What is it about their work that bothers them so much?
(2) Is the crackdown on the media now a knee-jerk reaction with the upcoming elections in mind, or is this a trend?
(3) Who is pushing back at the limits of freedom of expression in Egypt? How are they getting away with it?

Alternatively, feel free to formulate your own statement, our only request is that you stay to the media angle of the story. All you would need to do is a record a 30-40 second video clip of your answers. You would need to own or have access to a webcam or camcorder. Record your response (please frame your head and shoulders in the shot and talk directly to the camera) and save it to a .mov or .wmv file. Then upload the file to www.yousendit.com making the recipient address listeningpost@aljazeera.net or you could try and email the file directly
to me.

We are editing this report early this week so our deadline is tomorrow. I appreciate it's short notice but do you think you'd be interested in taking part?

Kind regards,

Gouri

The post I made on the topic didn't even include any editorializing on my part.

Unfortunately, I had to decline my chance to be a video star on Al Jazeera.

Eissa's firing remains a very hot topic in Egypt; I've seen interesting op-eds on the issue but I certainly do not understand all the politics behind it. Even if I wanted to out myself on Al Jazeera!

Why isn't Egypt importing Gaza vegetables?

We have seen reports about how the tunnel trade in Gaza has been reversed from imports to exports. Many fruits and vegetables are more expensive in Egypt than in Gaza.

Over the weekend, an Egyptian man became enraged over how much his wife paid for tomatoes, and threw her off the second-floor balcony. She was badly injured.

So why doesn't Egypt import Gaza vegetables? As far as I can tell, there is no agreement with Israel prohibiting Egypt from doing that. The Rafah crossing is not optimized for trucks, but certainly some amount of goods could be sent through.

Just asking...

Gaza man sets son on fire. Moonbat blames Israel. (updated)

From Ma'an:

A father from Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza killed his son by setting fire to him because the boy refused to help the family pick olives, police said.

Security forces identified the father as AN, and said the 40-year-old threatened to torch his son Mohammed, 14, when he refused to help him harvest olives. The father then sent the boy's brother to get Benzene and gave him 2 shekels ($0.50) to buy a lighter.

Police said AN chased Mohammad into the bathroom, and poured fuel over him. The boy managed to escape and ran towards his grandmother's house next door, but his father caught him and set alight to him. Mohammad's grandmother told police that she opened the door to find her grandson's body burned.

This is a tragic story of a murder (Arabic coverage quotes the father as saying he just wanted to scare his son, not kill him.)

But check out the first comment in the English version of the story in Ma'an:

1) Maureen / Australia 10/10/2010 22:35
Jabala refugee camp. Without Zionist occupation of Palestine, families would not be struggling, physically and mentally, to exist under a Zionist strangle hold.

This is the new version of anti-semitism among the Left. If an Arab kills an Arab, it must be the "Zionists'" fault. The sheer lack of ability to think clearly, the amount of hate that it takes to blame a case of a father murdering his own son on Israel, shows that extreme leftist anti-Zionism has nothing to do with Zionism - it is just a new manifestation of anti-semitism, using Israel as a proxy for Jews. (But calling out this fact exposes one to accusations of watering down the term "anti-semitism.")

Nowhere did I see any Arabs blame this murder on Israeli "occupation." Their hatred is endemic, to be sure, and when they speak to Western media they will indeed blame everything on Israel, but at least they know deep down that they have to take at least some measure of responsibility for their actions.

Some on the extreme Left, however, just cannot help but to look at every single event that occurs in the Middle East through the glasses of their intense hatred for Israel. To them, bereft of the ability to think logically, Israel represents the ultimate evil, and the ultimate source for all evil. Israel is, to these moonbats, Satan. Therefore, if anything bad happens anywhere, it must be traceable back somehow to Zionists, or, often, Jews who are assumed to be Zionists.

It is a sickness, no less than traditional anti-semitism. I once named this "misoziony" to distinguish it from old-style anti-semitism and to deflect the criticism that the latter term brings up.

To the credit of most of Ma'an's commenters, Maureen was roundly criticized for her statement. Yet there are plenty of websites out there - some prominent - that espouse Maureen's way of thinking.

UPDATE: I've seen plenty of pictures of dead "martyrs" in the PalArab media, but I still cannot wrap my head around this: they are publishing pictures of the dead boy.

More cars stoned in Silwan (video)

Israel's Channel Two interviews a woman, Keren Levy, who (along with her daughter) passed by the exact spot that David Be'eri was ambushed by rock throwers on Friday. She was hysterical as she shows the large rocks that managed to break her window.

For some reason, the international media that was on the scene must have moved on at that point.

During the interview, the Israeli journalists get attacked themselves by stones.

David Be'eri is also interviewed in this segment, describing why he had no choice - either to keep driving or to use his own weapon, which would have been worse.

This is what the Palestinian Authority proudly describes as "peaceful resistance."

(h/t Joel)

UPDATE: Arab residents of Silwan were interviewed by Israel's Channel 2. Some said how much they hated the Jews in their neighborhood, including Be'eri, but off the record others said that they felt that Be'eri had no choice and they would have acted the same.

This indicates how fearful Arabs are of saying anything that can be construed as being the slightest bit sympathetic towards Israel - they are in fear for their own well-being. Yet Western reporters never factor this into their dramatic interviews with poor Palestinian Arab victims of Israeli aggression.

Interview with Mavi Marmara witness contradicts UN report

The Turkish author of a book about the Mavi Marmara, Şefik Dinç, who was on board the ship, gave an interview with Israel's Channel 1 and further confirmed Israel's version of events - and contradicted the extraordinarily biased and false UNHRC report about the ship.

The UNHRC claimed, for example, that the IDF used live ammunition from the helicopters before the soldiers landed. This means that the IHH supporters were just standing on deck, being picked off one by one, without running away. Of course, not a single video of the incident shows a Turkish passenger down while the IDF troops descend to be mercilessly beaten.

Şefik Dinç confirms the IDF version of event, that troops only opened fire when they saw their comrades' lives were in danger.

Interviewer: According to your eyewitness account, IDF soldiers only opened fire when they felt that their own lives or the lives of their fellow soldiers were in danger.

Dinç: As you know, I was on board the ship. I saw with my own eyes that when the soldiers came on helicopters and started landing on the ship, they did not fire. It wasn’t until the soldiers were met with resistance and realized that some of their friends’ lives were in danger that they began using live ammunition.

Interviewer: Did you notice anyone using knives or iron bars?

Dinç: Actually, I saw no knives being used. I did see iron bars being used.

The UNHRC report allows that the IDF did not treat elderly or women passengers harshly, but claims extreme abuse of the men, as well as insults to the women.

134. In the process of being detained, or while kneeling on the outer decks for several hours, there was physical abuse of passengers by the Israeli forces, including kicking and punching and being hit with the butts of rifles. One foreign correspondent, on board in his professional capacity, was thrown on the ground and kicked and beaten before being handcuffed. The passengers were not allowed to speak or to move and there were frequent instances of verbal abuse, ncluding derogatory sexual remarks about the female passengers.

The account of Dinç, who is a man, is quite different:

Interviewer: In your book, you describe cases of humane treatment from IDF soldiers [of the detained ship passengers], such as removing their handcuffs, and even an interesting encounter in Israel with a Jew of Turkish descent who gave you his mobile phone.

Dinç: The soldiers uncuffed some people who were having difficulties, particularly older people, women, and people who did not act aggressively. As for the Israeli policeman, his Turkish was excellent, we spoke, and he said that he had immigrated to Israel from Istanbul. He asked me if I contacted my family and whether I had a telephone to make a call. I told him I didn’t, and then he gave me his own mobile phone so that I could call my family. I thank him again.

The "witnesses" interviewed by the UN had motive to lie - after all, they were motivated to go on a mission to demonize Israel to begin with. Even so, the UN believed their testimony over video evidence that contradicted their stories, saying that the already biased witnesses were more reliable than the video that was released (para. 20.)!

Yet here is a real witness who had no incentive to lie, and whose account corroborates the IDF's version of events in almost every detail.

Don't expect the UNHRC to acknowledge that their very methodology of gathering evidence was flawed from the start.

(h/t Joel)

Fermale Al Azhar students protest full-body searches

Interesting story in Egypt's Al Masry al-Youm:

Female students at Al-Azhar University in the Nile Delta city of Zagazig on Sunday staged a sit-in on campus, claiming they had been assaulted by campus security after refusing to submit to body searches.

Police eventually dispersed the protesters, arresting ten male students that had been supporting their female colleagues.

According to one protester, female students were beaten by campus police after they asked to be searched by female security personnel.

Another student said protesters had been dispersed with fire hoses, claiming that ambulances had been prevented from aiding students injured in the melee. Only one student, reportedly suffering from internal bleeding, was allowed to be taken to hospital, the student said.

Nevertheless, female students have continued to demonstrate off campus, calling for the dismissal of University Dean Abdel Aziz Gibril for allowing the violations. They have also called on Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb to protect them from alleged security excesses.

According to one anonymous security source, students pelted security personnel with stones, injuring two men.

Sounds like a human rights issue. Yet there is no mention about these protests outside the Egyptian media.

Will Zionist expansionism never end?

From Iran's PressTV:

Iran's Ambassador to Armenia Ali Saqa'ian says Israel is creeping into the South Caucasus region and putting the safety of the entire region in jeopardy.

"The Zionist regime [of Israel] is covertly infiltrating into the South Caucasus region, posing a serious threat to regional security," Saqa'ian said on Sunday.

"This is an extremely important region, and this is why Western powers, the US, and even the Israeli regime have an eye on it," he was quoted by Mehr News Agency as saying.

I wonder if these Zionists are stealing land, or buying it?

Fears increase over Hezbollah designs for a Lebanon coup

Khaled Abu Toameh wrote last week:

Hizbullah and Iran now have a common interest in escalating tensions in the Middle East: Hizbullah, with the help of Iran, may be planning to stage a coup in Lebanon to cover up and divert attention from its role in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

.Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's plan to visit Lebanon in the coming weeks should be seen in the context of Hizbullah's plot to take over the country. Some Lebanese have gone as far as condemning the visit as a "provocation," noting that it would also raise tensions between Lebanon and Israel because of Ahmadinejad's plan to tour the border between the two countries.

The UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon is about to publish the results of its investigation into the killing of the former prime minister. According to reliable sources, the report is expected to hold Hizbullah responsible for the assassination.

Now that its true face is about to be unmasked, Hizbullah is of course panicking and searching for ways to get out of the sinkhole.

Hizbullah's rhetoric and actions in recent weeks suggest that the Shiite organization is up to no good....

"Hizbullah does not acknowledge the Lebanese state as sovereign," said Michael Young, an opinion editor at Beirut's The Daily Star and author of "The Ghosts of Martryrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon's Life Struggle."

Young pointed out that Hizbullah had already staged something similar to a coup two years ago. "The armed takeover of Beirut in May 2008 confirmed that Hizbullah would fire on its fellow citizens and regarded state authority and the rule of law as thin veneers to be swept away when necessary," he said.

Ahmadenijad would of course welcome the opportunity to export the "Islamic Revolution" to Lebanon. Instability in the region would divert attention from his nuclear ambitions and allow him to fulfill his dream of wiping Israel off the map.

A victory for Iran and Hizbullah in Lebanon would also be a victory for Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad -- and Al-Qaeda.

We've mentioned a number of troubling stories in recent weeks in Lebanon, many of which Toameh details as well.

Ya Libnan quotes a Kuwaiti newspaper that echoes these concerns, and even puts on a date:

As soon as the Iranian president Mahmouad Ahmadinejad leaves the country Hezbollah is reportedly planning to oust the state and the government institutions.

“October 16 would be the start of the scheme of ousting the State and the government through creating discord and security tensions in areas that are apt to stir (sectarian) sensitivities, such as the Beirut area of Tariq al-Jdideh or the city of Tripoli, ” Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai reportedly quoted its diplomatic sources as saying.

Ahmadinejad will be arriving on October 13 on a 2-day official visit to Lebanon.

Arab diplomatic sources have reportedly warned against a deterioration of the security situation in Lebanon, saying “armed de facto forces may try to impose their political agenda by force.”

The sources added that “the Arab, regional and western countries following up on the Lebanese situation” have been directly and indirectly informed that Hezbollah and its allies “will not agree to any political settlement that contradicts with their goal of overthrowing the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) .”

“They would implement their agenda of changing the regime in case they failed in overthrowing the tribunal,” the sources warned.

On Saturday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave a denial of any plans for a coup - but that denial was also implicitly a threat. In his words:

[W]e must not run away and say that Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria want to implement a coup - this is vacuous talk, since we are not thinking about that. If we wanted to take over, we would have done it in 2005, but we do not want that and did not do it. Likewise, we would have taken over the country in 15 August 2006 if we had wanted that. So this talk has no basis- stop it, and do not go into side matters. Return to the foundational issue.”

The subtext is that Hezbollah can take over the country whenever it wants, so the rest of the country must toe Hezbollah's line - or else.

(h/t Samson for Toameh link.)