Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, October 18, 2010

Egypt finds more weapons, explosives en route to Gaza

Palestine Press Agency reports that Egyptian officials have again found a cache of weapons and explosives in Rafah, on their way to Gaza.

This cache included 150 kilograms TNT, and body armor, grenades, land mines machine guns and ammunition.

Egyptian authorities have found dozens of such caches over the past couple of years.

People who complain about Israel's limits on goods to Gaza - like the "Elders" who visited Gaza yesterday - never note these events as they castigate Israel.

Some of the weapons do get through, of course. A hand grenade was found in a Rafah school playground yesterday. Sounds like there are enough weapons in Gaza that people can just accidentally misplace them. (Gaza officials, predictably, say that the grenade was left over from "a previous Israeli invasion.")

Lebanese army thwarted assassination attempt on Ahmadinejad?

From JPost:

Lebanese intelligence prevented an assassination attempt on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his visit to Lebanon last week, reported Kuwaiti newspaper al-Siyasa as cited by Channel 10 News.

Sources told the newspaper that as Ahmadinejad was making his way to Bint J'beil, an order was received from Lebanese intelligence to stop the Iranian president's convoy and return to Beirut.

The paper reported that Hizbullah was not convinced by the information and insisted on taking responsibility for the safety of Ahmadinejad, but Lebanese President Michel Suleiman intervened, saying Ahmadinejad's safety was the responsibility of the state.

Arabic media add that the Lebanese army saw suspicious activity on the road en route to Bint Jbeil and (I believe) convinced him to take a helicopter to the town instead.

Jews buying up the Sinai?

Palestine Press Agency quotes a Kuwaiti newspaper as saying that Israelis are acquiring large tracts of land in the Sinai.

According to the report, Egyptian intelligence is warning that the Israeli Jews are using Egyptian middlemen to lease land for 25 years, circumventing Egyptian laws against selling or renting land to Israelis.

The lands are in Sharm el-Sheikh, Hurghada, Ras Mohamed and Taba.

The report indicates that they are meant mostly for building hotel and other tourist facilities.

Fake "Elders" condemned Israel without knowing the facts

To give an idea of how fair-minded the "Elders" who are now visiting Gaza are, I just found their press release about the Mavi Marmara raid, drafted within a few hours of the first sketchy news reports. I annotated it by pointing out just a few of their outright lies and false assumptions.

31 May 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Elders have condemned the reported killing by Israeli forces of more than a dozen people [nine people] who were attempting to deliver relief supplies [Mavi Marmara had no aid; they refused offers to deliver the aid via Israel; their goal was political and not to deliver aid] to the Gaza strip by sea.

Meeting in Johannesburg, the independent group of eminent global leaders repeated their call for an end to the blockade on Gaza. They called for a full investigation of last night’s incident and urged the UN Security Council to debate the situation with a view to mandating action to end the closure of the Gaza Strip.[So the Elders weren't upset at the deaths, they wanted to leverage them to pressure Israel to lessen its security.]

Overnight, Israeli troops stormed at least one ship in a flotilla of vessels carrying 10,000 tonnes of relief supplies to Gaza. [Closer to 1500 tons of mostly useless supplies] Around 600 people are on board the six cargo and passenger boats.

The Elders described Israel’s attack on the aid shipment and the resulting killings and injuries as completely inexcusable. [This was written with zero knowledge of what happened on the ship, so the Elders assumed Israel was at fault without bothering to ascertain any real facts.] They said this tragic incident should draw the world’s attention to the terrible suffering of Gaza’s 1.5 million people, half of whom are children under the age of 18.[Again, they are almost applauding the deaths because of the greater good they perceive from them.]

The Elders reminded the world that under international law, the three-year blockade of Gaza by Israel is illegal collective punishment of its inhabitants. [No, it isn't, neither if you condider Gaza "occupied" and not if you consider it a separate hostile entity. - EoZ] They said that the treatment of the people of Gaza is one of the world’s greatest human rights violations [This is one of the biggest lies ever stated, and the "Elders" know this better than most. Congo, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Yemen, China, Iran and other countries do far worse.] and that the blockade is not only illegal, it is counterproductive. This is because it creates unacceptable suffering, in the process empowering extremists and undermining moderate forces in Gaza.[Name the "moderates" in Gaza who have lost power because of the limits on items shipped there. Just one! - EoZ]

So we have a group of self-proclaimed "eminent global leaders" who immediately fire off anti-Israel press releases without even a modicum of fact-checking or waiting to find out the truth of what happened. But that's OK, because one of their strengths is "they are free to speak boldly and with whomever they choose on any issue, and to take any action that they believe is right." Truth is obviously not one of their criteria for speaking "boldly."

PA TV to broadcast to North, South America

Soon, the entire world will be able to see anti-Israel incitement in the comfort of their own homes!

According to Palestine Press Agency, Yasser Abed Rabbo (who is both responsible for the PA's media and also is the PLO secretary-general) said that PA TV will be available on the Galaxy 19 and HispaSat1C satellites this coming week, with satellites for the rest of the world coming soon.

PA TV regularly broadcasts incitement against Israel and Jews.

Ahmadinejad: Israel going to hell soon

ISNA reports:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that Zionist regime is going to hell.

Firas Press, quoting Sahafa, adds that he said that "the groundwork is laid for for the Zionist regime (Israel) to go to hell in the near future and any state that helps them will be ensnared in that journey to hell as well."

It is certainly considerate of him to warn everyone.

Arab Israeli officer profiled

From the IDF website:

Lt. Hesham Aborea is a Muslim Arab officer in the IDF. His journey began in 2006 when he joined the army and it has not stopped since. He is currently serving in the IDF as the Community Relations Officer to the Arab Sector, speaking to the Arab community in times of emergency....

At a young age, Hesham Aborea began thinking about what he wanted to do in life, and how to get out of his village in Northern Israel. He graduated from Ben Gurion University with an Bachelor’s degree in Hebrew and began working, but observing the lifestyle of young men in his community made him want to join the army to better the Arab world. "It's very hard to grow up for a young man where I am from. You finish high school, some continue studying, and others work manual labor jobs. For example, if I had a degree in social work, at an interview they'll ask me if I served in the army. If not, my chances would plummet, and then I would have to go back to my village and do manual labor. It's a cycle that a lot of young Arab men are stuck in so they turn to alcohol, drugs and violence. I saw this cycle and I decided to join the army."

Lt. Hesham Aborea is very happy to be serving his community and is happy to belong to an organization like the IDF. He concludes, “I want to emphasize that the IDF helps any soldier, and it will gladly accept Arab soldiers as long as they are skilled in their task. The IDF is a strong, challenging, non-discriminatory army, and is a great supporter of human rights. This is the first step to bringing both the Jewish and Muslim nations together. I hope that we may live in peace and equality for both nations."

YNet adds:

"The army is the entry pass into the Israeli society," Hisham explains. "The Arab sector thinks it's second rate here, but to get privileges one has to give and not just receive. The state protects its citizens even if they don’t serve – my parents live off income support. You must contribute to the country you live off. What other country would have an Arab Knesset member, who is being paid by the state, promoting the interests of the Islamic movement and screwing the promotion of the sector it is supposed to represent?

"The Arab sector is like a herd. It doesn't think by itself and is affected by various radical movements. Most youngsters don't have anything to do with themselves. They run around the streets, wasting their time and that's only if they finished school. Service in the army is educating, it gives you structure, order – that's what young people are missing here."

Recently Hisham returned from a visit to Poland, where he toured the Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps. He became the first Arab-Israeli to visit Poland as part of an IDF program.

"I knew the word Holocaust, I knew that the Nazis murdered Jews but nothing more than that," he admits. "In Majdanek there was a moment I thought that all those involved in the Jewish-Arab conflict should come here to see what was done to the Jewish people and leave them alone."

In Birkenau, he says, he asked to pray in Arabic. "I had chills all over my body. I asked God to have mercy on all the victims. I didn’t expect what I saw there. An oven which was loaded with two men and a woman, because the woman had more fat, making it burn better.

"I kept asking myself where was everyone? Where was the United States, the Arab countries? If the Germans had won the Arabs would have been murdered as well. I saw the photos of the victims and felt part of them. There was a Holocaust survivor with us who showed us where she was raped, where all her family had been murdered before her very eyes. She cried and we cried with her. It was a life altering visit."

(h/t Joel and EBoZ)

Completely off topic

From YNet:

In an odds-defying incident, Saturday night's state lottery numbers were an almost identical repeat of the lottery numbers from September 21. Ninety-five people picked the lucky combination and won.

The numbers that rolled out during a live studio broadcast this past Saturday, in lottery number 2194 of Miphal HaPayis, Israel's state lottery, were 36, 33, 32, 26, 14, 13, and an additional 'strong' number 2. Moments after the celebration in the studio, curious web surfers were amazed to notice that these same numbers happened to roll out less than a month ago; on September 21, in lottery number 2187, the winning numbers were 13, 14, 26, 32, 33, 36, and a 'strong' number of 1. The order in which the numbers were picked was reversed.

According to Zvi Gilula, a professor of statistics at the Hebrew University, getting all seven lottery numbers exactly correct, under normal circumstances, is one in 18 million. Guessing six numbers correctly, excluding the 'strong' number, is one to 2,250,000.

Gilula, an expert on gambling, estimated the probability of the same set of numbers being randomly picked twice a few weeks apart is no higher than one in 4 trillion, or 0.00000000000025.

"Usually, this is the type of numbers they use to describe the probability of life on Mars," Gilula said.

I highly doubt that the reporter accurately quoted the statistician.

If the chances of picking 6 numbers correctly is 1:2250000, then the chances that any random week's numbers would be exactly the same as the previous week is also 1:2250000. In fact, the chances that a picked set of six numbers would be identical to those of any of the previous four weeks would be roughly quadruple that chance, or 1:562,000.

The chances that a specific set of six numbers would be chosen a few weeks apart is probably closer to one in a trillion (if I did my math right), or perhaps he was saying the chances that the two sets of numbers would appear in exact opposite order a few weeks apart was one in 4 trillion.

Did Milan police ban the Israeli flag from a soccer game?

Ha'aretz reports:

Fans of the English soccer club Tottenham Hotspur FC are being told not to bring any flags with the Jewish Star of David on it if they plan to cheer their team on in its European championship game on Thursday in Milan, Italy.

The soccer club, which has a large Jewish following, posted on its website about the upcoming game in Italy: "police authorities have advised that those flags showing the Star of David will not be allowed access and may be confiscated. Please respect this request."

Indeed, the Tottenham Hotspurs website does say that in its list of advice for fans planning to attend the game.

However, Milan police deny banning the flags:

Italian authorities on Friday denied reports that Milanese police had told Tottenham fans coming to watch their side in Champions League action at Inter Milan on Wednesday not to bring Star of David banners.

The star is a traditional club symbol extending beyond religious connotations - though the London side do have a solid base of Jewish fans.

...Via Milanese local politician Emanuele Fiano, the police denied issuing such a specific instruction.

"The Milan prefect, Gian Valerio Lombardi, with whom I have spoken, has denied that any Italian police authority has made any stipulation against banners bearing the Star of David," Fiano said.

"I note as much with satisfaction, as otherwise I would have gone to the stadium myself with a Star of David flag," he added.

The Star of David flags have an association with Spurs going back to the club's early days in the 1880s.

Nasrallah a liar? Who would've thought?

Last week, Hassan Nasrallah gave a gift to Mahmoud Ahmaidinejad of a rifle that he claimed came from an IDF soldier who left it behind in a panic in Lebanon in the 2006 war:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ended a two-day visit to Lebanon by meeting with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
The overnight meeting took place at the Iranian embassy in Beirut's Bir Hasan neighborhood.

Nasrallah proudly presented to Ahmadinejad an Israeli rifle seized during the 2006 Israel-Hizbullah war.

Turns out, no:

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah deceived Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by giving him a gun he claimed was taken from an Israeli soldier in the 2006 war, an Israeli newspaper said Sunday.

The mass-selling Yediot Aharonot said the gun, which Nasrallah presented to Ahmadinejad in person on his controversial two-day visit to Lebanon, was a type of weapon not been used by the Israeli military since the early 1970s.

The paper quoted a military spokesperson as saying the weapon was "most likely" a FNFAL 7.62 rifle that went out of use in 1974, meaning it could not have been taken from soldiers during Israel's more recent invasion of Lebanon.

I'm shocked that such a principled man, who has not deviated from his genocidal goals one iota, would actually lie!

(h/t Israel Matzav, who predicted this.)

Latest nutty rumor: Ancient Torah with Mohammed's name discovered!

A new rumor weeping the Arab world says that a second-century Torah was discovered by Israeli archaeologists digging under the Temple Mount, and it contained the name "Mohammed" within it.

The Torah was said to have shaken the Jewish establishment in Israel because it proved that the Torah used today is not accurate - just as Muslims claim!

This is all over the Arabic websites; but it seems to have originated in an Algerian newspaper a week ago, where it specified that the Mohammed verse was in the Song of Solomon.

Indeed, the Song of Solomon (as well as other verses throughout the Hebrew Bible) uses a variant of the word "Mahmad" (5:16) which means "lovely." Muslims have for years tried to "prove" the authenticity of the Koran by pointing to various Hebrew Bible uses of words with the same roots as his name.

(I shouldn't have to say that this story is complete fiction.)

UNRWA workers in West Bank on strike

From Ma'an:

UNRWA's West Bank director met Friday with representatives of donor countries in East Jerusalem to discuss the latest employee strike action over pay.

Barbara Shenstone told US, Danish, Swiss, Dutch, Irish, Belgian, Canadian and Austrian officials that the strike would deprive 56,000 school children of their rights to education as well as more than 5,000 patients of daily medical care.

As is usual when UNRWA wokers strike (something that happens at least once a year), the UNRWA web page is silent on the matter.

But it brings the perennial question: why are there still "refugee" camps in the PA-administered territories at all? As far as I can tell, all or perhaps practically all of the UNRWA camps in the West Bank are in "Area A," fully under PA administrative control, in an area that everyone assumes will be part of a Palestinian Arab state. These people are no longer "refugees" even by the UN's definition, as they are in "Palestine."

Has the PA made any moves to dismantle these camps? Has it requested help from donor nations to get money in order to reduce the number of residents in these camps and get them self-sufficient?

If the PA intends to be a state, shouldn't mainstreaming some 200,000 of their own people into full, equal citizens be a high priority?

Shouldn't the donor nations that bankroll UNRWA be pressuring the PA to create a plan to eliminate all of these camps within five years or so? This would reduce the UNRWA budget, reduce the number of people counted as "refugees" worldwide, and stem the perpetual welfare machine that UNRWA has become.

Unfortunately, the reality is that UNRWA wants to keep the camps, the PA wants to keep the camps, and the Arab world wants to keep the camps - all paid for almost entirely with Western dollars. It is past time that UNRWA donor countries start demanding a plan from UNRWA as to how it will reduce the number of people dependent on it, and a plan from the PA on how to mainstream these so-called "refugees" into the statelet that the PA already has.

Of course, the fact that the PA hasn't shown the least interest in helping grant equal rights to its citizens within its own borders indicates that the PA is not really interested in building a state for Palestinian Arabs to live in, but rather to build a state that Jews cannot live in.

All of the obsession about "settlements" cannot be understood in any other way - they are not the least bit interested in mountaintop land that no Arab have ever lived on except in the sense that they want to make sure that Jews are not there. If they simply wanted a state where they could grant Palestinian Arabs full citizenship and representation as a nation that is equal to other nations, they could have done that numerous times already. But they haven't, and they show no interest in doing so.

The "refugees" still exist within the PA borders because they are not meant to be integrated into a Palestinian Arab state. Their entire existence is maintained to pressure Israel into accepting them as citizens one day and, they hope, turn Israel into another Arab state by demographic means.

So the continued existence of these UNRWA camps exposes the twin goals of the PA: a state without Jews and a second state that will marginalize and eventually push out the Jews.

The world, in its quest for an illusory "peace," refuses to notice these little details. Yet there is no other logical explanation for Palestinian Arab behavior that is consistent with their actions throughout the decades.

Quick news hits

The Viva Palestina convoy has been delayed again, this time because of bad weather. It is supposed to sail from the Syrian port of Latakia to Egypt's El Arish on Monday. (Iranian media says that it expects that Israel would go into Egyptian territory to stop the aid from getting to Gaza. Really.)

Jimmy Carter and the other "Elders" - present company excluded - have entered Gaza for a day of hobnobbing with Hamas terrorist leaders in the interests of "fact finding."

Three people came up to Ayman Hamdan's home near Nablus in a village called Qusra overnight. He owns several agricultural projects. Two cars belonging to his business were torched, with the words "Death to you" scrawled on his steps. He caught it on videotape. While this sounds like the work of disgruntled employees, Hamdan is certain that they were Jewish settlers. This way he gets into the headlines and might even get compensation!

A large weapons and explosives cache were discovered in Southern Lebanon. By UNIFIL? Of course not - how often do they find any weapons or explosives that are buried under their feet by the ton? No, a bulldozer accidentally uncovered the cache.

Finally, a chimpanzee escaped from a Gaza zoo and entered a lecture hall at Al Quds University, where he sat and listened. Just more proof that those Jews, who excel at academics, are really the sons of apes.

Jewish flexibility and Arab intransigence, 1947

Moshe Sharett (Shertok), the head of the Jewish Agency, spoke to the Special Committee on Palestine on July 17, 1947. He described an anecdote that he felt was illustrative of the difference between how Arabs and Jews think of co-existence.

The problem of mutual adjustment in this country is an extremely difficult one. Its solution entails a sense of realities, a capacity to accept facts. And it is essential in the interest of peace, in the long run, that certain facts should be very firmly fixed and that any idea that they can be disregarded or changed by threats, or by force, should be disregarded. I will illustrate by an example what I am trying to convey to you. I will take the case of the Municipality of Jerusalem.

There is a Jewish majority in the City of Jerusalem. Yet there has always been an Arab mayor at the head of the Jerusalem Municipal Council. As time passed this became anomalous. The city kept growing, so did its population, and its services developed. The Jews came to play a very important part in the administration of the city's affairs, and they felt that it was to their detriment, and they also presumed to think that it was to the detriment of the city as a whole, that they should be denied their fair share of the city's Government. They felt that they should all have a chance of being at the head of the Municipal Council.

Now, this problem engaged the attention of the Government and of both Arabs and Jews for a long time. Eventually the Government reached a certain decision and announced that decision officially. They worked out a scheme for the rotation of the Jerusalem mayoralty — a triple rotation — a Moslem mayor, a Christian mayor, and a Jewish mayor should serve in turn. The idea was not quite palatable to the Jews. It was particularly unpalatable because if you appoint as a Christian mayor a Christian Arab, then it means that the proportion is established of one Jew to two Arabs and the Jews are then in a way, in terms of time, if not in terms of space, relegated to the position or a minority. But the Jews realized, at least they tried to realize, the wider aspect of problem, the unique character of the city of Jerusalem, the associations which it carried, and they decided to acquiesce and accept that proposal. They informed the Government accordingly. Though they were and are a majority and felt entitled to having the post of the mayor permanently, in view of the past tradition, in view of the present associations, they declared themselves willing to cooperate in the implementation of that scheme. ...Mind you, that was not in the process of preliminary soundings or informal negotiations; that was after the Government had definitely committed itself by announcing officially that that was their decision.

The Arabs refused to cooperate. They rejected the scheme. They insisted on the office of Mayor remaining their exclusive possession — the exclusive possession of the Moslem community for all future.

The result was that the Government backed out — the Government retreated from the scheme — they dropped it. In retreating from the scheme they blamed their failure on both parties in equal measure. Un-qualified rejection and complete acceptance with certain additional desiderata, were represented by them in an official announcement as ranking equal — as if both parties refused to cooperate. They proceeded to disband the Municipal Council.

The Jewish councillors were ready to carry on. A Jewish gentleman was at the time acting Mayor and had been acting Mayor for years. There was no complaint whatsoever on the merits of the way he conducted municipal affairs. Yet, all the municipal councillors, including the Jewish councilors, were sent packing and a direct British rule was instituted in the City Hall of Jerusalem. For two years now Jerusalem has not enjoyed elementary municipal self-government. Municipal affairs are being ruled by appointed British officials.

Now what does it mean?

It means a premium on intransigence — a definite discouragement to face realities and to develop a spirit of accommodation to those realities. It is a victory for boycotting tactics. We all felt that the Arabs took that uncompromising attitude only because they knew that by so doing they would wreck the scheme — that they would force the Government to retreat. If they had the conviction that the Government would stick to its decision and that what they would then be facing would be that the conduct of municipal affairs would be exclusively in the hands of the Jews, and they would be left completely out, they would think twice before deciding on the attitude which they adopted. They would give in, and it would not mean in any sense sacrificing any legitimate rights. Although the Jews are a majority, the composition of the Council is fifty-fifty, between Jews and Arabs, .and they would have had their share of rotation of office of mayoralty. It would not mean any unwarranted concession — any undue concession on their part.

Well, to us that was a lesson. We are setting it as, an example not to follow.

Do these mindsets sound familiar? The Jews were willing to accept a compromise that was overwhelmingly skewed towards the Arabs, and the Arabs rejected it completely - because it would mean that the Jews gained something.

By any sensible measure, one would think that 2/3 Arab control of Jerusalem's mayoralty is better than zero. Yet the Arabs preferred that Jerusalem be under the full control of the British than two-thirds control by Arabs - because of that one third that would be Jewish!

This was not a logical decision. This is hate-based politics, where hurting your enemy is more important than helping your own people.

The question that needs to be answered is - has this attitude changed? Have Arab leaders matured to the point that they care more about helping their own than hurting their enemy?

Look at how the Palestinian Arab leadership are unwilling to lobby for equal rights of their people in Arab lands, instead wanting to use them as seething cauldrons of hate to pressure Israel for an eventual and illusory "right of return". Think about that: every Arab leader would prefer that millions of Palestinian Arabs remain stateless, and hundreds of thousands remain in "refugee" camps, rather than help them, because of the minute possibility that their very misery hurts the Jewish state.

The entire political philosophy of Palestinian Arabs is based on hatred of the other. In fact, their entire concept of "peoplehood" is defined in opposition to the other. After all, what are "Palestinians" if not "non-Jews whose ancestors lived in Palestine in the 1940s"? As long as their entire existence and history is defined in terms of countering Jewish political gains and not in terms of their own independent existence, there is zero chance for real, permanent compromise, and zero chance for real peace.

Today's irony

Moroccans are upset over a music festival to be held tomorrow in Agadir.

It is a major festival, boasting many international artists. Last year some 200,000 people attended and this year it will be broadcast to some 30 million viewers.

The problem? One of the singers is Yael Naim, who is Israeli (her song "New Soul" was used in an Apple commercial and was a top-ten hit in the US.) She served in the IDF - not in combat, but in the Israel Air Force Orchestra.

For these reasons, Al Quds al Arabi reports, a Moroccan anti-Israel group is upset. The "Moroccan National Working Group in Support of Palestine and Iraq" announced "that the participation of Yael Naim coincides with the escalation of Zionist crimes, with its racial terrorism and its determination to defy the international community, as well as its occupation of the remainder of the land in the West Bank and Jerusalem...[who are on their way to becoming] to the most racist state ever, an exclusive Jewish state."

The name of the music festival? "The Concert for Tolerance."