Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, November 07, 2010

PA arrests atheist for his online activities

Palestine Press Agency reports that PA police arrested a man for his postings on Facebook and his blog.

The man, who was not identified, was caught as he was at an Internet cafe in Qalqilya.

In his Facebook postings, he supposedly claims to be God and he attacks other monotheistic religions, including Islam. He reproduced the Danish Mohammed cartoons and, according to the article, angered hundreds of thousands of people with his atheistic arguments. People who complained managed to get him removed from Facebook but he simply kept writing on his blog, which seems to have been named "Code of The Light of Reason."

I believe that his name is Waleed Al-Husseini and this is the blog. The Facebook page it links to is indeed gone (here's the cached version.) This would be his English-language blog.

I don't see him claiming to be God, except perhaps in a sarcastic way; he is advocating atheism and describes why he doesn't believe in Islam.

So, of course, the enlightened Palestinian Authority - who staked him out for two months - regard him as a deep threat to their nascent, democratic, secular, enlightened nation they are planning.

Weekend Christian conference in DC hosts a would-be ethnic cleanser

The mission of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation is to ensure "the continued presence and well-being of Arab Christians in the Holy Land and to developing the bonds of solidarity between them and Christians elsewhere."

This is admirable. Christians are disappearing from the Middle East at an alarming rate (everywhere, in fact, except for Israel.)

Unfortunately, the HCEF seems to be a bit fixated on supposed Israeli actions that are forcing Christians out, and they downplay any oppression that come from the Palestinian Muslims. I couldn't find anything on their website about threats, or attacks, or stealing land.

This group held a conference in Washington this weekend. One of the speakers is "Ambassador" Maen Areikat, who represents the PLO in Washington.

And who says, very explicitly, that he envisions a Palestinian state that would have no Jews in it.

In other words, he advocates the forcible transfer of some half-million Jews out of the free, democratic country he pretends to support.

It seems a little odd that an organization that is against Christians being forced out of the Holy Land has no problem honoring a man who wants to do exactly that to hundreds of thousands of Jews.

Gaza businessmen must be really stupid

From Ma'an:

Nablus businessman Munib Al-Masri on Sunday toured industrial projects being carried out by the Palestine Development and Investment Company in the Gaza Strip.

The West Bank multimillionaire told journalists Friday that after three years of waiting, his company decided to inaugurate a five-star hotel in the northern Gaza Strip. The hotel was completed in 2007, but its opening was delayed due to the dire conditions in the Strip.

I guess this is another successful businessman who doesn't read the papers enough to realize that Gaza is filled with poor, starving people to whom a luxury hotel would be a cruel joke, how no one in Gaza can afford even the basics that are for sale there, and how such a project is doomed to failure.

This comes on the heels of the announcement of another Gaza mall that is equally doomed.

It's almost like these people expect to make money in a place that is universally regarded as one of the worst places on Earth. How arrogant they are to think they know more about Gaza than the New York Times and the UN!

Video of Israel's "Dancing with the Stars" same-sex couple

I mentioned it last week, so how can I not show it? Especially since it is a magnet for blog hits....

This is the first time that any incarnation of "Dancing with the Stars" has shown a same-sex dance team.

And, come on - who is going to object?

Did you ever received a parcel saying "fragile" but the sticker "this side up" was missing so you never knew how to handle the package carefully? This is how I feel towards Lebanon. How to approach Lebanons fragile state at this moment?

Hezbollah is threatening, because of the Hariri Tribunal, which it wants to boycott amid unconfirmed reports that an impending indictment would implicate its members. This worries of course the Lebanese army. A general said ahead of the UN indictment:

"I am worried but I am not afraid," General Jean Kahwaji, who rarely makes public statements, told the daily An Nahar. "We have deployed sufficient troops in Beirut and have studied all other areas at risk," he said. "The army will be firm... in all areas and particularly Christian areas," he said without elaborating.

This is how Hezbollah threatens in the meanwhile:

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has openly warned Lebanese against further cooperation with the tribunal.

His second-in-command, Sheikh Naim Qassem, has said charges against Hezbollah would be "equivalent to lighting the fuse, to igniting the wick for an explosion."

(...)

Last week a report in the daily Al Akhbar, which is close to Hezbollah, said the Shia party had quietly sent its partisans throughout the country in a dry run for a possible takeover of the capital and other areas in the aftermath of the STL indictment.

The fact that people die as a result of clashes between the Lebanese army and "gunmen" might be a warning for worse to come.

A package usually will not crash itself when you just stand there and watch it. We can wait and see, but I just hope the package was not a ticking bomb.

Maybe it's not such a stupid move by Netanyahu to withdraw from the northern part of the village Ghajar after all.

Hamas? Anti-semitic? No way!

You know how Hamas always says that they have nothing against Jews, just Zionists?

Apparently, they are also referring to the Zionists of the Middle Ages:

The Jews will soon be expelled from Palestine that same way they were kicked out by France, Britain, Belgium, Russia and Germany, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said over the weekend.

“The only nation that received the Jews after they were expelled was the Islamic nation, which protected them and looked after them,” Zahar said in a speech in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip over the weekend.

“But they have no place here amongst us because of their crimes. They will soon be expelled from here and we will pray at the Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem].”

Zahar claimed that Jews were expelled in the past “because they betrayed, stole and corrupted these countries.”

I seem to recall Jews being expelled from or fearfully fleeing state-sponsored persecution in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran and Jordan, but perhaps Zahar's is more a scholar of medieval history than modern.

Notice that he doesn't mention Spain and Portugal, two other countries that famously expelled Jews. Why not? Because in those countries Muslims were persecuted and/or expelled along with the Jews! That little fact might make his fellow Muslims question his theory that people who are kicked out of countries, or forcibly converted, deserve it. Better to avoid that topic, then.

Oh, by the way - Zahar is one of those "pragmatic" Hamas leaders that so many people pin their hopes on for an ultimate peace treaty.

Hospitals in Gaza have no medicine - but not because of Israel

Palestine Press Agency has an article Gaza hospitals that do not have basic medical supplies, like pain relief medicines and even gauze.

Families of patients have to go to pharmacies to buy the medicines - of which the pharmacies have where there are plenty - and then give them to the nurses at the hospitals to administer.

What is interesting is how the medicines in the pharmacies are labeled. They say things like "In support of the Palestinian people" or "in support of charity X." In other words, medicines that are meant to be given to the hospitals for free are being diverted and being sold to pharmacies instead, for what is presumably a tidy profit for the thieves.

Israel does not limit the shipment of medicine and medical supplies at all.

The PA is responsible for coordinating shipments of medicine to Gaza, and they have only been sending roughky half of what was needed, thus creating a black market for the supplies.

Although this article did not explicitly blame Hamas, we have seen in the past that Hamas has confiscated aid meant to be distributed for free and diverted it to Hamas-run hospitals and clinics, or to the black market.

UNRWA chief asks for machine guns to protect himself in Gaza

From Ha'aretz:

The defense establishment has taken the unusual step of granting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency approval to take four weapons into Gaza. The weapons, submachine guns, are to serve the security detail guarding the heads of the agency in Gaza.

The request to bring in the weapons was made three years ago and approved last week.

The director of UNRWA's activities in Gaza, John Ging, said on his website that his life is in constant danger and he needs more suitable protection than the handguns his bodyguards had been carrying.

The UN body asked for German Heckler and Koch submachine guns for UNRWA's commissioner general, Filippo Grandi, and for Ging.

The organization told Israeli security officials that its personnel are being threatened by Hamas representatives. UNRWA operates 221 schools in Gaza and dozens of medical centers, employment centers and women's help centers.

More than a million refugees and their descendents are registered with UNRWA, which operates eight refugee camps in Gaza.

In March 2007, gunmen fired at Ging's convoy and he escaped without injury. In the summer of 2007, armed men again attacked him, in Rafah, killing one.

Ging supports unsupervised flotillas to break the blockade of Gaza, which would be able to bring all the weapons he might need.

So why didn't he ask his Hamas buddies to smuggle in some submachine guns for his team?

Latest Latma (11/5/10)

The centerpiece sketch is more for Israelis (a spoof of the Leftist "peace" anthem) but not bad.

Arab "peace plans" of the 1970s

I just stumbled onto these...

From March, 1972 (click to enlarge):

King Hussein suggests a semi-autonomous Palestinian Arab state on the land that Israel would give him on West Bank, confederated with Jordan. And he helpfully adds that any other Palestinian territory Jordan eventually won from Israel would become a part of the West Bank state, saying that "the federation can include any part of Palestine we can liberate - Haifa, for instance."

I guess when Israel wins land in a war, it is an illegal occupation; when Arabs do, it automatically becomes a legal part of an expanded state.

From December, 1974 (click to enlarge):

Egypt's plan was simple: if Israel wants peace, it must stop all immigration and all population growth. For 50 years.

Sound absurd? Well, going back to 1949 armistice lines is just as absurd - but by dint of repetition, it has become conventional wisdom.

Israelis, Australian almost lynched in Jerusalem

You know how Arabs are frightened for their lives when they accidentally drive through Jewish neighborhoods in Israel?

No?

Three students from the central city of Givatayim and their Australian friend will never forget their nightly drive to Jerusalem's city center. The three, who picked up the young woman from the Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus, almost paid with their lives after taking a wrong turn.

"There were four of us in the car, and we planned to sit in a quiet pub on Ben-Yehuda Street and talk," the driver, Assaf Ben-Ari, told Ynet on Friday morning. "There were no signs, and since we don't live in the area we didn't know how to turn back. We took a right turn on one of the curves and found ourselves on a one-way road in an unfamiliar area."

...The group had no choice and continued driving according to the instructions, and found themselves in the heart of the neighborhood of Issawiya. They decided to turn back, but were shocked to discover that the road had been blocked.

"I don't know how they managed, but only two minutes later they set up a barrier which included a barbed-wire fence, chairs, and iron pipes. We were in shock. We suddenly heard an explosion sound in the back, and saw the boy and the adult who we spoke to throwing bricks at us."

The car's rear windowpane was smashed, and young men began coming out of the neighborhood houses and throwing stones at the vehicle....Meanwhile, "the entire neighborhood woke up and dozens of young men gathered next to us and waited for us with sticks and stones. I considered escaping from the vehicle or even hiding until the police arrived, but I knew we wouldn't stand a chance if they found us outside the car. Several minutes later we were surrounded, and I realized that I must drive my car into the barrier if I want to get out of here alive."

At that moment, he began driving fast while being hit with stones and iron pipes from all directions. "I pressed the gas pedal with all my might, and simply drove into the barrier at 110 kilometers an hour. The barbed-wire fence was caught under the wheels and dragged along. There were sparks in the air."

After crossing the first barrier, the group was shocked to discover a second trap. "Several meters ahead they placed a row of taxis attached to each other in order to prevent us from passing. Luckily, we managed to get through a small gap between the pavement and the wall, a moment before another taxi arrived to close us in."

At the same time, three Border Guard jeeps arrived in the area and ensured that there were no injuries. According to the police, "The fighters dispersed the rioters and the matter has been handed over to the minority department."

"It was like entering a nightmare. They had a look of murder in their eyes," the driver said after the incident. "Had we stayed there one more minute we wouldn't be alive anymore. It wasn't just an attempt to stone us, but an intentional desire to lynch us only several meters way from the university."

We have to understand how an oppressed minority would want to trap and terrorize four civilians who accidentally wandered into their neighborhood. I'm sure that British gentiles are equally frightened to drive through Golders' Green and Brooklyn Hispanics are terrified to drive through Flatbush.

(h/t Elder of Lobby)

Israel's departing Press Office director lets loose

The Jerusalem Post has an amazing interview with the outgoing director of the Israel's Government Press Office, Danny Seaman. It is way too long to reproduce here but here are some highlights:

Part of my problem with the foreign press – and I’ve been accused of being combative and feisty in fighting them – is that you have journalists coming in here not having the faintest idea of what is going on.

They live off what they get from their colleagues; they meet certain people who come from the same social-economic background; they live off of one newspaper, Haaretz. They don’t make an effort. When you have a conversation with them, you find that they have a complete lack of knowledge of the elementary issues.

This didn’t used to be the case.

Journalists from the ’70s, ’80s, who were here during the beginning of the ’90s, were very knowledgeable, very experienced. This is a different generation.

The narrative has shifted. They’ll adopt the Palestinian narrative. That has become the bon ton. They’ll talk about “the Palestinian right of return.” There is no such thing. They talk about what the Palestinians call “Israel’s violations of Oslo.” What exactly are they talking about? They have no knowledge about the facts.

Today, if you bring in, say, an expert on international law [to hold a briefing for foreign journalists], they delegitimize the person based on what they perceive to be his political opinions. This is unacceptable, especially for a journalist. We the people, in a democratic society, rely on them to provide us with the information for us to make an educated decision on a particular issue. In this case, many journalists are failing in their duty. The media outfits that employ them are giving them automatic backing. And when the media doesn’t exercise its checks and balances, they’re failing in their job.

...Israel is always active. Other things just “happen.” Missiles “rain down” on Israel. But where Israel is concerned, and I’m quoting from some media reports, they even adopt Nazi terminology: “Israel's blitzkrieg.”

Always using negatives and very aggressive terms.

By contrast, the suffering Israel endures is always caused by some obscure [force]. It’s never quite clear what’s happening, and who is responsible. The number of ways that Israel is depicted negatively is, astoundingly, much greater than with Hizbullah. Hizbullah is a terrorist organization! It is considered so by every country in the world, including the United Nations. [Yet I found foreign media] to be taking their word, their narrative as fact.

For the war in Gaza about 400 additional reporters showed up here. They seem to have no knowledge of what is going on. They don’t understand what they’re seeing.

They don’t understand urban warfare. They’ll see some phosphorus or they’ll see some smoke, and they’ll immediately adapt [what they’re told about it] without understanding from the military perspective why it’s being done. [In Gaza, they were fed] misinformation, and they gave credibility to sources who time and time again have been disproved, sources who are very credible in the Western world, such as doctors.

In the Western world doctors are given a very particular [credibility].

But that same attitude was given to Palestinian doctors, and more than once they deliberately misled and lied to the journalists. And instead of the journalists saying, “Ok, once, twice. The third time they’re not going to be lying to me anymore,” they keep turning to these sources.

Some journalists did the job they were supposed to be doing, and went to objective experts and asked them about false claims [that Israel was using illegal weaponry, or had weaponry that purportedly melted the skin, or that Israeli weaponry was causing] these kinds of injuries. [One specific reporter] did the legitimate thing. He went and he asked an expert. And he was told, “What you’re talking about is science fiction.

These weapons don’t exist.” So, in this case, the story should have been over. But no, he reports [the false allegation and the firm dismissal], giving legitimacy to the actual accusation.

You want to compare that to something? Go back to the old blood libel.

Imagine the Jews are being accused now of using blood to make matza.

Some of the foreign media would “go to the experts,” maybe one of these cooking shows on television, who’d dismiss the idea, of course.

But the very report itself would give legitimacy to this absurd kind of accusation. Some people watching would say, “Where there’s smoke there’s fire, so there must be some truth to it.” [The foreign media] would not do this to any other country.

The Palestinians are not stupid.

They have 20-30 years of experience of telling the journalists how high to jump. They know what makes modern media tick.

[With inexperienced journalists going into the West Bank], you’re taking somebody who doesn’t know the history. They’re moving from Israeli society, where we do everything to maintain normalcy.

You’ll have a suicide bombing in the morning, and by late afternoon there’s no indication of it any more. With the Palestinians, the moment you cross over, at the roadblock, people automatically have a negative reaction to the figures of authority. I get complaints [from journalists] saying there’s no human contact [between soldiers and Palestinians at checkpoints].

I try to explain to them there’s no human contact because when there was human contact, some [terrorists] saw that as an Achilles’ Heel and attacked the Israeli soldiers [at the checkpoints]. We’re trying to protect our lives. It’s the same with the security barrier. We protect our lives.

[Visiting journalists] don’t see it that way. They experience what it is like to be a Palestinian to a certain degree. When they come to our side, you have to start with the historical explanations. It’s very hard, because the life we have here seems very similar to their lives at home. They don’t understand the day-to-day things that we go through.

Read the whole thing.
(h/t Daled Amos via email)

Church claims it is being evicted because of support for Israel

From TheJC:

A Zionist Christian group says it will take legal action to fight eviction from its premises because it supports Israel.

Father's House, a small church group of 40 people based in the Welsh village of Gwernymynydd, near Mold, says this is the first case of a Christian church being evicted from a public village building because of its beliefs.

In May, the group received an eviction letter from the village centre from which it has run church services for 11 years. The centre gave the group six months to leave and said: "There has also been great concern expressed about the content of your website, and the very controversial views it contains. The Village Centre Committee does not wish to be associated with your views."

The website contains news and editorials about anti-Israel activity.

Father's House pastor Mike Fryer, a former National Crime Squad detective who studied at Yad Vashem in Israel, said the eviction was discriminatory under the Equality Act as it is connected to the group's beliefs. No-one from the Village Centre Management Committee was available for comment, but they have previously said the decision was taken because they wanted to use the church's weekly booking for children's parties and other events.

The church website is liberally decorated with stars of David and menorahs. It is not merely pro-Israel; it identifies strongly with the Judaism that they say early Christians practiced and with todays' Jews. It is clearly not close to a mainstream church, as it celebrates Jewish holidays and says

These Feast days are appointed by God Himself and He commanded us to keep them sacred. However they were removed from Christian practice in the 4th Century as a direct result of hatred towards the Jews, giving a victory to paganism over The Church. The Gentile Bishops of the day replaced The Lord's Feasts with pagan feast days in order to isolate the Jewish people. As a result, The Church has become the main persecutor of the Jews throughout history. We at Father’s House have been called to stand in the gap and repent for these sins and their consequences, including murder - during the Crusades, the Inquisitions and the Holocaust.

A flyer from the Home Front Command

At Oyvagoy, Israelinurse writes a post about a flyer that everyone in Israel received last week detailing what to do in case of a rocket attack.

The flyer included a picture showing how many seconds you have to take cover once you hear the sirens:

For the pale green area directly surrounding the Gaza Strip, including Sderot: 15 seconds.

For the pale blue area after that, including Ashkelon: 30 seconds.

For the purple zone, including Ashdod: 45 seconds.

For the darker green area after that, which includes Be’er Sheva: 60 seconds.

The darker orange region which includes Dimona and Jerusalem: 3 minutes.

The paler orange region including Tel Aviv and Netanya: 2 minutes.

The beige area including Hadera and Haifa: 60 seconds.

The yellow area which includes Haifa, Nazareth and Tzfat: 30 seconds.

And finally my region – the red one – which doesn’t have a time-frame; it just says ‘immediate entry to refuge’.

So next time some Hamas or Hizbollah apologist tells you about the ‘home-made rockets’ or ‘firecrackers’, ask them to close their eyes and count to 15, imagining that this is the maximum time available to them to gather up their children, pets or ageing relatives and get them to relative safety.

Which child would they grab first? How would they negotiate the stairs if they lived in a top-storey apartment? How would they cope with disabled, blind or deaf members of the family? What if they were at work and their children home alone?

To them it will still remain a theoretical exercise, but for millions of Israelis these are just some of the real questions which have to be answered; real decisions which have to be made – in a matter of seconds.

Zvi adds:

If you live outside of Israel, then I also recommend doing something else. On your phone or in your house, have a friend or family member set your alarm for a random time during the day or night. Don't look at it. Go about your normal daily business. When you hear the alarm go off, try to figure out what you would do if you had to get to a bomb shelter or secure room within 15 seconds. If you can do it SAFELY, actually try to make your way to such a place within 15 seconds.

What would you do if you were taking a shower when the alert went off?
What would you do if you were taking a sick child to the hospital?
What would you do if you were walking your dog?
What would you do if you were sleeping?
What would you do if you were desperate to use the restroom?
What would you do if you were playing with your young children at the park? (Sderot parks do have bomb shelters)
What would you do if you were helping an elderly or injured relative?
What would you do if the person standing next to you did not speak the language and did not understand what was going on?
What would you do if you were out in the middle of a field, weeding?
What would you do if you were davening - and among 200 other people in the shul, many of whom are kids and some of whom are seniors who can't move quickly?

What would you do if you were trying to change a flat tire by the side of the road?
What would you do if you were giving birth?

What would you do, in 15 seconds, to save your life or the lives of your loved ones?

If you do this, why not add in the comments section a report about what happened?

I'd like to add that if a Palestinian Arab state would be established on or near the 1949 armistice lines, even if it is supposedly "demilitarized," even if the PA promises on the lives of their mothers that they will never use weapons against their Israeli peace partners, all of Jerusalem and surround areas would turn red and Tel Aviv and Netanya would probably go from a "two minute" zone to a 30-second zone - as "Palestine" would only be nine kilometers away.

Because there is nothing that Israel could do in that scenario to stop Palestinian Arab terror groups from building or smuggling in rockets anyway.

Keep in in mind also that there are still a few rockets being fired every week, even during this "calm."

AP reporters don't know the basics

AP has an article about the possibility that Jews could live in a Palestinian Arab state:

It has become an article of faith in the Israeli-Palestinian equation: Israel's withdrawal from occupied lands must be accompanied by a removal of Jewish settlers.

But perhaps there's another option.

Although it's hardly mainstream thinking, voices on both sides are quietly contemplating an alternative: Perhaps some Jews can live in a future Palestine, even if only in small numbers, the way Arabs live in Israel.

AP's bias is evident in this article, making it appear that in such a scenario the only problem is Jews, and also maybe perhaps the possibility that Arabs could just start massacring the leftover Jews:

The problem, of course, is that most settlers have no desire to live under Palestinian rule — and in fact moved to the West Bank to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. Others are radicals who could well prove problem citizens.

The antipathy is generally mutual: Palestinians tend to think that the settlers' presence there is a violation of international agreements against colonizing occupied land. They are widely hated, and it is easily conceivable that they might suffer discrimination and even vigilante violence without protection of the Israeli military.

Look at how AP formulates their conception of why Jews move to Judea and Samaria - to prevent a Palestinian Arab state. This is exactly the Arab narrative, that Jews' entire existence in the Middle East is somehow meant to insult and humiliate Arabs, rather than to live peacefully in the land that their ancestors lived in.

The fact is that most "settlers" moved to their homes because there was no reason not to. Prices were lower, the quality of life was higher, their government helped build some of the towns, and no Israeli government has ever said that they would return to the 1949 armistice lines - and neither does UN resolution 242. If you ask them why they moved there, most would simply say that it is part of Israel. None of them would say "I moved here with my family to prevent a Palestinian Arab state."

AP also writes, as shown above, "Perhaps some Jews can live in a future Palestine, even if only in small numbers, the way Arabs live in Israel."

About 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs. There are some 4.5 million Arabs in the territories. In order to have the same "small number" of Jews in a Palestinian Arab state, there would have to be be a million Jews in "Palestine!" That means that the number of "setters" would have to double or quadruple, depending on whether Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem would be included in "Palestine."

But in AP's world, Arabs in Israel are a tiny, presumably persecuted minority, living in smaller numbers than Jews in the West Bank!

Finally, AP does not seem to realize that some Palestinian Arab leaders are a bit, shall we say, against the idea of even a single Jew - let alone Israeli - living in "Palestine." No, that little bit of obstructionism and intransigence is not on AP's radar. The main obstacles to peace are, always, the Jews.