Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Rachel's Tomb was never a mosque (Nadav Shragai)

JCPA published a nice paper by Nadav Shragai in reaction to the UNESCO debacle where that august organization declared Rachel's Tomb to be a "historic mosque."

For hundreds of years, the shape of Rachel's Tomb resembled the grave of a vali (a Muslim saint). The building received its distinctive shape in 1622 when the Turkish governor of Jerusalem, Mohammad Pasha, permitted the Jews to wall off the four pillars that supported the dome and for the first time Rachel's Tomb became a closed building.9 This was allowed by the Turkish governor to prevent Arab shepherds from grazing their flocks at the site.10 Yet according to one report, an English traveler claims this was done "to make access to it more difficult for the Jews."11

For centuries, Rachel's Tomb was considered only a Jewish holy place. The sixteenth-century Arab historian Mujir al-Din regarded Rachel's Tomb as a Jewish holy place.12 Beginning in 1841, the keys to the place were deposited exclusively with Jewish caretakers who managed the site until it fell into Jordanian hands in 1948.13 In contravention of the armistice agreement, Jordan prevented Jews from accessing the site during all the years of its rule (1948-1967).14 Following the Six-Day War, Jews returned to Rachel's Tomb, with millions of Jews from around the world having visited the site. According to Jewish tradition, Rachel died on the 11th day of the Hebrew month of Heshvan (October 19); in 2010, some 100,000 Jews visited Rachel's Tomb on that day.15

For many centuries, Jews were compelled to pay protection money and ransom to the Arabs who lived in the area so they wouldn't harm Rachel's Tomb and the Jews who visited it. In 1796, Rabbi Moshe Yerushalmi, an Ashkenazi Jew from central Europe who immigrated to Israel, related that a non-Jew sits at Rachel's Tomb and collects money from Jews seeking to visit the site.16 Other sources attest to Jews who paid taxes, levies, and presented gifts to the Arab residents of the region.

Dr. Ludwig August Frankl of Vienna, a poet and author, related that the Sephardi community in Jerusalem was compelled to pay 5,000 piastres to an Arab from Bethlehem at the start of the nineteenth century for the right to visit Rachel's Tomb.17 Other testimonies relate that in order to prevent damage to Rachel's Tomb, payment was transferred to Bedouin members of the Taamra tribe who lived in the region, who had also begun to bury their dead near the tomb during that era.18 There is a Muslim cemetery on three sides of the compound that mainly belongs to the Taamra tribe and the entire attitude of the Muslims to Rachel's Tomb derives to a large extent from this tribe, which began burying its dead at the site during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries due to its proximity to Rachel's Tomb. The origins of the practice, as the Land of Israel researcher Eli Schiller writes, is the popular Muslim belief that "the closer that the deceased is buried to the tomb of a sainted personality, the greater will be his rewards in the world to come."19

Taxes were also collected from the Sephardi Jewish community in Jerusalem to pay the authorities for various "rights," such as passage to the Western Wall, passage of funerals to the Mount of Olives, and for the protection of gravestones there, as well as payment to the Arabs of Bethlehem for safeguarding Rachel's Tomb.20

One of the scribes who managed the accounts of the Sephardi Kolel during the eighteenth century reported on the protection money that the Jewish community at that time had to transfer to the "non-Jews and lords of the lands who are called toeffendis...(15,000) Turkish grush...and these are the people who patrol the ways of Jaffa Road, Kiryat Yearim, the people of the Rama, the site of Samuel the Prophet, the people of Nablus Road, the people of the Efrat Road, the tomb of our matriarch Rachel...so they would not come to grave-robbing, heaven forbid. And sometimes they complain to us that we have fallen behind on their routine payments and they come scrabbling on the gravestones in the dead of night, and they did their things in stealth because their home is there. Therefore, we are compelled against our will to propitiate them."21

Rabbi David d'Beth Hillel, a resident of Vilna who visited Syria and the Land of Israel in 1824, testified about a Muslim cemetery in the region of Rachel's Tomb. "No person is living there, but there was a cemetery. On the opposite hill there is a village whose residents are Arabs and they are most evil. A stranger who comes to visit Rachel's Tomb is robbed by them."22

In 1856, fifteen years after Montefiore had built another room to Rachel's Tomb, James Finn, the British consul who served in Palestine during the days of Turkish rule, spoke about the payments that the Jews were forced to pay to Muslim extortionists at some holy places including Rachel's Tomb: "300 lira per annum to the effendi whose house is adjacent to the site of crying" (the Western Wall) for the right to pray there and "100 lira a year to the Taamra Arabs for not wrecking Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem."23

In 1841 Moses Montefiore obtained a license from the Turkish authorities to refurbish Rachel's Tomb and add another room to it, which changed its appearance and improved its formerly neglected status. A door to the domed room was installed and keys were given to two Jewish caretakers, one Sephardi and the other Ashkenazi. Fourteen years previously, an official of the Sephardi Kolelim (religious study centers) in Jerusalem, Avraham Behar Avraham, laid the groundwork for Montefiore's activity at Rachel's Tomb when he obtained recognition from the Turkish authorities for the status and rights of Jews at the site. This was, in practice, the original firman (royal decree)24 issued by the Ottoman authorities in Turkey recognizing Jewish rights at Rachel's Tomb.

The firman was necessary since the Muslims disputed ownership by the Jews of Rachel's Tomb and even tried by brute force to prevent Jewish visits to the site. From time to time Jews were robbed or beaten by Arab residents of the vicinity, and even the protection money that was paid did not always prevail. Avraham Behar Avraham approached the authorities in Istanbul on this matter and in 1830 the Turks issued the firman that gave legal force to Rachel's Tomb being recognized as a Jewish holy site.25 Additionally, the governor of Damascus sent a written order to the Mufti of Jerusalem to fulfill the Sultan's order.

This is our order to you: (the following matter) was submitted to us by the subject of our order, the sage representative of honored Jerusalem's Jewry and his translator that the tomb of esteemed Rachel, the mother of our Lord Joseph...they (the Jews) are accustomed to visit it from ancient days; and no one is permitted to prevent them or oppose them (from doing) this....It turned out that at this holy site, they have been visiting since ancient times, without any person preventing them or trespassing on their property and they (have it) as was their custom. In accordance with the respected judgment, I order that our commandment be issued to you so you will treat them accordingly without addition or without subtraction, without hindrance and without opposition to them by anyone in any way whatsoever - written August 10, 1830.26

An additional firman from April 1831, eight months later, determined inter alia:27

To inform and demonstrate to all interested parties and the appointed officials, the right of the Jews who are residents of holy Jerusalem to visit the grave of Rachel, the mother of the Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, without hindrance....The deputy translator and other public functionaries, members of the Jewish community of Jerusalem, approached me with many requests regarding the tomb of Rachel, may peace be upon her, the mother of the Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, and it is known that this grave is located outside the city of Jerusalem opposite the town of Bethlehem, on the highway...and that since ancient times the Jews have tended to visit this holy grave without anybody preventing them from doing so, as an inviolable law. And now people have emerged who have begun to hinder them, although as aforesaid and as proven the Jews have a right to visit the grave according to the Sultan's order. Hence I approach his honor the governor, may he be exalted, reminding him of the contents of the existing order. I also order him to attempt to remove the obstacles from the Jews, residents of Holy Jerusalem and others, so they can visit the aforementioned holy grave unhindered. Rendered in Istanbul at the end of the month of Shawwal in the year 1246 to the Hejira. Signed: The Sublime Porte.

Ironically, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, whose government has been described as "neo-Ottoman" in outlook, told the Saudi paper al-Watan (March 7, 2010) that the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb "were not and never will be Jewish sites, but Islamic sites

There's lots more, read the whole thing.

From reading accounts written by Christian pilgrims visiting the site, I thought that there was a mosque there. For example, from 1796:

A league further on we entered the plain of Rama, where y»u meet with Rachel's tomb. It is a square edifice, surmounted with a small dome: it enjoys the privileges of a mosque, for the Turks, as well as the Arabs, honor the families of the patriarchs.

Also:

About half-way between Jerusalem and Bethlehem is Rachel's tomb, one of the few places regarding the identity of which all antiquarians seem disposed to agree. A small Turkish mosque covers the cave, and here the wife of Israel has slept for nearly four thousand years.

But from reading these and other accounts, I get the impression that the pilgrims assumed that a Turkish-style building on the tomb would be a mosque. Even so, Muslims did pray there.

Wikipedia adds:

In 1841 Montefiore purchased the site and obtained for the Jews the key of the tomb. To conciliate Muslem susceptibility, he added a square vestibule with a mihrab to be used as a place of prayer for Muslims

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1915, says:

The present tomb, which, apparently, is not older than the 15th century, is built in the style of the small-domed buildings raised by Moslems in honor of their saints. It is a rough structure of four square walls, each about 23 ft. long and 20 ft. high; the dome rising 10 ft. higher is used by Mohammedans for prayer, while on Fridays the Jews make supplication before the empty tomb within.

So it appears that while Muslims prayed there on occasion, it was not a mosque. If it was it is doubtful that they would have allowed Jews to have the privileges they had on the site.

I emailed Nadav Shragai to clarify.

German FM Westerwelle - and the Crazy Water Park

From JPost:

Germany's foreign minister said during a rare visit to Hamas-ruled Gaza that the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians living there is unacceptable and must end.

Guido Westerwelle also said after Monday's tour of a UN school and a German-funded sewage treatment plant that the border closure is strengthening extremists at the expense of moderates.

Let's hold that thought while we read this article from Der Speigel:

All is quiet on this autumn morning at the Crazy Water Park, a couple of kilometers south of Gaza City. There are no children splashing around in the shallow kiddie pools, no men cheering as they shoot off the slides into the deep end of the pool. Wives and mothers are also missing from their usual spots under the umbrellas, where they normally sit, fully dressed, chatting and watching their children and husbands play in the water.

The Gaza Strip's only water park opened last spring but -- thanks to around 30 members of Hamas -- it was shut down in late September. One night at 3 a.m., these men appeared out of nowhere, tied up the park's 10 security guards and got to work with gas canisters and lighters.
The ensuing fire consumed the café and the building housing pool-related equipment. The stand where pool-goers could rent water pipes was a particular target. After a few incidents of modern-minded women openly smoking water pipes on the park's grounds, Hamas had issued the Crazy Water Park two warnings. When it happened a third time, an angered official from Hamas, the radical Islamist organization which controls the Gaza Strip, ordered more drastic measures to be taken. Not long later, the flames engulfing the water park's buildings could be seen from as far away as Gaza City.

The Crazy Water Park was expensive, exclusive and only meant for the elite -- which makes it all the more surprising that Hamas has now decided to target it as part of its modesty campaign. Until now, the Islamists had tended to suffer the harmless escapades of the upper class in silence.

Now, Araj says, those days are over. "The riding club next door had to close for three days," he explains, "because men and women sat together." Gaza Sky, a seafood restaurant right on the beach, and the aptly named Beach Hotel were also forced to close their doors for three days, he adds, for allowing female patrons to smoke water pipes.

He says that targeting of his water park comes due to the increased influence hard-liners have been able to gain for themselves within the government. "Unfortunately, it's the same as in any revolution," Araj says. "The extremists are pushing their way into leadership positions."

"Incidents like the fire at the water park have a big effect," says one Palestinian observer who asked not to have his name published. "They keep people anxious and scared, and they silence any criticism of Hamas."

As he sees it, the fact that the hard-liners are now targeting the previously untouchable upper class only strengthens its message of intimidation.

Now, let's return to Westerwelle's theory: "the border closure is strengthening extremists at the expense of moderates."

Who, exactly, are the moderates of Gaza, and how could they possibly gain strength?

Right now, Hamas is so comfortable with its iron grip on Gaza that there is literally no competition. Any group that shows the slightest political threat to Hamas, from both the left and the right, gets violently put down. Even today, pro-Fatah politicians are still getting arrested and threatened in Gaza.

Westerwelle is a fool. He still subscribes to the idea that treating fanatic Islamists nicely will somehow make them overflow with the milk of human kindness and cause them to offer all sorts of concessions.

If you want to argue that ordinary Gazans are being hurt by the closure, fine. If you want to argue that Gaza businessmen should not be punished because of the actions of their leaders, that is defensible. But to say that opening up more trade between Gaza and the world will somehow strengthen moderates in Gaza is the height of stupidity.

Westerwelle, and those clueless Westerners who subscribe to the same ideas, need to answer a simple question: have Gaza moderates been strengthened since Israel loosened the closure and since Egypt opened the Rafah border over the summer?

If the answer is "no" - and it clearly is - then maybe it is time to revisit this little bit of conventional wisdom.

(h/t Silke)

How did two Gazans get injured this morning?

Ma'an (Arabic) says that several men were gathering debris near the Sufa crossing in southern Gaza, and they came across some old Israeli ordnance which exploded, causing two of them to be injured.

But Felesteen, a Hamas newspaper in Gaza, says

Eyewitnesses reported that members of the resistance fired a mortar towards a number of Israeli military vehicles at the Sufa crossing east of the town of Rafah, but it fell in near a group of workers collecting [concrete] aggregate resulting in their injury.

It then quotes a Hamas medical official - who obviously wasn't there - claiming that it was an Israeli tank shell, not "resistance" fire, that injured the men.

Democracy, Jordanian style

From AP:

Jordanians lined up to cast ballots for a new parliament Tuesday in a vote that was dominated by anger at Israel over stalled peace talks and widespread frustration over an economic crisis in the U.S.-allied kingdom.

A boycott by the largest opposition group, the fundamentalist Islamic Action Front, made it likely that pro-government politicians and tribesmen with strong ties to the king - who has the final say on all matters - would sweep the vote.

That means that any criticism from the new parliament over King Abdullah's pro-Western policies or pressure from lawmakers for a tougher stance with Israel would likely only be cosmetic.

There is already one death:

Jordan's police spokesman says a shootout between supporters of two rival candidates contesting the country's parliamentary election has killed a 25-year-old man.

The spokesman says six others were wounded before police arrived at the scene in Imrea, a small town on the edge of the southwestern city of Kerak.

Ammon News mentions a number of incidents during the elections. In the place that the person was killed, there were shots fired in the air, fights between supporters of rival candidates, and cars smashed. Shots were fired in Mazar, as well as Madaba. Some people tried to vote multiple times. There was another skirmish with gunshots in Kufranja as one group tried to prevent another from voting. In Amman, a group attacked a polling station at a school and a brawl erupted outside another school. Tear gas was shot to disperse rioters. More riots in Qadisiyah as voters were preented from casting ballots by their opponents; rioters stoned police. A candidate's motorcade was attacked with sticks and rocks, and he suffered head injuries. There are also complaints that people who are now on Hajj could not vote as there are no absentee ballots.

And, in general, Jordanian officials are calling the polling "peaceful."

Video describes Silwan incident in detail

I don't know who made this video, but it is the best treatment I've seen on the stoning incident in Silwan a month ago.

Canadian PM Stephen Harper gets it

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks simple truths. It is a sad commentary that one cannot hear words like these more often.

YNet reports:

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday delivered a pro-Israel speech at a parliamentary conference which dealt with ways to fight anti-Semitism. Harper implied that his country did not secure a seat at the United Nations Security Council due to its failure to cooperate with an anti-Israel policy.

The Canadian prime minister stressed that while there is room for fair criticism against the Israeli government, Canada is obligated to come to the Jewish state's defense when it is attacked by others.

"And like any free country Israel subjects itself to such criticism, healthy, necessary, democratic debate," he said. "But when Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand."

Harper said Canada must oppose demonization, double standards and de-legitimization.

"Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because history shows us, and the ideology of the anti-Israel mob tell us all too well, that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are in the longer term a threat to all of us," he said.

"Whether it is at the United Nations or any other international forum, the easiest thing to do is simply to just get along and go along with this anti-Israel rhetoric, to pretend it is just about being even-handed, and to excuse oneself with the label of honest broker," Harper added.

The Canadian prime minister suggested that this was the reason his country lost the recent vote for a temporary Security Council seat, saying "I have the bruises to show for it."

Harper stated in his speech that "as long as I am prime minister… Canada will take that stand, whatever the cost."

In his speech, the Canadian prime minister warned that anti-Semitism was on the rise worldwide, including in universities in his own country.

He said the "evolving phenomenon" of anti-Semitism targets Jews by portraying Israel as "the source of injustice and conflict in the world, and uses perversely the language of human rights to do so."

"We must be relentless in exposing this new anti-Semitism for what it is," Harper concluded.

A large excerpt from his speech can be read here.

And here are his pro-Israel comments:

(h/t Israel Matzav)

Amnesty blocks Zionist from anti-Israel kangaroo court meeting

From TheJC's Jonathan Hoffman:

Last night was the introductory meeting for the Hate Israel Kangaroo Court that is laughingly called the "Russell Tribunal". It took place at Amnesty International, London. Speakers included Dr Ghada Karmi; Ken Loach; Paul Troop; Ewa Jasiewicz; and Frank Barat.

The "Russell Tribunal" is composed of known Israel haters and has effectively found Israel guilty before it has even started. No witness has been summoned to defend Israel.

How very telling that on turning up, I was barred from entry. The welcoming party included Krystian Benedict (Amnesty's Campaigns Director) and a security guard. When I protested that I was being censored, Benedict summoned four policemen in from outside.

Rather than try to deal with my on-point objections to the speakers’ comments, I was censored. Bertrand Russell would surely be turning in his grave.

Fortunately Richard Millett was admitted and will blog the Israel lynchmob event.

Totalitarian societies begin with curbing free speech. It seems that Amnesty's espousal of 'human rights' does not extend to the right of Jews to protest at antisemitism during Amnesty meetings.

Some morning quickies

NYT's Lede blog talks about the controversy over Alfred Grosser, anti-Israel Holocaust survivor, speaking at a Kristallnacht commemoration - where he plans to condemn Israel. (CORRECTION: He is German born but not a Holocaust survivor.)

If you want to see the first episode of Israel's Dancing With the Stars, with Pamela Anderson, you can easily waste 72 minutes of your life here. I skipped around until I heard her review someone's dancing, and she only spoke about the contestants' great hair. (Ynet slammed the program.) (h/t Joel)

The al-Isawiyya neighborhood in Jerusalem is quickly turning into a cesspool, where any non-Arab who dares enter gets stoned. We mentioned the Israelis who were lured there and almost lynched, and later an ambulance trying to save an Arab's life was stoned nearby as well. Today some Israeli car inspectors were stoned by hundreds of Arab schoolchildren.

Ha'aretz says that low-level Shin Bet officials met with Hamas and Islamic Jihad political leaders in the West Bank over coffee, and the PA is not amused. (The Islamic Jihad member present denies the story, saying that they only threatened to arrest him but he stood firm and the Shin Bet left with their tails between their legs.)

Israel Matzav goes into detail on who exactly was behind the hecklers who disrupted PM Netanyahu's speech in New Orleans.

Soccer Dad does what he has been doing for many years now - showing yet again that Thomas Friedman is a blowhard.

Masters thesis: Jews use Holocaust to justify their inherent racism!

An anti-Zionist Jew named Jennifer Peto, who is heavily involved in the "Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid" in Toronto, has written her masters thesis on the topic "The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education."

As one might be able to guess from the title, it is 112 pages of pure rubbish.

Here's her abstract:

This paper focuses on issues of Jewish identity, whiteness and victimhood within hegemonic Holocaust education. I argue that today, Jewish people of European descent enjoy white privilege and are among the most socio-economically advantaged groups in the West. Despite this privilege, the organized Jewish community makes claims about Jewish victimhood that are widely accepted within that community and within popular discourse in the West. I propose that these claims to victimhood are no longer based in a reality of oppression, but continue to be propagated because a victimized Jewish identity can produce certain effects that are beneficial to the organized Jewish community and the Israeli nation-state. I focus on two related Holocaust education projects – the March of the Living and the March of Remembrance and Hope – to show how Jewish victimhood is instrumentalized in ways that obscure Jewish privilege, deny Jewish racism and promote the interests of the Israeli nation-state.

She starts off this pseudo-scholarly paper with about six pages describing her own journey from proud Jewish Zionist to proud Jew-hating anti-Zionist.

The paper uses the term "Jewish racism" 21 times, using the phrase as a fact that is so obvious that it needs not be proven. Yes, she briefly touches on allegations of Jews involved in slavery, but for the most part she just assumes that her readers will accept the formulation as self-evident.

Peto specifically narrows the scope of the Jews she targets to be the ones who are most like her: Ashkenazic and North American. Her footnote 5 illuminates her bizarre way of thinking:

I have chosen to focus on North America partly because it is my context, but also because it can be argued that anti-Semitism is more systemic in Europe, particularly in France where there are more frequent violent attacks against Jewish people and institutions. That said, the level of discrimination faced by Jews in Europe is far less than the racism experienced by other minorities including Arabs, Muslims and Roma people.

In other words, her entire thesis - that Jews are using the Holocaust to pretend to be victims to justify their oppression of others - falls apart when she would have to acknowledge that there really is anti-semitism out there in the world, and the specter of the Holocaust is very real to a significant segment of the Jewish world. (Her viewpoint that Jews in Europe suffer from less discrimination than Muslims is just another example of sloppy wishful thinking substituting for real analysis.)

Peto finds no shortage of authors to rely on to support her thesis of Jewish racism, and she obviously doesn't bother to find anyone that argues - with the exception of uber-leftist Michael Lerner, who wrote a 1993 paper called "Jews Are Not White."

The idiocy continues, page after page. Guess why Israel is tolerant towards gays?

The Israeli nation-state, as part of its mission to present itself as a Western, liberal nation, has taken up gay rights as an issue.

See? Jews pretend to support equal rights in order to cover up Jewish racist crimes! It's all an act! In other words, Jews are racist. When they are not racist they are just play-acting liberalism in order to whitewash their racism. You can't argue with such logic, because every counterexample is dismissed as just part of the Great Jewish Cover-Up of Inbred Kike Racism.

She also helpfully explains to the readers why she decided to use pejorative terms like "Israeli apartheid" throughout the paper, not bothering to notice that the term itself is meant to anger and not to illuminate and has no place in any sort of real scholarship.

Which is, of course, the entire point: the paper is not even a distant afterimage of real scholarship. It is an exercise on the author justifying her own emotional hatred for Jews and Israel. Psychologists wouldn't have a field day with Peto, because her motivations are so blindlingly transparent.

The question remains, though: why would such a paper -one that has no intellectual rigor, suffused with self-hatred and naked bigotry - be accepted as a masters' thesis at the University of Toronto?

Hamas invites Ahmadinejad to Gaza

Firas Press quotes the Iranian FARS news agency as saying that Hamas minister Ahmed Yousef invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Gaza.

Yousef said, "We call on President Ahmadinejad to visit the Gaza Strip, and we are sure that such a visit would be of extreme importance."

Oh, to dream....

Available at the Elder of Ziyon store, for both kids and adults, in many colors and styles.

World's smallest marriage proposal

From YNet:

Many men spend weeks coming up with the most original way to propose marriage to their loved ones in order to ensure a positive response. For the most part, grand gestures are considered the safest bet, but Elad Dekel, 25, proved otherwise – the smallest wedding proposal in the world convinced his girlfriend to say "yes."

Last August, Dekel, a physics student at the Israel Institute of Technology, was sent to Dresden, Germany as part of an exchange program where he worked at a Nanotechnology research center developing miniature silicone chips.

Before leaving Israel, Dekel and his girlfriend, Chen Mendelowitz, agreed she would come visit him in Germany. He planned on using the opportunity to propose to her after seven years together.

During his time at the research center, Dekel came up with the idea of "printing" his proposal on a 1 sq. centimeter titanium and gold coated silicone chip. He spent days working out a way to carry out his vision.

Dekel eventually came up with the winning formula and printed a marriage proposal over 0.0001 centimeters in Hebrew and German. He also added a photo of himself and Chen, the first ever printed in the German lab.

The big moment arrived when Dekel invited Chen for a tour of the lab during her visit to Germany and showed her his work on the chips. "Elad put the chip under the microscope lens and I started looking to see what was there," Chen related. "I looked for quite a while, zooming in and out, magnifying the image and finally detected a weird shape. I magnified it and slowly began to realize it was a photo of the both of us. I magnified it more and saw there was something written, and then I realized it said 'Chen, will you marry me? Elad'.

"Even before I said anything I got a sudden hot flash all over my body, and when I could finally speak I just said 'sure'."

How does that compare with the world's smallest Koran?

Hamas upset over new Israeli towns - in Israel

Hamas' London-based newspaper, Palestine Info, has an Arabic article about an Israeli plan to build eleven new towns between Arad and Beer-sheva in the Negev. One of them would be an Arab community.

The language it uses is identical to articles about Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria - the Israelis are referred to as "usurpers" (Google translates as "rapists.") The Arab town is regarded as just a means to "steal" more "Arab land. " And, of course, it calls the towns "settlements."

Just in case you had the slightest thought that Palestinian Arabs were only against construction in the territories...

Invisible convoy arrives in Gaza

35 trucks of food and medicine arrived in Egypt's El Arish port today to be sent to Gaza.

They include some 500 tons of food and refrigerated trucks with medicine.

It was coordinated between the UAE's Red Crescent, Egypt, UNRWA and Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza.

No one is reporting this story.

The reason? Because the purpose of this aid convoy is - surprise! - aid. It is not meant to be a political statement, it is not meant to demonize Israel, it is not meant to support Hamas. The entire purpose is to provide aid to those who need it.

The contrast with George Galloway's Viva Palestina could not be starker. In that case, the aid was a mere prop to the real purpose of the trip. Both of them carried some 500 tons of aid - but one of them only cared about making noise.

While Viva Palestina said that they had "broken the blockade," they had done no such thing. Aid from Arab nations has been routinely coming to Gaza through Egypt. Israel has no problems with giving legitimate humanitarian aid for Gazans, except in the fevered imagination of Israel-haters more interested in photo-ops with terrorists than with the actual people of Gaza.

This was a real humanitarian aid convoy. The ships and trucks from the terror-supporters are gimmicks.

The absence of any Western media reporting this story shows that journalists are more than happy to play their part in the charade of "aid boats" and "aid convoys."

Iran tested advanced nuclear warhead design (updated x3)

UPDATE: Sorry, this article is from last year. Even so, as Zach points out in the comments...things are no better now.

Additional updates at the end.

From The Guardian:

The UN's nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian has learned.

The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as "breathtaking" and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.

The sophisticated technology, once mastered, allows for the production of smaller and simpler warheads than older models. It reduces the diameter of a warhead and makes it easier to put a nuclear warhead on a missile.

Documentation referring to experiments testing a two-point detonation design are part of the evidence of nuclear weaponisation gathered by the IAEA and presented to Iran for its response.

The dossier, titled "Possible Military Dimensions of Iran's Nuclear Program", is drawn in part from reports submitted to it by western intelligence agencies.

The agency has in the past treated such reports with scepticism, particularly after the Iraq war. But its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, has said the evidence of Iranian weaponisation "appears to have been derived from multiple sources over different periods of time, appears to be generally consistent, and is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed that it needs to be addressed by Iran".

Extracts from the dossier have been published previously, but it was not previously known that it included documentation on such an advanced warhead. "It is breathtaking that Iran could be working on this sort of material," said a European government adviser on nuclear issues.

James Acton, a British nuclear weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "It's remarkable that, before perfecting step one, they are going straight to step four or five ... To start with more sophisticated designs speaks of level of technical ambition that is surprising."

Iran has rejected most of the IAEA material on weaponisation as forgeries, but has admitted carrying out tests on multiple high-explosive detonations synchronised to within a microsecond. Tehran has told the agency that there is a civilian application for such tests, but has so far not provided any evidence for them.

Western weapons experts say there are no such civilian applications, but the use of co-ordinated detonations in nuclear warheads is well known. They compress the fissile core, or pit, of the warhead until it reaches critical mass.

Do you hear that silence?

That is the sound of Western governments leaping into action to stop what is very obviously Iran's relentless drive to build not only nuclear weapons but also their delivery systems. Which could, by the way, reach most of Europe.

But taking military action to stop the inevitable deployment of weapons that can kill millions would be immoral and wrong. Much better to use diplomacy. It's worked so well so far, after all.

(h/t Ari)

UPDATE: Raymond in DC, in the comments, adds:

"Two point implosion" implies a plutonium core, not one based on enriched uranium. This confirms a long-held suspicion of a two-track development project in Iran. While attention has focused on Natanz and those spinning centrifuges, work on the heavy water facility in Arak and the effort to extract plutonium from spent reactor fuel has not gotten the attention it deserved.

We should recall that the Syrian nuclear plant destroyed by Israel in 2007 was based on a North Korean design intended to produce plutonium. (It was reportedly funded by Iran.)

UPDATE 3: Grazi in the comments brings us three important links:

An interview with former IAEA inspector,

That same inspector's article about how Syria needs to be checked out more carefully, and

Joshua Pollack on Iranian/North Korean cooperation.