Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, November 25, 2010

A brief "Thanks"

Over the past weekend, I hit my two millionth pageview (according to Statcounter, Google seems to be counting some 50% more hits.)

I also just saw that I have some 566 subscribers of my RSS feed, according to Google.

I'm getting roughly 150 comments a day, and they are read some 2000-3000 times daily.

So for Thanksgiving I would like to thank you for reading my blog and joining the community. Thanks to those who link to my posts, especially those who translate them into other languages And thanks to those who send me links, which make things easier for me; sorry if I haven't acknowledged all of them.

This week I had a post about how Mahmoud Abbas complimented the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem this week, calling him "outstanding" and wanting his role in history to remain in the forefront of Palestinian Arab consciousness.

Commenter abal31 links to a French and English website with a large amount of material on the infamous Mufti and his involvement with the Nazis.

For example, this small video clip of the Mufti's meeting with Hitler:

And here's a telegram from Heinrich Himmler to the Mufti in 1943:

To the Grand Mufti: The National Socialist movement of Greater Germany has, since its inception, inscribed upon its flag the fight against the world Jewry. It has therefore followed with particular sympathy the struggle of freedom-loving Arabs, especially in Palestine, against Jewish interlopers. In the recognition of this enemy and of the common struggle against it lies the firm foundation of the natural alliance that exists between the National Socialist Greater Germany and the freedom-loving Muslims of the whole world. In this spirit I am sending you on the anniversary of the infamous Balfour declaration my hearty greetings and wishes for the successful pursuit of your struggle until the final victory.

He has lots more, including part of a documentary that details much more of the Mufti's activities for the Nazis. It is worth checking out.

And it is worthwhile to remember that Mahmoud Abbas praised this genocidal filth just this week.

...and all that (Israeli) jazz

From NPR: (music samples can be heard there)

For a country of some 7.5 million, Israel has a surprisingly large jazz footprint. More and more internationally acclaimed jazz musicians happen to be from the country.

Twenty-five years ago, the Israeli jazz scene was barely on the cultural map. But enough American musicians moved there, and enough foreign-trained Israelis moved back — and they started teaching. There's long been an infrastructure for classical music in Israel, and jazz latched onto that model. U.S. jazz schools have since established relationships with Israeli ones, owing in part to long-standing political relations.

The same reporter later blogged:

Yesterday, All Things Considered aired my conversation with host Guy Raz about Israeli jazz musicians. Or rather, jazz musicians from Israel — I haven't had the opportunity to scope out the Tel Aviv clubs for myself. But I did talk to a number of Israeli musicians — several of Arnie Lawrence's students among them — to get a sense of why it's boomed of late. So I wanted to expand on some of the ideas I only briefly raised yesterday.

Education is a big part of it: Americans or American-trained musicians moving/returning to Israel to teach. Israel's teachers have long produced talented classical musicians — think of Daniel Barenboim, Itzhak Perlman or Gil Shaham — so the infrastructure was there for widespread musical literacy.

Twenty-five or so years ago, the numbers for jazz seemed to hit a small but critical mass. The Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts, like many arts magnet schools, became known as a jazz incubator. The Rimon School for Jazz and Contemporary Music started up in 1985, and developed an affiliation with Berklee College of Music in Boston. The Hed College of Contemporary Music started, and is now connected to Oklahoma City University. And Arnie Lawrence would be proud to know that the New School announced a formal partnership last year with the jazz program at the Israel Conservatory of Music. (A whopping 10 percent of the New School's jazz student body is from Israel — a country whose entire population is less than Virginia's, or New Jersey's, or North Carolina's — according to a New School press release.)

Seemed an appropriate post on this most American of holidays.

(h/t Zvi)

An olive-harvest story you won't see on AP

In recent weeks there have been scores of stories in the mainstream media, and especially news-wire photos, showing Palestinian Arab farmers harvesting their olives. The implication is that these people are indigenous to the land, doing the exact same thing with the same trees that their ancestors did, for centuries. The reason that only Palestinian Arabs are shown harvesting olives and not, for example, Greeks is because the media wants to drive home the subtle message that any Jews that happen to live on the land are interlopers whose only purpose is to deprive Arabs of their land and livelihoods.

Recently, AP purposefully misrepresented an earlier Ha'aretz article in order to make one specific Jew, Erez Ben Sa'adon, appear to be a fanatic -and thieving -Jewish fanatic by quoting an anti-settler activist's accusation that he stole his olive grove. Ben Sa'adon replied that he has no reason to prove that he owns his land, as his land deed is the Bible. In fact, as Ha'aretz showed, no less a personage than the Arab mayor of the neighboring town vouched that Ben-Sa'adon owned the land that the was working - and that his nearby vineyard had been destroyed by Arab vandals.

So you cannot expect to have AP or the BBC or any of the other media outlets, who are wedded to the meme of evil, criminal, fanatic Jewish settlers who steal land, showing these Jews actually harvesting olives on the land that they legally own - and land that their forefathers indeed did harvest grapes and olives.

Which is why the world needs alternative news outlets like blogs.

This video shows Erez Ban-Sa'adon, as well as the olive oil production of the Meshek Achiyah company. Jews have some 8000 dunams of olive groves in Judea and Samaria. Unfortunately it is in Hebrew only.

h/t Yisrael Medad of My Right Word

Abbas represents jailed terrorist leader at his daughter's wedding

Palestine Press Agency reports that Mahmoud Abbas gave away Marwan Barghouti's daughter at a huge wedding ceremony in Ramallah.

The guests included a Who's Who of Fatah leadership, including Ahmed Qurei ("Abu Ala",) Tawfiq Tirawi, Mohammed Dahlan, Azzam al-Ahmad, Issa Qaraqe, as well as Arab member of the Knesset Ahmed Tibi.

Abbas told the audience that he was "honored to represent my brother Marwan Barghouti" in giving his daughter away.

Barghouti was a senior member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist groups responsible for many attacks against civilians on both sides of the Green Line.

Here are some of the terror attacks he oversaw:

Jun 12, 2001 - The murder of a Greek Orthodox monk on the road to Ma'ale Adumim.
Jan 17, 2002 - The shooting attack during a bat mitzva celebration at a banquet hall in Hadera. Six Israelis were killed in this attack, 26 were injured.
Jan 22, 2002 - The shooting spree on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem. Two Israelis were killed, 37 wounded.
Feb 25, 2002 - The shooting attack in the Jerusalem residential neighborhood of Neve Ya'acov. One Israeli policewoman was killed, 9 Israelis were wounded.
Feb 27, 2002 - The murder of an Israeli at a coffee factory in the Atarot industrial zone of Jerusalem.
Feb 27, 2002 - The suicide attack perpetrated by Daryan Abu Aysha at the Maccabim checkpoint in which two policeman were injured.
Mar 5, 2002 - The shooting spree at the Tel Aviv Seafood restaurant. Three Israelis were killed, 31 wounded.
Mar 8, 2002 - A suicide terrorist was killed in Daheat el Barid as he was on his way to carry out an attack in Jerusalem.
Mar 27, 2002 - The interception of an ambulance and the confiscation of an explosive belt which was being smuggled from Samaria into Barghouti's terrorist infrastructure in Ramallah.
Marwan Barghouti was also directly responsible for operating the terrorist cell of Raed Karmi in Tulkaram which carried out a series of deadly terrorist attacks.

Although Barghouti pretended to be only a political figure, the IDF gathered much evidence linking him to the attacks and to the terror infrastructure of Fatah.

Here is a 2001 letter requesting money to pay "fighting brethren" that Barghouti notated before handing it to Arafat (bottom signature is Barghouti's, left side is Arafat's handwritten approval)

But Mahmoud Abbas is a man of peace, so his praise and friendship for a convicted terrorist is not important at all. To mention it would just distract from his wondrous moderation that we hear so much about.

"Siege" news

Today, for what must be about the 30th time, Israel is shipping cars into Gaza.

Also cement and iron for UNRWA projects are going into Gaza today.

Also, on Sunday, Israel will allow the first of the season's exports of strawberries and carnations from Gaza to Europe. This year they are considering vegetable exports as well.

Isn't it weird that when Hamas makes an effort to stop rockets, Israel makes an effort to help Gazans? Somehow this cause and effect escapes the world's Middle East experts.

Al Azhar to start dialogue with Those Who Must Not Be Named (Zvi)

From JPost:

Scholars at the oldest Islamic university in the world issued a proclamation on Tuesday that lifted an ancient ban on dialogue with Jews, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The statement drafted by Sheikh Fawzi al-Zifzaf, chairman of the permanent committee for dialogue at Al- Azhar University in Cairo, was read during a gathering of senior faith and political leaders at Parliament in London.

“And the point of origin of this invitation is Islam itself [calling for] brotherhood and mutual understanding and the strengthening of bonds between Muslims and followers of the other religions, and the establishment of bridges of dialogue with scholarly institutions in Europe and America,” Zifzaf wrote.

The event was hosted by the Children of Abraham charity and Al-Azhar Institute for Dialogue with the Monotheistic Religions.

The Egyptian Sunni institute, founded in 970 CE, has had open channels of communication with Catholics and Anglicans since the 1990s; however, until now, it has had no direct talks with Jewish scholars.

While the proclamation did not mention Judaism by name, a spokesman for the grand mufti of the UK and alumnus of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Prof. Mohamed Elsharkawy, told the Post on Wednesday that its message was aimed at a Jewish audience.

“You’ve got to understand there are extreme sensitivities,” the spokesman said.

“I’m not at liberty to say how hard it was to draft the document. In the process, the people who have taken the document forward have done so at great risk and danger, and so they’ve done that very carefully. There already exists a dialogue with Christians, so anyone with two brain cells can add up to what is being said here.”

Zvi comments:
What's the point of making a declaration that dialog with Jews is (supposedly) acceptable when Al-Azhar is not even willing to name Jews in the declaration?

“You’ve got to understand there are extreme sensitivities,” the spokesman said.

Why do I need to understand that?

The only thing that I have got to understand from this statement is that they STILL can't bring themselves to admit that I and the rest of the Jews are full human beings, and that it is okay to talk to us as human beings.

We're not talking about actually TREATING us as human beings, of course - even a DIALOG with us is banned.

In the process, the people who have taken the document forward have done so at great risk and danger, and so they’ve done that very carefully.

With all due respect, that is ridiculous.

These guys have a significant effect on the beliefs of mainstream Sunnis. They have a much greater effect than most other opinion shapers. They can argue intelligently based on their (purported) expertise, and many members of their religion will accept their rulings. There is danger for newspaper reporters who say that dialog is important; there is danger for politicians; but very little for members of this particular group.

In addition, these same men have regularly inflamed hatred against me and mine (Jews in general). It is therefore up to them to take the risks required to BEGIN to undo the crippling hatred that they, themselves have sown and watered so assiduously.

“This is a landmark decision, and Al-Azhar deserves praise for it,” Schneier said.

Again, that's ridiculous.

Al-Azhar will deserve praise when it does the right thing and names Jews as people with whom it is okay to have a dialog. Until then, all I see is an attempt to turn an explicit ban on dialog into an implicit ban. In the absence of a formal termination of the ban, many imams and others will be concerned that any attempt at dialog will be retroactively interpreted as some sort of treason. "We never meant the ruling to apply to Jews!" Some loophole will invariably be found.

In the absence of a formal statement paving the way for dialog with Jews, spoken explicitly, in Arabic, in front of Arabs rather than in English, vaguely, in front of Englishmen, there will continue to be nothing.

In the absence of a ruling permitting dialog (just DIALOG!) with Jews, what exactly have the great sages of Al-Azhar actually done? Nothing but PR for naive and stupid Westerners.

UN "threatened" CBC reporter; Hezbollah uses hospital for comm HQ

Two articles in Naharnet follow up on the sensational CBC report implicating Hezbollah in the Hariri assassination.

One has an interview with the reporter, Neil MacDonald:

[T]he Canadian journalist said he tried to contact Abdul Majid Ghamloush, an alleged Hizbullah operative who Macdonald described in his report as a "minor electronics specialist who worked for Hizbullah."

Quoting "one former U.N. investigator," Macdonald said in his CBC report that Ghamloush had been tasked with "collecting and disposing" the mobile phones allegedly used by the hit squad that murdered Hariri.

"We knew that he had fled to Syria after the death of Major General Wissam Eid, maybe he was killed after that," Macdonald told Sada al-Balad.

The CBC reporter also noted that he tried to interview Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Druze leader Walid Jumblat, who allegedly refused to appear in the report.

Moreover, Macdonald said that he tried more than once to contact Col. Wissam al-Hasan, head of the police Intelligence Bureau, noting that he obtained his phone number from one of the U.N. investigation commission's employees.

Col. Hasan, however, refused to cooperate with the Canadian journalist.

The CBC report claims that Hasan's alibi in the Hariri assassination case was weak and that he had told another story entirely.

It said Hasan was "on the U.N. radar from the beginning, for two reasons: He quickly became one of the inquiry's main liaisons with the Internal Security Forces; plus he was in charge of Hariri's security at the time of the assassination."

The report depicts Hasan as a possible suspect in the case.

On the other hand, Macdonald reiterated that the United Nations had "threatened" him not to publish the report and to handover all U.N. documents in his possession.

Naharnet also reproduced one of the more damning pieces of the CBC piece, on Hezbollah's communications network:

An investigative report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) has revealed that Capt. Wissam Eid's discovery showed that "everything" in the assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri was connected to landlines inside Hizbullah's Great Prophet Hospital south of Beirut.

Eid's work would also lead to another discovery: Everything connected, however elliptically, to land lines inside Hizbullah's Great Prophet Hospital in South Beirut, a sector of the city entirely controlled by Hizbullah, CBC added.

It has long been said that the fundamentalist fighters operate a command centre in the hospital.

Eventually, telecom sleuths would identify another network of four so-called "pink phones" that had been communicating both with the hospital and, indirectly, with the other networks.

These phones turned out to be tremendously important. It turned out they had been issued by the Lebanese government itself and when the ministry of communications was queried about who they had been issued to, the answer came back in the form of a bland government record.

CBC has obtained a copy of this record provided to the commission. On it, someone has highlighted four entries in a long column of six-digit numbers. Beside the highlighted numbers, in Arabic, was the word "Hizbullah."

Finally, Eid was handed a clue from the best source possible: He was contacted by Hizbullah itself and told that some of the phones he was chasing were being used by Hizbullah agents conducting a counter-espionage operation against Israel's Mossad spy agency and that he needed to back off.

The warning could not have been more clear, CBC said.

Gabriel Latner running for Cambridge Union President (UPDATE)

Gabriel Latner, the Cambridge debater who is subject of my most popular post this year (over 9000 views so far,) is still in the news.

For one thing, he will be interning at UN Watch next year.

Beyond that, he is running for the presidency of the very union that had banned him.

Here are the details from Standpoint:

Gabriel Latner, a second year law student at Cambridge University now famous for his audacious speech at the Union last month, is running for Union President this week. Hustings take place on Thursday and the vote is on Friday.

Here's the back story.

The Union hosted the following debate last month: "this house believes Israel is a rogue state".

Latner spoke for the motion, arguing that Israel is a rogue state. He was joined by the hysterical Lauren Booth (famous only for being Tony Blair's sister-in-law), and the more impressive Mark McDonald, a barrister, and founder of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East.

His speech has become one of the most controversial to have been delivered in the chamber for some time. In a nutshell: Latner argued that Israel is a rogue state because it does not conform to regional standards.

By upholding human rights, maintaining an independent judiciary, and ensuring both legal and constitutional equality, Israel is a rogue by comparison to its neighbours.

...
The speech epitomised everything the Cambridge Union should stand for - a counter-intuitive, original, and clever argument. Latner deserves applause and recognition for that.

Instead, he was escorted off the premises minutes after the debate ended.

Earlier, before Latner started his speech he leaned over to Booth and whispered, "I am going to nail you to the f****** wall up there". For a clever guy, it's not the smartest thing he's ever done - but you have to admit it's funny as f***.

Booth complained vigorously about this and Latner was subsequently escorted off the premises by security, banned for life by the current President and then, on appeal, readmitted.

During that time, the issue has refused to go away. Latner's speech has gone just about everywhere, the debate itself was reported in the press, Laruen Booth howled about the injustice of it all to anyone who would listen, and several student societies wrote to the Union complaining about Latner.

Now he's running for the Union's Presidency.

His hilarious press release says:

GABRIEL LATNER @ The UNION, Round 2:

After the success of his Union debut, which critics are calling "brilliantly audacious", "pretentious", "zionist dog lies", and "so titillating it made Lauren Booth see God", Gabriel Latner is returning to he Union.

The appearance is part of an international press tour for the launch of his new book 'My Life in Mossad - The Confessions of a Petunia Arranger'.

No one knows for sure what Latner intends to say at the Union, but sources close to the reclusive author have indicated that the address is "so riveting it will have the audience glued, nay, nailed to their seats". (See for yourself, Thursday @ 7:00)

Fans may recall that Latner was escorted out of the Union by security personnel after his last address, out of concern for his safety. A deranged debater was so moved by his speech, that she proceeded to re-enact Glenn Close's "rabbit scene" from Fatal Attraction. Commenting on the experience Latner said "It was all a little much. I mean, it was just a speech. Yes it was brilliant. Yes it made Dr King's 'I have a Dream' look like a speech by Sarah Palin. And yes, I am incredibly dashing in a tuxedo. But for a 50 year old woman to throw herself at me like that was just wildly inappropriate. That kind of thing just shouldn't be permitted in polite society. Frankly, I'm a little concerned about the general state of the Union's morals. Did you know that they have an entire wall devoted to sexual intercourse?"

His manifesto:

Why Vote for me? (BESIDES A CHEAPER BAR)

1. After certain recent events I've probably read the Union Constitution/Rules more times than any living member. Might come in handy to have a President who knows the rules.

2. I will actively seek members' input and suggestions, specifically with regards to motions. We need to get rid of VAGUE and REPETITIVE debate topics and start having debates on RELEVANT ISSUES. Ms Hill wants to let you help decide the emergency debate motions. I want to have your help choosing MAIN DEBATE TOPICS.

3. CHANGE IS GOOD, BUT IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE THE ESTABLISHMENT, YOU CAN'T BE PART OF IT. I WON'T INVITE D-LIST CELEBRITIES TO THE UNION. They add nothing, and make us look bad. And they're usually horrible debaters.

4. IT WILL BE REALLY, REALLY FUNNY. Think about it. What could be more annoying to the cadre of self-important, arrogant toffs who feel that they're some how entitled to run the Union, than electing someone who won't listen to a word they say? Plus, irony is funny.

5. I'M OFFERING CHANGE. The other candidates are long-time Union personnel. I'm not. I'll be honest, they have more experience than me, but that shouldn't be what decides your vote for two reasons:

a. Any NECESSARY experience I can pick in my term as President-Elect.

b. They have experience- running the Union the wrong way. Whichever of the other candidates you vote for, you can be fairly sure you'll get another term of the SAME MEDIOCRE DEBATES. I'm offering you a legitimate alternative.

Latner has also done an interview with The Tab - one of the student rags in Cambridge - where he tells them, "I'm a fan of irony". He goes on:

The Union is like Cripps Court. People on the inside think everything's fine. But everyone on the outside can tell those buildings are ugly as sin.

Meanwhile, Lauren Booth is still huffing and puffing about Latner, saying his decision to stand for election is

an insult to the members of the debating union whose own rules he mocked and clearly has no respect for.

I would also like to ask [the President] James Counsell why he has re-instated this creature when his ban was supposed to stand unless I received an apology for his rude, drunken behaviour.

Latner has apologised - but Booth refused to accept it. That attitude has characterised Booth's conduct throughout this whole affair. She has tried to slam Latner at every possible opportunity since he obliterated her shrieking pleadings in the Union. Whipping up sentiments against Latner in Cambridge was bad enough - but I also suspect she was also behind some of the stories which appeared in the press about it too.

The irony - of which Latner is no doubt all too aware - is that all this publicity might help him win on Friday. I hope it does.

Vote Gabriel Latner!

UPDATE:

For speaking to the press, a violation of the Union’s election rules, Latner has been fined 20% of his vote!

(h/t Stan)

UPDATE: The appeals panel at the Cambridge Union Society has penalized Latner 40% of his votes for the double infraction of talking to the press and then posting the interviews on his Facebook page. (via email from Latner)

We find that the communications made by Mr Latner to The Cambridge Tab did make explicit reference to the election in question, and attempted to persuade others to act in a way conducive to the acquisition of more votes for himself. Mr Latner was therefore engaging in campaigning making use of the world-wide-web.

The Returning Officers imposed a penalty under Chapter T, 14(a)(ii), docking of a percentage of a candidate‟s votes. Commission of a Category 3 Electoral Malpractice requires a minimum penalty of the docking of 5% of the candidate‟s votes. Given the severity and foreseeability of the consequences of Mr Latner‟s malpractice, but after mitigating factors were taken into account, the penalty was fixed at 20% of Mr Latner‟s first preference votes.

The Appeal Panel determine that Mr Latner‟s malpractice has caused a gross distortion to the fairness in the election; Mr Latner ought reasonably to have foreseen the results of his malpractice, and the severity of the offence is therefore very significant, despite any mitigating circumstances such as Mr Latner‟s admission of his offence.

Although Mr Latner made an admission of his malpractice to the Returning Officers, he has reproduced the interview on his facebook campaigning page under the heading “Tab Interview”; he has therefore not attempted to reduce publicity resulting from The Cambridge Tab article despite the decision of the Returning Officers. Considering the severity of Mr Latner‟s offence, the reasonable foreseeability of its impact, and the damage that it has caused to the fairness of this election, the Appeal Panel hereby alter the decision of the Returning Officers as follows:
Mr Latner is found to have committed a Category 3 electoral malpractice, under Chapter T (6) (g) and (i), and the penalty imposed is the docking of 40% of Mr Latner’s first preference votes.

BBC notices the PA jailing an atheist

From the BBC:

One of Mr Hasayin's postings was called Why I left Islam. He goes on to strongly criticise the religion for not allowing free-thinking and also mocks and insults the Prophet.

Some of his essays posted on a website called The Light of the Mind are detailed and clearly written by someone with a strong academic background. He also identified himself as a Proud Atheist.

As to exactly why Mr Hasayin has been arrested, the Palestinian Authority is not saying.

A spokesman for the Palestinian security services, Gen Adnan Damiri, said he could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

"Insulting religion is a crime under Palestinian law," says Naser al-Rais, a lawyer with the Al Haq human rights organisation based in Ramallah.

Asked to comment on the case, Mr Rais said: "I respect Mr Hasayin's right to have these beliefs but he also has to respect the law, there are limits to freedom speech."

Mr Rais says Mr Hasayin could face a prison term of between three months and three years.

Nice to see that the BBC is catching up to things I wrote about two and a half weeks ago, that the AP noticed a few days later, and the LA Times mentioned a few days after that.

In case you get turned on by the alluring eyes of a Burqa'd woman...

From the French version of Slate, a photo of a woman at the Hajj.

Maybe she is taking this recent fatwa seriously....

(h/t Silke)

The IDF's Bedouin Desert Reconnaissance Battalion

From the IDF website:

The moonless desert night is cool and the stars are twinkling above. A grayish cigarette ash falls on the golden sand next to a soldier’s red boots. In a few moments, the quiet will cease and the true nature of the surroundings will appear. The vapor of sweet tea spreading in the tents will give way to clouds of dust as the soldiers' march towards the target destination will begin. Among the briefings delivered in Hebrew, a few words in Arabic are thrown in here and there; but this does not represent the enemy because Arabic is the mother tongue of most of the men dressed in uniform.

Soldiers from the Bedouin Desert Reconnaissance Battalion raid the abandoned communication facility simulating a weaponry warehouse in Gaza. If any infantry battalion knows how to do this, it is this battalion: its soldiers know the area to perfection, every fold and stone on its ground. “The battalion knows the line, its fighters understand the field and know how to survive in it. They are excellent fieldsmen,” notes the Battalion Commander, Meir Almalam. In fact, they are trackers without being trackers.

The battalion, which took an active part in all major conflicts in the Gaza Strip, was founded in 1987 and is entirely composed of volunteers, mostly Bedouins and some non-Bedouin Arab-Israelis. In recent years, a considerable increase in the enlistment to the Battalion has been recorded, and for good reason: the battalion explains that for the Bedouin community’s members, it represents a ticket to the very heart of the Israeli society, and also a solution to economic distress.

The battalion provides its soldiers with a warm home, a livelihood, a possibility for extended academic opportunities and the camaraderie of fellow company soldiers. “They are doing something altruistic. They are volunteers and do a great job, and invest themselves”, Almalam, the Battalion Commander says. “They show tremendous motivation to succeed and cope through their actions. At the end of the day, it is a great battalion”. Company Commander Capt. Yussef Suwad adds that “We know our job, we know ourselves.”

...Near the tent encampment sits Corporal Mamdouh Dahir. He is smoking a cigarette and the moment he opens his mouth I am surprised by his accent. Mamdouh is a Bedouin Arab-Muslim, but unlike the rest of the battalion’s soldiers, he grew up among Jews his whole life and at one time did not even know Arabic fluently. He did not join the Desert Reconnaissance Battalion in order to be integrated into the Israeli society, but rather the opposite: “I wanted to join the Givati or Golani Brigade like the rest of my classmates; I was dying to get in just like them. Because of my ethnic origin, I passed by the offices of the Bedouin Desert Reconnaissance Battalion during recruitment where they briefed me and I was very impressed. I decided it was an opportunity for me to learn a bit about my religion and learn how to speak Arabic. At first, people here thought I was showing off with my accent in Hebrew and then they realized that this is what I know.”

Today, Mamdouh talks about his unit to his friends at home: “I explain to them that we are infantry in everything we do and also that we deal with the most challenging missions. I tell them about the experience and growth soldiers gain in the Battalion and the way in which the Battalion improves the abilities of the Bedouin community within society”. He surprisingly declares: “I am a Zionist” and clarifies that, “All my life, I felt part of the Jewish society, except for the religious part. Therefore the definition of Israel and its army doesn’t bother me as long as I am granted my freedom of religion. I believe that the Jews deserve a state and that they went through very difficult events. When I am in the army I don’t fight against Muslims, I fight against bad people who do not care about Muslims, innocent children or civilians. The Palestinians are suffering from extremists no less than we are.”

Deputy admits possibility Hezbollah murdered Hariri

YNet reports:

A Hezbollah parliament member, Walid Sukkarieh, made an unusual statement Wednesday and said that "even if Hezbollah murdered Rafik Hariri, we have no interest in destroying Lebanon," the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat reported.

Here's the original Asharq al-Awsat story - which is its top headline at the moment. He gave the statement after the release of the sensational CBC documentary on Hariri's assassination, which has been covered extensively in the Arabic press.

(h/t Joel)

PA has literally wiped Israel off the map

Palestinian Media Watch has put together a large list of maps used in PA schoolbooks, by PA institutions, and by the PA government itself that consistently erase Israel.

Just in case you had any doubts as to their peaceful intentions.

(h/t Joel)

A Muslim response to BBC Panorama

One response to the BBC Panorama program called "British Schools, Islamic Rules" came from the Islamic Education and Research Academy, which is "a global dawah organisation committed to presenting Islam to wider society."

They were not happy with the BBC's portrayal of the schools as teaching anti-semitism and homophobia.

But their response does not contradict the program at all. They just said that it needs to be put in proper context:

Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, iERA’s media representative said, “The attack on mainstream Islamic speakers because they hold established theological views is making the job of community cohesion difficult, as is the constant misconstruing or lack of context with regards to their statements. The programme-makers would have been better served to look deeply into the Islamic scholarly tradition and its historical impact, and they would have found a beautiful model of community cohesion. For example it is a well known historical fact that Islam and Muslims for centuries have been offering protection to the Jewish community.

That "beautiful model of cohesion" is that the despised Jews can be "protected" as long as they meekly accept their inferior status and pay the jizya tax to their Muslim overlords. But that is apparently in no way incompatible with schoolbooks that ask Muslim children to detail all the "reprehensible" characteristics of Jews, which seems to be an established theological view.

At least iERA didn't deny it.

Actual equal rights of Jews and Muslims living in the same society? That's crazy talk!

And don't even get the Muslims started on Hindus...

(h./t Orna)