Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, November 26, 2010

Fact-checking Bibi and the NYT

The New York Times reports on Binyamin Netanyahu's reaction to the PA paper saying there is no Jewish connection to the Kotel.

The "paper of record" makes a couple of mistakes, but, unfortunately, so does Netanyahu.

The Western Wall is a remnant of the retaining wall of a plateau revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, the site where their ancient temples once stood. The plateau is also the third holiest site in Islam.

Actually, it is the third holiest place in Sunni Islam only. Shiites have many other shrines that they say are more important.

In Muslim tradition, the wall is the place where the Prophet Muhammad tethered his winged steed, Buraq, during his miraculous overnight journey from Mecca to Jerusalem in the seventh century.

If you look at 19th century sources, it appears that the spot that Muslims believed Muhammed tethered his flying horse was quite a bit to the north of the Kotel. From The survey of western Palestine: Jerusalem By Sir Charles Warren:

The "Bab al Nazir" is well to the north of the Kotel, as this map from the Aqsa.org.uk shows:

I believe that there are other Muslim traditions as to exactly where Muhammed was said to have tied his horse, but none of them included the Kotel until the Mufti of Jerusalem made that story up as part of his plan to drive the Jews out of Jerusalem.

Mr. Netanyahu, in a statement issued by his office, said the Western Wall “has been the Jewish people’s most sacred place for almost 2,000 years, since the destruction of the Second Temple.”

He is wrong; the most sacred place remains the Temple Mount. The holiness of the Kotel and the other remaining portions of the wall around the Temple Mount derive from the super-holiness of the Mount itself. To say that the Kotel is the most important spot today is like saying that moonlight is more important than sunlight. By saying this, Netanyahu is effectively abandoning Jewish tradition and claims to our holiest site, and the fact that the prime minister of the Jewish state can make such a statement is a very sad commentary on how far we have fallen - and a very big warning as to how committed he is to other Jewish holy sites.

The excitement for the 2010 Hasby Awards, for the best hasbara events of the year, is reaching a fever pitch!The entire free world is awaiting the live presentation of the winners on December 7th in New York City.

While the selection process for the official Hasbies is a closely guarded secret by the audit firm of EoZ and Associates, the People's Choice Hasbara Awards are all up to you.

In no particular order, here are the nominees. (I am not including those who nominated things I did; that will be a separate poll.)

1. The IDF releasing video of soldiers being attacked on the Mavi Marmara within hours of the event, causing most viewers to see that the "peace protesters" were hardly peaceful:

2. The Im Tirtzu organization on publicizing the recipients of New Israel Fund monies going towards anti-Israel testimony in the Goldstone Report

3. Gabriel Latner's speech at the Cambridge Union Society debates arguing "Why Israel is a Rogue State."

4.Latma's We Con the World:

5. HRW founder Robert L. Bernstein's speech on Human Rights in the Middle East.

6. David Horowitz asking a question from a Muslim student at UCSD and getting a chilling answer:

7. RabbiLIVE revealing Helen Thomas' anti-semitism and ending her career:

8. 16-year old Elad Daniel Pereg facing off, alone, against an angry anti-Israel mob in Los Angeles with an IDF shirt and Israeli flag:

9. Israeli tourists sing Hebrew songs to the consternation of protesters outside the Ahava store in London on Rosh Hashanah:

10. The IDF's instant field hospital in Haiti after the earthquake:

11. The Emergency Committee for Israel's TV campaigns against anti-Israel candidates, specifically Pennsylvania's Joe Sestak, who lost:

12. The IDF's soldiers rocking the casbah in Hebron:

13. Rupert Murdoch's pro-Israel speech at the ADL dinner.

14. Pilar Rahola's article, "The Anti-Israel Hysteria"

15. Canadian PM Stephen Harper's speech at an anti-semitism conference:

16. Paris Zionists' unique protest against the anti-Israel Gaza photo exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris:

Vote now!

They don't make martyrs like they used to

The Hamas media is mourning the loss of their latest member to be killed.

The Palestine Times headlines the article "In Jabalia - the Martyrdom of an al-Qassam Mujahid."

The English Al Qassam website spoke of the fallen fighter in glowing terms:

The Ezzeden Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, mourned on Thursday evening November 25th one of its heroes, the mujahed Bilal Maher Zaqout ,22, from Jabalia refugee camp.

...Ezzeden Al Qassam Brigades said in its military communiqué that the mujahed was martyred after a long bright path of jihad, hard work, struggle and sacrifice.

In addition, the Brigades reaffirmed the commitment and determination to continue the resistance against the belligerent occupation forces.

Finally, the Brigades prayed to Allah to accept the martyrdom of the mujahed and to grant his family patience and solace

And what heroic thing was he doing when he became a martyr? Here's how they described it in paragraph 2:

The Brigades announced in a military communiqué released on Thursday evening that the mujahed Bilal Maher Zaqout was martyred due to a live bullet fired by mistake while he was cleaning his own gun in Jabalia refugee camp north of the Gaza Strip.

Yes, this Hamas hero shot himself in the chest while cleaning his gun.

(h/t Samson)

Guess who Egyptians are blaming for Copt unrest?

From CNN:

Egyptian authorities have rounded up 156 people in connection with this week's deadly protests over plans to build a church near Cairo, the government announced Thursday.

Those arrested have been ordered held for 15 days while the investigation into Wednesday's clashes continues, Egypt's official Middle East News Agency reported.

Police battled about 150 demonstrators outside a government building in the Cairo suburb of Giza on Wednesday. Police turned to tear gas to break up the melee, while protesters responded with Molotov cocktails. The clashes left a Christian protester dead.

Tensions have been running high between Egypt's Muslim majority and minority Christians, who make up about 9 percent of the people. Copts, who are adherents of an Egyptian sect of Christianity, complain of discrimination, including the lack of freedom to build houses of worship. The government denies those accusations.

Dr. Mostafa El Feki is a high ranking member of Egypt's ruling party who had recently received the Mubarak Award, Egypt's highest honor, andis now a member of the Shoura Council. He is considered

Al Quds al Arabi quotes him as knowing exactly who was behind the Copt disturbances this week:

The Mossad.

As el-Feki says,

It is very clear that the fingers of foreign parties are playing havoc on the country and are exploiting the election season for the implementation of their plan to destabilize the security and stability in Egypt. Almost certainly the involvement of Mossad [can be seen] in those events, after the admission of the Israeli director of the responsibility for playing a pivotal role to turn the South Sudan and the African States against Egypt.

The only connection I've seen between the Mossad and Southern Sudan is that the Mossad admitted that they are on the ground there, training security forces.

But you know those Jews, always stirring up trouble against the neighbors they have peace agreements with.

Fascinating history of the movement to save Soviet Jewry

Yossi Klein Halevi has written a semi-autobiographical book review of "When They Come for Us We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry" by Gal Beckerman, at The New Republic.

His review may be almost as good as the book.

Here's the beginning:

By the standards of the 1960s, the founding demonstration of the Soviet Jewry movement was hardly notable. On May 1, 1964, a thousand students gathered across from the Soviet mission to the United Nations in Manhattan to protest a Soviet ban on baking matzo and other anti-Jewish measures. Compared to demonstrators for the far better known causes of the time, they were a tame lot. No one blocked traffic or scuffled with police. Instead, protesters marched in a circle so orderly that one reporter commented on how refreshingly responsible these young people were, which was damning praise for a movement aspiring to change history.

Yet that is precisely the process that was set in motion by the May Day demonstration. The struggle to free Soviet Jewry would become one of history’s most successful protest movements, a sustained quarter-century-long campaign that lost none of its fervor and encompassed ever-widening circles of participants. Though the movement failed to persuade the Soviet Union to permit the free baking of matzo, it went on to fulfill its most improbable goal: forcing open the Iron Curtain and restoring to the Jewish people several million Jews marked by the Kremlin for coerced assimilation. In the process, American Jewry discovered its political power and its spiritual vitality, as a once-timid community learned to become a vigorous advocate of Jewish interests. This was the pre-history of the élan that American Jewry acquired in the wake of the Six Day War a few years later.

The movement’s significance transcends its impact on Jewish history. In the mid-’70s, Congress adopted the JacksonVanik amendment linking trade credits for the Soviet Union to its Jewish emigration policy. By mobilizing Congress to override a reluctant White House, the movement helped to establish the principle that human rights supersede national sovereignty, that democracies are morally bound to intervene in the internal affairs of dictatorships. The Soviet Jewry movement in America was also a milestone in modern humanitarian politics.

And, according to Gal Beckerman’s superb and likely definitive narrative of the Soviet Jewry struggle, the movement deserves credit even for helping to hasten the fall of the Soviet Union. Deftly moving between the Soviet Union and the United States, the two main arenas of the struggle, Beckerman shows how Jewish activists on one side of the Iron Curtain emboldened Jewish activists on the other. The more risks Soviet Jews took in challenging their government, the more American Jews intensified their campaign, in turn further encouraging Soviet Jews, who initiated acts unprecedented for Soviet citizens, such as sit-ins at government offices. The “refuseniks,” as Jews denied exit visas were known, created the Soviet Union’s only mass dissident movement that spanned the USSR, and the vigorous support of Jews abroad provided a measure of immunity, ensuring that refuseniks would not become anonymous and therefore extinguishable targets. By weakening the capacity of the Soviet system to instill fear, the movement eroded the self-confidence of Soviet leaders. “Zionism is making us stupid,” Beckerman quotes Leonid Brezhnev complaining to his Politburo. In effect, the Kremlin was confronted with a bleak choice: either renew Stalinist-era repression or concede defeat. Soviet leaders tried to respond with a third, and more ambiguous, approach: allow some refuseniks to emigrate while jailing others and keeping still others in limbo. That process failed because every exit visa pried from the Kremlin only convinced activists to intensify the pressure.

Halevi was himself involved in the movement from the beginning, so he has some interesting insights on the subject.

The New Republic provides some bloggers and their readers with a special pass-through URL to go past TNR's paywall, so you can read the entire review here. (Just another benefit of reading EoZ!)

And if you want to buy the book, please use this link to support the blog.

Gaza rockets continue - with Gazans getting hurt

The latest bi-weekly GANSO report from Gaza, covering the period from October 31 to November 20, has some interesting statistics.

During that time period there were 36 mortars and 16 rockets that were intended to be shot to Israel. Of those 36 mortars, 5 of them fell short or exploded prematurely. Of the 16 rockets, 7 of them exploded before launch or landed in Gaza.

Those accidents resulted in the injury of 7 Gazans during those two weeks, and as far as I can tell, zero Israelis.

GANSO says that about 30% of rockets and mortars fired out of Gaza do not reach Israel. In this time period the percentage was 14% of the mortars and 44% of the rockets.

Another mortar fell short today.

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.