Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, December 19, 2010

IDF sonic booms make crocodiles want to mate

Sonic booms created by Israeli warplanes speeding across the sky are having the unintended consequence of launching hibernating crocodiles into mating mode, the daily Maariv reported Sunday.

According to the newspaper, each time warplanes break the sound barrier over a crocodile breeding farm in the Golan Heights, the randy reptiles begin emitting their ritual mating cry.

"The powerful squealing noises, reminiscent of the sound of a car braking, can be heard from hundreds of meters around," David Golan, head of crocodile breeding at the Hamat Gader park, told Maariv.

The calls appeared to be a response to the sonic booms, which seemed to convince the crocodiles that other males had begun making mating signals, the newspaper said.

There are around 100 crocodiles at the park, which is underneath airspace used by the Israeli air force for training runs.

A population boom is not expected, however, because the male crocs are all bark and no bite.

Despite issuing their signature mating calls when the planes break the sound barrier, there has been no uptick in actual breeding -- and the "official" mating season does not begin until the summer.

Um.....okay.

Israeli deal with Cyprus to demarcate maritime borders

From Cyprus Mail:

CYPRUS and Israel yesterday signed a bilateral agreement defining their sea boundaries, which paves the way for hydrocarbon exploration in the area between the two countries.

The agreement, signed in Nicosia, by Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou and Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau, delimits the exclusive economic zone between the two countries.

“This agreement reflects the close relationship and ongoing cooperation between Israel and Cyprus,” an Israeli embassy statement said.

Kyprianou and Landau did not make any statements and did not take any questions.

The agreement will require ratification by the parliaments of the two countries’.

Cyprus, which says there are encouraging signs of hydrocarbon reserves in its waters, held a first licensing round in 2007, prompting a fierce reaction from Turkey.

Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots claim that Cyprus does not have the right to exploit the island’s natural resources before the political problem is resolved.

Texas-based Noble Energy has exploration rights for hydrocarbons in a Cypriot offshore field, and in an adjacent one on the Israeli side of the sea boundary.

"This agreement essentially provides them (Noble) with a legal safety net, that their rights are legally enshrined," a diplomatic source told Reuters.

Noble was given exploration rights for one of 11 Cypriot plots up for grabs in 2008, about 65 km away from Israel's Tamar prospect, the world's biggest gas find in 2009.

“In light of the recent discovery of a wealth of natural resources in the Mediterranean Sea, the delimitation of Israel's borders will play an important role in securing Israel's vital economic interests, by providing certainty to investors and offering clarity to Israel's neighbours as to the precise location of Israel's maritime borders and its right to natural resources at sea,” the embassy statement said.

Cyprus has also signed similar bilateral agreements with Egypt. One is also pending ratification by Lebanon.

Zvi comments:

What's the difference between the PA and Cyprus? Why does the Israel-Cyprus agreement get delineated so easily, while the so-called "peace process" continues to grind on?

The Cypriots are pursuing self-interest - not genocide. They want a slice of the pie; they are not out to destroy Israel.

It's that simple.

UPDATE on Palestinian Media Watch suspension from YouTube

More details on this story from Itamar Marcus of PMW:

YouTube closed PMW's main account - PALWATCH - for "violating YouTube terms of use" by propagating hate speech and they specified the videos listed below:
1. "Hamas TV teaches kids to kill Jews" formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwN2M6ZIIRU
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 10/02/2009.

2. "Jews are a virus like Aids" formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYaGl3KjPUw
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 01/18/2010.

3. "Farewell video before suicide attack of Hamas suicide bomber Adham Ahmad Hujyla Abu Jandal" formerly athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYdTudQhWM4
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 06/10/2010.

4. "Hamas suicide farewell video: Jews monkeys and pigs; Maidens reward for killing Jews" formerly athttp ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryc7RqXlVdE
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 08/14/2010.

5. "PA cleric: Kill Jews, Allah will make Muslims masters over Jews" formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjuDTO8fgqM
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 12/12/2010.
Please see http://www.youtube.com/t/terms and http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines

6. "Hamas suicide terrorist farewell video: Palestinians drink the blood of Jews" formerly athttp ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSftYIGH6-w
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 12/15/2010.

The claim is that our videos, which expose the hate speech propagated by the Palestinian leadership and controlled media, themselves represent hate speech.
YouTube stated that the account was henceforth terminated "due to repeated or severe violations of our Terms of Use".
Since 2009 they have been deleting specified videos - those mentioned above - but now "terminated" the entire account due to no 6 above:

The main PMW You Tube account called : palwatch was "terminated".
The older account pmwvideos from a few years ago is functioning.

I emailed him the information posted here by StabelHand on how to best contact YouTube to complain:

@YouTube & @hunterwalk on Twitter

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=2a20b0a0786950b4&hl=en

- Official YouTube blog: http://www.youtube.com/blog

- Twitter: http://twitter.com/youtube

- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/youtube

- Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/YouTube

- Creator's Corner: http://www.youtube.com/creatorscorner

- News, politics & activism: http://www.citizentube.com/

Guys, start writing! And if you have blogs, start publicizing! This is really outrageous. The irony that YouTube allows thousands of Jihadi videos but suspends a whistleblowing group from publicizing them is way to thick. And, as was pointed out, much of PMW's content - including one that is listed above by YT - is from PA TV, which is funded by the EU!

Hamas slams Holocaust education

From YNet:

Hamas condemned on Saturday the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees for its intention to take excelling Gazan students on a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.

The terror group called the plan "suspicious", and demanded that the initiative be dropped. It also called on the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to "take a national stand for halting the moral corruption of superior Palestinian youth".

"The tours on human rights which UNRWA is organizing abroad, especially in New York, include visits to the Holocaust Museum and the site on which the twin towers stood," says a statement issued by Hamas.

"UNRWA clerks have offered explanations of the Holocaust, and expressed in them empathy for the
Jewish people for what it underwent. UNRWA must focus on materials regarding the rights of the Palestinian refugees without dealing with persecution in other areas of the world," the statement adds.

"The memory of the children of Gaza cannot withstand the suffering of all of the persecuted people around the world. The suffering caused by the Jewish occupiers is enough. Besides, the United States has no claim to human rights, as it violates them every day around the world and in its own territory."

YNet is actually underplaying what Hamas said. The Hamas-oriented newspaper Palestine Times quotes Palestinian Minister of Culture Dr. M. Osama Abdel Halim al-Issawi as saying that "such visits are a travesty of reality and try to brainwash the minds of the best Palestinian students, and they come within the framework of the invasion of intellectual and cultural exposeure to Palestinian society, culture, and nationalism."

Sounds like Hamas is afraid what would happen when their kids learn that their lives - with access to water parks, museums, restaurants, and all sorts of consumer goods - are not nearly as bad as they claim they are.

(h/t Emet)

"The Present State of the Jews": Muslim anti-semitism in 1676

I just found this gem in Google Books: "The Present State of the Jews," by Lancelot Addison, written in 1676:

He starts off with a description of how the Jews live in the Barbary States:

When I looked into the great number of Jews in Barbary, and saw how they were lorded over by the imperious and haughty Moor, I could not but resent their Condition, and wish their Deliverance from that direful imprecation, His Blood be upon us and our Children. One effect whereof may be seen in their present Condition under the Moresco Government, which is no other than a better sort of Slavery. For even in those places where they have permission to inhabit, they are not only Tributary, but upon every small disgust, in danger of Ejectment. Insomuch that they cannot promise to themselves either any durable Settlement or Security. Indeed their calmest state is sufficiently stormy, and when they seem to enjoy the greatest peace, they are vilely Hector'd by the Moors, against whom they dare.not move a finger, or wag a tongue in their own defence and vindication , but with a Stoical Patience support all the Injuries and Contumelies to which they are dayly exposed. For in the midst of the greatest abuses, you shall never see a Jew with an angry countenance, or appearing concerned, which cannot be imputed to any Heroick Temper in this People, but rather to their customary suffering, being born and Educated in this kind of Slavery. By reason whereof, they were never acquainted wich the Sentiments of an ingenuous and manly Usage. It is very common with the Morisco-Boys to rally together, and by way of pastime and divertisement, to beat the Jewish Children: which later, though they should far exceed the former in numbers and age, yet dare not give them the least resistance or opposition.

Addison is hardly philosemitic, as he describes the Jews harshly for not accepting Christianity. He claims that their methods of defending their religion in disputations forced upon them by Christians is flawed and that the Rabbinic tradition has skewed their understanding of the Bible.

He then goes into detail on Maimonides' Thirteen Principles of Faith, viewing it as not much more than an attempt to impugn Christianity. This is followed by a lengthy, and relatively comprehensive, look at Jewish customs and laws.

The author then concludes with practical advice on how to convert Jews to Christianity.

Nothing's Changed: The Video

Last year I posted a fantastic Swiss cartoon from 1956 that described Israel's relations with its neighbors perfectly.

I just made it into a video:

URGENT: Write to YouTube to reinstate Palestinian Media Watch channel

I received this email from Itamar Marcus, director of the essential site Palestinian Media Watch:

For years there have been PA backers trying to get You Tube to close down the PMW video account by complaining that we are involved in hate speech. Now they succeeded. They complained to the administrators about a farewell video of a suicide terrorist from a few years ago who boasted he would drink the blood of Jews. You Tube sent us notice that this video is "violation of terms" by promoting hate speech and closed our entire account. Most of the hundreds of videos on our web site are not running.

PMW has been excellent at revealing the truth about incitement in the Palestinian Arab media, thoroughly documenting literally hundreds of examples of hate broadcasts and publication in recent years.

It is not easy to find a good email address for YouTube, but I think that the best way to contact them might be "service@youtube.com". You can also try some of their on-line contact information.

Please write to them and let them know how important this resource has been to you and asking that they should reinstate it. Pro-terrorist cyber-bullies should not be able to censor valuable educational resources like PMW.

Cairo Film Festival excluded Israeli films

Last week Egypt hosted the Cairo International Film Festival, and a smattering of Hollywood stars attended like Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche.

Were they aware that the festival was engaging in blacklisting?

From Al Masry al-Youm:

Organizer of the Cairo International Film Festival, Ezzat Abu Auf has said that he will not allow Israel to participate.

"I will not allow Israel to intrude into the festival even if I have to sleep on the doorstep to keep them out," Abu Auf told reporters on Thursday evening,

In Arabic, he said it a little stronger: "I will not allow this to happen [any Israeli films at the festival] as long as I live."

It is a shame that this was not publicized in the English-language media before the festival. It would have been interesting to ask the stars whether they felt it was appropriate for them to support an event where Israelis are banned.

Israel outsourcing computer work to Palestinian Arabs

From AP:

Within the pastel walls of a modest suburban office, Israeli high-tech workers have accomplished a feat that still eludes their political leaders: They have created a partnership with the Palestinians.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks may be stalled, but that hasn't stopped a small but steady trickle of Israeli technology companies from seeking to work with people on the other side of the decades-old conflict.

Israeli CEOs say it's their way of bringing a little bit of peace to their troubled corner of the world. But the real reason they're hiring Palestinians, they acknowledge, is because it simply makes good business sense.

"The cultural gap is much smaller than we would think," said Gai Anbar, chief executive of Comply, an Israeli start-up in this central Israeli town that develops software for global pharmaceutical companies like Merck and Teva.

At a previous job, he worked with engineers in India and eastern Europe, but found communication difficult. So in 2007, when he was looking to outsource work at his new start-up, he turned to Palestinian engineers. He said they speak like Israelis do -- they are direct and uninhibited. Today, Comply employs four Palestinians.

Palestinian engineers have also warmed up to the idea. "I doubt you would find a company who says, 'I am closed for business'" to Israelis, said Ala Alaeddin, chairman of the Palestinian Information Technology Association.

So when is the BDS movement going to protest this?

Erekat declares US Congress "an obstacle to peace"

From Palestine News Network:

Chief Palestinian Negotiator, Dr. Saeb Erakat, stated on Friday that he “deeply regrets” the resolution passed by the United States House of Representatives opposing international efforts at resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“We have devoted ourselves to negotiations for nearly two decades and today we are trapped in a framework that thus far has not yet lifted the occupation. Unlike the Israeli government, which is comfortable with the status quo of occupation and continued colonization, the Palestinian people must seek their freedom through any peaceful channel available to us.” Erakat said in a press statement today.

Just as a reminder, no less a leader than Mahmoud Abbas said last year "in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life."

“The U.S. Congress has placed one more obstacle towards achieving peace between Palestine and Israel....Israel has done nothing but sabotage the efforts of the Obama administration to restart meaningful negotiations by refusing to freeze settlement expansion and negotiate based on clear terms of reference. Through the passage of this resolution, the US Congress is contradicting the policy of the American government to create a Palestinian state by hindering the ability of the Palestinians to navigate around the Israeli government’s obstructionist policies."

Just as another reminder, the PA refused to negotiate during the last building freeze until the very end, under pressure from the US. And the demand for a settlement freeze as a precondition to negotiations is a brand new tactic that did not exist before the PA perceived a White House that would pressure Israel for them.

So who is adhering to obstructionist policies?

The real obstacles to peace (Moshe Ya'alon)

From Foreign Policy, by MK Moshe Ya'alon:

The Middle East peace process is once again stalled, while Palestinian leaders sadly continue to propagate the myth that Israeli construction impedes progress. Only last Friday, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said in Washington that "the Israeli government had a choice between settlements and peace, and they chose settlements."

Unfortunately, what stands between the Palestinians and eventual statehood is their insincerity when it comes to real peace. Israel has repeatedly proposed the independence that the Palestinians ostensibly desire. But instead of concluding a deal with Israel, they have demonstrated a total unwillingness to compromise, often favoring terrorism, as witnessed in the barrage of terrorist attacks that followed the Camp David negotiations of 2000. Is it any wonder Israelis find it ever more difficult to trust the Palestinians?

If there is to be a stable and lasting peace, Israel's recognition of the Palestinians' right to self-determination -- which successive Israeli governments have affirmed -- cannot go unreciprocated. The Jewish people are no less entitled to a state in their homeland, the land of Israel, or to their right to defend it.

The fundamental problem is that the Palestinians continue to reject these inherent rights of the Jewish people. That's indeed why we do not yet have two states for two peoples: The Palestinians remain steadfast in their refusal to accept that there even exists a Jewish nation that lays legitimate claim to its land. They reject the entire premise of a state for the Jewish people -- not only beyond the pre-1967 lines of the state of Israel, but even within its original 1948 boundaries. This, of course, explains why the Palestinians did not pursue independence prior to 1967, when Israel was within the 1949 Armistice lines.

Read the whole thing.

(h/t Silke)

Latest Latma (12/17/10)

I liked this one:

What "peace" would look like in a two-state scenario

From Ma'an:

Shortly before midnight on Friday morning residents of the Salfit-district village of Kifl Haris reported dozens of Israeli military vehicles and bus-loads of what were described by locals as "settlers" entering the area.

Locals estimated some 3,000 "settlers" - religious Jews, many from settlements in the occupied West Bank - entered the area as protecting troops set up checkpoints and barricades around a small tomb in the village.

Locals say the tomb belongs to a sheikh from the village, while religious Jews visiting the site say it is the final resting place of Joshua ben Nun, leader of early Jewish tribes.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said there were 800 visitors accompanied by Israeli soldiers. The group stayed in the area from midnight to 5 a.m.

According to Israeli news site Ynet, the visitors found the tomb "desecrated" by Arabic graffiti with slogans like "we are the defenders of the national project" and "conciliation, speak to you enemy through bullets."

Similarly, when Jews want to visit Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus), they are forced to also come in the middle of the night, limited to once a month, in armored buses that get stoned by local residents.

If a two-state "solution" should ever materialize, this is what "free access to religious shrines" would look like. The very best scenario that the Palestinian Arab leaders would allow would be that Jews visiting the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem would also come once a month or so, in the dead of night, to visit their holy places. (If it was up to the PA, this is how they would let Jews visit the Kotel/Western Wall as well. And, of course, Jews would never be allowed to the Temple Mount.)

It would actually be worse, because the IDF would not be able to defend Jews wanting to visit their shrines in "Palestine," so the Jews would be at the mercy of the Palestinian Arab police's whims as far as when or if they could ever visit.

This is what the world is demanding for "peace" - ripping out all Jewish access to Jewish heritage and historic sites. Soothing words about how a peace agreement would allow free access to religious shrines would become quickly as meaningless as they became when Jordan took over the West Bank in 1949 (ironically violating the same UN Resolution 194 that Palestinian Arabs now claim as giving them the fake "right to return.")

AFP puts a moderate face on a Jew-hating terrorist leader

Last month, Hamas' co-founder and ideological leader Mahmoud Zahar said:

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

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

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

And last week he said publicly at a Hamas rally, as he burned an Israeli flag:

The [Hamas] movement was launched to continue the jihad until the liberation of all Palestine...The journey of jihad and martyrdom began 23 years ago and will continue until the liquidation of the masses of aggression, treachery and even high banners of faith and bring us day after day, year after year from Palestine .. all of Palestine. The Jihad will continue until the liberation of the Palestinian city of Jerusalem to pray a prayer of thanks after the liberation of all Palestine.

So when AFP spoke to him yesterday, did they ask him about his violent, anti-semitic and jihadist rhetoric?

Of course not!

AFP's Sara Hussein puts as moderate a spin as she can on Zahar:

Palestinians have time in their fight for a state, and a victory will come through nation-building rather than military confrontation with Israel, a senior Hamas leader said.

Zahar derided peace talks as a waste of time, heaping scorn on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for engaging in negotiations, and ruled out recognition of Israel.

But he also stressed Hamas has no plans to launch new attacks on the state and was instead focusing its efforts on state-building and providing an example of honest Palestinian governance.

"We are not saying 'wait,' because we are not just sitting here," he said. "We are reconstructing everything... For the first time, we are really administrating real progress in different ways, on all kinds of things.

"We are giving a good example of purified administration."

Zahar laid out a platform with similarities to that of Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, who is implementing a two-year plan to build infrastructure in the West Bank.

Hamas rejects peace talks because negotiations have failed, he said.

"We are ready to talk to everybody, but about what? About eating falafel?"

Zahar joked about the years of failed negotiations.

"They left no city without negotiations -- they started in Madrid, Sharm Ash-Sheikh many times, Wye River -- many talks," he said.

He pledged Hamas would continue to "resist the occupation" but insisted resistance was more than military confrontation.

"One of the methods of resistance is to reject the occupation as an idea, one is to educate yourself and your people in their culture, one is to prepare yourself for the war if it happens.

"This," he said, "is resistance."

The reporter refrains from asking about Hamas' closing of charities, or its violence against other Palestinian Arab groups in Gaza, or torture in its jails, or corruption where Hamas steals aid and sells it, or Zahar's anti-semitic statements, or his jihadist rhetoric, or his own personal corruption. No, AFP takes everything he says at face value, propping him up as a moderate Islamic alternative to the PA's Fayyad.