Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 06, 2011

Morning links

Elliot Abrams now has a blog that might be interesting.

Excellent Michael Young post on Syria: " What we see is Syria simultaneously being an arsonist and a fireman." (h/t Silke)

Rob Miller on why Israel is losing the information war, and Israel Matzav's comments.

Michael Totten on Arab conspiracy theories. (h/t Silke)

On a related note, the Heplev blog brings us this:

UPDATE: One more, from last month, on Jordanian oppression of Palestinian Arabs.

You need Arab media to find out the truth in Gaza

It is ironic that the Western media is not as critical of Hamas as some of the Arabic media are.

The latest example is an article in Dar Al Hayat (London), quoted in Palestine Press Agency and many other places in Arabic.

On Saturday, a Beit Lahiya resident named Ghassan Abu Nasr asked Hamas police why they were arresting his neighbor, Shadi Diab.

Because of that, the police took Abu Nasr and his neighbor, drove them to an empty area, beat them with a baton, then brought them to Hamas police station where they continued to beat them with rifle butts and batons.

Abu Nasr's knee and right hand were broken. Abu Diab fell into a coma and is now being hospitalized.

Al Hayat goes on to report that Gaza citizens are afraid of the endemic abuses of Gaza police. Even though Hamas claims that they are working to improve the situation, with training police on how to act and punishing those who abuse people, it is not working and Gazans still live in fear. There are many similar stories, including against journalists.

This article has been reproduced widely in the Arab media. Yet Western media remains silent.

Why are Arabs more critical of Hamas than the media of the free world?

Poster for counterprotests - 10

I think I'm addicted to doing these....

(Photo h/t CiFWatch via Jed)

Spoofing the pro-Hamas rally poster (9th in the series)

The anti-Israel rally that is scheduled to take place in New York on Sunday is being co-sponsored by Al Awda, an organization that is rather explicit in its support of terror and desire to destroy Israel.

Here is their flyer:

So I spent a good 15 minutes to come up with this:

If anyone in New York wants to attend the counter-protest this Sunday where you can have fun plastering my posters all over Herald Square, let me know and I'll hook you up with the organizer.

UPDATE: Information on the Stand With Us counter-protest here. But it appears they are only going to be at the destination of the march, not dealing with the march itself.

A little wordy for my tastes, but the quote is so great...

Iran buying land from Lebanese Christians

From Al Arabiya:

The recent rise in Iranian purchases of property owned by Christians stirred controversy in Lebanon as the Islamic republic is accused of dividing the country along sectarian lines and embarking on a Shiite infiltration scheme.

The Shiite purchase of Christian land in Lebanon drove Lebanese Labor Minister Botros Harb to submit to the cabinet a draft law that prohibits the sale of land across religions.
Harb’s proposal mirror Lebanese fears of a scheme that enables Iran of exercising growing economic influence in Lebanon through Shiite businessmen who buy lands and houses owned by Christians and take advantage of Lebanon’s free market economy.

According to the draft [law], those who violate this law whether by sale, purchase, or mediation will face five to 10 years in jail and fined double the price of the sold property.

The main purpose of the draft law is sounding alarm bells over an organized scheme of appropriating Christian land, said Labor Minister Botros Harb.

“These purchases aim at undermining Lebanon’s religious diversity and national unity,” he told AlArabiya.net.

Although Iran is reportedly the “foreign party” behind those purchases, Harb refused to name the parties or countries involved.

According to Lebanese economic expert Dr. Ghazi Wazni,..."“The possibility of approving this law or putting it on the cabinet’s agenda is zero percent.”

Isn't that interesting?

Reaching out to Arabs in Hebron. But where's the other side?

From Israel21C:

I cannot bring myself to be as ecstatic about these sorts of initiatives as the well-meaning organizers are. All I can think is - where are the people creating similar initiatives on the Arab side? Why are all of these types of programs created by Israeli Jews?

A few other things bother me about this video.

For the past 10 years, it has been officially forbidden for Israeli citizens to visit the Palestinian West Bank city of Hebron.

Really? I saw the houses of a few hundred Israeli citizens in Hebron, and their friends in Kiryat Arba visit them all the time!

You can refer to it as a "majority Arab city" or whatever, but calling it a "Palestinian city" is an insult to those who believe that Hebron is Jewish, and it was Jewish way before any Arabs were around.

Also, note that even the organizer himself is afraid to walk around the Arab section of Hebron with a yarmulka on his head. Are Arabs afraid to walk around Israel with keffiyehs?

Moreover, note that Jew cannot visit the Muslim part of the Tomb of the Patriarchs. However, I witnessed Arabs visiting the Jewish side when I was there.

And mentioning only that it is the burial ground for Abraham, while ignoring the five or more prominent Biblical figures who are there as well, plays to the Muslim narrative of the second-holiest place in Judaism.

Altogether, I like Israel21C, but their desire to be politically correct in this case ends up insulting Jews more than they intended.

Abu Rahma Lawfare

Palestine Today says that the Abu Rahma family is planning to sue the IDF for the death of Jawaher, which they claim was caused by tear gas.

Her brother Ahmed narrates a tale of her death that seems at odds with what her cousins told Ha'aretz. He describes what happened when she collapsed as if he was there, but her cousins say that he came later with the ambulance.

He also said that she had attended many protests and had never been affected by the tear gas before.

The entire family seems to be heavily involved in the weekly Bil'in riots. Besides her brother Samir who is the ringleader, we see that Ahmed also protests, and three weeks ago the IDF released a Bil'in rioter from prison named Adeeb Abu Rahma, possibly a cousin. And who provided the photos to the ISM in that article? Hamde Abu Rahma, the same person who claimed on Facebook that she was at her home.

So when the family of agitators, rioters and liars (remember, Samir went on TV saying that the soldiers shot "phosphorus") says they want to sue, it is not for justice - it is for politics.

And in the end, they won't, because that would reveal facts about the case that they would rather not have publicized.

According to rioters, Abu Rahma was 150-180 meters away

Ha'aretz published a map of the (one of many) Palestinian Arab version of events in Bil'in. I received a horrible fax copy of it (click to enlarge - h/t Joel for color Hebrew version)

According to this version, Jawaher Abu Rahma was standing 150-180 meters away from the kids throwing stones who were hit with tear gas.

This is nearly two football fields away.

As we saw yesterday from the Physicians for Human Rights paper on tear gas, the immediate cloud produced is some 6-9 meters in diameter and even in the center of the cloud the concentrations of the agent are 3%-10% of the amount usually needed to be breathed in for a full minute to kill the average healthy person.

I can't find any studies on dissipation of CS gas outdoors but simple watching of videos of these demonstrations shows that the gas cloud dissipates within seconds (although the canister emits gas for maybe 10 seconds so if one was right next to the canister one could be exposed at the highest outdoor levels for perhaps 15 seconds.)

While I have no doubt that someone can smell tear gas from a greater distance and even that their eyes can tear from a whiff, the idea that tear gas is toxic from 150 meters is absurd. The entire town of Bil'in would have been wiped out years ago.

(h/t Yisrael Medad and SoccerDad)

Poster for counterprotests - 7

Continuing the series....

Morning links

Some stuff to tide you over (not sure how much I'll be able to post today):

Jeffrey Goldberg on the plight of Middle East Christians (except for Israel, of course.)

Globalising Hatred: The New Antisemitism - book review at JCPA.

Roots of Muslim anti-semitism at CJN

Why isn't Obama pressuring the Palestinians? at FP

Free Jonathan Pollard (video)

(h/t V)

Islamist "cookbook" for Alexandria church bombing - plus a prophecy

From MSNBC:

In the weeks before the New Year's Day suicide bombing of an Egyptian church, al-Qaida-linked websites carried a how-to manual on "destroying the cross," complete with videos on how to build a bomb and the locations of churches to target — including the one that was attacked.

They may have found a receptive audience in Alexandria, where increasingly radicalized Islamic hard-liners have been holding weekly anti-Christian demonstrations, filled with venomous slogans against the minority community.

Only two or three days before Saturday's bombing, police arrested several Salafis spreading fliers in Alexandria calling for violence against Christians, a security official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

According to authorities, the strong belief among investigators is that local extremists who knew the area and the nature of their target were behind the blast. The Egyptian weekly Al-Youm Al-Saba said police were examining photos of the Salafis' weekly protests for suspects.

In the weeks before the attack, al-Qaida militants on the Web spewing calls for "jihad," or holy war, on Egypt's Christians laid out everything anyone would need to carry out a bombing.

One widely circulated posting includes a so-called "Jihadi Encyclopedia for the Destruction of the Cross," with a series of 10 videos describing how to build a bomb.

In the videos, an unidentified militant in a white lab coat and a black mask is shown listing the ingredients to make TNT and mixing up the chemicals in beakers.

The site lists Coptic Christian churches in Egypt, along with phone numbers and addresses — including Alexandria's Saints Church. "Blow up the churches while they are celebrating Christmas or any other time when the churches are packed," it says.

But I thought that "it goes without saying that no Muslim, whatever their political leanings may be, will ever commit such an inhumane act."

I'm shocked. Shocked!

(h/t Callie)
------------------
After I wrote this, I saw an amazing letter by a Christian who essentially predicted the fatal attack on Egyptian Copts on December 24th:

Egypt is another place in the Middle East where Christians are in peril. They are more numerous in Egypt than they are in Iraq, but they are targets of a similar strain of hostility. In January of 2010, six Christians were murdered outside the church where they were celebrating Christmas mass. (Christians in Egypt are Coptic Orthodox Christians who celebrate Christmas in January.)

This was only one of several attacks that took place in Egypt during the past year and given the level of hostility, it's likely more acts of violence will take place in the next few weeks. Imams have appeared on television accusing Coptic Christians in Egypt of storing weapons in their churches and of being in league with Zionist Jews from Israel. In Muslim majority Egypt, these are lethal charges. When prominent religious and political leaders make accusations like this, it's a signal to others that personal attacks on Christians will be tolerated and condoned.

Female terrorists in Gaza (video and poster)

From CNN:

With faces covered and guns loaded, Palestinian militants are training among the sand dunes of Gaza.

Shouts of "Allahu Akbar" -- God is great -- are followed by intense target practice. These militants are preparing to fight their sworn enemy, the state of Israel. But there is a difference -- they are women.

Training alongside men, they say they are ready to go into battle and are calling on more Palestinian women to join what they call the resistance against Israel.

CNN was given rare access to some of these women inside Gaza. The militant group insisted the location was kept secret, so we were blindfolded in the back of a car and driven to a house.

Five women are sitting in the back garden, all from the Salah ad-Din Brigades -- one of several militant groups in Gaza -- all veiled and armed. Only their eyes are uncovered.

Sitting beside a table of guns, rocket-propelled grenades and land mines, the scene is carefully choreographed for our camera and the message is clear.