Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, January 21, 2011

Israel's "Miss Fat and Beautiful" winner crowned

From AFP:

A group of women primp and preen in front of the mirrors, adjusting their outfits as they prepare for a beauty contest with a difference: Israel's annual "Miss Fat & Beautiful."

In a cultural centre in the southern desert city of Beersheva, the contestants tweak their hair and apply makeup, laughing together as they sing in Hebrew: "We are the most beautiful women in the world. We are Miss World!"

To qualify for the contest, hopefuls must weigh at least 80 kilograms (176 pounds), and 2011's contest includes several who weigh in at around 120 kilograms (264 pounds).

Unlike your average beauty pageant, which tends to conform to a strict lean-and-lithe standard, here curves are queen.

Ahead of the show, the atmosphere backstage is one of excitement.

"I'm very beautiful and I'm going to win," 23-year-old Tanya Fayman confidently tells AFP.

"I'm very proud of myself and my body and my beauty, and no one has the right to dictate my weight, so why should I be skinny?"

For the evening wear section, Fayman sports a skin-tight strappy dress, high heels and strings of necklaces, her dark hair falling pin-straight to her shoulders.

Proud of her figure, she shows no sign of embarrassment when the side of her top splits open slightly as she talks, simply grabbing a needle and thread to stitch up the tear.

The Russian-born beauty's confidence was well-founded. After two rounds in which the 20 contestants strut their stuff in ball gowns, and a trouser-and-top ensemble, Fayman was crowned the winner.

Better than camels.

Weekend links

Michael Oren on what is needed for peace.

A YNet op-ed on bringing back an Israeli Left that is actually proud of the country.

Hamas is razing 180 houses in Gaza to build an Islamic center, forcing many families to live in tents. But Reuters is not likely to be interested. (h/t Zach via Facebook)

One of the people that wrote the critique of the PA's state-building also co-wrote a very good essay on Gaza's economy. (h/t Silke)

An analysis of the Labor Party implosion, by Barry Rubin.

Israel as the victim of "mobbing"

There has been a growing awareness in recent years of the phenomenon of workplace bullying, known as "mobbing."

Commenter Mario noticed that the attributes of mobbing mirror almost exactly what Israel is forced to endure on a daily basis.

Here is one list of mobbing indicators and some links that show examples:

By standard criteria of job performance, the target is at least average, probably above average.
Rumours and gossip circulate about the target's misdeeds: "Did you hear what she did last week?"
The target is not invited to meetings or voted onto committees, is excluded or excludes self.
Collective focus on a critical incident that "shows what kind of man he really is".
Shared conviction that the target needs some kind of formal punishment, "to be taught a lesson".
Unusual timing of the decision to punish, e.g., apart from the annual performance review.
Emotion-laden, defamatory rhetoric about the target in oral and written communications.
Formal expressions of collective negative sentiment toward the target, e.g., a vote of censure, signatures on a petition, meeting to discuss what to do about the target.
High value on secrecy, confidentiality, and collegial solidarity among the mobbers.
Loss of diversity of argument, so that it becomes dangerous to "speak up for" or defend the target.
The adding up of the target's real or imagined venial sins to make a mortal sin that cries for action.
The target is seen as personally abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities; stigmatizing, exclusionary labels are applied.
Disregard of established procedures, as mobbers take matters into their own hands.
Resistance to independent, outside review of sanctions imposed on the target.
Outraged response to any appeals for outside help the target may make.
Mobbers' fear of violence from target, target’s fear of violence from mobbers, or both.

While the analogy is not perfect - Israel does have one strong friend at this time, and the country is not cowed by the hypocrites - the behavior of the mobbers is eerily similar to the behavior of the Israel-haters.

It is notable that all of these behaviors also fit in excellently with traditional anti-semitism.

Bullies are, by nature, insecure, and easily threatened by someone they perceive as being different or better. Israel fits that role. Combined with the omnipresent threat of terrorism for those who associate with Israel, it is very easy for even third parties who are otherwise sympathetic to be forced into silence when confronted by the bullies.

This idea deserves a much longer treatment.

The all-encompassing Zionist lobby in Azerbaijan

From Armenian website Panorama.am:

Iran’s Parliament deputy Hamid Rasain has deeply condemned Azerbaijan’s ban on wearing hijab at schools.

Azerbaijani faktxeber.com reports that Rasain has declared that the interference of Zionist lobby is obvious on the decision to ban wearing of hijab.

He said: “US has a military base in Azerbaijan. Thus, they manage to have certain impact on Baku’s decisions. The ban of hijab in the educational institutions is planned by US and Zionists, since the Islamic scarf dangers the interests of both USA and Israel. Official Baku is always guided by messages and wish of those lobbies.”

I haven't visited the Azerbaijan section of the Elder compound for a few years, I really must go over and congratulate them!

PA continues to make terrorists into heroes

PMW once again documents how PA TV - controlled by the government - has shown music videos praising Dalal Mughrabi, the leader of one of the deadliest terror attacks in Israel ever. Both of these were shown within the past month.

This is the textbook definition of incitement to terror.

Latest Latma (1/21/11)

Most of the humor is at the expense of Labor and Ehud Barak.

Palestinian Arabs snubbed at Arab League Economic Summit

Asharq al Awsat reports that the Palestinian Authority is frustrated at the refusal of the Arab nations to give some $430 million it requested for projects in Jerusalem.

The PA delegation, headed by Riyad al Maliki, said it regretted that the summit ignored the Jerusalem issue. The economic ministers decided to table the idea until the next summit in March in Baghdad.

Maliki said "we tried to re-focus on the issue of Jerusalem, and to remind Arab leaders that Jerusalem was waiting for them...alas, they rejected it."

Maliki said that the summit in Sirte last year resulted in pledges of $500 million to support the Arab claim to Jerusalem - and only 7% of those pledges were actually paid.

We have seen this happen before. As the West has been accelerating their throwing cash at Palestinian Arabs in the cause of "peace," the Arabs have written off the Palestinian Arabs as a waste of money and time. They will make statements of support - and there were statements in support of Jerusalem at the summit as well - but they will no longer put their money where their mouths are.

This trend accelerated dramatically after the Fatah/Hamas split, as Arab nations asked themselves why they should support an entity that couldn't even keep itself together.

Perhaps the West should look more carefully at the Arab calculus to write off the Palestinian Arab cause.

Two small potential martyrs

From Ma'an:

Families of prisoners gathered in protest on Friday, throwing shoes and eggs at the car of French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie as she arrived in Gaza via the Erez crossing in the north.

Carrying signs reading "Get out of Gaza" they stopped her car shortly after it passed through a Hamas checkpoint in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, surrounding it and hammering on the sides with their fists.

The protest was over a statement which was mistakenly attributed to the French minister when she met with the parents of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in Jerusalem a day earlier.

Here's a telling detail that didn't make it into the wire-service version of the story:

As the demonstrators shoved toward the car, two children, terrified and crying, were flung to the ground floor in front of the wheels of the lead vehicle convoy of white 4x4 jeeps, and stayed there for several minutes before being hauled away by their families.

More photos here.

Several minutes???

Doesn't it seem like perhaps the crowd wanted the jeeps to run over the children?

In fact, PalPress mentions that some protesters lied down on the road in front of the convoy.

I'm sure it was chaotic, but it seems a pretty good bet that at least some of the protesters were trying to get the kids killed.

We can learn from how Arabs and Israelis treat former leaders (Zvi)

From Zvi, in a comment to this post on Mahmoud Abbas quashing a pro-Tunisian demonstration:

In Asharq al-Awsat, Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed laments the fact that with the possible partial exception of the shaky Iraqi government, the Arab way of governing is one that fosters dictatorships, making coups and violent conflagrations the only ways in which a society can retire its ruler. He contrasts this way of doing things with the method pursued today in the west, in which the broadly respected institutions of the state are designed to permit the replacement of governments without violence.

At the other end of the spectrum, there is Israel. Eretz Nehederet has a humorous take on the life of a former Israeli prime minister.

The typical Arab ruler - including the typical Palestinian ruler - operates constantly in a frame of reference in which he must intimidate detractors and dissidents within his own population - anyone who would oppose him or simply seek a different way - wielding the threat of state violence like a machete. The typical Arab ruler thinks that he cannot afford to allow dissent, difference or opposition to grow, because this could literally bring him to his death.

Is it any wonder, then, that the typical Arab ruler habitually turns to the same violent or underhanded tools when considering the presence of a country that has been painted as his enemy for several generations?

The typical Israeli leader has a very different political makeup. He often finds himself forging coalitions with his opponents, often including people with strongly opposed viewpoints on important issues. Debates in the Knesset sometimes resemble a shouting match, and he cannot count even on members of his own party. Using violence to keep his supporters in line and punish his opponents is a completely alien concept, which he encounters only when dealing with the neighboring regimes and their terrorist flacks.

Israeli leaders carry their experience to the negotiating table, just as Arab leaders do.

And it shows.

When political correctness turns into the A-word (updated)

Jonathan Kay of Canada's National Post this weekattended a panel discussion entitled “Exposing Israeli Apartheid and the Violation of Palestinian Rights: A public forum on the second anniversary of the Gaza massacre.”

It is a great article, one that effectively shows what these fanatic Israel haters are all about.

He notes

Perhaps more interesting than the speakers themselves was the crowd — which was disproportionately female, almost entirely white, and (by my casual observation of whose arm was wrapped around whom) heavily populated by lesbians.

This was not entirely surprising to me: Anti-Israeli activism has attained a sort of cult following among Toronto gay activists, who otherwise would be twiddling their activists thumbs in a country where gay marriage is legal and uncontroversial.

From which will now segue to the end of his terrific article:

The most bizarre part of last night’s meeting was when the moderator announced that in the Q&A session, she would be enforcing an “equity policy” in her selection of who was permitted to ask questions — with preference given to women, visible minorities and gays (which was kind of ironic given the composition of the room). Sure enough, when the Q&A began, a white man aged about 60 was first to the microphone. But the moderator made a great show of instead picking a black man sitting in one of the back rows and asked him to come to the mic. So we all waited while this affirmative action pick ambled over to the microphone to toss Peto a softball “question” about how she had “inspired” other academics.

Then a woman said she wanted to ask a question, and the mortifying process was repeated. Finally, the man at the mic — who had been patient thus far — shouted out “Am I invisible?” Even some members of the crowd declared “Let him speak!” and the moderator looked unsure of what to do — before (naturally!) threatening the man with expulsion from the room for his impudence. (Eventually, he was allowed to ask his question.)

The fact that this man had to wait there at the mic, merely because of the colour of the skin, while others got to speak before him — why it reminded me of that thing they once had in South Africa … Apar… Aparth …

What’s that word I’m looking for?

(h/t Challah Hu Akbar, who is easily the best new pro-Israel blogger around.)

UPDATE: Joel comments:

I wonder if the attenders know these facts about Israel:

1. Gays were accepted in the Israeli army BEFORE they were accepted in the US army.

2. There was even an Israeli film about gays in the army called "Yossi And Jagger" that was a huge hit over here.

3. Israel is the only country that had a lesbian on the Dancing With Stars show

4. Israel was the only country who had a transsexual represent it in the Eurovision.

Freedom of expression, PA-style

From The Lede:

The Palestinian Authority refused to grant permission for a rally to celebrate the overthrow of Tunisia’s authoritarian president on Wednesday in Ramallah, the administrative capital of the West Bank.

The French newspaper Le Monde reported that a few dozen Palestinians who defied the ban arrived in the square in Ramallah where the rally was to take place only to find that they were outnumbered by members of the ruling Fatah party, who chose the same time and place to stage a demonstration in support of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

A correspondent for Le Monde, Benjamin Barthe, observed that a police cordon around the square and “the presence among the demonstrators of many mukhabarat (secret police) officers left little doubt about the Palestinian Authority’s intention to prevent any expression of solidarity with the ‘jasmine revolution’ ” in Tunisia, which led the president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee into exile.

The reporter added that just as one young Palestinian began to wave a Tunisian flag, an officer grabbed it, on the grounds that it was disturbing the demonstration in honor of the prisoners.

Omar Barghouti, a leading Palestinian human rights activist who was present at the thwarted celebration told the French newspaper, “It’s unbelievable. … The police are in the process of confirming the charge that the Palestinian Authority is on the side of Ben Ali and that it also fears the people and the street.”

The column also links to this Foreign Policy article from earlier this week, which effectively blames Israel for creating the conditions that cause the PA to act as a police state, andfor placing it in an impossible situation where it cannot do real democratic state-building. I don't have time to go through the details now, but let's just say that Israel somehow managed to do its own state-building in the 1940s under much more trying conditions than the PA is under today.

(h/t dm)

Freedom of the press, PA-style

From JPost:

The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has been using an old Jordanian law to crack down on Palestinian journalists who dare to criticize PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

In the past few weeks two journalists from Bethlehem were detained by PA security forces for violating the controversial Jordanian law, which dates back to 1960.

The two have since been released from prison following strong protests by human rights activists and other journalists. One of them had been held since last November.

Article 195 of the ill-reputed Jordanian Penal Code stipulates that “anyone whose audacity to insult His Majesty the King has been proven will be punished with prison between one and three years.”

The law bans anyone from “extending” his or her tongue at the king, whether by a written, oral, or electronic letter or by a photograph or caricature.

The law is mainly intended to silence opposition voices and prevent people from criticizing the monarch. Similar laws exist in most of the Arab countries.

The two journalists from Bethlehem were arrested separately by the PA’s General Intelligence Service.

One of them, Mamdouh Hamamreh, a correspondent for the local Al-Quds TV station, was taken into custody after posting a photo of the PA president on his Facebook page next to a picture of Ma’moon Bek, a Syrian actor who played the role of a spy in Bab al-Hara, one of the most popular television series in the Arab world.

Of course, the journalist had ticked off Abbas with his reporting (about the problems between Abbas and Dahlan), and the PA used the old Jordanian law as a pretext to harass him.

(h/t T34)

The secular leader of the "settlers"

Yesterday I linked to an interview with Dani Dayan, head of the Yesha Council, in the Washington Times.

Moment magazine has published its own interview with him, and it is fascinating:

On a clear day, Dani Dayan can look out the bedroom window of his two-story home and see the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv, just 20 miles away. But as we sit in his open and airy modern living room on a chilly winter day, with a eucalyptus tree swaying in the breeze and an ancient-looking wine press in the sprawling green yard, Tel Aviv seems a world away. The neighborhood’s serenity belies the fact that Dayan’s home is in the settlement of Maale Shomron in the northern West Bank, far beyond the separation barrier and deep in territory that may very well someday be part of a Palestinian state.

At a time when settlements are perceived as a major obstacle to a two-state solution by much of the world—and by many Israelis eager to resolve the long-standing conflict—Dayan insists that Israelis will rue the day, if it ever comes, when his home and community are not part of the Jewish State. “It’s either me and my family or a belligerent Palestinian state,” says Dayan, a clean-shaven, bareheaded secular Israeli who speaks in an accented English that reveals his roots in Argentina, where he lived until he was 15. A two-state solution, he continues, “wouldn’t improve the situation for a single Israeli or Palestinian.”

...To convince Israelis that holding on to the West Bank is in their interest, Dayan recently hired a new director-general for Yesha, Naftali Bennett, another high-tech veteran with a law degree who served as then-opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff from 2006 to 2008. It is notable that he does not live in the West Bank, but in the rather bourgeois Tel Aviv suburb of Ra’anana. “Our main challenge in the next couple of years is to move public opinion,” says Dayan of his selection, which was approved by Yesha’s executive committee amid some controversy. “And in that, Naftali knows the client best.”

Bennett, who refers to the settlements as “suburbs of Tel Aviv, and beautiful ones, at that,” has polished and near-perfect English—thanks in part to his American parents and five years spent working in New York. In an effort to give influential figures a first-hand view of a West Bank that is decidedly different from the one they see on the nightly news, the Council treats Israeli celebrities to tours of the settlements, complete with wine and organic cheese tastings. The organization’s Hebrew website has a section on local cafes, restaurants and vineyards to attract Israeli tourists to a part of the country they’ve never cared to explore. “They come to Yesha and see the peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs,” says Bennett. “They see the vast amount of land available for Jews and Arabs. And they can only see all of this from being there—not from talking about it.”

...Although Dayan describes himself as essentially “an urban guy,” he and Einat preferred the hilltops of Judea and Samaria—the biblical terms for the West Bank—to the hip neighborhoods of Tel Aviv. Although many Israelis buy homes in settlements for a higher quality of life and lower cost of living made possible by financial incentives, the Dayans’ decision was an ideological one. “There are more important things in life than being near good restaurants and the opera house,” says Dayan. “We thought that the best thing for the State of Israel and its security is being here. So we decided to move to Samaria.”

They chose Maale Shomron, founded in 1980 and now home to about 150 families, in part for its mix of religious and non-religious Jews. “Our way of life is almost completely secular,” he says, “but we didn’t want to live in a secular ghetto.”

...From Dayan’s point-of-view, anything remains possible: Settlers will return to Gaza someday, which is why Yesha continues to keep the ayin in its name representing Aza—Gaza. And he wants his daughter Ofir to be among the “hilltop youth,” as they’re known, but still be a woman of the world. “I would like her to establish an outpost on a very distant hilltop in Judea and Samaria, but I would also like her to know the road to the cultural centers of Israel well, and to be able to enjoy a trip to London or Paris,” Dayan says. “You don’t have to choose between Hebron and Tel Aviv. You can have both.”

Mondoweiss supports a**holes

The anti-Israel hatesite Mondoweiss posts this about the Macy Gray story:

On her twitter account late on Wednesday night, Gray posted a response to one of her followers: “@bahebakyagaza See I'm willing to listen - really listen - but some of you so called boycotters are just assholes.” I prefer to call us killjoys, if one believes there is joy in saying ‘Yes!’ to normalization of the military occupation, and ‘Go for it!’ to turning a blind eye to the passing of racist, McCarthyite bills in the Knesset, ‘making the world happier’ by ignoring the 'bullies' who call for Israeli leaders to be prosecuted for war-crimes.

While Gray's tweet was fun to read, no one is looking at the tweet by bahebakyagaza that made her react that way.

He said:

@MacyGrayslife supports aparthied....and entertains the muderous IDF...BDS..boycott this lover of filthy israeli lucre.....#boycott

Gray's tweet seems to have described him perfectly.

And the Mondoweiss writer, "Eleanor K", clearly considers herself to be just like bahebakyagaza.

So, if the shoe fits...

(h/t Zach)

UNRWA's Hamas loophole

In August, the Congressional Research Service released a report called "US Foreign Aid to the Palestinians." it goes into great detail how much the US gives and in what forms.

The paper discusses methods that the US uses to ensure that money that is earmarked for the PA or Palestinian Arabs are not diverted to terrorist organizations. For direct aid, they have made progress compared to the past, although it is far from perfect.

The section on UNRWA aid is most revealing.

The US has given over $4 billion to UNRWA since its inception, and the amount has been increasing. Of course, the US is UNRWA's biggest donor, by far.

UNRWA tries to assure the US that funds are not going to terrorists, but there is a significant loophole. Here's the relevant section:

The primary concern raised by some Members of Congress is that U.S. contributions to UNRWA might be used to support terrorists. Section 301(c) of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act (P.L. 87- 195), as amended, says that “No contributions by the United States shall be made to [UNRWA] except on the condition that [UNRWA] take[s] all possible measures to assure that no part of the United States contribution shall be used to furnish assistance to any refugee who is receiving military training as a member of the so-called Palestine Liberation Army or any other guerrilla type organization or who has engaged in any act of terrorism.”

The May 2009 GAO report said that, since a previous GAO report in 2003, UNRWA and the State Department had strengthened their policies and procedures to conform with Section 301(c) legal requirements, but that “weaknesses remain.”33 Neither report found UNRWA to be in noncompliance with Section 301(c), and to date, no arm of the U.S. government has made such a finding. The following are some points from the 2009 report and subsequent developments related to it:

...UNRWA said that it screens its staff and contractors every six months and that it screened all 4.6 million Palestinian refugees and microfinance clients in December 2008 (and intends to make this a routine procedure) for terrorist ties to Al-Qaida and the Taliban, pursuant to a list established pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1267. UNRWA said that it is unable to screen those of its beneficiaries who are displaced persons from the 1967 war because it does not collect information on those persons.37

UNRWA’s UN 1267 terrorist screening list does not include Hamas, Hezbollah, or most other militant groups that operate in UNRWA’s surroundings. UNRWA is unwilling to screen its contractors and funding recipients against a list supplied by only one U.N. member state. Nevertheless, UNRWA officials did say that if notified by U.S. officials of potential matches, they would “use the information as a trigger to conduct their own investigation,” which led to the report’s recommendation that the State Department consider screening UNRWA contractors. In response, State says that it now screens quarterly against the Excluded Parties Lists System (EPLS, which is a list of parties excluded throughout the U.S. government from receiving federal contracts)....

This means that while UNRWA will happily check to ensure that none of its contractors or other beneficiaries of aid are members of Al Qaeda or the Taliban, they refuse to check for membership in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, the PFLP, the DFLP or any of other known terrorist groups. The ones that are actually based in areas that UNRWA works!

The report touches on other problems with UNRWA as well, and dismisses them:

In Gaza, most observers acknowledge that the role of UNRWA in providing basic services (i.e., food, health care, education) takes much of the governing burden off Hamas. As a result, some complain that this amounts to UNRWA’s enabling of Hamas and is an argument militating for its activities to be discontinued or scaled back. However, many others, U.S. and Israeli officials included, believe that UNRWA plays a valuable role by providing stability and serving as the eyes and ears of the international community in Gaza. They generally prefer UNRWA to the uncertain alternative that might emerge if UNRWA were removed from the picture.29

The footnote points to a document justifying the US foreign policy budget, with these words:

U.S. government support for UNRWA directly contributes to the U.S. strategic interest of meeting the humanitarian needs of Palestinians, while promoting their self sufficiency. UNRWA plays a stabilizing role in the Middle East through its assistance programs, serving as an important counterweight to extremist elements.

Nowhere does the footnote say that UNRWA is serving any constructive role as the "eyes and ears of the international community in Gaza" - and that is a dubious assumption, since practically all UNRWA employees are Palestinian Arab. Also, nowhere does it say that Israeli officials agree.

Elsewhere the budget documentsays (sorry, it doesn't allow copy/pasting, but it is on page 88) that if the UNRWA wouldn't provide the services, then extremist groups would, especially in Gaza and Lebanon. But what this also means is that Hamas would have to divert some of its budget that now goes towards weapons into basic services for its people!

From all appearances, while Congress seems to be trying mightily to oversee US funds to UNRWA, it is not enough. UNRWA's pushback on not vetting for Hamas or Islamic Jihad terrorists is unacceptable, especially to the major donor country of that agency. And no real evidence has been provided that UNRWA is in fact acting as a moderating factor against terrorist influence in Gaza or elsewhere.