Monday, February 21, 2011

  • Monday, February 21, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
  • Monday, February 21, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
The latest monthly COGAT report shows that not only does Gaza export strawberries and carnations, but also bell peppers:
In January 163.282 tons of strawberries, 2,693,430 carnations and 5.05 tons of bell peppers were exported.

Since the beginning of the season (28 November 2010) 315.27 tons of strawberries, 3,064,638 carnations and 6 tons of bell peppers were exported to European markets.
So the question is, is anyone calling for a boycott of Gaza flowers, strawberries and peppers?

Why, yes! The same BDS groups who want to boycott Israel also want to include Gaza - and the West Bank!

Palestinian Arab produce gets exported to Europe through Israel's Agrexco. And the BDSers call to boycott Agrexco.

Here's what they say about Gaza:

Under the severe conditions of Israel's illegal blockade which have brought Gaza imports and exports to a near halt, Agrexco has exploited its close relationship with the Israeli occupation authorities in order to secure a monopoly-like status in the export of Palestinian produce from Gaza, whenever a trickle of Palestinian products is granted to pass the blockade, often for Israeli public relations purposes. In the previous season, for instance, only a few tons of strawberries were allowed out of Gaza. While this season may see a larger quota of exports, the total number of Palestinian farmers involved is less than one thousand. Experts also predict that many of those can switch to producing items that are needed in the local Gaza market, if denied gateways to export strawberries and flowers. All claims that Agrexco operations benefit Palestinian farmers are no more than a fig leaf to cover up its complicity in Israel's violations of international law and the rights of the Palestinian people.... Instead, we call for intensifying pressure against Agrexco through a systematic and full boycott of all of Agrexco’s products and services.
Produce from the West Bank as well as Gaza are marketed by Agrexco under the brand name "Coral." They need to use Agrexco in order to pass all the certifications needed to get into the European market.


Here's one of the people that BDSers are telling to go to hell:
Um Hajjar Al-Ghalayini, 46 years old, owns half an acre of sandy Gaza land that produces two tons of strawberries every season. Since her husband died two years ago, the crop is the sole means of support for her nine children, mother-in-law and widowed sister, so every one of the bright red berries counts.

Last year, she had no choice but to sell her produce to the local market. That filled the Gaza markets with fruits and vegetables to the benefit of consumers, but for growers like Um Hajjar it was a disaster. Her earnings dropped by more than half and the family had a tough year economically. This week, as Israel took another step in easing its economic blockade of the Gaza Strip, Um Hajjar delivered her strawberries to the Kerem Shalom checkpoint on the Israel-Gaza border, their first leg of a journey to the more profitable markets in Europe.

“Now I can say that things are getting back to normal, if not on the right track,” she told The Media Line.

So the BDSers don't give a damn about Palestinian Arab farmers in Gaza or the West Bank!

The next time someone tells you that people who boycott Israel are motivated because they love Palestinian Arabs so much, ask them if they support the boycott of Agrexco's Coral brand as well.
  • Monday, February 21, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
Today's review of the major media, by David G:



About 24 hours after Elder of Ziyon wrote about the impending return of Youssef el-Qaradawi, the Washington Post and New York Times first covered him. These articles were in the context of reports on the demonstration he headlined Friday.

The Washington Post did not mention Qaradawi's name at first.
 The demonstration, billed as a "Day of Victory and Continuation," came a day after three senior government officials and a wealthy industrialist who were close to Mubarak and were members of the ruling party were arrested on suspicion of corruption, money laundering and the misuse of public funds. Prosecutors are investigating the allegations, state television reported. 
 Qaradawi was only mentioned at the end.

In Tahrir, or Liberation, Square on Friday, a troupe of men wearing black T-shirts danced and sang in celebration of the arrests. Makeshift placards and banners held up by the crowd proclaimed the end of Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule and called on the generals to pursue all corrupt officials, revise the constitution and make Egypt a democracy.  
"Our demands are clear as the sun," read a sign held by Marway el-Rawy, a 23-year-old woman. 
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a renowned Islamic scholar, presided over Friday prayers in the square, the heart of the revolt.  
He called on the military to dismantle the current government and then said that the square should be renamed "Martyrs' Square" for the more than 330 people who were killed there. 

There would seem to be some conflict between the democracy protesters and the proposal to change "Tahrir Square" to "Martyr's Square." To report that he simply "presided over prayers" seems to be conciously downplaying his role at the demonstration. The CSM reported:

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a leading Egyptian Islamic theologian popularized by Al Jazeera, returned to Cairo today to deliver a stirring but overtly political sermon, calling on Egyptians to preserve national unity as they press for democratic progress.

The CSM's reporter used "stirring" several times and at the end does his best to frame Qaradawi as moderate. Still the opening paragraph makes it clear that Qaradawi's role was to speak not simply to preside over prayers.

Qaradawi has often been a controversial figure in the West – he was banned from traveling to the US because of his support for attacks on US troops in Iraq, for instance – but is very much in the Sunni Islamic mainstream. 
When former Monitor reporter Jill Carroll was kidnapped in Iraq in 2006, Qaradawi issued a religious ruling reiterating his position that the kidnapping and murder of civilians is sinful and called for her immediate release. 

i.e. He's only controversial in the West but he's mainstream Sunni. Plus he differentiates between soldiers and civilians. Needless to say there's a lot more to Qaradawi, and it isn't particularly moderate.

The New York Times first reported on Qaradawi's return as part of a longer article about the region.

Mr. Qaradawi, who returned Thursday night from three decades in exile, spoke at a combination victory rally and democracy demonstration that brought hundreds of thousands of Egyptians back to the epicenter of the revolution that toppled Mr. Mubarak. State television, which until Mr. Mubarak’s departure last Friday had consistently belittled the crowds in the square, put attendance at two million. 

Calling the demonstration one of "democracy" goes beyond the title of the gathering, which was of "victory and continuation."

In a second article focused on Sheikh Qaradawi, by David Kirkpatrick, it is clear that the Times is interested in boosting his "moderate" credentials.

Sheik Qaradawi, a popular television cleric whose program reaches an audience of tens of millions worldwide, addressed a rapt audience of more than a million Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to celebrate the uprising and honor those who died. 

"Popular television ..." just like Oprah!
 On Friday, he struck themes of democracy and pluralism, long hallmarks of his writing and preaching. He began his sermon by saying that he was discarding the customary opening “Oh Muslims,” in favor of “Oh Muslims and Copts,” referring to Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. He praised Muslims and Christians for standing together in Egypt’s revolution and even lauded the Coptic Christian “martyrs” who once fought the Romans and Byzantines. “I invite you to bow down in prayer together,” he said. 
He's a pluralist!
 Scholars who have studied his work say Sheik Qaradawi has long argued that Islamic law supports the idea of a pluralistic, multiparty, civil democracy. 
 Scholars agree!

But he has made exceptions for violence against Israel or the American forces in Iraq. “You call it violence; I call it resistance,” said Prof. Emad Shahin of the University of Notre Dame, an Egyptian scholar who has studied Sheik Qaradawi’s work and was in Tahrir Square for his speech Friday. 

"You call it violence; I call it resistance." You say "to-may-to"; I say "to-mah-to."

While Qaradawi's hate of America and the United States was noted in the first paragraph the lengths the reporter, David Kirkpatrick goes to portray as a moderate is really rather disturbing.

The Lede (not by Robert Mackey in this case) also has something on the Sheikh observing:

 In an interview with The Guardian a few years ago, he expounded on some of his views, including his distaste for homosexuality and his belief that wives should be beaten only as a last resort, and even then just "lightly."
I'm sure that wives the world over will regard that as enlightened.

Still the Lede too, emphasizes the Kirkpatrick article on how "moderate" Qaradawi is.



Just going through the archives, here are some of Qaradawi's "moderate" hits:

Calling on Muslims to "cleanse" Palestine
Refusing to attend an interfaith conference because it has Jews
Condemning Muslims wanting to visit Al Aqsa Mosque while Israel is there
Calling on the PLO to return to terrorism (and the PLO's hilarious response)
Plus, a little Jew hatred for fun as he wrote the introduction to a biography of a major terrorist.
  • Monday, February 21, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
CNN International reports:
Protests sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa have spread to Morocco, where thousands demonstrated Sunday to call for political reform, according to a human rights organization.

Police stayed away from the marches and demonstrations, most of which were peaceful, Human Rights Watch reported.

A government spokesman told a Russian television station on Sunday that protests in Morocco are not unusual, according to the Moroccan state news agency, Agence Maghreb Arabe Presse.

"Unlike most Arab countries, rallies and protests are common in Morocco," said Khalid Naciri, communication minister and government spokesman.

Naciri said the protesters' demands are "ordinary" and that the rallies take place lawfully and preserved public order in an environment of "stability." He also said the protests are part of the practice of democracy, Agence Maghreb Arabe Presse said. Demonstrators' demands are on the agenda of most political parties, he said.


Sounds like things are normal and under control.

Yet at the same time, Arabic Al Arabiya is reporting that there are 5 dead and dozens injured as people are rampaging through the streets, smashing cars, torching buildings and breaking store windows. The five were burned to death in a bank that was set on fire, mostly in Al Hociemba. 40 security personnel were injured.

The photos seem to support the Al Arabiya version.

UPDATE: CNN now mentions the bodies, without quite understanding what else happened yesterday.
  • Monday, February 21, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ha'aretz:
Newspapers in Chile are carrying extensive coverage of the visit to Israel of the 33 miners who were trapped in the earth for 69 days before being rescued last October in a story that captured worldwide attention

The trip to Israel has been described by Chile's media as "a fitting way to salute to dramatic rescue of the miners."

But some newspapers are reporting that the visit is causing friction with the Palestinian Authority, which would like to be more actively involved.

PA diplomats in Santiago have complained to the Chilean foreign ministry that although the miners are scheduled to visit Bethlehem and Ramallah, in PA territory, the visit that has been described solely as a "trip to Israel." Dr. Mai al-Kaila, the PA ambassador to Chile said that the Palestinians would be happy to host the miners and their entourage during their visits to Bethlehem and Ramallah.

Chile is home to the largest Palestinian community outside of the Middle East, roughly 300,000-strong, with two-thirds of its members Christians. It is a relatively well-established community, politically active and vocal about events in the Middle East.

When tensions rise between Israel and Palestinians on the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, demonstrations are held in Chile's capital city, Santiago. Recently, tensions with the country's Jewish population (roughly 15,000-strong ) flared over Chile's recognition of Palestinian independence. Eugenio Toma, a senator of Palestinian origins, accused Chilean Jews of being "agents of Israel's government," and of "defrauding the public regarding the piratical occupation of Palestinian lands."
I had missed where a Palestinian Christian Chilean, tirelessly working to advance the cause of the PLO in Chile, accused Chile's Jews of being Israeli agents.

Of course, Israel is paying for this trip, so the PA's pique is simply whining.

But perhaps the funniest part of this episode was this comment by "Historian" in Ha'aretz:
Israel is Jewish - Christian sites certainly don't belong to Israel - Joshua even destroyed a lot of them

I knew Joshua was a great military leader and had conversations with God, but I had no idea he could also time-travel!
  • Monday, February 21, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
This is for Palestine Awareness Week:









Sunday, February 20, 2011

  • Sunday, February 20, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
Here's the newest anti-Israel acronym: ZPC, for "Zionist Power Configuration."

It was just coined by anti-Israel writer James Petras:

One of the least analyzed aspects of the Egyptian pro-democracy movement and US policy toward it, is the role of the influential Zionist power configuration (ZPC) including the leading umbrella organization – the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO) – Congressional Middle East committee members, officials occupying strategic positions in the Obama Administration’s Middle East bureaus, as well as prominent editors, publicists and journalists who play a major role in the prestigious newspapers and popular weekly magazines.

ZPC seems to be a slightly more PC version of ZOG (Zionist Occupied Government) but it nicely includes the media and Zionist organizations, to make the cabal as large as possible. It's flexible enough to include Hollywood and the banks as well, just so there is no doubt that it completely overlaps with the standard Jewish centers of power.

No doubt Petras hopes that one day his acronym will be in daily use, so he would have a claim to fame beyond his already dismal 9/11 Troofer credentials.

UPDATE: Hilariously, Petras has used ZPC for years. it just hasn't caught on, but he keeps plugging away. (h/t DavidS and Yitzchak Goodman)
  • Sunday, February 20, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
I caught the end of Saif Gaddafi's speech on Al Jazeera, and he seems either clueless or flailing. Or maybe he is the sacrificial son,  buying time for his father to escape.

He threatened to cut off all oil if the demonstrations do not stop, and that it would take decades to be able to recover a normal society (as if Libya has a normal society)  if they do not stop.

It looks strongly like Libya is the next domino. There are reports that riots have hit Tripoli, that some army units have defected to the protesters' side.

The death toll there has passed 200.
  • Sunday, February 20, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
An unreal whitewash from the BBC:
The Brotherhood runs hospitals, schools, banks, community centres, and facilities for the disabled in cities and towns all over the country.

Down a small residential street in Maadi, a huge suburb in south Cairo, is the Farouk Hospital.

Tucked away behind the mosque it is named after, it offers a full range of procedures, emergency surgery, dentistry, labs, psychiatric care, a pharmacy and a cafe.

Over the last 25 years, the hospital has gradually taken over a six-floor block of flats.

As you move around it you enter and leave what were individual homes, now knocked through into each other and messily rearranged to suit the needs of a general hospital.

The hospital is one of 24 across Egypt belonging to the Islamic Medical Association, an organisation affiliated to and supported by the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the emergency postnatal unit, Farida, one of the nurses, explains the care given to a baby boy born prematurely seven months ago.

"He's off the ventilator now, and is breathing well. He has reached an acceptable birth weight and should go home soon," Farida says.
Nothing about its violent history, nothing about its violent offshoot organizations, nothing about its goal of an Islamic caliphate, nothing about anti-semitism.

But they do run hospitals!

(h/t Yaacov Lozowick tweet)
  • Sunday, February 20, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
At NewsRealBlog, you can now see the definitive list of all known Zionist animal conspiracies known.

Enjoy!
  • Sunday, February 20, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Al Arabiya:
Thousands of people took to the streets in several Moroccan cities to demand that King Mohammad VI give some of his powers, dissolve the government and parliament, fight corruption and give more rights to the country’s indigenous Amazigh people.

Some people in the crowd were waving Tunisian and Egyptian flags in recognition of the popular uprisings that overthrew the two countries' presidents.
A protest organizer said there were more than 5,000 participants while a police officer told Reuters there were fewer than 3,000 people at the protest in Rabat.

Uniformed police kept their distance from the protest, which began in the central Bab El Ahad area, but plain-clothes officers with notebooks mingled with the crowd, amid chants of "The people reject a constitution made for slaves!" and "Down with autocracy!"

Some called on Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi to leave but placards and slogans made no direct attacks on the king.

Analysts say Morocco, with a widely respected reformist monarch and growing economy, is one of the Arab countries least likely to succumb to the wave of protests sweeping the region.

"This is a peaceful protest to push for constitutional reform, restore dignity and end graft and the plundering of public funds," said Mustapha Muchtati of the Baraka (Enough) group, which helped organize the march.
It is interesting that each Arab country has different grievances against their leaders, even though they all invoke Tunisia and Egypt.
  • Sunday, February 20, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
An article in Saudi Arabia's Okaz News Agency discusses how Sheikh Qaradawi's bodyguards forcibly stopped Google executive Wael Ghonem from speaking at the massive Tahrir Square rally on Friday.

It finds a direct link between Qaradawi showing up in Tahrir Square and Ayatollah Khomeini coming to Iran in 1979 from Paris "to steal the people's revolution of Iran."

The author is saying what Western conservative writers have been warning since the beginning of the Egyptian revolution: that the Muslim Brotherhood is waiting to take advantage of a revolution spearheaded by Egyptian youth to turn Egypt into an Islamist state.

The op-ed ends with a question: "Did [the Egyptian youth] really overthrew Mubarak for Al-Qaradawi, to tell them how to breathe and how they can wear their clothes?"

The title of the article? "Ayatollah Qaradawi."

But don't tell the oh-so-enlightened Westerners who fancy themselves experts on the Arab world what the Saudis fear about the new Egypt. No, it is much better to listen to clueless star reporters who fly into Cairo for a couple of days and interview a handful of people who speak perfect English.
  • Sunday, February 20, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
From David G:

There's a really cute story in the Washington Post: Egypt women stand for equality in the square.

Though the reporter was reporting from the demonstration on Friday, there was no mention of Sheikh Qaradawi's views on gender equality. There was some really good stuff in this article, but this part is priceless.
Abdel Ibrahim Hassan, a man who came to Tahrir Square on Friday to celebrate the revolution with untold thousands of his fellow citizens, argued that women have an enviable standing already and that Western prejudices should not assume they need change.

"Islam respected the role of women before any other culture," said Hassan, a math teacher. "Before Islam women were bought and sold. But men and women are not equal, a woman is a weak creature. She cannot bear arms."

His wife, Samah, bearing an Egyptian flag and wearing a black niqab covering her face with only small slits for her eyes, spoke up - strongly. "I'm hoping our young people will be able to develop a democracy," she said, as she photographed the square with a sleek cellphone. "Men and women will play an important part in the elections."

Their 15-year-old daughter, Sarah, her face and hands the only parts of her body visible from her enveloping black garments, interrupted.

"We demand seats in parliament for young people," she said, "men and women. Women will play an important role in society after participating in the revolution of January 25th."
Does the reporter, Kathy Lally, realize how absurd this sounds? First to have a husband claim women are respected then to describe how completely his wife and daughter are covered?

Though Qaradawi's views on gender equality are not discussed there, I did find a fatwa that is very revealing. (No pun intended.)

Q: I would like to ask about the ruling of Palestinian women carrying out martyr operations. Fulfilling this mission may demand that they travel alone, without a mahram, and they may need to take off their hijab, the matter which may expose part of their 'awrah. Would you please comment on this? I'd prefer Dr. Qaradawi to answer this urgent question, if you please.

A: The martyr operation is the greatest of all sorts of jihad in the cause of Allah. A martyr operation is carried out by a person who sacrifices himself, deeming his life [of] less value than striving in the cause of Allah, in the cause of restoring the land and preserving the dignity. To such a valorous attitude applies the following Qur'anic verse: "And of mankind is he who would sell himself, seeking the pleasure of Allah; and Allah hath compassion on (His) bondmen." (Qur'an, 2: 207)

...As for the point that carrying out this operation may involve woman's travel from [one] place to another without a mahram, we say that a woman can travel to perform Hajj [pilgrimage to Mecca] in the company of other trustworthy women and without the presence of any mahram as long as the road is safe and secured. Travel, nowadays, is no longer done through deserts or wilderness; instead, women can travel safely in trains or by air.

Concerning the point on hijab, a woman can put on a hat or anything else to cover her hair. Even when necessary, she may take off her hijab in order to carry out the operation, for she is going to die in the cause of Allah and not to show off her beauty or uncover her hair. I don't see any problem in her taking off hijab in this case.

To conclude, I think the committed Muslim women in Palestine have the right to participate and have their own role in jihad and to attain martyrdom.
Women are allowed to reveal their hair when they are about to murder infidels. How enlightened!

No doubt Sarah will be able to serve in Parliament, as long as she remembers her place.
  • Sunday, February 20, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ma'an:

Unidentified armed men on Sunday abducted three Egyptian officers patrolling the border with Israel, Egyptian security sources said.

Sources told Ma'an that three officers serving in Rafah's central security forces were kidnapped near the barbed wire fence separating Egypt and Israel about three kilometers south of the Kerem Shalom crossing, between Gaza and Egypt.

According to security officials, gunmen arrived in three vehicles without license plates and abducted the soldiers. Egyptian security in Rafah was negotiating with the kidnappers to release the officers, sources added.

Other sources speculated that the officers were kidnapped in retaliation for the killing of a drug smuggler shot dead Thursday in possession of a considerable quantity of hashish.
I hadn't heard about drug smugglers being emboldened by the chaos in Egypt, but certainly the Sinai has turned into the Wild West since the Egyptian revolution - a situation being taken advantage of by Bedouin, Hamas and others.

Egypt recently deployed hundreds of troops to the Sinai to help guard the gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan after part of it was blown up. Israel agreed to the extra deployment, as the number of troops in the Sinai is limited under existing agreements.
  • Sunday, February 20, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
It is really illuminating to read how Richard Falk responds to comments on his blog about his sickening diatribe against Jews and Judaism I posted about last month.

With one rare exception, no matter how outrageous the charge someone brings against Jews, he thanks them for their comments. He ignores or mostly ignores anyone who tries to actually bring facts to his attention.

The worst example came over the weekend, with this comment by "John" in response to the devastating - and mostly bypassed - comment by the reform Rabbi Ira Youdovin I mentioned:

John writes, in part:
The German and Zionist ideologues shared similar ideas with regard to blood and soil. They both came to share Nazi ideology with regard to lebensraum for their manufactured ethnic races.

During World War One, Zionists pursued their selfish interests by getting the war prolonged, to secure the Balfour Declaration by the British Government and to see Christian-Zionist General Allenby occupy former Ottoman Palestine.

The British Palestine Mandate provided the extremist Zionists with an opportunity to deposit and expand their settlements through the displacement of the pre-existing population of Palestinians, for whom their racist ideology cared nothing.

During World War Two, Zionists offered to fight alongside the Nazis against the British and their subsequent Russian and American allies.

In this, they shared similar sentiments with white supremacist Afrikaner nationalists in South Africa.

Where the Afrikaner apartheid regime in South Africa failed, the Zionist apartheid regime in Palestine has succeeded.
This is typical drivel one would expect to see on a neo-Nazi website. But look at how Falk responds:
Thanks, John, for this illuminating and persuasive commentary.

It isn't hard to see that Falk's ability to be objective when given information is non-existent - if the information makes Jews and Zionists into evil beings, Falk believes it uncritically; if they say the opposite, Falk ignores it.

(John goes on to defend his statement by cutting and pasting some supposed Zionist quotes from some anti-Zionist website. I don't have the time to research all of them, although I have once shown how one was very much out of context, but the idea that some Zionists had attempted to work with the Nazis to save millions of Jews from impending doom is well known. John twists these facts into making it sound like Zionists "collaborated" with Nazis. Of course, in the decade before the death camps, negotiating with the Nazis to save them was as debatable as negotiating with Hamas is now, yet Israel is still "collaborating" with Hamas to save a single Jew imprisoned in Gaza. John, bigot that he is, is trying to imply the exact opposite - that Zionists were working with Nazis to send Jews to their doom. Falk does not object to John's "facts.")

(h/t Silke)

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