Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Vogue fawns over the wonderful Assads

Asma al-Assad is "a rose in the desert" in this puff piece on one of the world's most ruthless dictators.

How easy is it to play the Western media? Apparently, it is trivial.

Vogue went to Syria to show how wonderful Bashir Assad and his wife are. Without doing a modicum of research on Syria's history of ruthless oppression and mass murders, the writers fall under the spell of Bashir Assad's lovely wife, wearing a T-shirt that says "Happiness."

Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic—the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies. Her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment. She’s a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement. Paris Match calls her “the element of light in a country full of shadow zones.” She is the first lady of Syria.

Let's fall in love!

Other gems:

Syria is known as the safest country in the Middle East.

Asma’s husband, Bashar al-Assad, was elected president in 2000, after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, with a startling 97 percent of the vote.

The French ambassador to Syria, Eric Chevallier, says, “She managed to get people to consider the possibilities of a country that’s modernizing itself, that stands for a tolerant secularism in a powder-keg region, with extremists and radicals pushing in from all sides—and the driving force for that rests largely on the shoulders of one couple. I hope they’ll make the right choices for their country and the region. ”

On Friday, the Muslim day of rest, Asma al-Assad opens the door herself in jeans and old suede stiletto boots, hair in a ponytail, the word happiness spelled out across the back of her T-shirt. At the bottom of the stairs stands the off-duty president in jeans—tall, long-necked, blue-eyed. A precise man who takes photographs and talks lovingly about his first computer, he says he was attracted to studying eye surgery “because it’s very precise, it’s almost never an emergency, and there is very little blood.”

Did the writers check out any human rights reports on Syria? Did they discuss freedom of expression? Anti-semitism? Did the word "Hama" escape their lips?

Perhaps the people from Vogue would be interested in how Bashir's father liked to spend his time...

The article is so fawning it sometimes appears to be a spoof. Unfortunately, it is quite serious.

(h/t Folderol)

Kristof doesn't get it

In today's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof writes:

Is the Arab world unready for freedom? A crude stereotype lingers that some people — Arabs, Chinese and Africans — are incompatible with democracy. Many around the world fret that “people power” will likely result in Somalia-style chaos, Iraq-style civil war or Iran-style oppression.

That narrative has been nourished by Westerners and, more sadly, by some Arab, Chinese and African leaders. So with much of the Middle East in an uproar today, let’s tackle a politically incorrect question head-on: Are Arabs too politically immature to handle democracy?

This concern is the subtext for much anxiety today, from Washington to Riyadh. And there’s no question that there are perils: the overthrow of the shah in Iran, of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, of Tito in Yugoslavia, all led to new oppression and bloodshed. Congolese celebrated the eviction of their longtime dictator in 1997, but the civil war since has been the most lethal conflict since World War II. If Libya becomes another Congo, if Bahrain becomes an Iranian satellite, if Egypt becomes controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood — well, in those circumstances ordinary citizens might end up pining for former oppressors.

“Before the revolution, we were slaves, and now we are the slaves of former slaves,” Lu Xun, the great Chinese writer, declared after the toppling of the Qing dynasty. Is that the future of the Middle East?

I don’t think so. Moreover, this line of thinking seems to me insulting to the unfree world. In Egypt and Bahrain in recent weeks, I’ve been humbled by the lionhearted men and women I’ve seen defying tear gas or bullets for freedom that we take for granted. How can we say that these people are unready for a democracy that they are prepared to die for?

We Americans spout bromides about freedom. Democracy campaigners in the Middle East have been enduring unimaginable tortures as the price of their struggle — at the hands of dictators who are our allies — yet they persist. In Bahrain, former political prisoners have said that their wives were taken into the jail in front of them. And then the men were told that unless they confessed, their wives would promptly be raped. That, or more conventional tortures, usually elicited temporary confessions, yet for years or decades those activists persisted in struggling for democracy. And we ask if they’re mature enough to handle it?

The common thread of this year’s democracy movement from Tunisia to Iran, from Yemen to Libya, has been undaunted courage. I’ll never forget a double-amputee I met in Tahrir Square in Cairo when Hosni Mubarak’s thugs were attacking with rocks, clubs and Molotov cocktails. This young man rolled his wheelchair to the front lines. And we doubt his understanding of what democracy means?

In Bahrain, I watched a column of men and women march unarmed toward security forces when, a day earlier, the troops had opened fire with live ammunition. Anyone dare say that such people are too immature to handle democracy?

Kristof is making a major mistake. He is confusing bravery for political maturity.

No one doubts the protesters' bravery. No one doubts their integrity, or their desire for change, or even their desire for democracy.

But there are serious doubts at their ability to translate the raw desire for freedom into a functional, liberal, democratic government.

It is hard work to create the institutions necessary. More importantly, it takes time - and time is not on the side of the protesters.

It is now fashionable to pooh-pooh the dangers of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kristof's liberal circles, but no one can doubt that the Islamists are better organized and much more politically mature than the Facebookers of Tahrir Square. It takes time to set up an organization, to define a clear agenda, to build a fundraising mechanism, to attract volunteers, to build a means to communicate with all the people - including in rural areas, and to do all the myriad details from physical buildings to a phone system to a mailing list.

True freedom cannot flourish until Egyptians have been exposed to a wide range of ideas on a level playing field. The existing Islamist groups are running circles around the "Egyptian youth" we hear so much about. Kristof is so caught up in the emotions of the moment that he cannot think outside Tahrir Square, to the 99% of the country that is not as emotionally invested in who their leaders would be. To them, the nice people with beards who build a free Islamic school for their kids are the only game in town.

Enthusiasm does not ensure effective state building and true freedoms. Kristof, instead of spouting straw-man arguments, should be advocating ways for his jeans-wearing heroes to channel their sparks of enthusiasm and bravery into the hard, thankless and often boring work necessary to build a new Egypt from scratch.

(h/r David G)

Mubarak had his name sewn into the pinstripes of his suit!

Mubarak's narcissism apparently knew no bounds.

I saw an Arabic news video that showed what appeared to be Hosni Mubarak wearing a suit that had his name sewn in, repeatedly, as the pinstripe pattern:

So I went hunting for the original photo, and, sure enough...it's there! HOSNYMUBARAK, over and over again.

Here is what the original photo looks like:

And here's what it looks like up close:

Who knew we were spelling his name wrong all this time?

(The photo was taken in October of 2009.)

Who is the Muslim Brotherhood? (Video)

From Fuel for Truth:

EoZ posters make it to UC-Berkeley!

I received this photo showing pro-Israel activists at University of California-Berkeley with two of my "Apartheid?" posters, taken on Friday:

They also handed out an article by Ishmael Khaldi, an Israeli Arab vice-consul in San Fransisco, which says in part:

I am a proud Israeli - along with many other non-Jewish Israelis such as Druze, Bahai, Bedouin, Christians and Muslims, who live in one of the most culturally diversified societies and the only true democracy in the Middle East. Like America, Israeli society is far from perfect, but let us deals honestly. By any yardstick you choose - educational opportunity, economic development, women and gay's rights, freedom of speech and assembly, legislative representation - Israel's minorities fare far better than any other country in the Middle East

So, I would like to share the following with organizers of Israel Apartheid week, for those of them who are open to dialogue and not blinded by a hateful ideology:

You are part of the problem, not part of the solution: If you are really idealistic and committed to a better world, stop with the false rhetoric. We need moderate people to come together in good faith to help find the path to relieve the human suffering on both sides of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Vilification and false labeling is a blind alley that is unjust and takes us nowhere.

You deny Israel the fundamental right of every society to defend itself: You condemn Israel for building a security barrier to protect its citizens from suicide bombers and for striking at buildings from which missiles are launched at its cities - but you never offer an alternative. Aren't you practicing yourself a deep form of racism by denying an entire society the right to defend itself?

Your criticism is willfully hypocritical: Do Israel's Arab citizens suffer from disadvantage? You better believe it. Do African Americans 10 minutes from the Berkeley campus suffer from disadvantage - you better believe it, too. So should we launch a Berkeley Apartheid Week, or should we seek real ways to better our societies and make opportunity more available.

You are betraying the moderate Muslims and Jews who are working to achieve peace: Your radicalism is undermining the forces for peace in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. We are working hard to move toward a peace agreement that recognizes the legitimate rights of both Israel and the Palestinian people, and you are tearing down by falsely vilifying one side.

To the organizers of Israel Apartheid Week I would like to say:

If Israel were an apartheid state, I would not have been appointed here, nor would I have chosen to take upon myself this duty. There are many Arabs, both within Israel and in the Palestinian territories who have taken great courage to walk the path of peace. You should stand with us, rather than against us.

Thanks to Faith (who sent me the email), Lauren and Susan!

And if anyone else uses my posters, I'd love to see photos as well.

60% of Saudi men financially exploit their wives

From Al Arabiya:

A Saudi Arabian social researcher claims through his research that 60 percent of Saudi Arabian husbands financially exploit their wives’ money, the London-based Asharq al-Awsat reported on Friday.

Dr. Mahmoud Kisnawi from Univeristy of Umm al-Qura concentrated mainly on working wives, and said wives allow their husbands to take advantage of their salaries under the pretence of “ensuring family stability,” despite Islam giving women the legal and religious right to have her own complete salary.

Dr. Kisnawi told Asharq al-Awsat that 60 percent of husbands use their wives salaries to enter the real estate market or complete the construction of a home, without taking into consideration the needs and desires of their wives. He added that this phenomenon contributed to the increase in divorce rates in Saudi Arabia.

"In some cases, husbands have demanded that their wives provide them with large amounts of money so that they can complete the construction of their home. However these husbands may be deceiving their wives and want to complete construction in order to marry a second wife, with this [second] wife living in the home bought by the first wife's salary.”

This daunting reality lived by some Saudi Arabian women caused some psychological trauma to these women, Dr. Kisnawi said, adding “this will make women lose trust in the sanctity of marriage, and as a result they would [therefore] seek separation and divorce."

Maha Yousef, who was a working wife, told the newspaper that the issue of husbands financially exploiting their wives salaries is today a major reason for divorce in Saudi Arabia. Maha ended up divorcing her husband after 25 years in marriage, when her husband decided to marry a second wife after he exploited her money.

"After he finished financially exploiting me, and the house was built, he decided to marry a second wife, and for this second wife to live in the house that I spent my life working to finance," she said, adding "this caused me emotional and psychological trauma, and I saw that divorce was the only solution that would end this crisis, and return a portion of my dignity which was ripped away by the father of my children."

As for the Islamic jurisprudential view of this issue, Sheikh Mohamed al-Nujaimi, a member of the International Fiqh Academy, said that the majority of Muslim scholars believed that a wife has complete freedom to utilize the money and property in her name as she liked, without needing the consent of her husband.

"Major setback" at Iranian nuclear plant

Good news to start the new week:

From NYT:

Iran told atomic inspectors this week that it had run into a serious problem at a newly completed nuclear reactor that was supposed to start feeding electricity into the national grid this month, raising questions about whether the trouble was sabotage, a startup problem, or possibly the beginning of the project’s end.

In a report on Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran told inspectors on Wednesday that it was planning to unload nuclear fuel from its Bushehr reactor — the sign of a major upset. For years, Tehran has hailed the reactor as a showcase of its peaceful nuclear intentions and its imminent startup as a sign of quickening progress.

But nuclear experts said the giant reactor, Iran’s first nuclear power plant, now threatens to become a major embarrassment, as engineers remove 163 fuel rods from its core.

Iran gave no reason for the unexpected fuel unloading, but it has previously admitted that the Stuxnet computer worm infected the Bushehr reactor. On Friday, computer experts debated whether Stuxnet was responsible for the surprising development.

Russia, which provided the fuel to Iran, said earlier this month that the worm’s infection of the reactor should be investigated, arguing that it might trigger a nuclear disaster. Other experts said those fears were overblown, but noted that the full workings of the Stuxnet worm remained unclear.

In interviews Friday, nuclear experts said the trouble behind the fuel unloading could range from minor safety issues and operational ineptitude to serious problems that would bring the reactor’s brief operational life to a premature end.

“It could be simple and embarrassing all the way to ‘game over,’ ” said David A. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a former official at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees nuclear reactors in the United States.

Mr. Lochbaum added that having to unload a newly fueled reactor was “not unprecedented, but not an everyday occurrence.” He said it happened perhaps once in every 25 or 30 fuelings. In Canada, he added, a reactor was recently fueled and scrapped after the belated discovery of serious technical problems.

Faithless: Another hypocritical band boycotting Israel

From Mail and Guardian Online:

In December 2010 British electronic group Faithless’s lead singer Maxi Jazz wrote a note on his website to “family and friends of the band in Israel”.

He said: “We’ve been asked to do some shows this summer in your country and, with the heaviest of hearts, I have regretfully declined the invitation. While human beings are being willfully denied not just their rights but their needs for their children and grandparents and themselves, I feel deeply that I should not be sending even tacit signals that this is either ‘normal’ or ‘ok’.”

This adds Faithless to a lengthening list of artists, including Elvis Costello, the Pixies and the Gorillaz, who have refused to perform in Israel while it occupies parts of the Palestinian territories.

Faithless had played in Israel in the past.

Check out the justification their lead guitarist gives for choosing only to boycott Israel:

“A question that usually arises is why we aren’t boycotting the US or Britain because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “We can’t boycott Britain -- we live here -- and in the US the music market is so big that it would go unnoticed. If you’re serious about trying to make the world a better place, you have to be strategic.”

So, according to these brilliant rock stars, it is just as problematic to play in the UK and US as it is in Israel, but since it is not practical - they won't bother. Not to mention how their entire incomes would go down to zero.

Isn't it great to see how dedicated these jokers are to morality?

But it gets even better. Faithless has no problem playing in the UAE, for example, where there are massive human rights violations against its majority migrant population.

Even better, but Faithless has performed in Beirut - in a counry that has literal laws on the books that discriminate against Palestinian Arabs, severely restricting their ability to get jobs, to own land, and forbidding their becoming citizens.

Would this enlightened band consider boycotting these two relatively small countries where their political statement would be noticed by many people? Yeah, right.

Faithless pretends they are somehow making a moral statement by shunning Israel when in fact they are simply blindly following the crowd without knowing the first thing about the topic they are pretending to be so worked up about.

PalArabs burn photos of Obama - wearing a kippah

From AP:

A Palestinian protester holds a burning Israeli flag with a photo of American President Barack Obama during a demonstration against an American veto last week on a U.N. resolution that would have condemned Israel, in the West Bank city of Nablus, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011.

AP notices the flag is burning, but doesn't seem quite to notice the Jewish star on Obama's face - or that they found a photo of him wearing a kippah.

But don't call them anti-semitic. That just makes them angrier.

So what can you do for "Apartheid Week"? (updated)

Here are some resources so you can help battle the haters during "Israel Apartheid Week" on college campuses.

1) I put all of my relevant posters on their own page; please feel free to forward them to any college Hillels or Jewish/Zionist campus organizations to use as they wish.

2) StandWithUs is working very hard on this issue. Here's part of their press release:

"Israel Apartheid Week" (IAW) campaigners will be in for a surprise when they mount their seventh annual hate fest this spring. Pro-Israel students on campuses are ready for them.

Over the past year, StandWithUs campus coordinators have worked closely with students to brainstorm about the responses that would be most effective on their campuses.

"Each campus climate is different," explained StandWithUs co-founder and CEO Roz Rothstein. "A hard-hitting, aggressive response might work at one school but alienate students at another school. At some schools, students feel that materials highlighting Israel's democracy and remarkable achievements would most influence the student body. Our philosophy is that the students usually know best about their campus climate, and they have many great ideas. Our mission on campuses is to empower students to educate their campus communities. We help them develop strategies, programs, and slogans for flyers and signs that we then produce, and we help with funding for speakers and other events. If they request a certain custom flyer or booklet, our graphics team designs and produces it."

StandWithUs has a big arsenal of materials for students on any type of campus. There are hard-hitting educational flyers that cover topics ranging from terrorism to the life-saving purpose of the security fence, the facts about water, checkpoints, Hamas, and Israel's peace efforts. Other materials underscore, in detail, why equating Israel with apartheid makes no sense. From the StandWithUs Web site, students can download signs with slogans such as "Israel We Stand With You," "Israel Wants Peace," and "The Fence Saves Lives."

"We are especially proud of our three colorful booklets designed specifically for Apartheid Weeks. One graphically contrasts democratic Israel and apartheid South Africa. Another calls for ending the real apartheid that does exist in the Middle East: gender, religious, sexual, political, and racial apartheid. Anyone who reads this booklet would not be surprised by the eruptions occurring in the Middle East today," said Rothstein. All may be found on the right-hand side of the homepage at www.standwithus.com.

Their material is uniformly excellent. Here's their latest booklet, and here's their video showing what BDS is really about:

3) A Facebook page has posters that spoof IAW posters, meant to be posted next to the others. Here's one.

4) A 2006 resource guide.

5) The Israel on Campus Coalition has resources available to help campuses. Here is an interesting publication where they show specifically what some pro-Israel students did to combat the hate groups.

6) Check out the "Wall of Lies."

Egyptian kiddie show: "Liberate Jerusalem from the disgusting Jews"

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from the "Ammo Alaa" children's TV show, which aired on Nour Al-Khaleejiyah TV on December 29, 2010.

TV host: Let's see how we should answer the disgusting Jews, who say that Jerusalem belongs to them. What proof do we have that Jerusalem is Islamic? We tell our friends that... Am I making you fall asleep, Mr. Sa'd, or what? Wake up Sa'd... Have a carrot... First of all, we tell the Jews that the Arabs lived in the blessed city of Jerusalem, more than 2,000 years before the first Jew settled in there.

2,000 is a very big number. Not one year, not two, not ten, not a hundred – 2,000 years. That's the first thing. We tell them that the Arabs lived in Jerusalem 2,000 years before the first Jew set foot in it. Okay? Okay!

[..]

The disgusting Jews are getting ready, and they let their little children do many disgusting things, so that they will hate Islam, and kill all our Muslim brothers there.

My advice to you is to place Jerusalem inside our hearts, learn and be smart. When we take exams, we must kill ourselves memorizing. We must do well and be very good Muslims, so we can use our knowledge to liberate Jerusalem.

[...]

Scientists know how to make weapons and things that serve Islam. They can make the Muslims have a strong state, and make a nuclear bomb and an atom bomb, and all those things that make [the Jews] stronger than us.

The show aired in December, so we can rest assured that these attitudes disappeared with Mubarak's exit.

Libya update: Gaddafi's last stand? (updated)

Things are happening very, very quickly in Libya today, and the feeling is in the air that Gaddafi's rule is about to end.

There have been more towns captured by the opposition, and counterattacks by Libyan troops failed to re-take Zawiyah and Misurata.

But the main action is taking place in Tripoli itself today - and it is falling to the opposition, neighborhood by neighborhood, even in the face of deadly attacks. The Souk al Juma and Tajoura areas of Tripoli haves been taken by the opposition. There is lots of shooting in the streets, and many are being killed. Some think the total death toll has passed 2000.

Some are reporting that all that is left is Bab Azizyah, a heavily fortified 6 square-kilometer compound where Gaddafi is presumably holed up. It is said to be able to withstand bombings from the air.

The feeling is that if Tripoli falls, then it is game over, although some fear Gaddafi making it to a neighboring African country and waging new battles from there.

The tweeters are way ahead of the media here.

UPDATE: Gaddafi emerged to speak to supporters at Green Square. And the latest reports are that presumed mercenaries are looking for protests and shooting on sight. So reports that Tripoli is close to falling seem to have been premature.

Islamic Jihad mouthpiece Palestine Today will introduce a 24-hour satellite channel tonight, after a successful trial run for the past three months.

It will be available on Nilesat and Arabsat.

Note the stylized map of "Palestine" in the logo.

I smell Iranian money.

Robert Fisk thinks Gaddafi is ALMOST as bad as Netanyahu

For a columnist with a history of asinine and idiotic articles, Robert Fisk still has the ability to surprise.

Check out his review of Gaddafi's rambling, incoherent speech on Wednesday:

He had not even begun to use bullets against his enemies – a palpable lie – and "any use of force against the authority of the state shall be punished by death", in itself a palpable truth which Libyans knew all too well without the future tense of Gaddafi's threat. On and on and on he ranted. Like everything Gaddafi, it was very impressive – but went on far too long.

He cursed the people of Benghazi who had already liberated their city – "just wait until the police return to restore order", this dessicated man promised without a smile. His enemies were Islamists, the CIA, the British and the "dogs" of the international press. Yes, we are always dogs, aren't we? I was long ago depicted in a Bahraini newspaper cartoon (Crown Prince, please note) as a rabid dog, worthy of liquidation. But like Gaddafi's speeches, that's par for the course. And then came my favourite bit of the whole Gaddafi exegesis last night: HE HADN'T EVEN BEGUN TO USE VIOLENCE YET.

So far so good...Fisk is pretty accurately describing Gaddafi's rant (although when watching it, the word "impressive" is certainly not one I would have used.)

But then Fisk can't stop himself from saying this:

Indeed, there were times last night when Gaddafi – in his vengefulness, his contempt for Arabs, for his own people – began to sound very like the speeches of Benjamin Netanyahu. Was there some contact between these two rogues, one wondered, that we didn't know about?

And there we have it.

A poster child for the Left is so filled with utter hate for Israel, that he thinks that Gaddafi's bizarre performance art at times only approached speeches made by Netanyahu?

Even if you believe that Netanyahu is a right-wing Greater Israel zealot - and he is far from it - how can any sane person say that Bibi's speeches have ever been anything but sober?

Can Fisk point to a single Netanyahu speech where he expressed contempt for Arabs? Let alone contempt for his own people?

How in the world can Fisk even float the idea that Gaddafi and Netanyahu are partners in genocide, part of a secret (Jewish, naturally) cabal intent on killing every Arab on the planet? I can imagine the phone call from the Libyan dictator, asking advice from Bibi on how to be more bloodthirsty.

The sad thing is, Fisk can say such things in his little Zionist-hating bubble, without anyone calling him on it. His reporting from the Arab world lately has not been half bad, and he is one of the few reporters who never fell for the "rehabilitated Gaddafi" of 2003. But Fisk's abject hate for Israel - that in any normal planet would make him a joke - instead makes him a hero in the circles he travels.

Truth be damned - Fisk knows a higher truth, that Israel is a genocidal nation and its leaders are war criminals, far worse than anything the Arab world can produce. Nothing can shake him from his faith in Israel's absolute evil - and Arab dictators' repression is a mere faint echo of Israel's wish to kill, kill, kill.

God only knows why Fisk's murderous Israel hasn't nuked half the planet by now.

(h/t Dan)

Morning links

Iranian warships are just "a message of peace."

Khaled Abu Toameh discerns a bit of hypocrisy among those who are faster at condemning Israel for building houses than they are at Arab dictators slaughtering their own people.

Martin Peretz and Danny Ayalon notice that Israel doesn't seem to have anything to do with Middle East unrest. Who knew?

Gullible amnesia about the Muslim Brotherhood.

Honest Reporting resumes their excellent series on photo bias in the media, and I play a small part.

This weekend the J-Street conference will begin, and its luster has definitely gone down in the past year. Not that the JTA, Forward and other Jewish newspapers will stop their love affair with the fringe group that tries to pretend it is mainstream.

Norway's Foreign Ministry is sponsoring some friendly Israel-bashers in a conference in a "dialogue."

A British fashion designer seems to have gone on a drunken, anti-semitic rant in a Paris restaurant.

A richly deserved Dick of the Week.

(h/t David G, Zach N, Yisrael Medad, Richard Landes' excellent linkdump, Suso, Martin Kramer)