Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 04, 2011

Far left freaking over Goldstone's change of heart

Mondoweiss has, by my count, no fewer than 13 posts about Goldstone in just the past two days. It is almost as if the anti-Israel crowd is going the first three of the five stages of the Kübler-Ross model of grief:

Denial: Goldstone didn't really retract, and Israel still targets civilians in what must be the most ineffective attempt at ethnic cleansing in history.

Anger: Goldstone's U-turn is hurting the progressive, hate Israel movement

Bargaining: “The judge only comments on one small part of the report, which I take as an implication that the rest of the report stays intact and he is still in support of that.”

All we have left is depression and acceptance. Depression will come, but it won't be blogged, as anger is their driving emotion. Acceptance cannot come, because as long as Israel exists in any form, these hateful lunatics - who happily publish the most ridiculous rumors of Israel arming Gaddafi - will never accept any possible defense for its existence.

Instead, Goldstone will be recast as a turncoat, as Ilan Pappe does in this hilarious article at Electronic Intifada, where he compares Goldstone to his nemesis Benny Morris:

Goldstone has not entered as yet the lunatic fringe of ultra-Zionism as Morris did. But if he is not careful the future promises to be a pleasant journey with the likes of Morris, Alan Dershowitz (who already said that Goldstone is a "repentant Jew") between annual meetings of the AIPAC rottweilers and the wacky conventions of the Christian Zionists. He would soon find out that once you cower in the face of Zionism -- you are expected to go all the way or be at the very same spot you thought you had successfully left behind you.

Of course, Pappe is a principled hater of Israel, and nothing ticks him off more than to see someone he thought was on his side turn out not to be a similarly rabid, drooling pile of malevolence.

Abducted Gaza engineer indicted for developing rockets, helping Hamas

From JPost:

Dirar Abu Sisi was Hamas's leading missile developer according to an indictment filed Monday at the Beersheba District Court. Abu Sisi was reportedly abducted by Israel over a month ago as he was traveling on a train in Ukraine and brought to Israel for interrogation.

According to the indictment, Abu Sisi received his doctorate in engineering in Ukraine in the 1990s and studied with some of the leading Ukrainian military engineers. After returning to the Gaza Strip, he was recruited into Hamas by the military commander of the terrorist organization at the time, Salah Shehada, and began working as one of their leading engineers for short- and long-range missiles.

Abu Sisi not only developed missiles in Gaza but was also responsible for upgrading thousands of older rockets and increasing their range and penetration capabilities. According to the indictment that was filed Monday in the Beersheba District Court, Abu Sisi was charged with membership in a terrorist organization, conspiracy to commit a crime, and the production of illegal weaponry, assistance to an illegal organization and other various crimes.

Abu Sisi was the commander of the Izzadin Kassam military college and worked closely with Ahmed al-Jabari, the head of Hamas's military wing. He is the main developer of the Kassam rocket, as well as anti-tank missiles in the Gaza Strip.

Known as the "Rocket Godfather of Hamas," Abu Sisi provided valuable intelligence information during his hearing on Hamas's military wing, its different branches and the decision making process within Hamas.

In 2002, Abu Sisi was recruited into Hamas by Sheikh Nizar Rayan, a spiritual leader of Hamas's military wing who was later assassinated during Operation Cast Lead in 2009. Rayan introduced Abu Sisi to various senior Hamas operatives including Saleh Shehada. Due to his education as an engineer, Abu Sisi was asked by Shehada to assist him in developing weaponry for Hamas.

He later joined a committee that was responsible for the research and development for weaponry headed by Mohammed Def. In the committee Abu Sisi was responsible for electrical engineering and dealt mostly with developing boosters and fins that stabilized and enhanced rocket propulsion. These are two factors that are key for increasing a rocket's range and subsequent penetration of a target.

In 2005, Abu Sisi was asked by the committee to begin working on increasing the range of rockets that were manufactured domestically in the Gaza Strip. Due to his involvement Hamas, he was able to increase the range of the rockets from six to nine kilometers, and subsequently to 15 kilometers.

In 2007, Abu Sisi assisted Hamas in increasing range of rockets to 22 kilometers. He was then asked by Hamas to increase the range to between 37 and 45 kilometers, and participated in several experiments during which rockets were tested and fired into the Mediterranean.

In the end his attempts did not succeed.

One of the tank missiles that Abu Sisi helped develop is "Yassin," which has the ability to penetrate between 16 and 26 centimeters of reinforced steal. He attempted to increase the penetration capabilities to 37 centimeters.

Abu Sisi also developed an anti-tank mortar shell called "Abu Rassin" with a special range of 100 meters and can penetrate 87 centimeters of steel. He later made efforts to increase penetration to 100 cm, and worked on another anti-tank missile called "Al Batar," which has a 100-meter range.

The earlier reports that Abu Sisi was abducted because he knew the whereabouts of Gilad Shalit made no sense to me because by the time his disappearance was known, Shalit would have been moved to another location. This detailed indictment, where Abu Sisi is apparently Hamas' main rocket engineer, makes much more sense.

Hamas is denying any connection to him:

Hamas on Monday denied that Dirar Abu Sisi is connected to the organization following his indictment in Beersheba District Court in which he was accused of being the group's leading missile developer, Israel Radio reported.

Abu Sisi's wife Veronika also denied the charges against him, maintaining that the Palestinian engineer reportedly abducted in Ukraine by Israel was innocent.

Jenin is no longer a massacre, but a historic defeat of the Zionist enemy

Remember Jenin? When Palestinian Arab officials, and reporters, claimed that Israel had massacred hundreds or even thousands of innocent Arab civilians and buried them in mass graves? Where a Palestinian Arab filmmaker corroborated the massacre stories in a movie?

And how it was all a huge lie?

Well, guess who has changed their narrative about Jenin: Islamic Jihad!

Now, Jenin is no longer the scene of a massive slaughter of innocent women and children, but a scene of an epic battle where Palestinian Arabs defeated the hated Zionist enemy.

On the ninth anniversary of event, the PIJ-oriented Palestine Today has no less than four articles about the heroism of the martyrs of Jenin. One describes the pride and joy of a mother of one of the fighters who is now in prison, one has an Islamic Jihad sheikh bragging about how Jenin was a "great victory for the Palestinian people," one shows photos of the heroic fighters during the battle, and a fourth interviews another PIJ leader about how wonderful the battle was.

Amazing how the poor victims have turned into the admired victors.

Syrian protesters forced to prostrate themselves to Assad photos?

Don't know if this is real or not, but Arabic media is reporting that Syrian security forces are forcing protesters to kneel and prostrate themselves towards photos of Syrian president Bashir Assad. This photo has been going around Facebook:

Since many of the protesters are Islamic fundamentalists, this would be especially insulting, if true.

Jordan claims historic metal plates stolen. Just one problem....

From Ma'an:

The director of Jordan's antiquities department said Sunday that "treasure of vital historic importance" has turned up in Israel after being smuggled out of his country.

"It's about 70 pounds (32 kilograms) of metal containing between five and 15 pages bound by lead rings, as well as copper manuscripts dating from the first century AD," Ziad al-Saad told reporters.

"These books and manuscripts would have been used by the first Christians to come to Jordan, fleeing persecution by the Romans," he said.

"These pieces are a treasure of vital historical importance as they offer new information about the origins of Christianity, and especially because manuscripts from this period are very rare."

Saad said the pieces had been discovered "in the north of Jordan several years ago during illegal excavations in caves, and were smuggled into Israel, where they found their way into the hands of an Israeli merchant who had them appraised in Britain."

"Experts at Cambridge University informed Jordan" of the items' reappearance, Saad said.

"They are of equal, if not greater importance than the Dead Sea Scrolls."

The director of Jordan's antiquities department said, just yesterday and without qualification, that these metal codices are as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls?

This is very interesting, because those same codices have almost certainly already been exposed as fakes.

Already a month ago experts had grave doubts about their authenticity:

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), however, has dismissed the idea that the books are of any value. Experts who examined some of them, it said, "absolutely doubted their authenticity". According to the IAA, the books are a "mixture of incompatible periods and stylesâ€¦without any connection or logic. Such forged motifs can be found in their thousands in the antiquities markets of Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East."

Professor Andre Lemaire, an expert in ancient inscriptions from the Sorbonne, was also dubious, saying the writing on some of the codices he had seen made no sense and it was "a question apparently of sophisticated fakes".

The Paleojudaica blog quotes one expert who looked at the text, replying to an inquiry about these tablets:

The text on your bronze tablet, therefore, makes no sense in its own right, but has been extracted unintelligently from another longer text (as if it were inscribed with the words: 't to be that is the question wheth'). The longer text from which it derives is a perfectly ordinary tombstone from Madaba in Jordan which happens to have been on display in the Amman museum for the past fifty years or so. The text on your bronze tablet is repeated, in part, in three different places, meaningless in each case.

The only possible explanation is that the text on the bronze tablet was copied directly from the inscription in the museum at Amman by someone who did not understand the meaning of the text of the inscription, but was simply looking for a plausible-looking sequence of Greek letters to copy. He copied that sequence three times, in each case mixing up the letters alpha and lambda.

This particular bronze tablet is, therefore, a modern forgery, produced in Jordan within the last fifty years. I would stake my career on it.

Wikipedia has much more, as the story develops.

So while I cannot say whether Jordan's charges that the pages were stolen are true or not, it is astounding that the head of Jordan's antiquities department is ignoring all the evidence that casts serious doubt on the authenticity of these plates.

ZAKA-Israel works with Iranians in Japan. When will Tehran condemn it?

From YNet:

An unusual cooperation amidst Japanese catastrophe: An Israeli team of 12 ZAKA (Disaster Victim Identification) volunteers sent to Japan to help out with rescue efforts worked alongside an unlikely team on Sunday – the official Iranian delegation.

In Kamaishi, ZAKA volunteers were able to rescue seven bodies belonging to one family that was buried under the rubble. They also assisted in the identification of the dead. The Israeli team taught the locals to spot crows and explained that, from their experience, dead bodies can be found where crows hover.

The Teheran rescue team also arrived in the city. "We shook hands and became friends. At one point they set up a stand and wanted to hand out food and medicine to the locals. We joined in and there we stood, side by side, handing out food and medicine. They removed the Iranian flag and removed our Israeli flag and we just stood there together. It was very odd," he added.

However, when the Iranians offered the Israeli crew some hot tea, the ZAKA team declined politely due to kashrut reasons. Meshi-Zahav joked and said, "It could have been beautiful if the Iranians tried to poison us in Japan."

In order to avoid a scene the Israelis agreed to drink orange juice from a closed can and later the two delegations took their picture together.

The Iranians told the ZAKA volunteers: "You know we are cousins. The wars and conflicts are between the leaders, but between the people there should be peace. We can't forget we were close once."

Odds are very good that within 48 hours, probably sooner, an Iranian official will denounce this photo.

NYT refused to publish Goldstone retraction?

From YNet:

Not only did Judge Richard Goldstone's words of regret fail to match the global resonance of his original report, it now comes to light that one of the most important newspapers in the world refused to publish his retraction.

Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday that a source close to Goldstone stated that in the past few days the judge had approached the editor of the New York Times opinion pages requesting to post the article he wrote in the paper – and was told his article was rejected.

The editor gave no explanation as to why the article was rejected, but the source believes this was due to the newspaper's political agenda.

The letter was ultimately published in the more conservative Washington Post over the weekend.

This makes sense, as David G has noted via email.

Goldstone had written 3 op-eds in the New York Times in 2008 and 2009, and none in the Washington Post. It strains credulity to think that he did not first go to the NYT for this op-ed as well.

Which tells you what you need to know about the New York Times and Israel.

UPDATE: Politico says that the NYT version was different than the one submitted to the WaPo. (h/t Zach)

Two good Passover videos

From Aish.com, a social media Exodus:

And from The Fountainheads in Israel:

(h/t Menachem, Yerushalimey)

Muslim student defends Israel at UN!

Amran Hussain spoke at the UN on behalf of the European Union of Jewish Students. It is very impressive!

(h/t אורי פלג)

Elder posters hit the front page of Canada's largest Jewish weekly!

From The Jewish Tribune of Canada, the largest Jewish weekly in Canada, March 31 edition (not yet online):

A full page!

And they nicely gave me credit:

I'm kvelling!

(h/t Wigg for the heads up and photos)

Egyptian foreign minister warns that peace with Israel will get colder

Al Arabiya reports that Nabil el-Arabi, Egypt's foreign minister, said said that his country would not be a "strategic treasure to Israel, as they said it was at the time of President Mubarak," and Egypt will only abide by treaties and no more.

He said that Egypt has the right to force the Israeli side to adhere to some of the issues that they claim Israel has not strictly kept from Camp David, "such as the part that said that Israel is committed to peace with the countries that wish it, and it did not happen with Palestine."

The commenters were of the "hell yeah!" type, although one of them definitely gets into the Great Moments of Autotranslation Hall of Fame. Google translates his comment like this:

I am an Iraqi, me proud to be an Arab.... We are tired of waiting for the vagina to defeat the Jews who planted the differences and hatred between us .. When the disease became ill Egypt Sadat and Mubarak sick all the Arabs and Hovoa Wayne got .. Today, Egypt is recovering ..Recover all of the Arabs and, God willing, the vagina soon.

A few links

J-Street Defends the Indefensible

Honest Reporting on Goldstone's about-face

Eichmann wasn't just "following orders"

Why do Arabs want to be citizens of that hated Zionist entity? (Where we learn an interesting fact - a Hamas leader's nephew serves in the IDF!)

FresnoZionism looks at American rabbis who love Palestinian Arabs. (He also has some great, original cartoons.)

A reform rabbi's response to Peter Beinart's thesis about young liberal American Jews.

Getty Images catches an idyllic scene from Gaza.

Hamas terrorists were in "The Playground of Death"

Here is the English-language press release from Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades after the IDF killed three Hamas terrorists on Saturday:

As Al Aqsa Intifada against the occupation assault on the Gaza Strip continues, Ezzeddeen Al-Qassam Brigades has its best men to be in the playground of death to defend their people from any attack by the enemy ... Today, Al-Qassam Brigades mourn the death of the Mujahedeen:

Ismael Ali Lubbad [35 years]

Beach refugee camp – Gaza city

Abdullah Ali Lubbad [24 years]

Beach refugee camp – Gaza city

Mohammed Mahdi Ad-Daya [31 years]

As-Sabra neighborhood – Gaza city

The Zionist fighters assassinated the mujahedeen while they were driving their car in Khanyounis city. They were martyred after a long bright path of jihad, hard work, struggle and sacrifice.

Al Qassam Brigades mourn the death of the Mujahedeen, reaffirms the commitment and determination to continue the resistance against the belligerent occupation forces.

Finally, may Allah (swt) accept him and his blessed efforts for the path of Jihad and may Allah grant his family patience and solace for his lose.

"To God we belong and to him we shall return."

Predictable: Anti-semites now attack Goldstone

From the nutty-far-left Salem News:

Many of us knew something wasn't right with Richard Goldstone from the beginning. His seeming honesty was too good to be true.

He is the experienced former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, who investigated the extended attack on Gaza's civilian population in the winter of 2008 and 2009 that left more than 1400 dead, most of whom were civilian, known as 'Operation Cast Lead'.

Considering the bond that ultimately exists between Zionist Jews, the selection of Goldstone as the man to head an investigation of Israel's Gaza War Crimes was a little like having Newt Gingrich investigate Republican wrongdoing.

...And this leads to the ultimate point about Goldstone and that is that no Zionist Jew from a country that practices apartheid so recently, should have been allowed to head the investigation.

Palestinian Arabs call to boycott Facebook. On Facebook!

Al Jazeera reports that a group of Palestinian Arabs, angry over Facebook taking down the "third intifada" page, are calling for everyone to boycott Facebook on April 15th.

And where are they organizing this campaign? Why, on Facebook, of course!