Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 11, 2011

Does this mean that France is more Islamophobic than Israel?

From AFP:

France, home to Europe's biggest Muslim population, on Monday officially banned women from wearing full-face veils in public places.

Other European countries have drawn up bans on the burqa and the niqab but France is the first to risk stirring social tensions by putting one into practice.

Police on Saturday said they arrested 59 people, including 19 veiled women, who turned up for a banned protest in Paris over the ban, while two more were detained as they attempted to travel to the rally from Britain and Belgium.

Of course, Israel has no ban on burqas. Or minarets. Or muezzin's amplified public calls to prayer.

Europe is making Israel look like a model of tolerance for Islam!

World Bank calls health of PalArab children "outstanding" (updated)

From the BBC, 2009:

The Lancet medical journal report highlights how 10% of Palestinian children now have stunted growth.

An Israeli government spokesperson said the Lancet had failed to seek its view, and said many Palestinians had accessed medical care in the country.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli government, called the report one-sided.
He said: "This is propaganda in the guise of a medical report."

"Mortality rates among infants and under-fives haven't declined much. This is unusual when compared with other Arab countries that used to have similar rates but have managed to bring them down.

"The trend for stunting among children is increasing, and the concern is about the long-term effects. It is caused by chronic malnutrition, and affects cognitive development and physical health.

"There are pockets in northern Gaza where the level of stunted growth reaches 30%.

"It's very important that women and children have access to quality care."

The New York Times quoted a Harvard researcher who slammed the Israeli reaction:

The Israeli government’s dismissal of the report as “propaganda in the guise of a medical report” is disheartening. Measuring stunted growth among children represents objective health data collection. Regardless of partisan persuasions, the percentage of Palestinian children who now suffer from stunted growth remains ten percent. Dismissing the report as one-sided does not change the medical facts on the ground, which clearly indicate that the Palestinian population in Gaza is facing a dangerous and worsening health situation, one that certainly has implications on any future prospects for peace.

The Lancet (and, to an extent, the BBC and NYT) were pushing the idea that a 10% stunting rate in children is horrible.

Naturally, Israel was blamed as part of the problem.

Yet the World Bank report just came out with a report designed called "Building the Palestinian State: Sustaining Growth, Institutions, and Service Delivery." The point of this report is to say that the Palestinian Arab territories are ready for statehood.

Look how they report roughly the same statistics:

In terms of indicators of early childhood nutrition, WB&G is an outstanding performer. Among children under the age of 5, only 11.5 percent suffer from stunting (low height for age) and a mere 1.4 percent from wasting (low weight for height). In the average middle income country, 3 out of 10 children are stunted, i.e. more than three times the figure for WB&G. Performance in terms of wasting incidence is even more compelling: one in 10 children in a middle income country suffers from wasting, i.e. the rate is 7 times lower in WB&G. Thus, judged by anthropometric outcomes, WB&G performs better than most other countries in the world, irrespective of income. ...It is important to note that the pool of countries in the sample includes a variety of middle income countries from the region, such as Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, and Morocco -- and WB&G fares better than these in terms of early childhood nutrition indicators. In addition, overall incidence rates of stunting and wasting have been relatively stable over time.

How is a 10% stunting rate considered terrible in 2009 and 11.5% considered outstanding in 2011? It depends on what propaganda goal you have in what you are writing. When you want to demonize Israel, you cherry pick numbers to make the health situation look bad; when you want to make the PA look good and ready for a state you do the exact opposite. That "objective data" mentioned in the NYT is now seen to have been presented in the most subjective manner possible - by not comparing it to similar territories worldwide.

And by the way, both those numbers seemed to have been taken from studies made in 2006. Did things worsen?

Well, the Lancet followed up in 2010, and reported on a newer 2008 Bir Zeit study:

6% of 1883 children who were assessed were stunted (8% of 930 boys vs 3% of 950 girls, p=0·01), less than 1% had wasting, 2% were underweight, 11% were anaemic (7% of boys vs 14% of girls), and 15% were overweight and obese (11% of boys vs 20% of girls; 11% were overweight, and 4% were obese).

Between 2006 and 2008 - when Israel already had the blockade in Gaza - children in the territories got a lot fatter, and stunting went down seemingly dramatically, from 11.5% to only 6%! (The sample ages may have been different in the two studies; the second study was for schoolchildren. Yet the study implied that young children were in better nutrition programs than older schoolchildren.)

It is hard to come up with a better example of lies, damned lies and statistics.

(h/t Zach N)

UPDATE: Here are the stunting statistics for various Arab countries, according to UNICEF:

Qatar 8%
Palestinian Territories- 10%
Algeria - 15
Lebanon - 11
Jordan - 12
Oman - 13
UAE - 17
Saudi Arabia - 20
Libya - 21
Morocco - 23
Kuwait - 24
Iraq - 26
Syria - 28
Egypt - 29
Yemen – 58

(h/t Dusty)

New IDF video of Iron Dome

YNet got hold of a video put out by the Defense Ministry, seemingly done with a night-vision camera, showing Iron Dome intercept and destroy Qassam rockets on April 7:

Nice!

(So why doesn't YNet just put it on YouTube directly instead of making bloggers like me jump through hoops to be able to capture it and put it on YouTube ourselves?)

Yemen kicks Al Jazeera out of the country; Syria stops photographs

From Bloomberg:

Yemen has closed the office of Al Jazeera television and withdrawn the Doha, Qatar-based network’s license to report from the country, state-run Saba news agency reported, citing an unidentified official.

The decision to permanently close the news bureau followed what the report called a "sabotage scheme aimed at inciting strife."

Yemen recalled its ambassador to Qatar for consultation following remarks by Qatar’s prime minister about political tensions in the Arabian Peninsula country, Saba reported yesterday.

Al Jazeera has an interesting blog entry about how Syria's secret police are stopping journalists from taking pictures - so they acted like tourists:

We wanted to get a better view - and perhaps some other pictures - so we walked all the way around the mosque to the other side of the protest. As soon as we got to the other side, I took out my camera. Before I could even lift it to my face, three pairs of hands grabbed it, and myself, saying: “No, no pictures.”

They tried to wrestle the camera from my hands but I managed to pull it back, saying I was a tourist, that I was sorry for the trouble.

“No trouble,” they said. “But no pictures here.”

“You go now please," they said. So we walked towards the protest and I jammed the camera back in my bag. We walked the perimeter of the protest and I standed there looking at Afaf, the mosque, Afaf, the mosque ... trying to get the police to lose interest in us.

It was at that point when a colleague from another network (which will remain nameless for their safety) came up to us. A few quick jokes were exchanged at which point he noted the situation was getting "a bit dodgy”. We agreed. He said he had a car stashed down one of the back alleys and off we went.

Back to the hotel in one piece. They’re not tremendous photos but what can you expect in Syria? Even when you have permission to film, this is a place where you’re better off acting like a tourist.

I hope to finish Michael Totten's excellent new book this coming weekend so I can review it here, but he talks a lot about how Hezbollah tries to limit what can be filmed, photographed or reported from the parts of Lebanon they control. That story, of how jurnalists are limited in their ability to report, needs to be part of all reporting from any area.

Muslims upset over religion-themed professional sports promotions

From USA Today:

The issue of religious freedom vs. separation of church and state is always dicey and sports is not immune.

But a national Muslim advocacy group doesn't think it's appropriate for teams to mix religion and sports. If sports teams are going do it, then the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) wants equal time for other religions.

"The ultimate test of this kind of policy would be to have a Muslim Family Day — and gauge the public reaction to it," says CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper. "Given the heightened state of anti-Muslim sentiment in our society, I have a feeling there would be some objections to that."

The Oakland A's, for example, will hold their first Jewish Heritage Night against the Los Angels May 17. Attendees get an A's yarmulke and a seat in the plaza infield section for $26.
Other baseball teams are involved:

The Florida Marlins will hold their first Inspirational Forum after a game, with outfielder Chris Coghlan discussing his devotion to his faith.

The Kansas City Royals will hold their third Faith & Family Day.

The Colorado Rockies will hold their fifth Faith Day for all faiths this season

And the Philadelphia Phillies stage their fourth Jewish Heritage Night.

A number of points need to be made.

First, there is provably far more anti-semitism in America than "Islamophobia," so Hooper's statement is once again an attempt to inflate a phenomenon that is virtually nonexistent.

Another point is this one, from the first article:

Steve Fanelli of the A's says pro sports teams are offering religious-themed nights to move group ticket sales and because religious groups in their community approach them.

"Beyond religion it's the same philosophy for any theme day: give fans a chance to enjoy baseball with their group and get together in an environment they may not otherwise choose to," Fanelli says.

The theme days are simply a way to make extra money, and the religious groups themselves request it. If CAIR tells the Detroit Pistons that an "Islamic Day" would bring in 3000 extra ticket sales, they would hold one.

So why aren't there any Muslim Family days at baseball parks and basketball arenas? The answer is indirectly given by the atheist quoted in the second quoted article:

Teams have pushed ethnic heritage days for years. But religion? That's problematic, answers Blair Scott, spokesman for American Atheists. It's not illegal, but Scott believes it's unethical.

"They're out to make a buck. They're taking advantage of people's religiosity to make that buck."

Scott doubts he'll ever see "Atheist Day" at stadiums.

"When you have a Super Bowl party in the atheist community, two people show up. We don't tend to be big sports fans."

If there is enough interest in Muslim community for a theme night, it will happen. Are Muslims great sports fans? I know that even religious Jews in the US are huge sports fans, enough that many major stadiums offer kosher food to accommodate them.

Lastly, and most importantly, when Jewish or other groups have theme nights in the stadiums, they are done from the perspective of having a positive, fun night out. It is not a "demand" for equal time with other ethnic or specialized theme nights; it is simply a chance to get groups to come out and have a good time. No one requires that the stadiums accommodate any religious requirements.

Now, would any Muslim group support an official visit to a sports event where there are, for example, cheerleaders? Or would they try to say that there should be no cheerleaders for Muslim Family Night? I don't know the answer.

If Hooper wants equal time, let him organize a Muslim night in areas where there are large Muslim communities. No one will stop him - unless he starts demanding that the stadiums provide places for prayer or ritual washing or that they stop selling pork products on that night.

(h/t jzaik)

New "Miral" ad reveals its goals

I still haven't seen Miral, and based on how awful the reviews were, I am not likely to waste the time. But apparently the reviews have been so bad, and the box-office results so poor, that the distributor is now placing ads to attract the core anti-semitic audience to view this turgid film:

What a tasteful use of the Star of David! Very artistic!

You can rest assured that any movie ad that quotes reviews by two actors and one director, without a single quote from a movie reviewer, is a stinker.

(h/t Ian)

Hamas now claims school bus was "military"

On Saturday, the al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas held a press conference where they now claim that the school bus they destroyed with an anti-tank missile was a military target:

At a news conference Saturday afternoon in Gaza, [Hamas spokesman] Abu Obeida denied allegations by the occupation that the bus targeted by al-Qassam Brigades near the so-called Kfar Saad, east of Gaza, was civilian. He confirmed that it is a bus shuttling between military sites and traveling on the military road that is a security belt for the movement of tanks, which fired missiles against our people.

Well, there you have it.

Black student leaders slam "apartheid" claims

From JPost:

African-American student leaders from a variety of historically black colleges and universities took out full page ads in numerous American college newspapers Thursday, displaying an “Open Letter to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP),” to convey that they were offended by SJP’s use of the term “apartheid” at recent Israel Apartheid Week events at campuses across the country.

The 16 signatories to the letter are students and alumni from historically black colleges and universities who are members of the Vanguard Leadership Group, a leadership development academy and honor society for top students. The letter ran or is slated to run in student newspapers at Brown University, University of California- Los Angeles, University of Maryland and Columbia University over the next few days.

“The Students for Justice in Palestine’s labeling of Israel, an extremely diverse and vibrant country, as an apartheid state is not only false, but offensive,” Vanguard President Michael Hayes told The Jerusalem Post. “Additionally, this rhetoric does absolutely nothing to help Israel-Palestine negotiations or relations. We feel this type of action serves to hinder the peace process domestically and abroad, and have made it our priority to take a stand to shift the tide of understanding.”

Here's the actual ad:

Video of Hamas setting up a rocket launch - from a cemetery

From the IDF:

(h/t Greg)

Overnight open thread

I was way for Shabbat and came back to way too many emails, let alone news stories. So I'm not going to even bother looking at more until Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, post anything interesting here.

Egypt's Defense Minister implicitly threatens Israel's air force

On Friday, Egypt's defense minister Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi wrote on his Facebook page that he has instructed his army to immediately shoot down any military aircraft that crosses the Egyptian border.

أصدرت التعليمات بمهاجمة كل طائرة حربية تخترق الحدود المصرية والإسقاط الفورى لها

He of course wrote this while Israel was operating against rocket launchers and terrorists next door in Gaza.

(h/t אורי פלג)

Iron Dome in action (video)

On Saturday, Iron Dome intercepted several rockets aimed at Ashkelon, and people have been videotaping it. Here's one video (the flash is when the Grad gets intercepted):

A number of Israelis have posted YouTube videos showing Iron Dome intercepting rockets. This link should take you to the most recent videos.

Hamas in 2007: "There is no justification for targeting civilians."

In light of Hamas' bragging that it shot a laser-guided anti-tank missile at a marked, yellow school bus, that had been filled with children minutes earlier, it is worth looking at this statement made by their English-language spokesman, Abu Obaida, in December 2007:

There is no justification for targeting civilians. It is against Islam to deliberately kill unarmed civilians during jihad. In addition, our doctrine is to target the enemies army, security services, and support apparatus. But it is known that Zionist society is a militarized society. Service in the army is mandatory; and reserve duty continues past the age of 40. Our determined stance is that unarmed persons on both sides of the conflict should be left out of the fighting. However, we will not accept giving the enemy a free hand against our civilians.

And their response to the Goldstone report included this howler:

The Hamas government wrote that it "regrets any harm that may have befallen any Israeli civilian."

Isn't that special?

Israel haters at Columbia call my posters "racist"

An article in the Columbia Spectator references Columbia Hillel's response to "Israel Apartheid Week" - and the anti-Israel authors take aim to two of my posters that Hillel apparently displayed:

Last month, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (C-SJP) sponsored Israeli Apartheid Week. In response, Hillel groups organized a campaign titled “Separating Fact From Apartheid.” To achieve this end, Hillel employed racist tactics to put a convivial face to Israel’s military and colonial occupation of Palestinian land....

To illustrate Israel’s “diversity,” Hillel set up a display of large poster boards of Israel’s token successful minorities.

The authors are deliberately misrepresenting Hillel's point. It isn't that Israel is diverse - which it is - but that Israel is not an apartheid state, as the authors contend. There is a big difference between the existence of discrimination, which happens everywhere, and the disgusting charge of apartheid, as the haters who wrote this piece are espousing.

The first board featured Rana Raslan, who in 1999 became the first Arab to win a Miss Israel contest. Three years later, Raslan was quoted as saying, “Till today, I am treated like trash at the airport. I haven’t visited Israel for three months because of what I had gone through during security checks. I was asked questions in a vulgar manner, held for hours. They also searched me; I have no problem being treated like any other civilian, but there is a way to do so, with delicacy.”

The point, of course, is that these racist Israelis had no problem choosing one of those supposedly despised Arabs to represent their country to the world. Obviously if she is being treated badly at airports there is a problem, but it is not apartheid!

Another poster featured Salim Joubran, a lawyer born in Haifa, who was elected in 2004 to become the first Arab to hold a permanent appointment as a Supreme Court Justice. A piece published in Spectator by LionPAC’s director of public relations, Jonathan Huberman, claimed that having a Palestinian-Israeli on Israel’s Supreme Court is evidence that Israel is “a democratic, multi-ethnic country that upholds equal rights for all of its citizens.” Huberman believes that the appointment of the first and only permanent Palestinian Israeli judge to Israel’s Supreme Court in its 56 years of existence is evidence of its “equal rights” and “democratic” nature. According to Sikkuy’s data, at the end of 2008 only 42 of 589 judges in Israel were Arabs—seven percent of the judiciary. A 2008 report about fair representation of the Arab population in the civil service, which was published by the Civil Service Commission in June of this year, indicates that of 3,763 employees in the courts administration, only 119 are Arabs—3.16 percent of all employees. Palestinian citizens of Israel constitute nearly 20 percent of the overall population.

So the authors are trying to argue that somehow Israel is an apartheid state because Arabs are not yet represented proportionately as judges. By that standard, the Palestinian Authority (and every government on the planet) are demonstrably sexist because women do not take up 50% of their governmental positions. I think short people are also underrepresented in democracies. And South Africa is still an apartheid state because the number of black graduates of university are far less than their proportional numbers.

If Israel is an apartheid state, name one state that isn't. If you cannot do that, then your label of "apartheid" is merely a smear meant to slander an entire nation. It also brings up the obvious question of why Israel is being singled out when its record on inclusiveness is demonstrably better than even many European countries. There isn't a ban on minarets in Israel!

It is always fun to see graduate students engage in such puerile arguments. But that is what happens when hate trumps intelligence.

I added a comment to the piece:

Thanks for a great laugh. I didn't know until now that pointing out that Israel has Arabs in respected positions in the army, judiciary, entertainment and politics is "racist." Columbia must be proud that two of its students are so adept at newspeak.

Thank you also for mentioning two of the "Apartheid?" posters that I created. For those who want to see more of my supposedly racist posters, they are here.)

(h/t Jim)

Muslim Brotherhood has already won

Reports in the Arabic press are quoting Al Hayat as saying that Mahmoud Abbas will meet with the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, today in Egypt.

Whether MB wins the next Egyptian elections or not, they have already gained the perception of being the most important political player in Cairo, and that very perception is likely to have long-term consequences.

Fatah is anxious to come to terms with Hamas in a unification deal, because if they remain divided in September then the much-heralded attempt to get the UN to recognize "Palestine" would be much more difficult.

Hamas is in the driver's seat. Not only does Fatah need unification more than Hamas, but Hamas no longer feels as politically isolated as before Egypt's revolution. First of all, political parties across the board in Egypt are publicly declaring their support for Gaza and implicit support of Hamas. More importantly, though, is that the MB and Hamas are cousins if not brothers, and Hamas' stock has risen just by association with the Egyptian Islamists.

Abbas' reported visit with the Brotherhood must be seen in this context. They will now be a major player in Palestinian Arab politics, while they were marginal before.

The Egyptian uprising therefore is causing Fatah to harden its positions with respect to negotiating with Israel and espousing a peaceful solution. Whether it likes it or not, Fatah is more dependent on Islamists than ever before in order to continue on as the supposed leader of Palestinian Arabs.

While there are indications that the MB is politically fractured, all of its factions are uncompromising towards Israel and do not support Camp David, let alone Oslo. Moreover, the gulf between Sunni and Shi'a is not as huge as some believe, and Tehran is salivating at the prospect of more Islamist influence in Egypt - and Hamas may serve as the bridge to help push that along.

The full ramifications of the rise of the MB are hard to predict. Probably they will start to strategize with their offshoots in other Arab countries, using lessons learned in Egypt to maximize the chances of success elsewhere. Jordan and Syria are key countries not only because of their already existing MB branches but also because if they fall, Israel would be surrounded by enemies who are not only politically but also ideologically and religiously opposed to Israel's existence. Fatah doesn't stand a chance of remaining nominally pro-Western, and Iran's influence will explode throughout the region. Conversely, Iran's political isolation will disappear.

Without seeing any organized, viable, liberal alternative to the MB in the Muslim world, things are looking bleak indeed for the West, and very good for Iran.