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...

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...

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From Bloomberg: Yemen has closed the office of Al Jazeera television and withdrawn the Doha, Qatar-based network’s license to report from the country, state-run Saba news agency reported, citing an unidentified official.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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

From the IDF: (h/t Gre...

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 her...

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 פל...

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 video...

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,...

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.”...

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...