Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Afternoon links - part 2 - plus videos

Barry Rubin - Media gets Netanyahu trip exactly backwards

New poll shows deep American Jewish support for Israel (CAMERA)

AP's "fact check" is more spin than fact (CAMERA)

Just Journalism on the Economist's latest "Global Peace Index" ranking Israel near bottom (I looked at it last year and in 2009)

Iran denies IAEA report that it is working on nuclear weapons

Wiesenthal Center wants to boycott Swedish handball event

Top Jewish donor says he won't support Obama in 2012

Israeli girls choir performs in Norway. it has Jewish, Muslim and Christian girls in it.

Facebook call to march on Israel's borders June 7

YNet op-ed: Don't expect peace

Richard Kemp video:

Bi-Bi Pro American video that is all over the place:

(h/t Bill, Jack,Dan, Patrick, Challah Hu Akbar)

Jordanian man beaten to death by Saudi religious police - for long hair

Al Watan.sa and Firas Press report on the death of Nabil Hassan Hamid, 28, from Jordan.

Last week he was arrested by the Saudi religious police for the crime of having long hair. A member of the Muttawa chased him, beat him, and apparently shaved off his hair.

He was hospitalized for a week before succumbing to his injuries, apparently a brain hemorrhage. Here he is before his death:

The Saudi authorities say that he died from a 4-meter fall while fleeing, and added that "it is well known that people running fast in a panic might get a stroke." Later they claimed he died from an asthma attack.

Some Facebook pages have popped up to protest his murder.

Saudi woman driver/activist arrested, apologizes (updated)

From France 24 earlier this week:

In a tough setback for aspiring Saudi female drivers, Saudi police have arrested female activist Manal al-Sharif, who boldly posted a video of herself behind the wheel online on Friday. Our Observer was with her for the symbolic drive.

More than 600,000 people watched the video of al-Sharif chatting with a friend as she drives around the eastern Saudi city of Khobar. The seemingly mundane scene is in fact anything but. Deeply conservative Saudi Arabia is the last country in the world to ban women from driving.

Al-Sharif was reportedly arrested on May 22 while driving, released for a few hours then taken back into custody. A Saudi security official said she is being accused of “violating public order”, and will be held for five days while the case is investigated. The video she made was removed from YouTube following her arrest, as was the Facebook page she created calling on Saudi women to collectively defy the driving ban on June 17.

Nevertheless, a new Facebook page was created almost immediately, and the video survived on video sharing site YouTube, re-posted by Al-Sharif’s supporters.

Apparently, al-Sharif could not handle the pressure being brought to bear on her by the Saudi authorities. She is said to have released an abject apology that sounds very, very strange for someone who a week ago was such a pioneer:

Manal Al-Sharief admits she made a mistake by driving a car in the Kingdom and promises never to do it again. This is according to Dr. Ghazi Al-Shammari, Chairman of the Family Solidarity Committee in the Eastern Province Emirate, who told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that this is what Al-Sharief told him when he visited her at the Women’s Prison in Dammam.

Al-Sharief is the 32-year-old Saudi woman who was detained Saturday for driving a car in Al-Khobar.

Al-Shammari had visited her accompanied by Brig. Gen. Abdullah Al-Boushi, Director of the Eastern Province Prisons.

He said he spoke to her and quoted her as saying, “I made a mistake and I’m a daughter of this nation. I have nobody but my family and the sons and daughters of my nation. I advise girls of my generation to rally behind our leadership and Ulema. They know better than us about our condition. I’m confident about what I’m saying after sitting alone and contemplating.”

She added that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is special because it has the Two Holy Mosques, is a refuge for Muslim hearts and is quite different from other countries in the world.

Al-Sharief said she was well cared for and only wanted to return to her family and her work. She had repeated she made a mistake and confirmed she would not repeat the action again, according to Al-Shammari, who was quoting a conversation Al-Boushi had with her about her needs in prison.

Okaz/Saudi Gazette reported earlier that Al-Sharief also plans to withdraw from the campaign for women to drive, according to a source at the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR).

“Manal wants to be released,” the source said. “She said the investigation had been carried out and she will withdraw from the campaign calling for women to drive cars.”

Saudi Arabia is once again safe from the scourge of woman drivers.

UPDATE: A popular Facebook page is calling on Saudi men to beat women who dare drive at a planned protest next month.

(h/t Folderol)

Afternoon links - part 1

I have a lot of links in the queue...

Victor Shikhman on the current politics between Israel and the US

Anonymous Mugwump on Hamas Hasbara

Jonathan Hoffman - Is the BBC biased towards Israel???

Here's proof: the BBC quotes the IAEA as saying that the Syrian nuclear site bombed by Israel in 2007 was "likely nuclear."

Toameh on power struggles between Hamas and Fatah

Jordanian journalist Mudar Zahran is more pro-Israel than most self-declared Zionists....

The US now says the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries could be "on the table."

(h/t Silke, Jihad Watch, Jim W.)

Rare footage of Operation Solomon, 1991

You don't need to understand Hebrew to be moved by this footage of Ethiopian Jews being saved anf flown to Israel in 1991's Operation Solomon.

Here's a frame showing a family on the plane:

Doesn't Zionism look like racism here?

(h/t Joel)

Operation Embarrass: British bombed Jewish refugee ships

From The Daily Beast:

As Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, the pitiful remnants of History’s greatest crime, tried to make their way across an often hostile Europe at the end of the Second World War, toward at least a semblance of safety in the Holy Land, they had no shortage of problems with which to contend, including disease and malnutrition, Polish anti-Semitism, Soviet indifference, Allied bureaucracy, and Arab nationalism. Now we discover that they faced yet another peril in the shape of bombs planted on their transport ships by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6.

A new book to be published next week entitled MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949, by the distinguished British historian Keith Jeffery, reveals the existence of Operation Embarrass, a plan to try to prevent Jews getting into Palestine in 1946-'48 using disinformation and propaganda but also explosive devices placed on ships. Nor is this some speculative spy story that can be denied by the authorities: Dr. Jeffrey’s book is actually, in their own words: “Published with the permission of The Secret Intelligence Service and the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.”

When on June 1 this year the British government denounced as “completely unacceptable” the way that the Israelis landed troops on the Turkish flotilla to Gaza we did not know that its predecessor had done much the same, actually blowing up one ship and damaging two more vessels of a genuinely humanitarian flotilla that was trying to bring Jewish survivors of the Nazi death camps to their people’s ancient homeland.

It now emerges that in late 1946 the Labour government of Clement Attlee asked MI6 for “proposals for action to deter ships masters and crews from engaging in illegal Jewish immigration and traffic,” adding, “Action of the nature contemplated is, in fact, a form of intimidation and intimidation is only likely to be effective if some members of the group of people to be intimidated actually suffer unpleasant consequences.” Among the options contemplated were “the discovery of some sabotage device, which had ‘failed’ to function after the sailing of a ship,” “tampering with a ship’s fresh water supplies or the crew’s food,” and “fire on board ship in port.” Sir Stewart Menzies, the chief of the SIS, suggested these could be blamed on an invented Arab terrorist group called The Defenders of Arab Palestine.

Operation Embarrass was launched after a meeting held on February 14, 1947 between officials from MI6, the armed services, the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office, the last represented by William Hayter, the head of Foreign Office Services Liaison Department, a high-flier who later became ambassador to Moscow. I knew Sir William Hayter in later life, but needless to say he never breathed a word about this operation. In his defense, it must be said that Hayter did order MI6 to ensure that arson “must be arranged, if at all, when the ship is empty.”
The Operation Embarrass team was told that “the primary consideration was to be that no proof could ever be established between positive action against this traffic and His Majesty’s Government [HMG].” A special communications network, codenamed Ocean, was set up with a budget of £30,000 ($47,000), a great deal of money in 1947. The operation had three aspects: direct action against refugee ships, a “black” propaganda campaign, and a deception scheme to disrupt immigration from Black Sea ports. A team of former Special Operations Executive agents—with the cover story of a yachting trip—was sent to France and Italy with limpet bombs and timers. If captured, “they were under no circumstances to admit their connection with HMG” but instead claim to have been recruited in New York “by an anti-Communist organization formed by a group of international industrialists, mainly in the oil and aircraft industries,” i.e. to lay the blame on rich, right-wing, unnamed Americans. They were told that this cover “was their final line of defense and, even in the event of a prison sentence, no help could be expected from HMG.”

During the summer of 1947 and early 1948, five attacks were undertaken on ships in Italian ports, of which one was rendered “a total loss” and two others were damaged. Two other British-made limpet mines were discovered before they went off, but the Italian authorities did not find their country of origin suspicious, “as the Arabs would of course be using British stores.” Operation Embarrass even considered blowing up the Baltimore steamship President Warfield when in harbor in France, which later became famous in Israeli history as the “Exodus” ship that “launched a nation.”

The country that ought to be embarrassed by Operation Embarrass—indeed shamed—is Great Britain, which used explosives to try to stop truly humanitarian flotillas after the Holocaust, but now condemns embattled Israel for halting entirely politically inspired flotillas to Gaza despite her rights of legitimate self-defense. The depth of the animosity that Establishment Britain, especially the Foreign Office, felt toward the Jews of Palestine clearly went even further than we had ever imagined, and even 70 years later is by no means extinguished.

(h/t Joel)

The "new" neighborhood in Maale Zeitim

From Getty Images:

A Jewish settler girl in her living room during the inauguration ceremony of new settler homes on May 25, 2011 in the Jewish enclave of Maaleh Zeitim in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Ras al-Amud in east Jerusalem, Israel. Maaleh Zeitim was financed by American millionaire Irving Moskowitz who has bankrolled other settlement projects in the occupied West Bank, and east Jerusalem.

Interesting which "facts" Getty choose to highlight in the caption. In fact, the land was purchased by Jews in 1928 and Israel has upheld that purchase, and allowed Moskowitz to buy it legally.

But there is something else that is interesting about the Ras al-Amud:

Settlement remains dating to different phases of the Middle Canaanite period (2200-1900 BCE) and the last years of the First Temple period (eighth-seventh centuries BCE), including an inscription in ancient Hebrew script that mentions the name “Menachem”, were recently exposed in an archaeological excavation the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting in the Ras el-‘Amud neighborhood, prior to the construction of a girls’ school by the Jerusalem municipality.

Among the remains from the First Temple period is a handle on which the Hebrew name (ל)מנחם meaning (to) Menachem, is engraved. According to archaeologist Dr. Ron Beeri, the excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority,

I have a feeling that the area was not always known with the Arabic name of "Ras al-Amud."

Details on Egypt opening Rafah

The news that Egypt is opening up the Rafah crossing permanently starting on Saturday is being widely reported, but the details are not.

According to the Hamas Palestine Times newspaper, there are still restrictions on who could cross the border.

Women and children under 18 are allowed to cross without prior coordination with Egypt.
Men over 40 can as long as they meet certain conditions.
Students with valid papers and medical cases will be allowed as well, along with Gazans with investments in Egypt who have the proper paperwork.

There will still not be any facilities for large shipments of materials through the crossing, but families can go shopping in Egypt and bring back their own needs.

The opening is expected to be a bonanza for taxi drivers who will be ferrying people to and from both sides of the border. And lately the number of taxis in Gaza has mushroomed as lots of cars are entering the area, both from Israel and smuggled in from Libya.

Justin Bieber's "mysterious" Hebrew tattoo

This is for all the people who read EoZ for my deep and penetrating knowledge of pop culture.

From the Daily Mail:

After winning six gongs at the Billboard Music Awards on Sunday night, it looks like Justin Bieber has decided he deserves a holiday.

The 17-year-old pop star was pictured heading to the beach yesterday after flying to Hawaii with girlfriend Selena Gomez.

Stripped to the waist, the Canadian star showed off his rock-hard stomach in a pair of bathing shorts teamed with flip flops and white sunglasses.

Is there no one in Great Britain who recognizes Hebrew?

As many other sites noted, it is the Hebrew spelling of Jesus.

(h/t Joel)

Anti-Hezbollah Shi'ite cleric arrested in Lebanon as an "Israeli spy"

From The Daily Star (Lebanon):

Lebanese authorities have arrested a Shiite sheikh in southern Lebanon on suspicion of spying for Israel, a security source told The Daily Star Tuesday.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Lebanese intelligence personnel arrested Sheikh Mohammad Ali Husseini, leader of the obscure Arab-Islamic Resistance group, late Saturday in his apartment in the Riz complex just east of the southern port city of Tyre and took him to the Defense Ministry in Yarze, east Beirut, for questioning.

The source said information gathered about Husseini over the past 10 days led to his arrest.
The Lebanese intelligence unit also confiscated computer sets, communication equipment and documents from Husseini’s home.

Reporters based in south Lebanon said Husseini, who is critical of both Hezbollah and the Amal Movement of Speaker Nabih Berri, has been funded by Saudi Arabia since 2008.

Michael Totten interviewed Husseini and described him in his book, The Road to Fatima Gate.

Husseini is not just a Shi'ite cleric. He is a direct descendant of Mohammed himself, a "sayyed," and Totten described him as being "untouchable" in Lebanon. While reporters are severely restricted from taking photographs in the Hezbollah controlled sections of the country, when they are with Husseini they can do whatever they want because no one would dare challenge him. He outranks Nasrallah as a cleric, according to Totten.

Husseini is against war and terrorism, writing an entire book about nonviolence based on Quranic sources. Unfortunately, he has little political power.

His "resistance movement" was a publicity stunt to try to co-opt Hezbollah's message of resistance, and it failed badly.

This is not merely another spy case. This is Hezbollah showing exactly how powerful they really are.

"Aida" to be performed at Masada, Arabs upset

The Islamic Jihad newspaper Palestine Today says that the staging of Verdi's opera Aida next month in front of Masada is showing how Israel is taking advantage of Egypt's turmoil.

The props for the opera include a reproduction of the Sphinx as well as statues of other Pharaohs.

The opera tells the love story of an Ethiopian princess and an Egyptian army officer.

The article says that Israel is "stealing" the opera. Not quite sure how.

If you want to go, the website is here.

Palestinian Authority would keep Gilad Shalit as a hostage after "unity" (UPDATED)

IMRA asks Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian Arab official, a great question in this audio clip:

IMRI: When unification is completed, of the Gaza Strip and West Bank under one authority again, what do you expect would happen with the handling of the Gilad Shalit case? Would that still be the purview of Hamas, or would it be the responsibility of this unified authority?

Shaath: It should be the responsibility of the unified authority, and we should proceed as soon as possible to exchange Shalit for as many Palestinian prisoners as possible...

It seems that Israel's "peace partner" wants to keep a Shalit as a hostage and bargaining chip.

Just like Hamas.

UPDATE: This same Nabil Shaath was interviewed after Shalit's kidnapping, claiming that the PA was doing everything possible to free him!

(h/t Ray Cook)

Israelis give 1000 hearing aids to Palestinian Arabs

From YNet Hebrew:

From Israel with Love: A thousand Palestinians were given hearing aids

A thousand Palestinians received, for the first time, hearing aids undera joint project of the Sheba Medical Center, Starkey Foundation and Physicians for Human Rights. A Ynet reporter joined doctors in Tulkarm and watched the smiles that came on the faces of people who, for the first time, could hear.

The cost of the devices is about one million dollars.

...or about $1000 per person.

This is Zionism.

Video of Egyptian teacher beating students

This video has been causing an uproar in Egypt, as a teacher in Kafr el-Deeb is shown reviewing written assignments from little kids in his class - and then beating every single one of them with a ruler.

The cameraman laughs a few times, and at the very end we see there are other adults in the room who hadn't protested at all.

One scared little girl tries to avoid his wrath, and he therefore gives her more beatings than anyone.

I can imagine a few fitting punishments for this disgusting excuse for a human being.

Cession and dereliction (updated)

What makes the West Bank "Palestinian territory?"

Jordan held onto the West Bank from 1949 to 1967, and between 1967 and 1988 many people considered it "Israeli-occupied Jordan."

This is problematic for a number of reasons. The main reason is that the international community in general never recognized as legal Jordan's annexation of the territory to begin with. However, during that time period it cannot be considered "Palestinian" (in the sense of Palestinian Arab) either, because the Palestinian Arab leadership rejected the partition plan and never declared a state on that territory. It was essentially in limbo.

But for argument's sake, let's say that Jordan's annexation of the territory was legal.

In 1988, Jordan ceded that territory, no longer under its control, to the PLO, and stripped citizenship from West Bank Palestinians.

Is that cession legal?

According to International Law: a treatise, Volume 1, here are the laws of cession:

Cession of State territory is the transfer of sovereignty over State territory by the owner-State to another State. There is no doubt whatever that such cession is possible according to the Law of Nations, and history presents innumerable examples of such transfer of sovereignty. The Constitutional Law of the different States may or may not lay down special rules 1 for the transfer or acquisition of territory. Such rule can have no direct influence upon the rules of the Law of Nations concerning cession, since Municipal Law can neither abolish existing nor create new rules of International Law.” But if such municipal rules contain constitutional restrictions on the Government with regard to cession of territory, these restrictions are so far important that such treaties of cession concluded by heads of States or Governments as violate these restrictions are not binding.”

Since cession is a bilateral transaction, it has two subjects-namely, the ceding and the acquiring State. Both subjects must be States, and only those cessions in which both subjects are States concern the Law of Nations. ...

It seems very clear that one cannot legally cede territory to an entity that is not a state. I cannot see how Jordan's cession to the PLO has any legal validity.

For a territory to be occupied, it must belong to a state. While it seems clear that the humanitarian aspects of occupation must still be adhered to, but to consider it a legal occupation requires that the occupied territory be claimed by a state. (Again, this is for argument's sake; Israel did not consider itself an occupier even before 1988 and considers the territory disputed.)

In fact, Jordan's "cession" might be a case of legal dereliction:

Dereliction as a mode of losing territory corresponds to occupation as a mode of acquiring it. Dereliction frees a territory irom the sovereignty of the present owner-State. It is effected through the owner-State completely abandoning territory with the intention of withdrawing from it for ever, thus sovereignty over it. Just as occupation requires, first, the actual taking into possession (corpus) of territory, and, secondly, the intention (animus) of sovereignty over it, so dereliction requires, first, actual abandonment of a. territory, and, secondly, the intention of giving up sovereignty over it. Actual abandonment alone does not involve dereliction as long as it must be presumed that the owner has the will and ability to retake possession of the territory. Thus, for instance, if the rising of natives forces a State to withdraw from a territory, such territory is not derelict as long as the former possessor is able, and makes efforts, to retake possession. It is only when a territory is really derelict that any State may acquire it through occupation. History knows of several such cases. But very often, when such occupation of derelict territory occurs, the former owner protests, and tries to prevent the new occupier from acquiring it.

If Jordan's washing its hands of the West Bank is in fact a case of dereliction, then Israel's occupation is quite legal, at least since 1988 (again assuming that Jordan's annexation was considered legal to begin with - if it wasn't, then the territory has no state anyway.)

There may be one way that Jordan's action has some legal validity: if it was not a cession, but a secession by the Palestinian Arabs from Jordan. This is in fact how King Hussein phrased the topic when he announced Jordan's move in July 1988:

Arab unity between any two or more countries is an option of any Arab people. This is what we believe. Accordingly, we responded to the wish of the Palestinian people's representatives for unity with Jordan in 1950. From this premise, we respect the wish of the PLO, the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, to secede from us as an independent Palestinian state.

But, as far as I can tell, there needs to be some sort of legal agreement between the two parties, the one that is seceding and the original state. I cannpt find any such document. The PLO's official declaration of statehood was not done at the time of this announcement but on November 15, 1988. Jordan's move was not bilateral but unilateral. Only three days prior, Jordan stopped a $1.3 billion development program in the West Bank; there is no indication that this was done in concert with the PLO.

So while Jordan uses the language of secession, in reality it appears - and seems to be regarded - as a case of cession instead, which, as we see, is problematic and might be closer to dereliction.

Once again, I stress that I am not a lawyer, and could be way off base here. But I can't find anyone who talks about the legality or legal consequences of Jordan's actions in 1988. And I cannot find any possible legal justification for calling the West Bank "Palestinian territory."

UPDATE: A well-known international law expert pointed that I have no idea what I am talking about. :)

In short:

Stripping away the issues of belligerent occupation, I’m not sure you have a coherent, let alone cogent, argument. The Palestinian claim to sovereignty is generally couched in terms of self-determination, not cession from the Jordanians. Even if it were phrased as based on cession from the Jordanians, the Palestinians would argue that it is possible to cede rights to a state in statu nascendi. In addition, if you accept the validity of Blum’s argument, you should understand that it works in both directions; the Palestinians do not have to claim a classic mode of acquisition in order to claim superior title. In other words, even if one asserts that the Jordanians had title and then abandoned it, with no ability to cede it to anyone, the Palestinians could still have superior title to Israel.

I can't say I understand it, but it is enough to make me realize I'm in way over my head!