Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, June 12, 2011

New medicine shortage in Gaza. Sorry, can't blame the Jews. (UPDATED)

Hospitals in the Gaza Strip are suffering a critical shortage of medicine and medical supplies, Hamas Health Minister Bassem Naem said Saturday.

The crisis was unprecedented even during Israel's massive offensive on Gaza in December 2008, Naem said, adding that the situation was worsening by the day.

Speaking at a conference in Ash-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Naem said 180 types of medicine and 200 medical items had run out in Gaza, including alcohol and needles.

Sources in the Gaza Health Ministry said Palestinian Authority official Nabil Shaath had promised to send medicine to Gaza from Ramallah, but that the supplies never arrived.

There are no Israeli restrictions on medicines entering Gaza. The only party at fault is...the Palestinian Authority!

Will the UN convene a session to condemn them?

UPDATE: Silly me. Of course you can still blame the Jews. (h/t T34)

Reporter sneaks into Syria; deserters tell of rapes

From CBS:

Martin Fletcher, of The Times of London, posed a tourist to sneak into Syria, where foreign journalists are banned. He traveled for 6 days before being caught before being caught in the city of Homs, a focal point of the uprising.

Meanwhile, some Syrian army deserters are speaking out about the horrors they participated in:

Syrian army deserters who fled to Turkey have told of atrocities committed by soldiers in suppressing anti-government protests, under threat of execution if they disobeyed orders.

Four conscripts interviewed by AFP recounted instances of rape and wanton murder as President Bashar al-Assad's forces combat demonstrations against his regime across the country.

With a blank stare in his eyes, Tahal al-Lush said the "cleansing" in Ar-Rastan, a town of 50 000 residents in the Syrian province of Homs, prompted him to desert.

"We were told that people were armed there. But when we arrived, we saw that they were ordinary civilians. We were ordered to shoot them," said Lush, who showed his military passbook and other papers as proof of his identity.

"When we entered the houses, we opened fire on everyone, the young, the old... Women were raped in front of their husbands and children," he said, giving the number of deaths as some 700, difficult to verify as journalists are not allowed to circulate freely in Syria.

(h/t Israel Muse)

OT: Parasha question

A bit off topic...

This has been bugging me today so I was wondering if anyone had a good answer.

In next week's parasha (Bamidbar/Numbers 13:1), the list of the meraglim includes:

ד וְאֵלֶּה, שְׁמוֹתָם: לְמַטֵּה רְאוּבֵן, שַׁמּוּעַ בֶּן-זַכּוּר.	4 And these were their names: of the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur.

ח לְמַטֵּה אֶפְרָיִם, הוֹשֵׁעַ בִּן-נוּן.	8 Of the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea the son of Nun.
יא לְמַטֵּה יוֹסֵף, לְמַטֵּה מְנַשֶּׁה--גַּדִּי, בֶּן-סוּסִי.	11 Of the tribe of Joseph, namely, of the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi the son of Susi.

Why wasn't mateh (tribe of) Ephraim placed under mateh Yosef (Joseph)? And why was there a separation of 2 verses between them?

I didn't see any answers in the meforshim I had available. It seems fairly glaring so I figured someone must have commented on it, perhaps in the context of the entire order listed.

Any ideas?

Egyptian Salafists: "Grow a Beard for Ramadan"

From The Egyptian Gazette:

As the revolutionaries have been organising million-strong protests in Al Tahrir Square to press for their unfulfilled demands via social networking websites, the Salafists are now doing the same to persuade other Muslims to grow beards and be more pious.

These Salafists are calling for a million men to be bearded before the holy fasting month of Ramadan which starts in August.

Their campaign is a very controversial one, showed how wide the gap is between Islamists and secularists in the post-Hosni Mubarak Egypt.

Such a campaign indicates a radical change in Egypt after the toppling of an authoritarian regime, obviously indicating an unbalance in favour of religion in the Egyptian street, according to analysts.

"This freedom is a fruit of the January 25 revolution. In the presence of the [now disbanded] State Security Police under Mubarak, asking Egyptians to grow beards was like dreaming of touching the moon," says Sheikh Safwat Hegzai, a Salafist cleric.

He argues that this campaign is something normal, resulting from the freedom gained after toppling an authoritarian regime.

"I would like to see a similar campaign for a million women to wear the niqab [full-face veil]," Hegazi adds.

(h/t jzaik)

Will Israel take over the energy market?

A nice article about Israel's energy potential in the Financial Post:

In the first 25 years after Israel’s founding in 1948, it was repeatedly attacked by the large armies of its Arab neighbours. Each time, Israel prevailed on the battlefield, only to have its victories rolled back by Western powers who feared losing access to Arab oilfields.

The fear was and is legitimate – Arab nations have often threatened to use their “oil weapon” against countries that support Israel and twice made good their threat through crippling OPEC oil embargoes.

But that fear, which shackles Israel to this day, may soon end. The old energy order in the Middle East is crumbling with Iran and Syria having left the Western fold and others, including Saudi Arabia, the largest of them all, in danger of doing so. Simultaneously, a new energy order is emerging to give the West some spine. In this new order, Israel is a major player.

The new energy order is founded on rock – the shale that traps vast stores of energy in deposits around the world. One of the largest deposits – 250 billion barrels of oil in Israel’s Shfela basin, comparable to Saudi Arabia’s entire reserves of 260 billion barrels of oil – has until now been unexploited, partly because the technology required has been expensive, mostly because the multinational oil companies that have the technology fear offending Muslims. “None of the major oil companies are willing to do business in Israel because they don’t want to be cut off from the Mideast supply of oil,” explains Howard Jonas, CEO of IDT, the U.S. company that owns the Shfela concession through its subsidiary, Israeli Energy Initiatives. Jonas, an ardent Zionist, considers the Shfela deposit merely a beginning: “We believe that under Israel is more oil than under Saudi Arabia. There may be as much as half a trillion barrels.”

Because the oil multinationals have feared to develop Shfela, one of the world’s largest oil developments is being undertaken by an unlikely troop. Jonas’s IDT is a consumer-oriented telecom and media company that is a relative newcomer to the heavy industry world of energy development. Joining IDT in this latter-day Zionist Project is Lord Jacob Rothschild, a septuagenarian banker and philanthropist whose forefathers helped finance Zionist settlements in Palestine from the mid-1800s; Michael Steinhardt, a septuagenarian hedge fund investor and Zionist philanthropist; and Rupert Murdoch, the octogenarian chairman of News Corporation who uncompromisingly opposes, in his words, the “ongoing war against the Jews” by Muslim terrorists, by the Western left in general, and by Europe’s “most elite politicians” in particular.

Where others would have long ago retired, these businessmen-philanthropists have joined the battle on Israel’s side. While they’re in it for the money, they are also determined to free the world of Arab oil dependence by providing Israel with an oil weapon of its own. The company’s oil shale technology “could transform the future prospects of Israel, the Middle East and our allies around the world,” states Lord Rothschild.

To win this war, Israeli Energy Initiatives has enlisted some of the energy industry’s savviest old soldiers – here a former president of Mobil Oil (Eugene Renna), there a former president of Occidental Oil Shale (Allan Sass), over there a former president of Halliburton (Dick Cheney). But the Field Commander for the operation, and the person who in their mind will lead them to ultimate victory, is Harold Vinegar, a veteran pulled out of retirement and sent into the fray. Vinegar, a legend in the field, had been Shell Oil’s chief scientist and, with some 240 patents to his name over his 32 years at Shell, revolutionized the shale oil industry.

Before oil met Vinegar, this was dirty business, a sprawling open mine operation that crushed and heated rock to yield a heavy tar amid mountains of spent shale. The low-value tar then needed to be processed and refined. The bottom line: low economic return, high environmental cost.

Vinegar boosted the bottom line by dropping the environmental damage. No open pit mining, no spent shale, no heavy tar to manage. In his pioneering approach, heated rods are inserted underground into the shale, releasing from it natural gas and light liquids. The natural gas provides the project’s need for heat; the light liquids are easily refined into high-value jet fuel, diesel and naphtha. The new bottom line: oil at a highly profitable cost of about $35-$40 a barrel and an exceedingly low environmental footprint. Vinegar’s process produces greenhouse gas emissions less than half that from conventional oil wells and, unlike open pit mining, does not consume water. The land area from which he will extract a volume of oil equivalent to that in Saudi Arabia? Approximately 25 square kilometers.

Although the Israeli shale project is still at an early stage, its massive potential and Vinegar’s reputation have already begun to change attitudes toward Israel. “We have been approached by all the majors,” Vinegar recently told the press, and for good reason. “Israel is very well positioned for oil exporting” to both European and Asian markets. The majors have other reasons, too, for casting their eyes afresh at Israel. Through its natural gas finds in the Mediterranean’s Levant Basin, and with no help from the oil majors, Israel is becoming a major natural gas exporter to Europe. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Levant Basin has vast natural gas supplies, most of it within Israel’s jurisdiction.

Attitudes to Israel in some European capitals – those in line to receive Israeli gas — have already warmed and the shift to Israel may in time become tectonic, in Europe and elsewhere, when oil is at stake – 38 countries have an estimated 4.8-trillion barrels of shale oil, many of which would benefit from the shale oil technology now being pioneered in Israel. Speeding that shift could be the Arab Spring, which many fear will flip pro-Western Arab states into hostile camps. Long time U.S. ally Saudi Arabia is reportedly so distrustful of the U.S. following its abandonment of long-time Egyptian ally, President Hosni Mubarak, that it has pulled back its relationship with the West in favour of China.

Before 1973, when the Arab world first punished the West for its relationship with Israel, Israel was a favourite of the left and of most of the free world. Under Arab punishment, much of the world started seeing the world through Arab eyes and turned on Israel.

But freed of the threat of Arab punishment, and in a new world energy order, Western countries may turn again, to their benefit. Rupert Murdoch well expresses the highest hopes of his partners: “If [our] effort to develop shale oil is successful, as I believe it will be, then the news we’ll report in the coming decades will reflect a more prosperous, more democratic and more secure world.”

Isn't it amazing how European attitudes towards Israel might change just because of oil and natural gas?

Evil Zionists pretending Psalms were written by Jews!

From Palestinian Media Watch:

As part of the continuing Palestinian denial of Jewish history in Jerusalem, a Palestinian researcher and specialist on Jerusalem has claimed that the well-known verse of the Hebrew psalm, "If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill," is not a Jewish source at all. He said that the words were uttered by a Christian Crusader, and have only recently been "borrowed" by Jews and "falsified in the name of Zionism."

The verse is in fact from Psalm 137 of the Hebrew Bible, which opens with the words: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion." The psalm mourns the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian army in 586 BCE, is part of Jewish tradition and liturgy and has appeared in Jewish sources for thousands of years.

Palestinian Media Watch has documented the Palestinian Authority policy of denying Israel's history as the basis for its denial of Israel's right to exist. The PA often denies the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem, calling it "the alleged Temple."

The following are the words of Palestinian researcher Dr. Hayel Sanduqa on PA TV, claiming that the Hebrew Bible's psalm was actually first said by a Crusader:

"[The Israelis] have acted to change Jerusalem's character. Even the expression (Psalm 137:5) 'If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember thee.'

This statement, said by the Frankish [Crusader] ruler of Acre shortly before he left, was borrowed by the Zionist movement, which falsified it in the name of Zionism."
[PA TV (Fatah), June 2, 2011]

Political tourists getting brainwashed in Israel

I received a couple of important documents from an email correspondent who authored them. Here is an excerpt:

A large number of non-Jewish tourist groups consisting on the average of 10 – 40 people, from North America, Great Britain and Ireland, Western Europe (France and Belgium) and Australia arrive in Israel each week.

They enter Israel on regular tourist visas, but these are not regular tourists. Their agenda is political. They profess to have come to "Israel and Palestine to learn about both sides of the conflict." In reality, they have mainly come to show support and solidarity to the Palestinians and gather incriminating facts about the state of Israel, her government, the IDF and the "settlers" that many will disseminate in various forums upon their return home.

Unlike other internationals that come to the area to protest, these groups generally arrive and depart quietly, virtually unnoticed by any Israel government official or ministry. They manage to "fly under the radar."

These tourists are as young as high school students and as old as senior adults, though the majority is between 30 – 60 years old.

They represent all professions and walks of life.

They are both Christian and secular (many "post-Christian"). Some groups include a small number of Muslims and Jews.

They stay, on average, from 5 – 14 days, though some come for an extended educational or volunteer program.

They come to the area under the auspices of various churches or human rights organizations. Locally, they may be handled by, among others,
· Holy Land Trust http://www.holylandtrust.org/

· Alternative Tourism Group http://www.atg.ps/

· Sabeel http://www.sabeel.org/

· Christian Peacemaker Teams (Palestine) http://www.cpt.org/work/palestine

· East Jerusalem YMCA http://www.ej-ymca.org/

· MEJDI http://mejdi.net/

Their itinerary is based on a combined program of site visits, seminars, lectures and almost always includes Arab home hospitality in the Palestinian Authority, including sharing meals with and sleeping in the homes of Palestinian families. It is here that tourists are exposed to the most intensive and effective anti-Israel propaganda.

They also meet representative of extreme left-wing Israeli organizations such as

· The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions http://www.icahd.org

/· Women in Black http://coalitionofwomen.org/home/english/organizations/women_in_black

· Breaking the Silence http://www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp

· Peace Now http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/homepage.asp

Most of these groups do not meet with any spokesperson from the Israel government nor the opposition.

Their visit to the "Efrat settlement" usually last 1 -1.5 hours and consists of a frontal lecture only that cannot compete emotionally with the Palestinian experience.

The author is token "settler" that they meet for an hour to pretend that their week-long trip immersed in Palestinian Arab propaganda is "balanced."

His observations are worth noting:

It appears that some 70-80% of these visitors, although they consider themselves politically to the left, are not anti-Semitic or particularly anti-Israel upon their arrival.

A minority, perhaps some 10%, arrive with an existing hostility towards Israel. Another approximately 10% seem mostly ignorant of the history of the conflict.

The majority of participants are not interested in the Israeli narrative. They are not made more sympathetic to Israel’s case through stories of Palestinian terrorism.

By the time their visit is over the majority's opinion of Israel is quite negative. We have lost their hearts and minds.

In recent years these groups more frequently raise the question concerning the very need for a Jewish state. For a growing number of these tourists, the notion of a sovereign and independent Jewish state seems wrong.

These visitors readily, even eagerly, adopt the Palestinian narrative of the conflict with its short and simple message:

(1) Israel has stolen and illegally occupies the Land of Palestine
(2) Israel oppresses Palestinians, up to and including being guilty of committing crimes against humanity

Many participants in these groups, albeit an unknown number, upon returning to their respective countries become active in various ways in their communities or on their campuses on behalf of the Palestinian cause and denounce the state of Israel for its alleged treatment of the Palestinians.

In spite of the hostility they convey towards the government of Israel and the IDF, each group, without exception, asks about a "vision of peace." While most visitors blame Israel for the ongoing conflict, they are not seeking a "winner and loser." What they want is for Israelis and Palestinians to live side-by-side in peace.

The reason he wrote to me is that he wanted to use my posters to most effectively use his limited time with the visitors and show them, as effectively as possible, that there are two sides to the story.

I am gratified that he was very happy with the posters I sent him (mostly the "This Is Zionism" series). Here's what he responded:

I have got to tell you, I am smiling from ear to ear. :)

I am going to print these posters out and laminate them and show them to every pro-Palestinian group that I speak to, beginning next week.

There is no doubt that a picture is worth a thousand words. For years I have been speaking to groups who have first been taken to "see evidence of Israeli oppression," i.e. a checkpoint, a "wall," the mere presence of an Israel soldier. My hour to hour-and-a-half presentation, by then, usually falls on deaf ears. Most leave with the phrase "Thank you for your time," when what they really mean is "Don't bother us with facts, our minds are made up."

Although my holding these posters up in front of their faces is naturally not as powerful an experience as having a poor, Palestinian woman tell these visitors that cruel Israeli soldiers shot my son for sport, at least it is a start in the right direction.

He sent me more information, including a detailed proposal he wrote up for encouraging non-Jewish groups to visit Israel to see things that the Palestinian Arab tour sponsors stay away from: Jewish-Arab cooperation in Israel as well as in the territories (such as Arab students in Ariel University,) the Peres Center for Peace, MASHAV, meetings with successful Palestinian Arab businessmen, shopping expeditions to the trendy districts in Ramallah, and other activities that are not "right wing" but an accurate representation of Israeli society and tolerance.

It is a very important idea, and one that needs support. There are literally thousands of people who are visiting Israel with groups whose entire purpose is to poison their minds against Israel - and the poor dupes who go on these trips believe that they are being given both sides of the story.

(Sorry, I don't know if I have permission to publish this person's name; if he wants I'll add it.)

UPDATE: I had forgotten about this article I had linked to a couple of months ago where an Israeli journalist tagged along a tour for foreign journalists. Very worthwhile reading. (h/t Amanda)

Hamas co-founder dies

From AP:

A founder of Hamas in the Gaza Strip died Friday of a stroke after decades as an influential yet little-known figure at the helm of the Palestinian militant organization. He was 76.

Muhammad Hassan Shama, revered by Hamas loyalists but nearly anonymous outside Gaza, was one of the eight founders of the Islamist group in the 1980s. After his death, Hamas publicly announced Friday for the first time that Shama had been the leader of the secretive Shura Council, its top governing body.

The identity of the council's members is a closely guarded secret because of fears they could be targeted by Israel. The founder and first leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, was killed by an Israeli airstrike in 2004.

In Shamaa's biography at the Palestine Times website, we learn that he was also a founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza in the 1950s and re-organized it in 1967 together with Sheikh Yassin, another former Hamas leader.

He also was a member of the Board of trustees at a number of schools and the Islamic University in Gaza.

And for 41 year he worked for....UNRWA.

Hurriyet op-ed points out Turkish hypocrisy

This is a great op-ed, written for the English version of Turkey's Hurriyet:

The organizers of the Gaza flotilla, a Turkish Islamist charity with dubious United Nation recognition, the İHH, have pledged to send a second flotilla later this month after the first one faced a deadly Israeli commando attack last year. Although the opening, and brief closure, of the Rafah crossing into Gaza has apparently made any aid flotilla meaningless, İHH’s president, Bülent Yıldırım, said the new mission is not aid but “justice.” But which justice?

The day after the Israeli raid that killed nine people aboard the Mavi Marmara, Mr Yıldırım explained his understanding of justice: “Last night everything in the world changed, and everything is progressing toward Islam. Anyone who does not stand alongside Palestine, his throne will be toppled.”

And in response to U.N., American and Israeli calls, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said governments cannot stop their citizens launching another flotilla to Gaza, and Ankara would not prevent private challenges to an illegal blockade.

Wisdom would ask Mr Davutoğlu to perhaps encourage the İHH to send a flotilla to Latakia to break the blockade on protestors and stop the Syrian police killing them. The Syrian death count is already over 1,000, or 111 times bigger than the death toll on the Mavi Marmara, excluding over 10,000 missing or detained for torture and future death.

Alternatively, if the foreign minister is so keen on the idea of freedom flotillas against illegal blockades, he can think of Varosha in Cyprus, which has remained a ghost town after the Turkish army fenced it off in 1974. But Mr Davutoğlu has other, preferred, responsibilities.

For example, the foreign minister often talks about his dream to “pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Palestinian [Muslim] Jerusalem.” He does not hide his ambition to see Jerusalem as the capital of a free Palestinian state. One wonders, though, if he would have kept his sympathetic smile if a foreign minister spoke of his dream to visit Diyarbakır as the capital of Kurdistan. I think we can guess. But he is not the only Islamist who habitually boasts multiple standards of indecent choice, all for the advance of political Islam.

Last week, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed a local crowd in Diyarbakır, saying that: “We are the grandchildren of Saladin Ayyubi’s army [soldiers] that conquered Jerusalem.” So, says the prime minister, the ancient capital of Judaism had been conquered by Muslims.

But, then, why would something taken by force from someone else belong to its occupier? Why is Jerusalem Palestinian if it had been conquered from its ancient possessors? And why should we be proud to be the grandchildren of someone whose army conquered other people’s territories?

A few days earlier, Mr Erdoğan, this time in Trabzon, reminded his party’s supporters that on May 29 “We proudly celebrated the 558th anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul.” And, he said, without the conquest of Trabzon, the conquest of Anatolia would have been incomplete.

It is not a coincidence that Fatih (conqueror) is a very common male name in Turkish. The Turks are proud to be the evlad-i fatihan (the descendants of conquerors). They are too happy to be living in the territories that once belonged to other nations. But all that is understandable since they are not the only nation which does so, with or without the others naming their children “conqueror.” All the same, there is a problem with the Turkish/Islamist case.

If we are talking about universal justice and legality, why are the conquests of Istanbul, Trabzon and Anatolia by the Turks, and of Jerusalem by Ayyubi good; but the repatriation of Jerusalem to Israel by re-conquest bad? Especially when the re-conquest was the result of self-defense in the face of eight enemy armies who attack to annihilate a legitimate state.

More questions. If Jerusalem should be the capital of “free Palestine,” why should Istanbul not become the capital of “freer Greece?” Why is Nicosia a divided capital? What were the Turks doing at the gates of Vienna in 1683? Was Süleyman the Magnificent’s army there to distribute humanitarian aid to the Viennese, like the İHH claims its Gaza mission is?

Forty-four years ago, the Arabs dreamed of “having lunch in Tel Aviv.” The dream cost them a major humiliation and Jerusalem, and the Middle East, peace. Today, the Turkish leaders dream of praying in the “Palestinian capital” Jerusalem while denying the Orthodox Patriarch of Istanbul his ecumenical designation. Luckily, the Turks, unlike Arabs, are the grandchildren of conquerors.

Keeping the ancient capital of Orthodoxy as the biggest Turkish city is fine. But please, Mssrs Erdoğan and Davutoğlu, at least try not to make too much noise in commemorating the day when we took it by force from another nation. And remember, gentlemen, claiming that Istanbul is a Turkish city by origin and Jerusalem is Palestinian sounds like too-dark black humor.

Ouch!

(h/t Vandoren)

Al Qaeda gives props to Hamas for Bin Laden eulogy

A couple of weeks ago, AP published an absurd "fact check" about Netanyahu's speech to Congress which wasn't a fact-check at all but instead a reason to push an anti-Israel narrative. Here is an example of one of the AP's supposed "facts":

NETANYAHU: "Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by the Palestinian version of al-Qaida."
THE FACTS: While Hamas and al-Qaida have killed hundreds of people in religious holy wars, they have no connection, and Hamas has in fact come under criticism from the global terror network for being too moderate. Al-Qaida preaches global jihad. Hamas says its struggle is solely against Israel, not the West at large. In its Gaza stronghold, Hamas has violently clashed with smaller armed groups that claim inspiration from al-Qaida.

Obviously, the "facts" do not contradict what Bibi said - that Hamas is the Palestinian Arab version of al-Qaeda, an organization that routinely targets civilians in order to achieve political goals and whose ultimate goal is a worldwide Muslim nation.

A little more proof that Bibi is right and AP is wrong can be found today.

Hamas newspaper Palestine Times proudly posts a snippet of the latest video by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

In this video, Zawahiri praises Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh for giving a nice eulogy for Osama Bin Laden.

Of course, if you use AP as your source for "news," you would know that al-Qaeda criticizes Hamas, and never praises it. Similarly, AP will not report this little piece of news.

Video: Jews fleeing Kotel today as Arabs hurl rocks from above

From YNet:

Police and Border Guard forces broke into the Temple Mount compound on Friday after stones were hurled at the end of Friday prayers. Officers dispersed the rioters using crowd dispersal means and isolated them. No injuries have been reported. Three worshippers were arrested.

Dozens of youths began to hurl stones at the Moroccans' Gate adjacent to the Western Wall as Friday prayers in the Old City drew to a close. Security forces were forced to enter the compound to put a stop to the violence.

Unlike previous weeks, police decided not to restrict the entrance of young worshippers to the Temple Mount this week.

It usually only allows worshippers over the age of 50 to enter the site when there is intelligence suggesting others may try to cause provocations.

Via Rotter.net, you can see footage from one of the "KotelCams." In the first 20 seconds Jewish worshippers are seen fleeing the Western Wall as the scene played out. You can also see that they return within a minute.

(h/t Lenny)

HuffPo says violent Syrian protesters just wanted a cup of coffee with friends

The Huffington Post posts some incredible drivel by Sharmine Narwani:

On Sunday, around 1,000 unarmed civilians marched to the ceasefire line between Syria and the Golan Heights to protest Israel's occupation of Arab lands following the 1967 war. Hours later, in the worst bloodshed since the 1973 war between Israel and Syria, up to 23 civilians were dead and hundreds wounded after Israeli troops opened live fire on the protesters.

In the West Bank, fellow protesters were only injured, as Israeli troops used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds that were only a few feet away from them.

In Majd al Shams on the occupied Golan Heights, however, the Palestinian and Syrian demonstrators were many yards away -- behind barbed wire fences -- never having crossed any ceasefire line.

As was the case with the 11 unarmed protesters in Lebanon killed by Israeli forces on May 15 in Maroun al Ras. Those civilians had not crossed any border either.

That makes Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu no different than Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Syria's Bashar al Assad, Bahrain's Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh -- and other autocrats still waiting their turn.

All fired live rounds at unarmed civilian populations voicing their grievances and exercising their right to congregate in public.

On Sunday, even the US Department of State jumped on this bandwagon: "Israel, like any sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself."

Defend itself against what exactly? Unarmed civilians who walk over a long-peaceful armistice line into territory that is legally viewed as Syrian to enjoy a cup of coffee with old friends?

Besides Narwani's complete belief in Syrian propaganda about how many protesters were killed and how they died - a belief that has no factual basis whatsoever - Narwani plays some slippery rhetorical games, taking advantage of the readers' ignorance of basic facts, to imply that the Syrian protesters were not violating any borders or cease fire lines.

In fact, even if you regard the Golan as Syrian territory, Israel has the right - and obligation - to guard the 1974 cease fire lines, as well as the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon which is by all definitions an international border.

But in fact the Syria protesters were violating the cease fire lines even on their side of the fence!

That's right - Israel erected two fences several hundred yards or so to the west of the actual cease fire lines, presumably in order to ensure that no one accuses Israel of a "land grab."

As former UNDOF member Tom Lehner writes:

This is a tricky field. We are talking about a simple worthless grass field that is about2 miles long and500 yards wide. Officially it belongs to Israel but for some reason, only known to God almighty, IDF did not put their fence on the east side where it belongs, but on the west side.

Now the UN Forces are supposed to hinder Syrian sheep farmers to enter that field. Ausbatt does this by going on patrol in that field and chasing all the sheep farmers away. They know they are not supposed to enter that field but do it anyway, knowing that once a month an IDF soldier shoots across the fence (he is allowed to since the field belongs to Israel) and kills a few sheep.

Now you might ask what the purpose is. The answer is simple, sheep farmers claim they did not know they were entering Israeli territory and then they complain about the sheep being killed and loss of income, blaming the UN for not watching, and demand restitution from the UN.

This is why Israel can go to the "outer fence" and repair it unimpeded by Syrian or UN forces - that fence is well within the Israeli side of the line.

And so were the (Syrian-paid and controlled) protesters who peacefully threw rocks and pledged to die as martyrs! Even the ones who did not breach the fence were on the Israeli side of the line, and Israel was allowed to shoot at them to deter them from coming further into Israeli-annexed territory.

See also this set of rules for reporting from the Middle East which Narwani adheres to perfectly.

(h/t O, Edgar)

Grad missiles being smuggled from Libya to Gaza

Maariv reports:

While the riots in Libya seem very distant geographically, Jerusalem is now worried about at least one consequence: a new smuggling route through which hundreds of missiles have already entered into the Gaza Strip.

In recent weeks Hamas in the Gaza Strip has been strengthened by hundreds of 120-122 mm Grad missiles with ranges of sixty - seventy miles. These missiles can easily threaten the center of the country.

Also smuggled are shorter range 60 mm rockets, more guns and ammunition. In addition, Israel was information on old anti-tank missiles manufactured by Russia and sold to Libya that have been smuggled out [of Libya], and there is fear that they may be smuggled into Gaza.

The new smuggling route from Libya goes through Egypt, Sinai and from there to channels in Gaza. It is causing Israeli security officials to lose sleep. Egyptians are trying to fight the new phenomenon of [weapons] convoys intercepting them by air. However, many convoys still manage to get to the tunnels.

In the Middle east, there is always a flip-side - even to revolutions against thuggish dictators. The law of unintended consequences is very, very much in force whenever anything major happens.

(h/t Joel)

Syria again tries to play the Zionist card

From Syria's official SANA news agency:

The Leadership of al-Baath Arab Party in Lebanon stressed that the steadfastness of the Syrian people, army and leadership will thwart the conspiracy hatched against Syria.

In a statement issued on Thursday after a meeting chaired by al-Baath Party Regional Director, Fayz Shoukir, the Leadership said that the reality of the projects which target the Arab nation has been divulged.

The Leadership warned that this conspiracy led by the American-Zionist alliance and some of the European countries constitutes a danger threatening not only Syria, but the whole Arab nation and its basic interests and future.

It added that the aggressive attack launched under the pretext of the so-called "Democracy" and "Human Rights" is very far from these slogans as the American-Zionist alliance practices the most obnoxious types of persecuting the nations including the Arab people to control the capabilities and resources of the Arab nation and to keep the Arab societies in a state of division and backwardness.

Member of Liberation and Development Bloc, Lebanese MP Kassem Hashem, stressed that Syria is stronger than any conspiracies hatched against it, and it will overcome the crisis.

For his part, Former Lebanese President, Emile Lahoud, considered that the current events witnessed in Syria and the way some countries deal with them, stress that the Western countries work only for achieving their private interests.

This type of article is very much in the style of Iran's English-language propaganda. They find some lackey willing to say exactly what the ruling regime wants them to say and then position it as if it is significant.

Of course, Lebanon's Baath party is nothing but a branch of Syria's Baath party and will not say anything different from the official party line.

It is still striking how Syria is clueless about how tone-deaf its message must appear even to other Arabs. The days of blaming everything on Zionists and Americans is over; the Arab people have proven that they are not so easily manipulated anymore (even though they generally hate Israel as much as their purported leaders do.)

See also this editorial at Al Asharq al Awsat that talks explicitly about how Arabs use Palestinian Arabs as excuses to do whatever they want.

(last link h/t Joel)