Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 13, 2011

More details on Ilan Grapel, "spy"

Reuters fills in some pieces about Ilan Grapel, who was absurdly arrested as a spy by Egypt.

An alleged Israeli spy arrested in Egypt is an American immigrant to Israel who once wrote that he hoped to promote Israeli policies in the Arab world, according to information he and others provided on websites.

The man, detained on Sunday in a development that could strain Israel’s relations with Egypt’s new leaders, was identified by the Egyptian MENA news agency as Ilan Chaim Grabel, a misspelling of his family name, Grapel.

The Israeli ambassador to Cairo said on Monday that Israel was looking into the case. The US embassy in the Egyptian capital said it was working to confirm Grapel’s identity and citizenship.

In his Facebook page, Grapel made no secret of his presence in Egypt, writing that he was “preaching at Al Azhar,” an Islamic university in Cairo, and that he had studied at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The reference to Al Azhar later disappeared from the page.

A judiciary source in Egypt said the arrested man had been active in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolt against Hosni Mubarak, after the former president stepped down.

A statement issued by Egypt’s public prosecutor said the suspect, ordered held for 15 days, had been sent to Egypt to recruit agents “trying to gather information and data and to monitor the events of the January 25 revolution.”

Photographs of Grapel on the Facebook page, on the website of the Israel Project, a pro-Israel group where he trained in media relations in 2008, and in the on-line newsletter of an organization that raises funds for Israeli soldiers, matched those in a video clip of the suspect released by Egypt.

Articles about Grapel’s military service in Israel appeared in the New York Daily News and Israel’s Haaretz newspaper in 2006. They said he had been wounded in the Lebanon war that year while serving as an Israeli paratrooper and had immigrated to Israel in 2005 from Queens, New York, at the age of 22.

“He is a very special guy. He’s an Arabist,” Tsiki Ood, who said he was a friend of Grapel’s, told Israel Radio, describing him as an American immigrant. “He’s very intelligent ... He spoke Arabic. I hope he gets out of this trouble.”

After the war, Grapel spoke in the United States at fundraisers for wounded Israeli soldiers, according to the Internet newsletter of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces organization, which also cited his injury in Lebanon.

It showed him in his paratroops uniform standing next to US fundraisers and Israeli diplomats at functions in Chicago and Houston in 2006.

Two years later, Grapel took part in the Israel Project’s media fellows program in Jerusalem on “educating top young leaders in how to educate the press on Israel and Iran.”

In a comment that appears on the Israel Project’s web page about the program, Grapel said he had been impressed by an Israeli Foreign Ministry’s official's briefing on conveying Israel's positions to the Arab world.

“It would be very rewarding for me if I were to be able to communicate as effectively (as the official) in such anti-Israel environments,” Grapel wrote.

In other words, Grapel didn't hide his viewpoints in the least - pretty strange for a "spy."

By the way, I originally read this in Al Arabiya, where they changed the Reuters dateline from "Jerusalem" to "occupied Jerusalem."

This week is the final round of the Pro-Israel Blog-Off at Israellycool.

EoZ is in the finals, up against Israel Muse.

I submitted a post containing the audio of the lecture I gave a couple of weeks ago on "How to be a media-savvy advocate of Israel." There is a lot of information there, and I think it is important for people who care about Israel to hear.

So now is the time to vote!

Thanks again to Israellycool and Honest Reporting for sponsoring what has been a really fun competition. And be sure to check out all of the great blogs that entered - there is a lot of good stuff out there.

Comic website here.

Egypt claims to catch Israeli "spy." Um...not quite. (UPDATED)

From CNN:

A former Israeli military officer was questioned by Egyptian authorities Sunday and detained for 15 days on suspicion of spying for Israel, according to a spokesman for Egypt's general prosecutor.

Elan Chaim participated in the Lebanon war of 2006, and was relieved of field combat duties after being injured, spokesman Adel Saeed said Sunday. He was apprehended in a five-star hotel in downtown Cairo, Saeed said. Investigators had kept a close eye on his activities for months, and suspect he is involved in espionage, the spokesman said.

Chaim allegedly was sent to Egypt by the Israeli government, tasked with taking advantage of the security vacuum in the country following the January 25 revolution and instructed to recruit others to acquire military and political information, Saeed said. The revolution forced former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power; he stepped down February 11.

Chaim was present at most of the protests, Saeed alleged, and encouraged demonstrators to engage in violence against the military. His aim, according to Egyptian authorities, was allegedly to help cause chaos between the Egyptian people and the military, Saeed said.

Chaim was questioned by the supreme state security prosecutor and will be temporarily detained, Saeed said. The general prosecutor will announce the results of the investigation when it is complete.

The Jerusalem Post quoted an unnamed Israeli Foreign Ministry official as saying the ministry was "totally and completely unfamiliar with the story" and that it would be investigated.

Al Masry al Youm has a video showing this "spy" doing what looks like normal tourism in Egypt and trying to be a part of history in Tahrir Square. The video also shows images of him in Israeli army uniform with forboding music that is meant to make him look like a scheming, slimy enemy spy.

JPost has his name as Ilan Chaim Grabel. His real name is Ilan Grapel, and here is his Facebook page. Most of the photos in the video come straight from there.

A little digging there shows that Grapel is no spy. While he does seem to be an Arabophile, he makes no attempt to hide his ties to Israel nor his time in the IDF. He clearly has made Arab friends, and even flirts in Arabic with Arab girls (who have no problem with him being Israeli.) He went to Johns Hopkins University.

This is a ridiculous accusation. Grapel makes no secret of all the activities he was doing in Cairo. It is a sad comment on the state of the news nowadays that the media cannot even figure out how to find his Facebook page to check out the facts.

UPDATE: He is also an American citizen.

The humanitarian crisis of Gaza's Palm Village Resort. The horror!

You may think you've seen deprivation in Gaza. You might think you have seen the depths of the humanitarian crisis there. But I must warn you....it gets even worse than you could ever imagine.

Warning: the following pictures may shock and sicken you.

I bring you Gaza's Palm Village Resort.

Most of the photos from this thread.

I hope that the planned flotilla members manage to find their way to this incredible example of how Gazans are suffering under blockade.

I honestly thought I was seeing photos taken in the Congo.

(h/t Vandoren)

The Flotilla meets Gilligan

OK, I admit I LOL'ed.

(h/t Jawa Report via Huffwatcher)

PalArab protesters narrowly avoid getting Jew-cooties

From the IDF Spokesperson website:

The following video is of a protest which took place yesterday in Umm Salamuna, southeast of Bethlehem in the West Bank. Every Friday afternoon, protesters gather in the town to demonstrate against the security fence, which has dramatically decreased suicide bombings and other terror attacks inside Israel for over 6 years. Protests in Umm Salamuna often turn violent, with rocks being hurled at IDF and other security forces by rioters who also damage the security fence.

In the video, the deputy battalion commander of the Kfir Brigade offers water to the protesters due to the extremely high temperature mid-afternoon that day. The Palestinian protest leader tells his supporters, “Don’t drink the water!” following which a woman dumps out a cup of water offered to her by the commander.

Whew, that was close! Who knows what the IDF spiked the water with - poison, sex hormones, anti-sex hormones, tiny bacteria that eat out your spleen - the mind reels at how much damage could have resulted if Arab protesters would accept a simple gift of water from a soldier.

They might have even started to regard Israelis as human beings, and that would be the worst possible outcome.

Far more anti-semitism in Norway schools than "Islamophobia"

And Muslims downplay the anti-semitism.

From The Foreigner (Norway):

Oslo Jewish Community leaders allege an Islamic organisation is glossing over anti-Semitism in Norwegian schools by focusing more on Muslim harassment.

The current row started on Tuesday, after Oslo municipality presented a report charting racist and anti-Semitic attitudes amongst 7,212 pupils in 48 secondary schools.

Results show 33.3 percent of Jews experience harassment between two and three times per month, compared with 5.3 percent of Muslims.

According to Vårt Land, Ervin Kohn of Oslo’s Jewish Community (DMT) was discouraged by the report. Despite the high figures, however, Secretary General of umbrella organisation Islamsk Råd Norway (IRN), Mehtab Afsar, claims, “it’s really the Muslims that are given a hard time, and charting Muslim harassment is well overdue.”

The day after the report came out, pro-integration network LIM (Likestilling, Integrering, Mangfold) said it encourages all actors to fight against what it views as increasing anti-Semitism in Norway. At the same time, it was openly critical to Mr Afsar’s statements.

“Unfortunately, it seems as though IRN neither intends to recognize or take the problem of anti-Semitism seriously. Secretary General Afsar would rather focus more upon intimidation of Muslims.”

In a further development in what was becoming a growing rift between two ethnic minorities IRN issued a press statement yesterday, also censuring its own Secretary General, saying, “We wish to state once and for all that we clearly distance ourselves from all types of bullying and harassment, including anti-Semitism.

IRN apologises that some individuals have tried to turn a general societal problem into a particularly Muslim one,” it continues.

“I cannot see that IRN takes anti-Semitism seriously when reading this press release,” says Mr Ervin Kohn.

(h/t Callie)

Free Gaza is nervous about latest flotilla, so they rev up their lies

I just got this email from Free Gaza:

As we get ready to sail in two weeks, Israel has stepped up the threats, threatening to sue the Canadians who are going, threatening to sue the satellite phone company if they provide us with service, threatening to kill and maim us if we don't stop, then saying, "I told you so...we said we would kill you."

This behavior has got to stop. Israel is behaving like the schoolyard bully who parents and teachers fear, because his parents are rich and have contributed to the school. It's time for us to put our foot down.

Start calling your member of parliament/congress now. Start writing letters to the editor. Start a civil movement on social networks of outrage against Israel's attacks on civilians. Distribute this statement below and post on your websites.

We CAN stop Israeli attacks against us if we work together. Greta [Berlin]

Here is the statement they want everyone to distribute:

ANNOUNCEMENT
June 12, 2011

Regarding statements of government officials in Israel (echoed by officials in other countries) about diplomatic initiatives to impede the “Freedom Flotilla II- Stay Human” mission to Gaza, Palestine, we say:

Proper diplomacy does not exclude humanitarian action; Instead of seeking to prevent an international community of concerned citizens from taking nonviolent action in defense of liberty and human rights, diplomacy must pursue such actions and encourage them.

It is, therefore, a provocation to label the humanitarian action taken by movements supporting human rights to sail to Gaza a “provocation.”

It is a provocation that powerful states and international organizations, such as the US, Israel, the EU and the UN, are asking people to be silent and not react to violations of law and the disdain for universal values.

It is a provocation that international diplomacy is demanding that solidarity action from "people to people" be stopped.

Isn't it precious that the Free Gaza people are asking their drones to send in letters that claim that they are bringing "humanitarian aid" to Gaza and that their actions are "people-to-people?"

Especially since Free Gaza admits, explicitly, on their website, that these flotillas are political, not humanitarian, and that they are not an aid group. Beyond that, they are against humanitarian aid to Gaza going through legal channels, via Israel and Egypt!

Invariably, when it is convenient to them, they claim to the media that they are a humanitarian organization. But in reality their actions are purely political - and, therefore, by definition, a provocation!

As usual, Free Gaza will happily lie to hide their agenda.

(I'd also love to know where Israel threatened to "maim or kill" the flotilla fools assuming that they don't start attacking IDF soldiers with knives and clubs.)

Call Amnesty! Israel humiliates Palestinian Arabs in public!

Israel's women's basketball team defeated the Palestinian Arab team late last month at an International Friendship Games match.

The final score was 70-4.

But Israel's women's team was not happy only humiliating the Palestinian Arabs, but they went on to defeat Jordan 47-7.

This clearly was another case of Israelis purposefully humiliating Arabs, in public, and as such these can be considered war crimes under the Arab interpretation of international law.

Incidentally, the Palestinian Arab team requested not to be interviewed by the Israeli media - even before their match.

(h/t Joel)

Maybe the flotillas should bring cars into Gaza

Hamas recently added a 25% tariff on cars and spare parts brought into Gaza through Israel.

Some 4000 cars have gone into the supposedly besieged sector from Israel since last year. This is not counting the recent flood of cars being smuggled in from Libya.

As a result of Hamas' new car tax, Gaza car dealers refused the latest shipments of automobiles that were supposed to come in through Kerem Shalom. None of the cars scheduled to come in since last Thirsday have been delivered.

Sounds like the "humanitarians" have their work cut out for them. Gazans need more cars without the unconscionable tax being placed on them by their, uh, occupiers!

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

From Ma'an:

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)