Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Iranian nuclear bomb letter reported as a hoax (updated x2)

I had quoted MEMRI last week about an article at an Iranian Revolutionary Guards website that seemed to say that Iran was actively working on nuclear weapons.

Now there are reports that it was a hoax.

From YNet:

An Iranian blogger revealed on Tuesday that the controversial article published on a Revolutionary Guard website in April, describing a hypothetical nuclear experiment by the Islamic Republic, was nothing but a figment of his imagination.

The essay caused an international stir as it was not inline with the official Iranian claim that its nuclear program is being developed for civilian purposes only.

Seyed Ali Pourtabatbaiee, a 30-year-old journalist from the central Iranian city of Qom, first published his essay on his blog, Kheyzaranonline, which is dedicated to Shiite messianism.

"I wrote that blog out of anger that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon," Pourtabatbaiee said in an interview with British newspaper The Guardian. "I think sanctions will just continue until the end of days, and they make us so angry.

"We don't need nuclear weapons otherwise, but if we are going to have these sanctions, we should do a nuclear test to bring them to an end," he added.

Pourtabatbaiee said that his article was arbitrarily linked to Gerdab, a site run by the Revolutionary Guard's cyber security wing and often features links "to what it thinks is good content."

"There was a university student I know working for Gerdab and he read my blog and liked it and put in a link to it," he explained. "He has to put up five links a day to get paid in his job. I don't think Gerdab management knew anything about it."

I remember that I could not find the original article in Gerdab, but I got my information from MEMRI.

So was the article on the Gerdab site, or just a link to it?

I emailed MEMRI, hopefully will get a clarification soon. It would be most disappointing if MEMRI did not translate the article directly from the website.

Incidentally, this brings up my only complaint about MEMRI, which is a fantastic organization and provides invaluable services. Why don't they publish the actual links to the original web articles they translate?

UPDATE: Challah Hu Akbar did have a link to the original on Gerdab. I cannot find any indication that the article is linked to from somewhere else. But if I am reading the Persian date correctly, it does appear that the blog post was a day earlier than the Gerdab post.

Here's the blogger's explanation of what happened in English.

UPDATE 2: MEMRI stands by the story (via email.)

MEMRI's piece was a translation from Gerdab , which is an official IRGC site. Ynet does not (and can not) negate any of the facts. they just buy into a possible Iranian attempt to clean themselves off the problems this article may have created for them once it got translated and distributed in the west. No fact was challenged. It was an article on Gerdab. calling it a hoax does not make it one.

"Failed State Index" - pseudo-science?

Foreign Policy and The Fund for Peace have come out with their Failed State Index 2011.

According to their criteria, Israel is a "borderline" state, ranked 53rd worst, slightly better than Egypt and worse than Zambia.

The question is: what are their criteria?

They seem to include the West Bank with Israel, but it is unclear if they include Gaza.

Given that, here are their stated criteria:

Demographic Pressures, Refugees/IDPs, Group Grievance, Human Flight, Uneven Development, Economic Decline, Delegitimization of the State, Public Services, Human Rights, Security Apparatus, Factionalized Elites, and External Intervention

And how do they score each of these criteria?

Full-text data are electronically gathered from a range of publicly available print, radio, television and Internet sources from all over the world, including international and local media reports, essays, interviews, polling and survey data, government documents, independent studies from think tanks, NGOs and universities, and even corporate financial filings. The software determines the salience of the 12 indicators as well as hundreds of sub-indicators by calculating the number of "hits" as a proportion of the sample for a given time period. Quantitative data is also included, when available. Subject-matter experts then review each score for every country and indicator, as well as consult the original documents, when necessary, to ensure accuracy.

...The raw data are from millions of news articles and reports. As a practical matter, it is not readily transferable without the methodology and the software.

Essentially there is a black box where data from the media, interviews, essays, NGOs and so forth are magically converted into numbers. But exactly how this is done, so others can critique the methods, is hidden. And then they have "experts" ready to massage the numbers if they seem out of whack!

To even call this a "methodology" seems a stretch. I could do just as well by Googling country names and keywords, graphing how often the pairs are found in web searches, and then modifying the results to make sure that they don't look too outrageous.

Does the index consider the UNRWA definition of "refugee" to be operative when it applies to no other region? How exactly does a news report get converted into data - is it number of stories? Which NGOs are considered reliable and which are not?

Moreover, including the territories with Israel here means that they are combining data from two (or three) governments, each with different agendas and priorities. But guess how the results will be reported? No question, it will be looked upon as if Israel is responsible for the government of the PA and Hamas.

Science, by definition, must allow independent researchers to reproduce the results. By putting a numeric ranking next to each country, this index fools the casual reader into believing that these are all measured objectively. It takes some digging to find out that it is literally impossible for this index to be objective. Other people looking at the identical data could easily come up with different conclusions.

Which is what makes these exercises into quantifying the world's problems often worse than useless.
(h/t Ron)

A fake "even-handed" tour of Israel

From the anti-Zionist 972 magazine:

Six months ago, nineteen Jews broke the usual partisan norms when it comes to visiting the “Holy Land” by choosing to hear not only the Israeli Zionist narrative—with which most of them are already familiar—but also pushing themselves to learn and experience the Palestinian narrative on their synagogue’s trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories. They chose to shatter the classical stereotype of tourists who come to Israel to experience the luxurious hotels and touchstone religious sites but that prevent them from experiencing the “other” important local culture.

Tourism packages excel in keeping tourists in a bubble. The guests visit restaurants, hotels, and venues that are designed to give them the illusion of having a local experience, without having to step outside their comfort zone. Tourism in Israel and Palestine is largely dependent on “religious” pilgrimage trips where tourists are rushed from one archeological site to another without fulfilling the spiritual aspect of the trip they had aspired to experience.

This kind of tourism doesn’t characterize all visitors to the Holy Land, however, because there is emerging lately an alternative kind of tourism. There are people who have interests that go beyond the usual religious sites. They understand religious pilgrimage to mean creating a connection with the land, the people and the culture. Such special people choose to come for an educational and practical experience. This not to say they avoid typical sites, nor do they fail to indulge in relaxing and luxurious experiences, but they refuse to ignore the full potential of a Holy Land trip.

In December of 2010, I had the privilege of coordinating a tour for the nineteen Jews from Chicago led by their rabbi. Contrary to normal tours, ours was led equally by two tour guides for the entire trip, a Palestinian and an Israeli. The purpose was to provide the tourists with a context of the Israel/Palestine conflict and allow them to learn the different narratives that exist in the region. They visited many religious sites in Jerusalem, Hebron and Bethlehem. Everywhere they visited, locals welcomed them and spoke to them about a vast variety of issues. They learned about the life, challenges and aspirations of both the people of Palestine and of Israel.

While the article did not mention the rabbi's name or the group he is a part of, luckily he commented so we can see exactly how even-handed this tour was.

The rabbi who led the trip is a Reconstructionist rabbi named Brant Rosen. He blogged the entire trip, so we could see exactly how much the of itinerary was dedicated to the "Zionist narrative."

It turns out...essentially none.

The Israeli tour guide is supposedly a former Kach member and settler who turned into a "peace activist" and co-founded Breaking the Silence. And the Palestinian Arab guide, who authored the +972 article, isn't any more Zionist than the Israeli!

On the first day, they visited Jewish, christian and Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, and then met with the Imam of Al Aqsa - and, for balance, a member of "Rabbis for Human Rights."

This was the theme of the entire tour: meeting with Palestinian Arabs, sleeping in their homes, and then with extreme israeli leftists who agree with the Palestinian Arab narrative in toto.

Not a single visit with a religious Jew. Not a single talk with a Jewish resident of the areas they visited in Judea and Samaria. No visits with government spokespeople, or IDF representatives, or anyone who could remotely be associated with the Israeli center or right. No talks with victims of Arab terror. No visit to Sderot or any scenes of intifada bombings.

Even worse, Rabbi Brand makes no secret of his own skewed feelings. Look how he describes his visit with a leading Christian anti-Zionist:

Our Wednesday began with a visit with Reverend Naim Ateek (above), founder and head of Sabeel, a well-known institute that advocates Palestinian Chrisitian Liberation Theology. As readers of my blog might know, I’ve long been an admirer of Reverend Ateek’s theological writings. In particular, his work has informed and challenged my own thinking about the Jewish conception of the land and the dangers inherent in wedding religion to power. It was a great pleasure to finally meet Reverend Ateek personally and to introduce him to members of my congregation.

To my dismay, Ateek has been unfairly and relentlessly attacked by the American Jewish establishment – largely, I believe, because he does not shrink from illuminating the problems that come with the land-centric nature of Zionist ideology. For myself, I’ve learned much from Ateek’s suggestion that Zionism represents a kind of “Constantinian Judaism” – i.e., a fusing of Judaism with Empire.

So this tour was led by a non-religious rabbi who believes that Zionism is inherently a form of colonialism. And who seems to admire the theological writings of a Christian anti-Zionist more than any Jewish theologian.

And now Palestinian Arabs, represented by the author of the +972 article, are bragging how open-minded they are in allowing nominally Jewish anti-Zionist Jews to enter their homes to be fed propaganda.

It is worthwhile to mention that the self-congratulatory Palestinian Arab author of the article doesn't seem to find the Jews he led around human enough to mention their names, or even the name of the group they were with. But he "loves" them - because they are exactly the types of useful idiots that Palestinian Arabs rely on to push their fake narrative.

It is ironic that the Palestinian Arab who is so upset that Jewish tours of the Holy Land are in a "bubble" led the exact same type of tour - and has the audacity to pretend that it presented both sides of the story.

Even the many skewed political brainwashing tours of Israel pretend to be even handed by giving an hour or so to a "settler" after a week of propaganda. Rabbi Rosen didn't even do that.

Auto-translation of the day

A 25-year old member of Hamas' terrorist Qassam Brigades died today, supposedly of a heart attack.

The auto-translation of his eulogy at the al-Qassam website says:

"...with all the verses of faith in God and worth, and dignity of believers trusting in Allah's victory and his private parts...."

They must be huge!

Split in the Muslim Brotherhood?

From Al Masry al-Youm:

A group of young Muslim Brotherhood members announced the formation of their own political party on Tuesday, separate from the Brotherhood’s recently created Freedom and Justice Party, in a defiant act that is expected to deepen the generational rift within the 83-year-old organization.

The party “stresses the main Egyptian current that the great majority of Egyptians belong to. The party is distinguished by its civil and democratic nature. It takes pride in its idenity. It is open to the other. Morals, values and religious principles play a role in regulating its perfomance,” read a statement posted by one of the founders on Facebook.

Unlike most other Islamist parties, the manifesto of Hizb Al-Tayyar Al-Masry (meaning Egyptian Current Party) does not mention Islamic sharia as its frame of reference; it only refers to the Arab Islamic civilization. “We cannot refer to the Islamic sharia because this is not an Islamist party, and it is not a party for the Muslim Brotherhood youth,” said Mohamed Shams, a 24-year-old co-founder of the party. “Not all founders belong to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The statement also envisions a larger role for young people. “We want the party to express the spirit of the revolution, which means we want most of its leaders to be young,” said Mohamed Affan, a 30-year-old brother and a co-founder of the party.

Affan is one of many young Muslim Brothers who have become outspoken recently in their criticism of the group’s leadership. They have, on several occasions, expressed disenchantment with their generation’s marginalization inside the Brotherhood’s highest power structures.

They have also expressed vehement opposition to the group’s official party, arguing that it failed to ensure a full separation between the Muslim Brotherhood’s proselytizing and political activities.

It is not clear that this new party has any real political power, but it does highlight rifts within the MB.

The entire article is worth reading.

Latest "unity" news

Salam Fayyad did not announce that he would refuse the position of prime minister as some Arabic media sources had claimed. Instead, he just said "I shall support to the best of my abilities any candidate Palestinian parties agree upon." Not quite the same thing.

Meanwhile, even though the planned meeting between Abbas and Meshal in Cairo was canceled, they might be meeting "secretly" in Turkey. Abbas was already in Ankara and Meshal just made a "surprise" visit to Istanbul.

Meanwhile, the argument between Hamas and Fatah over whether Abbas can appoint a PM continues, as a Popular Struggle Front spokesman who was in Cairo stated that part of the original "unity" agreement indeed gave Abbas that power.

Congrats to Israel Muse, Pro-Israel Blog-Off winner!

The Pro-Israel Blog-Off is over, and (after waiting a couple of nail-biting days for the judges' scores) Israel Muse is the winner, beating EoZ in the final round.

Congratulations to Israel Muse for a job well done!

Thanks so much to Israellycool for hosting the contest, as well as to Honest Reporting for sponsoring it. Thanks also to the judges who spent hours in their decisions.

It was a fun contest and I hope that it made many people more aware of the many excellent pro-Israel blogs out there.

Of course, I also must thank those who voted for me and supported me throughout the Blog-Off!

Freedom of the press, Jordanian style

From Ma'an/AFP:

Jordan's Information Minister Taher Adwan said on Tuesday he has resigned because of laws he deemed "restrictive for freedom of expression."

"I submitted my resignation today to Prime Minister Maaruf Bakhit in protest at a government decision" to debate new press and publication laws in parliament that he opposed, Adwan told AFP.

"In addition, MPs will debate proposed anti-corruption and penal laws. I consider these laws restrictive for freedom of expression."

King Abdullah II on Monday ordered parliament to convene in an extraordinary session from Wednesday to discuss a series of temporary laws.

Describing the proposed legislation as a "blow to the reform drive" and "martial laws," Adwan, who joined the government in February, condemned "the repeated attacks on journalists who are doing their professional duties."

"Such attacks completely contradict political reform efforts, which cannot be achieved without a democratic climate of press freedom," Adwan said in a statement to AFP.

Adwan has condemned an attack on AFP in which 10 men broke into its Amman offices on Wednesday and destroyed furniture and equipment, after the news agency was among several foreign media to report that part of the king's motorcade had been stoned during a visit to a southern city.

The reports were vigorously denied by the palace, government officials and MPs from the city.

"Violence against journalists and their offices cannot be justified, under the pretext of loyalty and nationalism," said Adwan, a veteran journalist who was the editor of Al-Arab Al-Yawm independent daily.

Here are details on last week's attack:

Ten men broke into AFP's offices in Jordan's capital on Wednesday and destroyed furniture, two days after the news agency was among several foreign media to report King Abdullah II's motorcade had been stoned.

"Ten men armed with sticks broke into the office and started to destroy everything in their way, the furniture and the equipment," said AFP journalist Kamal Taha who was alone in the office when the attack took place.

He said he managed to escape through a back door, before neighbours called the police who arrived after the attackers fled.

The attack came a few hours after AFP bureau chief Randa Habib received a threatening telephone call saying: "I will make you pay dearly," and accusing her of "undermining the security of Jordan."

You mean, in Jordan, government thugs threaten journalists and break into media offices and destroy stuff when they don't like the news stories?

No way! This is moderate Jordan we are talking about here!

Afternoon linkdump

NGOs are just as corrupt in Cambodia as in the Palestinian Arab territories.

Video of Syria shooting villagers trying to flee to Turkey.

Germany's Left party facing charges of anti-semitism

"Third Intifada" iPad app

Robin Shepherd on a theme I explored earlier today

Reports that extremist groups in Lebanon are planning Katyusha attacks on Israel to drag Lebanon into a war now that there is a new Hezbollah government.

The Love Boat from Iran

Ingrid and Jorgen go to Gaza

CiFWatch: Flotilla, staying pointless

O/T: Graffiti from Pompeii

Daniel Pipes on the JNF

Inciting in plain sight in Bethlehem

Israel approves building materials for 2 housing projects in southern Gaza

(h/t Zach N., Joel, Silke, Honest Reporting, Israel Matzav, Iowahawk, CHA)

Koran saves 10-year old Saudi girl from rape

From Arab News:

The latest victim of a serial rapist said reciting the Qur’an stopped her attacker from sexually assaulting her, Al-Madinah newspaper reported Monday.

The 10-year-old told the newspaper that she was able to protect herself against his evil deeds by reciting five chapters of the holy book that she had learned by heart.

“Every time he came closer to me, I started reciting Qur'an and he would withdraw,” she said.

The girl, identified by her initials M.M.S., said the rapist would ask her to stop reciting the Qur'an but when she refused to listen to him, he hit her hard on the face. “Because of my recitations, he was reluctant to touch me,” she said.

This is the best use of the Koran I've ever seen.

Saudi Arabia only last week arrested a schoolteacher accused of raping 13 girls in Jeddah. This girl lives in Jeddah as well, so either they have the wrong guy or there is a copycat.

The first Hebrew Bible concordance, in Google Books

I could spend all day browsing around Google Books.

Today I came upon a 1581 edition of the very first Hebrew concordance, Meir Netiv, written by Yitzchak Natan (Isaac Nathan) ben Kalonymous in 1447.

It is interesting because of why he wrote it.

He was heavily involved in arguing against Christian missionaries to the Jews and Jewish apostates. They would quote chapter and verse for their arguments, but Jews couldn't easily answer them - because the division into chapters and verses were a Christian innovation!

Isaac Nathan therefore wrote the first Hebrew concordance of Tanach to aid Jews in arguing back (and exposing fake quotes that Christians at the time would use.) This was one of the first Jewish publications that used the Christian chapter and verse system.

Another innovation was that this concordance alphabetized the Hebrew words by their root word, so it was easier to find a specific word.

If you want to find all Torah commentaries in Google Books written before 1600, click here.

Early synagogues discovered in Israel

From Biblical Archaeology Review:

It seems like almost everywhere archaeologists dig in the eastern Galilee these days, they are coming up with ancient synagogues.

In 2007, a third–fourth-century C.E. synagogue with beautifully decorated mosaic floors depicting Biblical episodes was discovered at the site of Khirbet Wadi Hamam outside Tiberias; just last summer, European archaeologists digging only 4 miles away, at Horvat Kur, announced that they, too, had found a synagogue, probably dating at least a century later.

Perhaps the most exciting recent synagogue discovery in Israel was in Magdala, reputedly the home of Mary Magdalene. (Was this the synagogue she regularly attended?) On the shore of the Sea of Galilee, the newly discovered Magdala synagogue, excavated by archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), is one of only seven uncovered in Israel that was in use during the first century C.E., when the Jerusalem Temple still stood. The others include Masada, Herodium and Gamla, with which BAR readers are familiar. Other possible examples have been excavated at Herodian Jericho, Qiryat Sefer and Modi’in.

The Magdala synagogue from this time is richly decorated with frescoes of colored panels. Mosaics with geometric designs covered the floor. Impressive columns supported the roof. And a strange, nearly 3-foot-long stone block found in the center of the synagogue is elaborately carved on the side and the flat top. Among other reliefs, it features one of the earliest depictions of a seven-branched menorah.

Dina Avshalom-Gorni, the Israeli archaeologist who excavated the site for the IAA, believes the artist who carved the menorah may have modeled his depiction after the actual seven-branched menorah that stood in the Temple, making it a rare representation of the candelabra before the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. Flanking the menorah is a pair of large, long-handled amphorae, as well as a pair of what appear to be fluted columns. Decorating the top of the stone are various heart-shaped and floral motifs, as well as two palm trees that flank a large rosette with a circumscribed petal design. Although the precise function of the stone remains uncertain, it may have been used as a table on which Torah scrolls were rolled out and read or it may have been a stand for an actual menorah used during the service.

There's lots more. Read the whole thing.

(h/t My Right Word)

Time to re-open investigation against Interpal charity?

The "Miles of Smiles" convoy that entered Gaza yesterday (which I compared favorably to the flotillas) includes a large contingent from a British charity called Interpal, or the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund.

This Wikipedia page lists a number of separate allegations over the past 15 years that Interpal has ties to, and raised funds for, Hamas. The page claims that none of the allegations have been proven.

However, the Hamas-leaning newspaper Palestine Times shows images of (unnamed) members of the convoy meeting with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza.

I don't know if any Interpal members are in these photos but it is worth looking further into.

There are two other things that indicate that Interpal is not quite apolitical as it claims.

One is that its logo includes a map of all of Israel:

And another is that on its webpage, for no apparent reason, they have a section about the "Al Aqsa Mosque" that claims that it is not a building but the entire Temple Mount, seemingly including the Western Wall.

Egyptians like Osama more than Obama

From Al Masry al-Youm:

An opinion poll has shown that Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri’s popularity almost equals that of President Barack Obama among Egyptians.

The poll, which came a few months before scheduled presidential and parliamentary elections in Egypt, was conducted by the New York-based Institute for International Peace.

It looked at the popularity of various leaders and found presidential hopeful Amr Moussa to be the most popular among respondents. Prime Minister Essam Sharaf came in second and Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, chief of Egypt’s ruling military council, came in third.

According to the poll, Obama is viewed favorably among 12 percent of Egyptians, whereas Zawahiri is viewed favorably by 11 percent. Zawahiri, who is Egyptian, was appointed head of Al-Qaeda last week.

This article doesn't mention that the poll, conducted in early June, also shows that 21% of Egyptians have a favorable impression of bin Laden - far more than Obama.

But the news isn't all bad for the President. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's popularity lags behind even Obama's at 5%. (In 2008, Ahmadinejad's popularity was at 21%, compared to 25% for Obama.)

The poll also shows that the most popular presidential candidates are Essam Sharaf, Amr Moussa and Mohammed Tantawi, in that order, although interestingly more would vote today for Moussa than Sharaf.

Rumor: One of Hezbollah's "Israeli spies" helped kill Mugniyeh

From Now Lebanon:

One of the Hezbollah members reportedly arrested for collaborating with Israel might be involved in the 2008 assassination of Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh, an unidentified source told NOW Lebanon.

An unnamed Hezbollah source told NOW Lebanon on Saturday that a “group of Hezbollah members were detained in the past few days for collaborating with Israel.”

Although this story has zero corroboration, it is being picked up in the Arabic media.

(h/t Joel)