Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, July 16, 2011

The suffocating Egyptian siege of Gaza continues

Egyptian border guards thwarted an attempt to smuggle more than 20 tons of cement into Gaza via tunnels along the border, security sources told Ma'an.

Palestinian and Egyptian smugglers were involved in the effort to bring large amounts of building materials into the besieged enclave, they added. The smugglers fled the scene.

Forces raided the area and seized 430 bags of cement, the security officials said. The cement will be sold at auction and the tunnel will be blocked by stones, they added.

Since this was Egypt's decision alone, and since there is nothing blocking cement from entering Gaza through the Rafah crossing, one can only conclude that Egypt is imposing a siege on Gaza.

Just waiting for the protests in front of Egyptian embassies in Europe. And, of course, for the enraged op-eds in the Arab media against Egypt for imposing a collective punishment on poor Gazans. Not to mention the UN condemnations.

Weekend links and snippets

UNSC gets 'devastating briefing' about Syrian nuke plant

Australia's former prime minister Kevin Rudd makes a statement by eating at Max Brenner's, saying "I went there deliberately to make a point and that is I don't think in 21st century Australia there is a place for the attempted boycott of a Jewish business."

Elliott Abrams:

The argument is that if Israel is a “Jewish state” it will certainly, unavoidably, necessarily discriminate against non-Jews. The problem with this debating point is that those who use it apply it only to Israel; no one ever voices any concern about states based on Islam and discriminating in favor of Muslims....the usual arguments against the acknowledgement of Israel as a Jewish state are hypocritical and specious. Every Arab state is far more Islamic than the “Jewish state” of Israel is Jewish; to take one example, Israel imposes no religious test for the offices of president or prime minister. Moreover, the treatment of religious minorities is far better than in the Muslim states, as the flat ban on building even a single church in Saudi Arabia and the repeated violence against Christians in Egypt and Pakistan remind us. If some secular professor maintains that all states should be devoid of religious identity, fair enough; that is a principled argument. But when Arab political leaders say they will never acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state, that isn’t an argument at all. It is a reminder of their continuing refusal to make peace with the Jewish state and with the very idea that the Jews can have a state in what they view as the Dar al-Islam.

Iran's Press TV brings us The International Festival of Resistance Art in Gaza!

A Jordanian cartoon about South Sudan - after all, it is a Zionist/imperialist initiative!

Glenn Beck says, "If someone has a problem with the Jews – they got a problem with me."

A Tale of Two Nation-States: Israel and Greece, by Diana Muir Appelbaum:

Like Israel, modern Greece was created by romantic nationalists able first to imagine, and then to achieve, independence because of the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire. Both countries were populated by victims of vicious and sometimes genocidal ethnic cleansings....This, then, is the deep commonality that prime ministers Papandreou and Netanyahu have discovered and set out to cultivate: the idea that in a large and diverse world, the right to exist of two small, distinctive nation states, one Greek and one Jewish, is eminently worth defending.

(h/t Ian, CHA, Israel Muse)

Roger Cohen being an idiot, again [David G]

From David G, with a couple of notes from me:

For those of you keeping score at home, the competition for the coveted title of "worst columnist writing about the Middle East for the New York Times," got a little tighter today. Roger Cohen's latest entry is A Year of Waste. Here's how he starts:

Almost a year ago, President Obama declared to the United Nations General Assembly: “When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations — an independent sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.” It’s been a wasted year.

Just about everywhere in the Middle East there has been movement — stirring, remarkable, uneven — as the region breaks old chains of despotism and seeks its slice of the modern world. But Palestinians and Israelis remain stuck in their sterile and competitive narratives of victimhood, determined, it seems, to ensure past rancor defeats promise.

As with others at the Times, there's no right or wrong here, only "competitive narratives of victimhood.".

But here's a question. What's the most significant word in the following paragraph?

As usual, there’s plenty of blame to spread around. Obama had one of his worst moments last September when he brought the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the White House to announce renewed talks, only for them to unravel as Israel refused to extend a moratorium on settlement expansion. Now, when the United States says to the Palestinians — “Trust us, come to the table, we can deliver” — they scoff.

The answer is "extend." President Obama did pressure Israel into agreeing to a 10 month freeze and for 9 of those months the Palestinians didn't deign to negotiate. At the end they sat down with the Israelis a few times and then demanded an extension to continue. So who failed? Obama pressured Israel who acceded and the Palestinians refused to negotiate. I give Cohen credit for giving readers a hint of the truth, but that makes his dishonesty all the more obvious.

Fayyad’s state building in the West Bank — schools and roads and institutions and security forces — led the World Bank to declare last year that the Palestinian Authority was ready for a state “at any point in the near future.” But Fayyad never got recognition from Israel for his achievements: Terrorist violence is down 96 percent in the West Bank in the past five years.
Israel snubbed a viable partner — criminal waste.

I don't know that Fayyad never got recognition from Israel for his accomplishments; what's clear is that he's never gotten credit from his own people. The reduced terrorist violence that Cohen cites (and I believe that he's wrong about it being 5 years) is not mainly due to the Palestinian police, but to the Israeli efforts in Defensive Shield as well as the building of the security fence. Not that I'd expect Cohen to give Israel any credit, but he's overselling Fayyad here. Additionally given Abbas's recent complaint about not being able to pay salaries, the limitations of what Fayyad has done are clear. He has created a viable state, perhaps, but one that is too dependent upon foreign aid and not enough on Palestinian enterprise.

[Cohen is right about the 5 years, actually. The biggest drop in terror attacks came during the autumn of 2006. However, Fayyad didn't become prime minister until June 2007, so crediting him for the bulk of reduction in terror is wrong. - EoZ]

Abbas also decided to sign a reconciliation agreement with Hamas that was not thought through. It has since proved stillborn because Hamas will not accept Abbas’s insistence that Fayyad remain as prime minister. Instead, Abbas should have negotiated a truce pending elections in a year that would allow Palestinians to decide who should represent them. An empty reconciliation with Hamas only gave ammunition to Netanyahu, incensed Congress and embarrassed Fayyad.

"[G]ave ammunition to Netanyahu?" No, it was blatant rejection of the premises of the peace process. And of course it shows that Abbas doesn't much appreciate Fayyad either. (Though, in his favor he does seem to be standing behind Fayyad, so the deal isn't likely to endure.)

The Israeli insistence on up-front recognition from the Palestinians of Israel as a “Jewish state” is absurd — a powerful indication of growing Israeli insecurities, isolation and intolerance. There was no such insistence a decade ago.

States get recognized, not their nature, and the Palestine Liberation Organization has recognized Israel’s right to “exist in peace and security.” Palestinians are not going to elaborate on their recognition ahead of negotiations, while Netanyahu refuses to elaborate on what his vague formulation of “two states for two peoples” might actually mean.

Cohen must have thought here that his alliteration was so clever: "Israeli insecurities, isolation and intolerance." But the insistence of Israel as a Jewish state is a fundamental premise of the peace process. Palestinian nationalism denies the historic connection between Jews and Israel, so accepting the Jewish nature of Israel is a necessary step for the Palestinian Authority to show that they've really altered that aspect of their ideology. Frankly, I don't know that "two states for two peoples" needs any elaboration. Without a good argument here Cohen just writes absolute garbage.

[It is worthwhile to note that in the very same document that the PLO recognized Israel's right to "exist in peace and security" they also wrote

The PLO commits itself to the Middle East peace process, and to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations.....[T]he PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators.

The PLO showed that this part was a lie during the intifada. Why does Cohen believe the statement about recognition of Israel's right to exist in peace and security is sacrosanct when the PLO abrogated the rest of the agreement as far back as 2001? - EoZ]

I think that the op-ed crown I mentioned above still goes to "Turnip Truck" Thomas Friedman, because lately he's been writing a lot more about the Middle East. Cohen's column is an example, if we needed one, that the Times has plenty of people who can write absolute nonsense about the Middle East with no regard for the truth.

Syrian tourism has dropped to - zero!

Al Arabiya quotes the Syrian Minister of Tourism as saying that the tourist trade in Syria has been badly hit by the protests.

Minister of Tourism in Syria Dr. Lamia Assi said that tourism from Europe (the main market of the Syrian Tourism) is almost nonexistent, with the cancellation and rejection of insurance companies to cover tourists wishing to travel to Syria. The minister Assi told the newspaper "Asharq al-Awsat" that the lack of tourists has led to lower occupancy rates this summer dropping from 99% to 0%, which is confirmed by the managers of great hotels in the capital, Damascus.

They are trying to re-orient their marketing away from Europe and towards Malaysia, China, Russia and Arab countries like Egypt.

Good luck with that!

South Sudanese celebrate independence with Israeli flags

Here is a still from a video taken from BBC Arabic, reproduced in Al Jazeera and in other Arabic media, showing South Sudanese people celebrating their independence:

Interestingly, if you look at the video you can see that flags of other countries were being waved as well in the same scene, including the American flag seen here in the background:

Israel was one of the first states to recognize South Sudan when it declared independence.

Roughing it at Gaza's Carino's restaurant

It's really a shame that the flotilettantes didn't have a chance to see the humanitarian horrors in this miserable little corner of Gaza City. I would have looked forward to their dispatches about this place.

How can people live this way?

PalArabs reject two state solution, except as a stage to full conquest

This poll disproves everything you read about the Middle East in the mainstream media.

From JPost:

Only one in three Palestinians (34 percent) accepts two states for two peoples as the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an intensive, face-to-face survey in Arabic of 1,010 Palestinian adults in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip completed this week by American pollster Stanley Greenberg.

The poll, which has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, was conducted in partnership with the Beit Sahour-based Palestinian Center for Public Opinion and sponsored by the Israel Project, an international nonprofit organization that provides journalists and leaders with information about the Middle East.

Respondents were asked about US President Barack Obama’s statement that “there should be two states: Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people and Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people.”

Just 34% said they accepted that concept, while 61% rejected it.

Sixty-six percent said the Palestinians’ real goal should be to start with a two-state solution but then move to it all being one Palestinian state.

Asked about the fate of Jerusalem, 92% said it should be the capital of Palestine, 1% said the capital of Israel, 3% the capital of both, and 4% a neutral international city.

Seventy-two percent backed denying the thousands of years of Jewish history in Jerusalem, 62% supported kidnapping IDF soldiers and holding them hostage, and 53% were in favor or teaching songs about hating Jews in Palestinian schools.

When given a quote from the Hamas Charter about the need for battalions from the Arab and Islamic world to defeat the Jews, 80% agreed. Seventy-three percent agreed with a quote from the charter (and a hadith, or tradition ascribed to the prophet Muhammad) about the need to kill Jews hiding behind stones and trees.

But only 45% said they believed in the charter’s statement that the only solution to the Palestinian problem was jihad.

The survey’s more positive findings included that only 22% supported firing rockets at Israeli cities and citizens and that two-thirds preferred diplomatic engagement over violent “resistance.”

Among Palestinians in general 65% preferred talks and 20% violence. In the West Bank it was 69-28%, and in Gaza, 59- 32%.

This poll is completely at odds with the world's assumptions of a Palestinian Arab people who desire peace with Israel - assumptions that are shaped by media that reports what journalists want to be true rather than what actually is.

If Western leaders understood this survey, they would know that the unilateral declaration of a state planned for September is anything but a peaceful move. They would know that real peace is literally impossible and that "compromise" is not in the Palestinian Arab vocabulary. They would know that any move at the UN makes war more likely, not less.

They would know that those right-wing Israeli extremists were exactly right.

The "two state solution" that other polls seem to find PalArab support for is a Trojan horse. Yet any Zionist who points that out is marginalized as an extremist in the media, while journalists fawn over those who have rosier, and ultimately false, interpretations. Only rarely do polls frame the questions in ways that expose the true feelings of the Palestinian Arab public.

Ha'aretz, one of the worst offenders of the myth that Palestinian Arabs want peaceful coexistence, buried the poll findings at the very end of an article about how little the Palestinian Arabs want a new intifada, and spun it appropriately:

In another measure of the Palestinian mood, an opinion poll commissioned by the group The Israel Project, which dispenses information to journalists and others about Israel and the Middle East, showed that about 65 percent of Palestinians polled said they thought now was the time for diplomatic contacts, while 30 percent saw the current period as the time for violent resistance. On the other hand, only 34 percent favored a two-state solution involving a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state. Furthermore, 66 percent favored a two-state solution as only a first step to be followed by a Palestinian state replacing Israel.

Most of the media won't bother to spin this very important poll the way Ha'aretz does. They'll just ignore it altogether. After all, it is embarrassing to admit that your entire worldview is horribly wrong, and if there is a choice of avoiding embarrassment or telling the truth, the mainstream media does not have a good track record of doing the latter.

Don't expect to see a Thomas Friedman column about this story. After all, he personally spends time with handpicked Palestinian Arabs who speak perfect English when he visits the Middle East a couple of times a year. He knows the pulse of PalArab society better than any silly old Zionist-backed survey. Which is a better story - an interview with people you choose who might be in the minority but who you already know agree with your viewpoints, or boring numbers?

(h/t Zach N)

Exports of potatoes from Gaza starting next week

Next week, Israel will allow ten trucks of potatoes a day to be exported from Gaza to sell in Jordan.

A total of 25,000 tons is expected to be exported during the current season.

One reason that this has not happened sooner is because of Israeli fears that the crops might carry plant diseases, especially if they were planted with seeds from Egypt. As part of the agreement, the crops will be shipped out sealed in plastic bags.

There are also plans for tomatoes to be exported as well.

Adopt your own Palestinian pet monkey!

Today in Jerusalem, Israelis and Arabs are planning to march along the route where Jerusalem was divided for 19 anomalous years, in support of the Palestinian Arab statehood bid.

Who are the organizers?

As with virtually every similar protest, it isn't the Arab residents of the area who came up with the idea. Practically every one of these events are wholly conceived, planned and led by Westerners.

Why are the flotillas and flytillas and other demonstrations almost always led by Westerners? One would think that the leftists are more interested in a state than the proposed subjects of that state themselves.

This is just another manifestation of the bigotry of the so-called "pro-Palestinian activists." To them, the real lives of Palestinian Arabs are not of any real interest except for how they can be manipulated and used to pressure Israel.

Read their literature, and mentally substitute "pet monkey" for "Palestinian."

Look how proud they are of their pet monkeys! These precocious monkeys actually welcome them into their homes and act friendly - they don't always flinging poo at them! The monkeys can be taught to march against Israel with the leftists - almost as if they were human themselves! They even have families, just like real people!

And when they do act in vaguely human way, we are so proud of them! They help each other out! They can figure out how to build tunnels and rockets, all by themselves!

Palestinian Arab monkeys are very useful to have around as well, After all, if you are planning a protest on their behalf, you have to trot your pets out to perform for the cameras.

Admittedly, sometimes they do act like animals. Sure, they only think about themselves, and they will often lapse into the "law of the jungle." Animals can't be taught empathy or compromise, which are higher-level concepts that only humans can exhibit.

They'll attack their enemies and even their zookeepers sometimes, but that must be swept under the carpet. It is unrealistic to expect even trained pet monkeys to always act exactly like real humans act. I mean, as human-like as they appear, it is vaguely racist to expect them to completely shed their animal nature. When they lapse into violence, it is after all part of their culture and completely justifiable. Some pet owners even say that their animal-like instincts are superior to human ways. Who are we to say otherwise?

But make no mistake - the owners love their monkeys, almost as if the simians were human themselves. They are bursting with pride at how much they have taught them already about monkey rights, and how monkey rights are the most important issue in the world today. The monkeys have learned that lesson well.

Muslim Brotherhood warns of more Zionists in Tahrir Square

From Al Masry al Youm:

The Muslim Brotherhood’s official news outlet, Ikhwan Online, is reporting that “the remnants of the dissolved National Democratic Party, the state security apparatus and their Zionist allies” are trying to destabilize Egypt by infiltrating an ongoing sit-in protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

The website reported on 11 July that at the 8 July protest, protesters in Tahrir Square caught three “thugs” carrying knives and foreign currencies. According to the website, the three men had a tattoo of the Star of David, a Jewish symbol, which also appears on the Israeli flag. Tattoos are forbidden under Jewish law.

"The remnants of the dissolved National Democratic Party, the State Security apparatus and their Zionist allies still attempt to use thugs and spies to suppress the revolt of the Egyptian people that have damaged the interests of the beneficiaries of the ousted regime in Egypt, and tipped the balance in the Middle East,” the Brotherhood outlet said.

While the Brotherhood lent its official support to the 8 July protest that started the sit-in, they decided not to participate in continuing protests.

According to Ikhwan Online, bombs and tear gas marked with the Star of David were also allegedly found in possession of a satellite television reporter who was inciting protesters against the police and encouraging demonstrators to storm the Ministry of Interior.

The website’s investigation of these incidents raised questions about the supposed coincidences.

Major General Hamdy Bakhit, a military expert, told Ikhwan Online that it is not unlikely there will be cooperation between the remnants of Mubarak's regime and Egypt’s enemies abroad after revolutionaries raised questions about Egypt’s controversial natural gas export deal with Israel.

"The Western countries, including the United States and Israel, want to derail the revolution because Arab revolutions limit Western influence in the region, thwart attempts to control the Middle East and deplete its resources," Ikhwan Online quoted Major General Mohammed Abdul Lateef Tolba, a security expert, as saying.

Tolba told the website that Tahrir Square, where demonstrations are entering their sixth day, is full of spies from different nationalities, led by the Zionists, the first enemy of the Arabs and Egyptians.

So whats the difference between a corrupt regime that associates everything they don't like with Zionists and a corrupt, crazy political party that associates everything they don't like with Zionists?

Hamas summer camp, 2011

Some photos from this year's camp, where Hamas teaches kids teamwork, pride and how to kill Jews:

(h/t Khaled Abu Toameh via FB)

The Palestinian Arabs who like to keep their people in misery

Ma'an publishes an op-ed by Maath Musleh, "a Palestinian from Jerusalem and an activist in the Palestinian youth movement."

It is the usual drivel where he claims that the anti-Israel anarchists are the only real Jews, and he tries to fend off criticism within Palestinian Arab society that cooperating with these Jews is a form of normalization (which is, by their definition, a horrid crime.)

We have to be open about the subject now more than ever. We have to set the standards for our co-resistance. Yes we do co-operate with the Jewish citizens of the State of Israel. But the standards of this co-operation are clear. We work together with every Israeli that opposes Zionism and fully recognizes the Palestinian rights, freedom, equality, and the right of the return.

...As Zionism is also the enemy of the Jews, those Israelis have the right to resist it. Those activists are not only there for solidarity. It’s also their war. The Palestinians who try to portray the co-resistance as normalization have to first go down to the front line and resist. We have nothing to hide. Our work of co-resistance is under the sun. It’s not underground. And we oppose co-operating with the leftist Zionists who take part in demonstrations or call themselves peace activists.

This is not such an unusual viewpoint in the PalArab world, but it is one that gets hushed up in the Western media because they want to portray all non-Islamist Palestinian Arabs as being peace-loving and willing to compromise. As this essay shows, that is far from the truth. This extremist is not writing this piece to justify his position as going too far - it is to defend his position from people who are even less tolerant than he is!

I commented:

So, to be clear, you don't want to live in peace with Israel, but you want it destroyed.

And until then, you want to keep Palestinian Arabs in a stateless limbo, where hundreds of thousands will stay in camps and without the simple human right of becoming citizens in the countries they were born in and will die in.

Since Israel is not going anywhere, you would prefer to keep your fellow Palestinians in misery - forever.

Wow, you must really love your people!

Funny Syrian news fauxtography

From The Envoy:

Syria's beleaguered president Bashar al-Assad last week fired the governor of the restive city of Hama, reportedly over concerns the governor was too accommodating to anti-regime demonstrators staging peaceful protests in the city.
So on Monday, SANA informs us, Assad—ever the dutiful strongman—purported to swear in his new choice to rule Hama, Anas Abdul-Razzaq Na-em, providing this notably odd photo of the two leaders:

Enterprising journalists and bloggers soon spotted key discrepancies--such as the telltale way that the table between the two men appears to cast an improbably glossy shadow on the surface of an oriental rug, and eerie way that Na-em casts no shadow in his surroundings whatsoever. The UK Guardian solicited an opinion from its "imaging expert" Drew McCoy, who noted further that "two pictures may have been merged to make it seem like the men are in the same room, with the one on the right positioned fractionally higher than the one on the left. This becomes clearer when you look closely at the floor, which is distorted. The right hand side of the picture has been stretched downwards into place to line up with the left side (which is not distorted)."
The Washington Post noted further that one of Assad's shoes "appears to be sticking out in front of the table leg," even though the rest of his body is position behind the table leg. And McCoy's counterpart at the Post, Dan Murano, seconds McCoy's judgment that a closer examination of both figures shows few of the signature traces that actual humans display when actually captured on film--such as stray hairs. Instead, the figures of both men have perfectly unruffled outlines. The photo, Murano concluded, "looks as if someone selected the the bodies and heads with the lasso tool and then adjusted the contrast and brightness, leaving a black outline at the tool's selection boundary."

(h/t Mike)

Bollywood looking to film in Israel?

From TheJC:

The next Indian blockbuster may have Jewish characters and scenes filmed in Israel, if new plans to bring Bollywood to Israel pan out.

Eight leaders of the Indian film industry spent this week in Israel, scouting out locations and speaking to local counterparts about ideas for films with storylines that bring characters to Israel. They attended the Jerusalem Film Festival, where one of the producers, Vinod Kumar, previewed his new film, Gangor.

"It has been a revelation of sorts," said Mr Kumar, Secretary General of the Film Foundation of India and head of three major Indian film companies. "We had heard that Israel was very small but every kilometre is different from the next, which is amazing for a filmmaker."

Another delegate, Bobby Bedi, managing director of Kaleidoscope Entertainment and producer of the internationally acclaimed 1994 film Bandit Queen, said after a tour of Jerusalem that he would find it "absolutely fascinating" to film in the Old City.

Indians would greet films involving Israel with enthusiasm, he predicted. "India is still a poor country and most people can't travel, and film are a way of 'taking' people overseas," he said.

OK, I admit I posted this just to give an excuse to again show this video from Israeli defense contractor Rafael trying to sell "indigenous air systems" to India in 2009:

Dinga dinga dee!

Not that the cross-culturalization only goes one way. Here's a classic video of Hava Nagila, Indian-style: