Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Erekat spouts lies in response to Israeli YouTube video

This week, Israel's Foreign Ministry put out a video that has spread quickly, called The Truth About the West Bank:

PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, who apparently has never resigned even though he claimed he did, lashed out at the video. His sputtering statement has a lot of nonsense, but I want to concentrate on one of his many lies that we have not covered before:

Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat Wednesday expressed his shock at a Youtube video produced by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in which the Israeli Ministry distorts international law regarding the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

“With this video, the Israeli government has left no doubt on its pro-conflict agenda,” said Erekat in a press release....

Erekat continued: “In its desperate attempt to gear international discourse away from the pursuit of genuine peace to the outdated arguments of those who oppose it, this official video went as far as discarding United Nations Resolution 181 (II). I want to remind the government of Israel that it was accepted at the UN as a full member based on its acceptance of this resolution.”

This is a claim that has been made before by anti-Israel activists. Was Israel's acceptance to the UN conditional upon accepting UNGA 181?

The easiest way to find out is to read the text of the resolution accepting Israel itself:

Having received the report of the Security Council on the application of Israel for membership in the United Nations,

Noting that, in the judgment of the Security Council, Israel is a peace-loving State and is able and willing to carry out the obligations contained in the Charter,

Noting that the Security Council has recommended to the general Assembly that it admit Israel to membership in the United Nations,

Noting furthermore the declaration by the State of Israel that it "unreservedly accepts the obligations of the United Nations Charter and undertakes to honour them from the day when it becomes a member of the United Nations,"

Recalling its resolutions of 29 November 1947 and 11 December 1948 and taking note of the declarations and explanations made by the representative of the Government of Israel before the Ad Hoc Political Committee in respect of the implementation of the said resolutions,

The General Assembly,

Acting in discharge of its functions under Article 4 of the Charter and rule 125 of its rules of procedure,

1. Decides that Israel is a peace loving State which accepts the obligations contained in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations;

2. Decides to admit Israel to membership in the United Nations.

While the resolution "recalls" UNGA 181 and 194 there is no conditional language in this resolution at all. The actionable part of the resolution is unambiguous. Beyond that, the preamble explicitly notes that Israel clarified - at length - its interpretation of those resolutions in a number of now obscure UN documents (here and here, among others.) Abba Eban was, as usual, masterful in explaining Israel's position, and his explanation is referred to in this resolution just as the UNGA resolutions are. The language of the resolution seems to accept Eban's words as being just as important as the texts of the earlier resolutions themselves.

Which means that Erekat is shown yet again to be a liar.

UNESCO's Islamicization of Maimonides

YNet has a damning article by Giulio Meotti about UNESCO that makes a very good case that the agency is actively engaging in a fight against Israel, and even against Jewish culture and history - especially if that history happened to occur on the "wrong side" of an imaginary green line.

The Arabs find it difficult to convincingly portray Israel as usurper of the land as long as the world believes there is a huge connection between the people of the Bible and the land of the Bible. UNESCO is denying this connection by depicting Jewish history in the Middle East as no more than an insignificant, brief sojourn by arrogant colonizers.

UNESCO appears to deny that the Jewish people has laid its roots in Israel more than 4,000 years ago, or that 1,000 years before Christ, King David made Jerusalem the Jewish city par excellence, never entirely abandoned even in times of deadly persecution.

The City of David in Jerusalem, a major target of UNESCO’s anti-Jewish fury, is now the hottest open archaeological site in the world, with biblical artifacts, ancient burial spots and royal seals. There, UNESCO is using archeology to bash Israel and treats Israeli archeologists as nationalistic martinets.

In recent years, UNESCO increased its collaboration with ISESCO, the cultural body of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. According to ISESCO’s propaganda, the Biblical story and the Jewish temples are only fiction, Jewish monuments are Islamic treasures stolen by the Zionists, and Israeli archeological works are criminal acts against Muslims.

UNESCO’s ideology portrays the Jews as no more than invading colonizers, while the Muslims who invaded the country and ravaged it in the Seventh Century are, by some inexplicable leap, the descendants of the so called "indigenous Canaanites."

In 2010, UNESCO decided that Rachel’s Tomb and Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs are “Muslim mosques.” Western countries didn't raise any protest. UNESCO never mentioned that in addition to the famous Tomb of the biblical Patriarchs, Hebron contains also the tomb of the first judge (Otniel Ben Kenaz), the tomb of generals and confidants to Saul and David and the tombs of Ruth and Jesse, David’s great-grandmother and father. There is also no word by UNESCO about the fact that Rachel’s tomb is unanimously revered as the burial site of one of the Bible’s great women, the wife of Jacob, the Jewish blessed mother.

During the Second Intifada, UNESCO condemned Israel for “the destruction and damage caused to the cultural heritage in the Palestinian territories” as “a crime against the common cultural heritage of humanity.” However, UNESCO remained silent when a Palestinian mob destroyed Joseph’s tomb, a major Jewish religious shrine, and built a mosque on the site.

Upon the outbreak of the Second Intifada, Palestinian terrorists also attacked Rachel’s tomb, and for 41 days Jews were prevented from visiting the compound. UNESCO never condemned it. Recently, dozens of graves at the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem were vandalized, the latest in a series of attacks on Judaism’s oldest cemetery, where Jews have been buried since biblical times. Again, UNESCO remained silent.

This one part of the article was stunning to me:

On a final note, a recent UNESCO report on science, Jewish physician and theologian Maimonides is classified as a Muslim named “Moussa ben Maimoun.” So the Rambam - for Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon – has been forced to “convert” to Islam by the UN’s revisionist historians.

During the Middle Ages, the French Inquisition confiscated and burned Maimonides's books. From the elegant Parisian boulevards, UNESCO’s inquisitors are now following the same dreadful solution of rendering history and the Holy Land "Judenrein."

I asked Meotti for the document where UNESCO calls Maimonides (the Rambam) a Muslim, and after a bit of searching we found it. It was in the French version of a December 2010 report on science in the Arab world by Adnan Badran:

Une fois Tolède reprise aux Maures par les croisés en 1085, les savants européens y affluèrent afin de traduire les anciens textes classiques du grec (que l’Europe avait oubliés) vers l’arabe et l’hébreu, puis le latin, rendant ce la première partie du Moyen Âge européen (1100-1543), les noms de quelques savants européens apparaissaient dans la littérature scientifique à côté d’un grand nombre de savants musulmans, parmi lesquels Ibn Rushd (Averroès), Moussa ibn Maïmoun (Maïmonide), Tousi et Ibn Nafis.

After the recovery of Toledo from the Moors by the Crusaders in 1085, European scholars flocked there to translate the ancient classical texts from the Greek (which Europe had forgotten) to Arabic and Hebrew and Latin, making it the first part of the European Middle Ages (1100-1543), the names of some European scholars appeared in scientific literature next to a large number of Muslim scholars, including Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Maimouna Ibn Moussa (Maimonides), Tousi and Ibn Nafis.

This is in marked contrast to how UNESCO used to act. In 1986, it organized a roundtable to celebrate the 850th anniversary of Maimonides' birth, and dedicated an entire issue of its cultural magazine to Maimonides and Averroes that same year where his Jewish roots are emphasized. In that issue they mention that he is known as The Rambam and they say his name was Moses ben Maymun.

That began to change as UNESCO started de-emphasizing his Judaism. In their description of Cordoba, for example, he is referred to as "Musa-ibn-Maymun."

And now - he is a Muslim.

This isn't the usual anti-Zionism that we come to expect from the UN. This is a consistent pattern of the denial of Jewish history and culture. In other words - this is UN-sanctioned anti-semitism.

Hasbara 2.0 - the video

Yesterday I posted the slides for my Hasbara 2.0 speech last year. Here is the video of the presentation. If you have a couple of free hours, you might find it interesting.

Ahmadinejad: "We've never thought of aggression"

One of the funnier articles in the Tehran Times:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that Iran will give a crushing response to any malicious movement in the region against its interests.

“The Iranian nation is an honest friend and is true to its word, but if anyone wishes to collude with the sworn enemies of Iran and make malicious moves, they should know that Iran will stand firm until the eradication of global arrogance (imperialist powers) and the Zionist regime,” he said.

“The entire world knows that Iran is the biggest military power in the region,” he said. “We have never wanted to take advantage of nations’ limitations, because it goes against our beliefs and we have never thought of aggression against others.”

He added: “The era of the Unites States and the Zionist regime has come to an end; their days are numbered.

Yup, aggression never even crossed his mind, as he promises a "crushing response" to any "malicious moves" until the US and Israel are utterly destroyed.

2010 Hasby Awards/Hasbara 2.0: The slide presentation

Here are the slides that I created for my lecture last year at Yeshiva University which included the 2010 Hasby Awards and Hasbara 2.0.

Yes, I know that there is a risk that the Israel-haters will learn all our nefarious secrets. I'll just have to take that risk.

Worst insult for anti-Israel leftists: "Hasbara activist"

It's been a fun day in the Twittersphere, as my post demolishing the 972mag's attempt to attack me got some play.

It seems to have angered the usual hate-Israel crowd, who have been hurling the biggest insult they can to me - that I engage in hasbara.

The author, Noam Sheizaf, called me a "Hasbara mouthpiece."

Joseph Dana of the same online blog said I was having a "bad hasbara day."

Later he said "@elderofziyon calls his own work 'humorous.' Do his readers understand that he writes humor or Hasbara?"

One of his retweeters wrote "that hasbara means deceit and you are not insulted means to admit to the charge, an honest man who ply's deceit for a living."

And Dana then had a series of tweets for what good, upstanding citizens must look for when dealing with that hasbara crowd.

Wow! The word "Hasbara" is as toxic to these guys as the word "Zionist" is to Arabs! So much so that they assume that bringing out that term automatically means they win the argument!

Well, at the risk of making their heads explode, this blog is dedicated to hasbara. There, I admit it. I even gave a couple of lectures on how to create effective hasbara (and how this blog falls short.)

I wrote eleven hasbara rules in the talk, and one of them was "Truth Above All." If we lose credibility, we lose everything; if one is not comfortable using a specific argument, don’t fake it.

"Hasbara" means, simply, explanation. It refers to public advocacy for Israel. It does not mean deceit, lies, or running away from the truth - quite the opposite. It means telling the truth about Israel and the Arab world in the face of the huge amount of misinformation and lies that exists out there.

So, go ahead, call me a hasbarist. It's a compliment.

Israeli-Palestinian Arab soccer team upsets PalArabs

Earlier this month, the Vancouver International Soccer Festival was held. It included many international teams, including a joint Israeli/Palestinian Arab team. As the Jewish Independent wrote:

The Independent spoke briefly with Noor Daoud and Liraz Cohen, who were visibly eager, having just played a game and done a TV interview, to rejoin their fellow players and enjoy the rest of their night.

Daoud, 21, who is from the West Bank, said she recently completed her studies at Miami University; she has taken a year-long program in criminal justice and two years of fitness training. She is now working at a gym, in addition to playing soccer with an Israeli team. She played on the Palestinian national team, which took her to competitions in places like the United Arab Emirates, Germany and London, but had to change teams because she reached the de facto age-limit of the Palestinian team, which focuses on younger players.

Cohen, 22, is one of the Israelis on the VISF Palestine/Israel team. She said she had just finished a six-month vacation in the United States. She currently lives in Eilat, where she is a bartender, as well as a soccer player.

About the potential impact of VISF, Daoud said, “I think it will really, really help, because we’ve never gone out as both teams [together] like this, we never tried it, it’s our first time, and I’m really enjoying it because it’s been a long time [that] I wished this moment would happen. We’re here now and I’m really happy because we can show the world and everybody here that Israelis and Palestinians can mix and we can become one team. I hope one day we will have huge team in Israel and it will be mixed, Palestinians and Israelis.”

While Daoud was speaking, Cohen put her arm around Daoud’s shoulder in a show of camaraderie. “It’s good for peace, for the future,” said Cohen about VISF. “I think all people are the same and we need peace. That’s it,” she concluded.

This is not sitting well with Hamas.

The Hamas-oriented Felesteen and Palestine Times websites are upset over photos that came out of Canada at the festival:

They are especially upset at how this joint team represents "normalization" with the "Zionist entity" and they note the names of the Arab players and where they are from, in what may be a veiled threat against them.

One comment at the Felesteen site emphasized that "they do not represent the Palestinian people."

Pakistanis killing each other in Karachi - so minister blames Israel

The background:

A wave of deadly political and ethnic violence gripped Pakistan’s largest city for the fourth straight day Friday, and police and paramilitary troops were given orders to shoot suspected assailants on sight.

As many as 95 people have been killed in Karachi since Tuesday in assassinations, shooting rampages on buses and arson attacks, according to law enforcement authorities, who were widely faulted for doing little to stop the carnage. The fighting spread from one multiethnic, lower-middle-class district to other parts of the seaside metropolis, and by Friday the city was under near-lockdown as armed men fired from windows and rooftops.

So, naturally, this must all be Israel's fault!

Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said Israel-made weapons have been recovered from trouble-makers in the city which shows that some external hands were involved in the unrest.

“Weapons are being brought to Karachi from abroad,” he said, adding: “Not only weapons even target killers also were coming from outside.” He said steps are being taken to tackle the situation but did not elaborate.

“Over 200 persons have been arrested and Israel-made weapons, including AK-45s, have been recovered from them. This proves that a foreign hand is behind the unrest in Karachi,” he told newsmen here

Some Pakistani editorials ran with this:

Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s disclosure about the use of Israel-made weapons in Karachi that has for long been in the grip of murderous attacks by rival criminal groups might have surprised those who are unaware of the machinations of the Zionists, but to the informed it was no news. They have always believed, not merely suspected, that not only Israel, but also a wider nexus that brings India and the US into the fold, has been at work stirring up trouble in Pakistan as well as, particularly, other Muslim lands, which could serve their strategic designs of the dominance of certain regions of the world to enable them to appropriate their resources for exploitation. In the case of Pakistan, where war-like situation exists, thanks to the invaders of Afghanistan, the nexus has been active not only in Karachi, but also in Balochistan and elsewhere. The links of the attackers on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore can be traced back to Zionists.

Others are dismissive:

WAS the goal to grab headlines? Or simply to shift responsibility? It was the classic Pakistani conspiracy theory of blaming those mysterious `foreign hands`, but coming from a senior government official in charge of domestic security, Interior Minister Rehman Malik`s statement on Sunday only trivialised the horror Karachi has been through over the last two weeks. Israeli weapons have been found in the port city, Mr Rehman claimed, suggesting that this meant a foreign element was behind Karachi`s unrest. Without more direct linkages between the city`s violence and external powers, this claim defies logic.

If Israel didn't exist, who could the Muslims blame for all their problems?

Women raped, abused at Jordan factory that supplies WalMart, Macy's

From the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights:

According to witnesses who work at Classic Fashion, scores of young Sri Lankan women sewing clothing for Wal-Mart and Hanes have suffered routine sexual abuse and repeated rapes, and in some cases even torture. One young rape victim at the Classic factory in Jordan told us her assailant, a manager, bit her, leaving scars all over her body. Women who become pregnant are forcibly deported and returned to Sri Lanka. Women who refuse the sexual advances of Classic's managers are also beaten and deported.

Classic, the largest garment export factory in Jordan, sews clothing for Wal-Mart, Hanes, Kohl's, Target and Macy's. The garments enter the U.S. duty-free under the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement.

On the weekly holiday, the alleged serial rapist general manager, Anil Santha, sends a van to bring four or five young women to his hotel, where he abuses them. The lives of the young Sri Lankan rape victims are completely shattered, as in their culture, virginity is highly prized and critical for a good marriage.

In October 2010, 2,400 Sri Lankan and Indian workers went on strike demanding the removal of the alleged rapist, Anil. Classic's owner, Sanal Kumar, sent Anil away, but he returned after one month.

Through the Institute/National Labor Committee's reports, the Ministry of Labor has been made aware of the sexual abuse as early as 2007, but has done nothing.

The standard shift at Classic is 13 hours a day, six and seven days a week, with some 18 ½ hour shifts before the clothing must be shipped to the U.S. According to witness testimonies, workers are routinely cursed at, hit and shortchanged of their wages for failing to reach their mandatory production goals. To press the women to work faster, managers grope and fondle them.

The workers-who are from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Egypt, earn a take-home wage of just 61 cents an hour.

The workers are housed in primitive dorms lacking heat or hot water, but which are infested with bed bugs. The women have extremely limited freedom of movement and are allowed to leave the factory compound just one day a week for six hours. When they are forced to work through their weekly holiday, they may be allowed out just once or twice a month.

The minimal efforts of Wal-Mart, Hanes and the other labels to monitor factory conditions at Classic have failed completely. Workers are threatened by management and forced to say that conditions are good.

The full report has a number of interviews with women who were raped; one of them is on YouTube.

It looks like the abusers are not Jordanians either.

Abbas lies in Norway: "Our people eager for freedom and independence"

Palestine Press Agency reports on Mahmoud Abbas's remarks in Norway concerning the unilateral move to have the UN short-circuit negotiations with Israel.

He said, "Our people are eagerly awaiting their freedom and independence."

If that is so, then why does he refuse to negotiate with Israel? If that is so, why does he consistently refuse to compromise on any major issues? If his people are so eager to have a state, then why not accept one of the many that Israel has already offered?

He said, "Our choice is peace, and we continue to strive to achieve this with Israel through negotiations."

Then why did he leave the negotiating table? why did he refuse to negotiate during Israel's ill-advised "settlement freeze"?

He said, "We are involved in the path of building our institutions and the development of our economy."

If so, then why is the Palestinian Arab economy still so dependent on outside aid? Why is paying the families of terrorists, and salaries to the terrorists themselves in prison, a higher priority than paying his own employees?

He said, "We will make every effort possible to reach the unity of our people and end the suffering of our people in Gaza Strip."

If so, then why has he not made any move to re-assert the PA's authority in Gaza? Why has he not yet visited the area? Why is he accepting Hamas' de facto rule?

And why aren't any Norwegian reporters or politicians asking these questions to him?

Leftist magazine: Palestinian Arabs forced to buy Chanukah candy!

Noam Sheizaf, a writer for the leftist 972 Magazine, takes a humorous post of mine way too seriously - and makes an idiot of himself in the process.

I noted that a new, beautiful supermarket in Gaza was selling Israeli items, and said jokingly that the flotilla passengers who might make it to Gaza will be forced to picket that store for not adhering to BDS.

Sheizaf is upset:

Back to planet Earth: Israel controls the economy of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel decides what goods are let in and out, just as it has most of the control over electric power and water in the territories. This is called “the occupation,” something that EOZ and the likes of him have yet to hear about.

He then goes off on an irrelevant tangent about how evil Israeli companies profiteered off of the closure two years ago, before Israel eased the sanctions and allowed all of the products I noted in my piece.

And he concludes:

The BDS call, which EOZ referred to, is a Palestinian request of solidarity from the international community. Palestinians are forced to buy Israeli goods – just as they are forced to work for Israelis in order to survive – but they ask others, who do have a choice, to avoid that.

If I would have highlighted Israeli flour, or cooking oil, or candles, perhaps Sheizaf would have a point.

But let's look at his thesis: that ordinary Palestinian Arabs are the ones who are pushing the boycott of Israeli goods.

If that is true, wouldn't one expect to see a certain reluctance about selling Israeli goods in their supermarkets? Wouldn't one expect that only Israeli staples would be sold, but unnecessary snack items would be eschewed? Wouldn't one expect that outraged Palestinian Arabs would insist that non-essential items be - boycotted?

Yet in this Gaza supermarket, goods from Osem (for example) are not only sold - but the Hebrew logo is prominently displayed! It is almost as if the shopkeepers want to sell Israeli items to their poor, deprived Gaza customers!

The Israeli ice cream is not hidden by the embarrassed store owners in the back of the store. On the contrary, even the Hebrew display graphics are prominently featured:

And, yes, the Chanukah chocolate coins - complete with a menorah prominently stamped - are not being burned in a bonfire at a Gaza square, but are being sold to unsuspecting Arab victims of Israeli hegemony!

There are also pictures that indicate that both Israeli and Arab goods are being sold, side by side - detergents and chocolate bars. But I thought that there was no choice!

So where is the reluctance to buy Israeli products by Gazans - and, indeed, Palestinian Arabs altogether? Where is the shame that we would expect to be seeing? Why are the store-owners buying non-essential goods from Israel for their customers, and why are their customers not starting outraged Facebook pages complaining about it?

Is it possible that Sheizaf's thesis is entirely wrong?

In fact, ordinary Palestinian Arabs have no problem buying Israeli goods. The only ones pushing BDS are the so-called "civil society" - and they do not represent nearly as many people as they claim to. When Mahmoud Abbas made a big deal insisting that Palestinian Arabs boycott products by and stores run by Jews who live in Judea and Samaria, he was ignored - and forced to use thuggish methods to try to enforce his rule.

Ordinary Palestinian Arabs just want to live their lives. They want to buy whatever goods they can, getting the best value for the price. They are normal people who don't obsess over politics the way Sheizaf's friends do. Despite decades of incitement, they are not nearly as ideological or as filled with hate towards Israel as Sheizaf pretends they are. The ones who know history probably regard the boycott against Middle East Jews the same way their grandparents did in 1946 - a political power play by so-called "leaders" who are willing to use the people as pawns to make imaginary gains.

Which is, in the end, what BDS is: a modern implementation of using Palestinian Arabs as pawns by people who really hate Israel and Jews.

BDS is not pushed by ordinary Palestinian Arabs, but by Noam Sheizaf's latte-sipping Western friends. The outrage over Israeli products is not centered in Ramallah or Gaza City but in London and Brisbane. If ordinary Palestinian Arabs hated buying Israeli goods, they would be minimizing those purchases; and they would be notably ashamed at the goods they are forced to buy.

Yet they aren't.

So maybe Sheizaf's thesis fits in well with the BDS crowd he hangs out with, but the facts don't support it.

Protest over Muslim prayer in Toronto public school

From the Toronto Sun:

Muslim prayers have no place in a public school.

That's the message the Canadian Hindu Advocacy and the Christian Heritage Party are sending the Toronto District School Board as they prepare to stage a picket outside the board's head office next week.

"Enough's enough, we draw the line here," said G.J. Rancourt of CHP London during a press conference on Monday at the Toronto Zionist Centre. "Our holiest celebration is Christmas and we can no longer celebrate it in public schools. We don't want to make people feel uncomfortable but we don't want you to forget who we are. Why would (Muslims) impose your values on the rest of us when we're accommodating?"

And exactly what happens during these prayer sessions?

Local imams are brought in to lead a 40-minute service with about 400 students in which the boys sit in front of girls in the lunch room. Girls who are said to be menstruating are told to sit at the very back.

Non-Muslims are banned from the room during prayers.

Some reports say that menstruating girls cannot attend the services altogether.

The 40 minute prayer session occurs every Friday.

The student population of the school is said to be 80-90% Muslim.

The school justifies the policy by saying that otherwise the students walk to a nearby mosque during school hours.

It looks pretty clear that this violates Canadian law. Yet this practice has been happening for about three years!

Israeli navy takes over French provocateur yacht (updated x2)

Latest from JPost:

The Israel Navy commandeered and intercepted the Gaza-bound French ship Dignity - Al-Karama after negotiations to persuade pro-Palestinian activists aboard to divert their course away from the Strip's closed naval blockade failed.

IDF soldiers did not encounter any resistance during the interception.

Reports say that it is headed to Ashdod.

Earlier JPost:

IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz ordered the Israel Navy to commandeer and intercept the Gaza-bound French ship Dignity - Al-Karama on Tuesday after negotiation efforts to persuade the yacht to revert its course failed.

The navy warned pro-Palestinian activists aboard the vessel that soldiers are preparing to board the yacht after making initial radio contact with the crew. The navy instructed the crew not to enter the closed naval blockade of the Strip, the IDF Spokesperson said in a statement.

"We are getting ready to board the ship, we'll do it calmly," an official aboard the navy boat's told the captain of the Dignity.

Activists were offered the legal alternative of reaching Gaza through land crossings, the IDF added.

Three navy ships were on the yacht's left side and another on the right side, activists reported.

Communication from the boat was cut a couple of hours ago, so there are few tweets from the floaters.

Here is IDF video of communications with the boat:

UPDATE: From the IDF:

In accordance with government directives, after all diplomatic channels had been exhausted and continuous calls to the vessel had been ignored, IDF Navy soldiers boarded the Al-Karamein an effort to stop it from breaking the maritime security blockade on the Gaza Strip.

Upon expressing their unwillingness to arrive at the Ashdod port, it was unequivocally necessary to board the vessel and lead it to Ashdod.

The soldiers operated in line with procedures and took every precaution necessary while using all operational tactics determined prior to the operation, and avoid causing harm to the activists on-board while ensuring the safety of the soldiers. Following the boarding, the passengers’ health was examined and they were offered food and beverages.

Upon the arrival of the vessel at the Ashdod port, the relevant security authorities and the Israel Police will begin the process of questioning the passengers, who will then be transferred to the Ministry of Interior and the Immigration authorities.

Any organization or country wishing to transfer supplies to the Gaza Strip can do so through the existing channels at any time via the established land crossings by coordinating with the relevant authorities.

The provocative political yacht is headed towards Gaza

From Reuters/JPost:

A French yacht carrying pro-Palestinian activists sailed for the Gaza Strip on Monday after other ships in a flotilla that had planned to challenge Israel's blockade were prevented from leaving Greece, organizers said.

The 17-passenger "Dignite-Al Karama", having declared an Egyptian port as its official destination, left Greek waters on Sunday and was on course to reach the Palestinian enclave by Tuesday, according to a statement issued by French campaigners aligned with the umbrella Free Gaza Movement.

"It is now the voice of the whole Freedom Flotilla, as all its (other) ships were forbidden to sail by the Greek government thereby fulfilling a clear demand by the Israeli government," the statement said.

Passenger Dror Feiler said the yacht planned to dock in Gaza at around noon on Tuesday. "We don't want to sail at night," he told Reuters via satellite telephone.

"If this boat is on its way to Gaza, which is a breach of international maritime law, and it is trying a provocative act, we will intercept it," Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told foreign journalists in Jerusalem.

"But I assure you that we will try our best to make all those on board very comfortable."

I think it is very possible that they will try to dock tonight, not tomorrow.

For one thing, they already established themselves as liars. They declared to the Greek authorities that they were going to Alexandria and not Gaza - so why should anyone believe their reported schedule of arriving in mid-day tomorrow?

Moreover, they want to make and post YouTube videos that look as chaotic and violent as possible as the Israeli navy intercepts them, and night time adds that extra dimension of perceived danger - spotlights, flares, disembodied voices on loudspeakers, shaky hand-held shots. They'll probably add some screams and other nice acting for effect.

Also, the Free Gaza posting says "In a few hours, the Dignite - Al Karama will approach Gazan waters."

It will be a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Remember the "Irene" boat that approached Gaza last year and was peacefully intercepted? Neither does anyone else.

EoZ Survey: What kind of posts do you like? (Results)

Every once in a while people comment that they love a post of mine and would love to see more of that type of post. I was wondering how many people agree, so here is a survey to help me understand what you like best about EoZ. (Not that I am promising anything...)

------------------
The survey is over, because I didn't realize that the free survey software I was using was limited to 100 responses.

Assuming that the sample size is representative of the entire EoZ readership, the answers don't help me a whole lot, but it was fun seeing the details:

Type	Rating (1-4)
Stories that didn't get wide play	3.57
Original Analysis	3.48
Fisking	3.45
Scoops from Arab media	3.44
History	3.43
Breaking news	3.33
Sarcastic (Gaza deprivation)	3.08
Legal	3.06
Posters/Comics	3.05
Videos	2.89
Linkdumps	2.86