Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Jordanian flotilla contingent blames Turkey for stopping them

One of the unanswered questions about the flop flotilla is - what happened to the Jordanian ship, the Noor, that was supposed to participate?

While no one seriously was worried about violence from the Europeans and Americans trying to reach Gaza, the Jordanian ship - which was to represent many Arab countries - was another matter.

So what happened to it?

A new article in Palestine Today has the organizers of the Jordanian "Lifeline" group that was behind the initiative blaming Turkey for foiling their plans to sail to Gaza.

Apparently, their plan was to sail to Gaza from Turkey instead of Greece. This plan was meant to be a surprise. But the Turks would not allow them into port, instead forcing them to drop anchor three miles out to sea. (While they were there, a Jordanian passenger ship did go to Turkey to dock.)

The ship considered going to Gaza anyway, but now the Bulgarian crew's contract is up, and they want to get a Syrian crew now and perform some repairs. So the story is not completely over yet.

Latest Zionist weapon: Fenugreek seed slander

From The Media Line/Jerusalem Post:

When a European laboratory announced two weeks ago that an infected shipment of Egyptian fenugreek seeds was the source of an E. coli epidemic that killed 48 Germans and a Swede, the Egyptian agriculture minister didn’t apologize, nor did he call for an investigation into the matter.

The problem had nothing to do with Egypt, the minister, Ayman Abu-Hadid, told Egyptian press.

"Israel is waging a commercial war against Egyptian exports," he explained, and with that the case was closed.

Abu-Hadid isn’t the only minister in Egypt's post-revolutionary government to blame Israel for his country's woes. In June, Deputy Prime Minister Yehia El-Gamal told the Lebanese news site Al-Nashra that Israel was inciting sectarian strife between Muslims and Christians in the country.

..."Conspiracy theories are part of the texture of our culture," Hani Henry, a psychology professor at the American University in Cairo, told The Media Line. "Even if we have a democratic government, the problem will not go away."

I need to find out which division of Elders International is responsible for fenugreek seed rumors, so I can send them all Amazon gift cards. (That's how we roll here at the world headquarters of EoZ.)

(h/t IsraelMuse)

Hamas militant dies; Ma'an downplays circumstances

From Ma'an:

The military wing of Hamas, the Al-Qassam brigades, announced the death of one of their members Thursday in a tunnel collapse in the Gaza Strip.

The military wing told Ma'an that Muhammad Junid, 25, from Jabalia died at dawn on Thursday as a tunnel used for smuggling goods collapsed.

Did a Hamas terrorist die in a tunnel that was importing candy bars and car parts?

Let's see how the Al Qassam Brigades described the death. In English:

The brigades confirmed that the Mujahed was martyred during a special Jihad mission in Jabaliya refugee camp, adding that he was martyred after a long bright path of Jihad, hard work, struggle and sacrifice.

They might have made a mistake saying he was killed in Jabaliya rather than that he was from Jabaliya, but they make it clear it was a "jihad mission."

The Al Qassam website in Arabic puts it together: Junaid was killed in the collapse of a "resistance tunnel" - meaning a tunnel to smuggle in weapons from Egypt. Or, perhaps, he was killed in a tunnel in Jabaliya that is meant as a hideout for Hamas weapons and a means to travel underground between houses during the next war.

Either way, Ma'an is downplaying what happened.

Palestinian Arabs get FAR more aid per capita than anyone else

Based on data from the Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2011 that I linked to earlier, and their country population data, here is a chart showing - of the top 20 countries/entities that receive humanitarian aid - how much they get on a per-capita basis:

Are the Palestinian Arabs really an order of magnitude needier than those of practically every other country on the planet?

Top 20 recipients of humanitarian aid, 2000-2009. One entity gets a whole lot.

From the new Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2011:

In absolute terms, Sudan receives the most aid and "Palestine" the second most (the gap is narrowing in recent years.)

But on a per-capita basis, the Palestinian Arabs receive about 9 times as much aid as the Sudanese do, and of course far more aid per capita than any other people on the planet.

Keep that in mind when the next mall, five star hotel or seaside resort opens in Gaza or the West Bank.

Or ask yourself whether Palestinian Arabs deserve 39 times the aid per capita that residents of the Congo receive.

(h/t Challah Hu Akbar)

What would an EoZ newsletter look like?

If I had unlimited time and funds, maybe I could put one of these out every day:

Free Gaza scraping the barrel to find fault with Israel's seizure of boat

The Free Gaza movement was sorely disappointed that no one was killed or injured by the IDF on the Dignity. So much so, that they had to find something else to complain about: Israel's disproportionate response!

After being brought back to the port of Ashdod, the passengers were transferred to a retention centre in the city of Holon next to Tel Aviv. They were visited by their lawyers and the French Consul in Tel Aviv before the Israeli authorities took to them to Tel Aviv airport where they spent the night.

The story of the boarding by Israeli journalist Amira Hass who was on board shows how disproportionate was the Israeli operation. 7 commando boats and 3 missile ships with 150 on board to stop 16 unarmed civilians on a 16 ms long boat.

The Israeli boarding happened in International waters is illegal. Even though no shot was fired, diverting a boat and its passengers under the threat of guns, with military boats, is an act of violence.

Let's redefine words in order to maintain our outrage!

Last time I stayed in a luxury hotel, I was attended to by the people on the front desk, a concierge, a bellboy, two waiters, a maid and a turndown service. That was a hugely disproportionate response to only one person staying in a hotel!

"Jewish gangs forcibly converting Christians in Iraq"

From MEMRI, quoting Iraqi daily Al-Mustaqbal:

"Iraqi Christians have revealed the presence of Jewish groups which specialize in operations for killing or expelling Christians from Iraq unless they convert to the Jewish religion. One Christian family said that Jewish groups are pressing toward converting Christian families to the Jewish religion in return for getting support and protection from the dangers that that the Christian minority has been exposed to, for not a short while.

"[The Christian family] made it clear that Jewish groups move and travel regularly under official cover that allows them to move around in areas and residential quarters where majority of Christians are found. Half of the members of that [said] family have emigrated to Turkey and a few are left behind. One of its members said: 'The pressures to which they are subjected to convert from Christianity to Judaism are enormous.'

"In light of what the Christian family has said, Iraqi national security agencies such as mukhabarat [intelligence service] and national security are making a swift pursuit in search of the Jews who spread out in Iraq under multiple covers and identities such as organizations of civil society and [commercial] companies. The source [not identified] has revealed that some Jews carry Kurdish identity cards issued by the Kurdish region. He said they follow various methods with the Christian families to convert some of them to the Jewish religion while those Iraqi Christians who have refused to cooperate with the Jews were killed, kidnapped, or expelled.

"According to the same source, some of the Jewish elements travelled in the past in American military vehicles but now they move in civilian vehicles some carrying the tags 'C.D' - diplomatic corps - and others move around in the capacity of private guards, security companies or investors. The source, who has refused to reveal his identity, said he was awaiting resettlement in one of the European countries [with the help of] Turkey that facilitates the resettlement of Iraqi Christians against large payments amounting to $20,000 per person.

"The source said that he would be meeting with the UN Office for Human Rights in Turkey in the next few weeks. After he receives approval for his resettlement he will reveal the names and characteristics [of those] that bargained with him and his family and other Christian families that he either knows or are relatives of his who reside in Baghdad.

"It is worth noting that the UN Human Rights Office in Turkey is headed by a Jewish employee."

Those Jews and their forced conversions! The circumcisions must be painful.

MEMRI wryly adds that "of the 150,000-strong, vibrant Jewish community that lived in Iraq for 2500 years there remain about 7 elderly individuals."

(I could not find a website for any Iraqi newspaper named Al-Mustaqbal, only a Lebanese paper.)

(h/t NormanF, link h/t Binyamin)

Gazans shut down UNRWA again

Palestine Today reports that Gazans blocked all the doors to UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City, shutting off all services. The reason? Because UNRWA has been reducing services.

There have been a lot of similar Palestinian Arab protests against UNRWA lately, which are all ignored by major media outlets.

Khaled Abu Toameh elaborates:

In recent weeks, UNRWA has come under attack from many Palestinians who fear that the international agency is planning to cut its services to the refugees.

UNRWA has in fact reduced some of its services to refugees – but only due to a $60 million budget deficit.

The reactions of both Hamas and the PLO show that neither party is willing to assume responsibility for the refugees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The two parties do not want to provide any services to the refugees, and want UNRWA to do the job for them. Their goal is to keep the refugees in their places so Hamas, the PLO and the rest of the Arab governments can continue exploiting their plight for political purposes.

The anti-UNRWA protests are aimed at extorting the agency and the international community into continuing to provide services and jobs to tens of thousands of Palestinians, exempting Hamas, the PLO and the Arab world from any responsibility.

Instead of threatening UNRWA, the PLO and Hamas should start thinking of ways to help the refugees to improve their living conditions and find jobs.

Instead of demonstrating in front of the UNRWA headquarters in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian refugees should be demanding that oil-rich Arab countries help them.

It is worth repeating that the PA and Hamas have not lifted a finger to dismantle "refugee" camps in territories under their control - inside the area of British Mandate Palestine! Instead of preparing their citizens in camps to be normal members of society, they have been ensuring that they remain second-class and living in misery; refusing to build permanent housing for them.

Saudi anti-witchcraft unit swings into action!

From The Media Line:

When the severed head of a wolf wrapped in women's lingerie turned up near the city of Tabouk in northern Saudi Arabia this week, authorities knew they had another case of witchcraft on their hands, a capital offence in the ultra-conservative desert kingdom.

Agents of the country’s Anti-Witchcraft Unit were quickly dispatched and set about trying to break the spell that used the beast’s head.

Saudi Arabia takes witchcraft so seriously that it has banned The Harry Potter series by British writer J.K. Rowling, rife with tales of sorcery and magic. It set up the Anti-Witchcraft Unit in May 2009 and placed it under the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPV), Saudi Arabia's religious police.

"In accordance with our Islamic tradition we believe that magic really exists," Abdullah Jaber, a political cartoonist at the Saudi daily Al-Jazirah, told The Media Line. "The fact that an official body, subordinate to the Saudi Ministry of Interior, has a unit to combat sorcery proves that the government recognizes this, like Muslims worldwide."

The unit is charged with apprehending sorcerers and reversing the detrimental effects of their spells. On the CPV website, a hotline encourages citizens across the kingdom to report cases of sorcery to local officials for immediate treatment.

In the case of the wolf's head, the Anti-Witchcraft Unit in Tabouk was able to break the spell. The Saudi daily Okaz reported on Monday that the unknown family that had fallen victim to the spell had been "liberated from the jaws of the wolf.”

The Anti-Witchcraft Unit was created in order to educate the public about the danger of sorcerers and "combat manifestations of polytheism and reliance on other Gods," the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

The belief in sorcery is so widespread in Saudi Arabia, that it is even used as a defense in criminal court cases. Last October, a judge accused of receiving bribes in a real-estate project told a court in Madinah that he had been bewitched and is undergoing treatment by Quranic incantations, known as ruqiyah, a common remedy for the evil eye.

...Belief in sorcery is not necessarily more widespread in Saudi Arabia than in other Gulf countries, Wilcke added. On Monday, the Emirati daily Al-Khaeej reported that Dubai police had arrested an Arab African national on charges of fraud and sorcery, after he charged 15,000 Dirham ($4,000) from a woman whose husband had left her, promising to bring him back using magic.

A wolf in lingerie indicates sorcery? Sounds more like an Arab re-enactment of Little Red Riding Hood!

The humiliation in Gaza continues: The Andaluseyya Mall

From Al Masry al-Youm:

After marking its inaugural opening on Tuesday, the three-story mall in Gaza City now offers products running the gamut. The supermarket has nearly all possible commodities. Shoe stores with popular brand names, such as Nike, Adidas and Fox, sit next to clothing shops displaying window mannequins with hot miniskirts and vibrantly colored t-shirts.

On the Andaluseyya mall’s top floor, customers are able to enjoy quality time with their families, eating at restaurants, playing arcade games and, for the first time in Gaza, watching a movie in the cinema. Escalators, rare sites in this besieged coastal enclave, escort people between floors. To top it off, air conditioning provides much-needed respite from the oppressive heat outside.

In addition to recent construction that paved the way for this mall to open, Gaza City is in the process of opening several sea-side resorts. After three years with limited to non-existent commercial building, construction firms are now breaking stereotypical images of Gaza as a destitute territory with conditions comparable to the most-devastated sub-Saharan regions.

One of the primary investors in the mall, Ihab Al-Esawy, says the opening could never have been achieved if the current situation in Gaza was similar to years past. He needed previously-absent construction materials, now available, at his disposal [from smuggling tunnels - EoZ].

“We put the [mall] plan of the project in on October 10th, 2010 and started the work immediately,” al-Esawy says. “We wanted to make sure that we had enough construction material though so we could start building.”

Once again I am saddened to have to show you the photos of the hopelessness that Gazans are forced to live under - hopelessness that is worse than a humanitarian crisis. The captions are written in the style of the Free Gaza Movement, 972Mag, Mondoweiss and Reuters.

Gazans are forced to wait in dehumanizing lines in the scorching heat to have a few minutes of respite from their unbearable lives.

While there is a large selection of products, the stores are empty because the prices are too high. The owners of the mall are in danger of losing all their money.

OK, maybe the stores aren't empty. But look how poor Gazans are forced to wear second-hand Lynyrd Skynyrd T-Shirts, humiliated that they appear to be fans of Western classic rock.

The abused Gazans put up a brave front as they browse the men's suits, suits that they will be forced to eat because of their crushing poverty from the illegal Zionist siege.

Once again, we see Gazans being forced to wait at virtual checkpoints to be served. Some give up and go to other sections of the mall in their frustration and humiliation. But it is all in vain - the lines are everywhere.

Escalators were installed at the insistence of the Zionists who manufactured, and are enriched by, them. This is meant to ensure that proud Gazans get less exercise and more heart attacks, thus contributing to their slow genocide.

As Reuters wrote: Gaza shelves stocked, but hope in short supply.
That crushing hopelessness is etched upon the faces of the few remaining Gaza survivors of constant Israeli aggression.

Isn't it past time to recall the US ambassador to Syria?

From Now Lebanon:

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem warned the French and US ambassadors on Wednesday not to travel outside Damascus after they both visited the flashpoint central city of Hama earlier this month.

"We will impose a ban on any [diplomatic] travel more than 25 kilometers (15 miles) outside Damascus, if the ambassadors continue to ignore [our] guidance," Muallem told the envoys at a meeting broadcast by state television.

"I hope that we will not be forced to impose the ban," he added.

"We did not expel the two ambassadors because we had hoped to maintain better relations in future."

Both US envoy Robert Ford and French ambassador Eric Chevallier visited Hama on July 7 amid repeated large demonstrations in the city against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

Damascus reacted furiously to the visit, accusing the US ambassador of seeking to undermine the stability of Syria and calling in both envoys for consultations on July 10.

The Syrian authorities accused the pair of travelling to Hama without authorization but Washington insisted Damascus had been notified in advance.

Either Ford should immediately go to Hama or he should immediately go home. There is no value to his staying under virtual house arrest while the Syrian regime slaughters thousands.

And if France does it first, it would make the US look really bad.

"How to tell an Arab far-leftist"

There is a Twitter hashtag, mostly written by Arabs, called "#HowToTellAnArabFarLeftist." A lot of them are quite funny - and many apply to leftists altogether.

Here are some of the entries:

can't see a single leading communist country but still thinks communism is the best, ohh just like islamists yeah

when they say that Nutella is an American conspiracy product to taint the brains of 3 yr old kids.

All our problems are from colonialism, till now, duh. (oh shit US was colonized bt UK? Nevermind!)

mention colonialism every 5 min even though foreign aid has hurt economies much worse.

They despise the west and United States but they probably graduated from American University of Beirut

they voted for Bush in 2000 because Gore's running mate was Jewish...then they complain about how Bush "stole" Florida

they think Norman Finkelstein is a genius

"there has always been a secret American plan to invade and split up Iraq into 3 countries."

Castro is not ruining Cuba. He is merely teaching his people how common misery is better than greedy capitalism.

"The Israel lobby controls the media and the U.S. government."

"my daughter is only allowed to marry from my village"

the UN is a Zionist conspiracy. The Israel lobby is America's shadow government. Syrian revolt a conspiracy too.

a sentence cannot be formed w/o: zionist, racist, imperialism, puppets, conspiracy, corporate.

Gulf Princes are American puppets, Levant Dictators are Zionist agents, Maghreb autocrats are Colonial servants

"USSR didn't lose the war of Ideas... Obama is a secret communist you know."

Speaking out against religious extremism is so passé compared to railing against corporations

Wears the Kaffiyye for protests, then takes it off before going to work... in Mcdonald's.

"Starbucks gives money to Israel" so do you with your tax dollars now GTFO

they bitched and moaned when Bush passed the patriot act and said nothing when Obama renewed it

Bush hated Muslims for Iraq and Afghan but Obama doesn't and stays there and attacks Libya, Yemen and Somalia

Obama loves Muslims because of a Ramadan YouTube video

"Palestinians aren't allowed to own land in Lebanon because they want them to go back to their homeland"

holocaust denial. Sad but true.

The only scholar worth mentioning in regards to the Middle East is Edward Said.

If you criticize West they're your best friend,if you criticize Arabs they support you're guilty of Orientalism.

"we're replacing Mubarak thugs w our much nicer ones who'll punish the real bad guys (e.g Investors)"

Saddam Hussein was a good guy he is just misunderstood.

Rage rage against human rights abuses by Obama and Bush. Crickets chirping with regard to Castro, Lenin, Stalin

they are secular but praise Osama bin Laden and yell about it on al-Jazeera while screaming conspiracy.

their vocabulary consists in one word: colonialism. Ok two, they can say it in Arabic too: ???????

Having an import cup of coffee at a super lavish cafe while discussing child labour

sympathizes with and takes photos of homeless people from his 1000$ Canon camera

tweets frequently about the rights of the poor from his iPad

he can't be bothered to explain himself coz he always assumes u dont know what u are talking about, yells GO READ

yells & screams in Tahrir demanding minimum wage but is driven around town by driver earning eq of $100 a month

u thnk wearing a Keffiyeh & nagging will free Palestine, but an economically strong arab world won't.

give you a long lecture about horror of fascist dictatorship then praise #Stalin

strongly supports freedom of speech except when you disagree with his beliefs

they don't smile because smiling is a western conspiracy to distract us from their plot to destroy us.

they love revolutions and elections but hate liberty

they would rather Palestine never get a state always be occupied, to bitch, rather than them get half the loaf.

(h/t JW)

Blowing up a mosque, of course.

Apparently this is from about 9 months ago, but I just ran across it.

Israel HaYom is read by nearly 7x as many Israelis as Ha'aretz

Israel HaYom, which has recently come out with an online English edition, is now the most popular newspaper in Israel, read by some 39.3% of the population in the first half of this year.

The newspaper is a breath of fresh air as it reports without the sickening bias of Ha'aretz, whose readership fell to a tiny 5.8% market share.

Of course, this won't stop foreign journalists from using Ha'aretz as their benchmark on how Israeli society thinks. They like to push the false idea that Israel hates its government and it more oriented to Meretz than Likud - since this is more in line with what they themselves believe. Wishful thinking trumps sober reporting nearly every time.