Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

An inside look at the Syrian army

Now Lebanon has an incredible interview with a high ranking Syrian army defector:

Why did you defect, and what do you plan to do next?

Officer: I remained in my position in the beginning of the uprising to support it from the inside; I would organize, prepare and do what I could to see that the demonstrations succeed. When I felt that my cover was going to be blown, I left, but remained in contact with others like myself inside the army. Today I’m part of the Syrian Free Army and am coordinating with the different brigades.

Some of us announce defecting, like you see on television, and some don’t to be able to play a better role in the success of the revolution. So technically, the number of those defecting is far greater than what has been announced.

What happened to soldiers who defected and were caught?

Officer: Death. Death is the fate of those defecting or those who refuse to obey orders to shoot at protesters. Most of the executions are happening at military prisons in Tedmor and Saadnaya, where officers are being shot every Monday. Also, some who refuse to shoot at protesters are shot on the spot during the demonstrations. The aim is to set an example for others and to make it look like demonstrators are armed.

Who is the party cracking down on the protesters?

Officer: It’s a combination of army officers, police officers, security officers and the shabiha. Out of the army, the Fourth Brigade, which is one of the biggest brigades, is taking the most part. This brigade is loyal to Maher al-Assad, President Bashar’s brother.

The security forces come from the different security branches under the Ministry of Defense, but mainly the officers are from the Military Security Branch and the Air Force Intelligence, what people refer to as the jawiyah.

The shabiha take a big part in the crackdown because they are vicious. They are mafia and they are smugglers who trade in drugs, cigarettes, weapons, people, body parts. Most were initially wanted by the state or were in prison, but they were released to fight against the demonstrators.

Is it true that there are Iranian forces and Hezbollah members assisting regime forces in the crackdown?

Officer: Yes it is true. Hezbollah members are mainly used in the streets; they are well acquainted with battle techniques, while the Syrians are not. Many Syrian officers were left free to grow beards so that the Hezbollah members don’t stand out, but they still do; they are built differently.

At the beginning Iranians were mainly used as snipers, but later on they were taken down to the streets and Syrians took their places on the rooftops.

It was always hard for the Iranians to tell who to shoot at; sometimes there are instigators among the demonstrators planted there by the regime to create strife, and the Iranians don’t know who to shoot.

In places where confrontation is expected, and there’s a risk of them being injured, the Iranians are used to detain protesters and torture them in prisons because if they get hurt, they could be captured by the opposition and shown on TV.

What happened to the 61st Army Brigade in Daraa after it defected? Is it true that everyone was killed?

Officer: The head of the 5th squad, which the 61st Brigade is part of, was General Rifaii, who was ordered to crack down on the demonstrations and refused, and he had the support of the officers with him. President Assad himself negotiated with him, but he stuck to his position, saying that he refused to shoot at unarmed men.

They planted a trap for him. An order was then given to him to spread his troops in Daraa but not to shoot at protesters, as he wished, but then his forces were attacked by forces from the Fourth Brigade and they massacred them.

Read the whole thing.

HRW notices Hamas is not exactly acting democratically

Two statements about Hamas by HRW! It's a miracle!

A Palestinian human rights official is urging the leadership in Gaza to reverse a decision blocking eight students from traveling to the United States for university.

Rawyeh Ash-Shawwa, member of the legislative council and head of the Independent Commission for Human Rights, ... found it dumbfounding that Palestinians have battled Israel for permission to leave Gaza but remain stuck due to Hamas.

The 16-year-old students had been granted Amideast scholarships to study in the US. They will lose their scholarships if the decision is not reversed. The students have asked not to be named.

On Monday, Human Rights Watch urged Hamas to overturn the decision.

“Hamas should be encouraging young people to seek educational opportunities, not arbitrarily blocking them from traveling abroad to study,” said Joe Stork, Human Rights Watch's deputy Mideast director.

And:

Authorities in Gaza should halt interrogations, detentions, and harassment apparently aimed at intimidating civil society activists, Human Rights Watch said Monday.

"Hamas should respect their rights to freedom of expression and assembly," the group said in a report noting the arrest of youth activist Abu Yazan, who campaigned for Palestinian unity in March.

“If Hamas expects to be treated as a responsible governing authority, it should stop persecuting peaceful critics in Gaza,” said Joe Stork, deputy Mideast director at the New York-based rights group.

Of course, unlike when they want to criticize Israel, HRW waited a week or two after these stories were originally reported before making any statements.

Turkey kills 100 in Iraq. Yawn.

From The Independent:

Up to 100 Kurdish rebels have been killed in six days of air strikes on northern Iraq, Turkey's military said yesterday.

The raids are the first by Turkey in the mountains of northern Iraq in more than a year and are in retaliation for an escalation of guerrilla attacks following the collapse of efforts to negotiate a settlement to the 27-year-old conflict.

In the town of Rania, in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, relatives of seven Iraqis, including children, killed in an air strike on Sunday – the first civilian casualties since the raids began last Wednesday – questioned the Turkish tactics.

The attacks have angered residents of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, a relatively safe haven in war-torn Iraq where Turkish investors have flocked in recent years to build homes, offices and shopping malls.

"They were just farmers. They didn't cause problems for anyone. I want to ask why they were killed," said one local, Yaqub Mustafa.

As the Honest Reporting blog notes,

Now imagine if Israel had also crossed over the territory of a sovereign state and killed 100 people, including a number of civilians.

Cue front page news, expressions of outrage, calls for a Goldstone-style UN inquiry. You get the picture.

But then, Israel is held to a different standard to other nations.

It's actually worse, because Iran has shelled civilian sections of Kurdistan as well.

Wikileaks: Child marriage in Israel (updated)

Last night, Wikileaks released some 35,000 new cables.

Most of them are incredibly boring, very few are classified or secret.

Here's an unclassified 2005 cable that is interesting, though:

The Executive Director of the NCC described early marriage as "not a significant problem in the general Israeli population," but "significant" among minority groups such as Muslims, certain ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects, and new immigrants from Ethiopia and the Islamic states in the FSU.

According to the Government's Central Bureau of statistics, 47 boys 17 years of age or younger married in 2002, 30 from the Jewish sector and 17 from the Muslim sector. ... During the same year, there was a total of 196 "child brides" under the age of 17, with 29 from the Jewish sector, 165 from the Muslim sector, and one from the Christian sector. The Central Bureau of Statistics highlighted that the ratio of girls in the Muslim sector who married under the age of 17 increased from 1.3 girls per 1,000 in 1995, to 6 girls per 1,000 in 2001. The ratio for girls in the Jewish sector who married under the age of 17 remained stable at 0.3 girls per 1,000. In the view of the NCC, child marriage has an adverse effect in that it influences the child's ability to continue his or her education and impedes the child's proper development. Ivri was not aware of any specific government office that is working on this issue.

No U.S.-funded initiatives exist in Israel to reduce the incidence or address the negative affects of child marriage. The NCC endorses implementation of new educational programs that target the specific at-risk populations cited above.

The highlighted statistic is incredible - a fourfold increase in Muslim child brides in only six years?

Could it be that after Oslo there was a rush to marry girls between those living in Israel and the territories so the latter could gain Israeli citizenship? I cannot imagine that this huge jump was not related to political issues as (at the time) a Palestinian Arab state seemed increasingly likely.

UPDATE: Commenter akibigman notes that during Oslo, some 130,000 Palestinian Arabs received Israeli citizenship by marrying Israeli Arabs, so my supposition makes sense.

Palestinian Arabs might lose "right to return" in UN September stunt

Fascinating:

The Palestinian team responsible for preparing the United Nations initiative in September has been given an independent legal opinion that reveals a high risk involved with its plan to join the UN.

An initiative to transfer the Palestinians' representation from the PLO to a state will terminate the legal status held by the PLO in the UN since 1975 that it is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, according to the document.

Crucially, there will no longer be an institution that can represent the inalienable rights of the entire Palestinian people in the UN and related international institutions, according to the brief.

Representation for the right to self-determination will be gravely affected, as it is a right of all Palestinians, both inside and outside the homeland, the legal opinion says. This change in status will severely disenfranchise the right of refugees to return to their homes and properties from which they were displaced.

The seven-page legal opinion, obtained by Ma'an, was submitted to the Palestinian side by Guy Goodwin-Gill, a professor of public international law at Oxford University and a member of the team that won the 2004 non-binding judgement by the International Court of Justice that the route of Israel's wall was illegal.

The Palestinian team, headed by Saeb Erekat, has been preparing an initiative that involves the replacement of the PLO at the UN, substituting it with the State of Palestine as the representative of the Palestinian people.

...Particularly crucial is the scholar's conclusions about the implications of the plan to substitute PLO representation in the UN with the Palestinian state for the Palestinians in the Diaspora. The majority of the Palestinian people are refugees, and all of them are represented by the PLO through Palestinian National Council.

"They constitute more than half of the people of Palestine, and if they are 'disenfranchised' and lose their representation in the UN, it will not only prejudice their entitlement to equal representation, contrary to the will of the General Assembly, but also their ability to vocalise their views, to participate in matters of national governance, including the formation and political identity of the State, and to exercise the right of return," the legal briefing says.

Which means that the September stunt will have to either be modified so that the PLO remains the "sole representative of the Palestinian people" - making the declaration of a state even more meaningless than it is - or the fake state will further erode the rights of the Palestinian Arabs who live outside the land.

The part that is left unsaid: The PLO, led by Mahmoud Abbas and previously by Yasir Arafat, has done literally nothing to advance the rights of Palestinian Arabs living in Arab nations. In fact, they have acted to further disenfranchise them in order to use them as pawns to pressure Israel. The idea that the PLO actually represents average Palestinian Arabs, many of whom want to move on with their lives with dignity in their host countries, is a joke.

The legal opinion and the lawyer that Ma'an quotes afterwards know quite well that their goal is to destroy Israel demographically, and this stunt can make that less likely in their minds.

That's their real concern, not the "rights" of the Palestinian Arabs who have been stepped on in the name of "Palestinian unity" for decades.

(h/t T34)

Egypt to crack down on terrorists infiltrating from Gaza

Media Line reports on the burgeoning trade in smuggling people from Gaza to Egypt:

The much anticipated opening of the Rafah terminal – the single crossing point for people between Gaza and the outside world - whet their taste for travel without sating it. As a result, demand to get people over the border into Egypt and back has swelled. Tunnel operators say business is strong again, giving them the incentive to keep their underground passages open and maybe even expand them.

“Tunnels that smuggle people weren’t popular before and there were only one or two of them.

But since there’s no point in sending goods through them, many of us are thinking about switching to smuggling people,” [tunnel operator Abu]Ola told The Media Line. “We don’t even need to smuggle cars anymore, because Israel is letting cars enter Gaza. Rafah is messed up, so many people are resorting to tunnels to get in and out of here.”

That’s good news for tunnel entrepreneurs like Ola as well as the many Gazans with legitimate reasons to travel, whether they are family members seeking to be reunited or someone in need of urgent medical care. But it’s bad news for Israel, which believes the attack on its border with Egypt last week that left eight dead was the work of terrorists smuggled out of Gaza through one of the underground passages.

The thriving tunnel business, together with the growing lawlessness in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula adjacent to Israel and Gaza, has made it easier than ever for gunmen to cross the border with weapons and supplies. Israeli officials say that last week’s attacks, which occurred some 180 kilometers (110 miles) from the Gaza Strip, could have only succeeded if the perpetrators travelled from Gaza through Egypt to the Israeli border.

As a result, Arabic media is reporting that Egypt plans to map all the tunnels in Rafah in preparation of their closure:

Security has been tightened in the city of Rafah, at the main entrance of the crossing and nearby areas, as well as intense inspections for those in transit to and from the crossing, as part of the security crackdown carried out by the Egyptian army on vital installations in the northern Sinai.

Egypt had coordinated with the government of Hamas in the Gaza Strip to prevent the infiltration of individuals from both sides, while in pursuit of those who may be involved or participated in acts of sabotage in the Sinai.

A statement issued by a number of tribal elders in Sinai called on Hamas to prevent the infiltration of people from Gaza, and said that any Palestinian infiltrators will be handed over to Egyptian security authorities.

Honor killing in Gaza

From Ma'an:

A man in the northern Gaza Strip fatally shot his daughter on Wednesday morning, police said.

Locals said the girl was shot inside the family home in Jabalia, adding that her father was recently released from prison in Gaza.

Gaza rocket falls in Egypt, injuring a woman

From Haaretz:

A woman was wounded by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip into the Egyptian town of Rafah on Wednesday, Egypt's state news agency MENA reported, as tension simmered in the region after a spate of cross-border violence.

The woman was taken to hospital with light injuries, a security source in the area said.

Another source said it was the first time a rocket from Gaza had landed on a residential area and not in the desert, which was "raising concern among the security forces here".

Al Ahram says the rocket killed cattle as well.

I can't wait for Egypt to threaten diplomatic retaliation against Hamas.

(h/t Dan)

Israel kills another terror leader in Gaza (updated)

Ma'an Arabic reports that Israel finally struck back after the rockets never ceased during the "cease fire."

A drone hit a car, killing Ismail Asmar, an Islamic Jihad leader.

This means that now 12 out of the 15 killed by Israel in Gaza were terrorists, and the three others were human shields. And a 16th, a 13 year old boy, was killed by the terrorists themselves.

Incidentally, the child killed along with another Islamic Jihad leader is eulogized in Palestine Today, as they discuss how much he wanted to kill Jews and be a shahid. He was just turning two years old. How cute!

UPDATE: Here's the car:

St Andrews student guilty of racism in Israel flag incident

In April, I posted about an incident at St. Andrews University where a student acted disgustingly towards an Israeli flag in the presence of its owner in his dorm room.

Here's the followup, from the BBC:

A student at St Andrews University has been found guilty of a racist breach of the peace after he insulted the flag of Israel.

Paul Donnachie, 19, put his hands down his trousers then rubbed them on a flag belonging to Jewish student Chanan Reitblat.

Donnachie also accused Mr Reitblat of being a terrorist during the incident at the halls of residence in March.

The case against his co-accused Samuel Colchester, 20, was found not proven.

Donnachie has been expelled from St Andrews and Mr Colchester has been suspended for one year.

Cupar Sheriff Court had earlier heard evidence from Mr Reitblat, a chemistry student on a one-term exchange from the Jewish Yeshiva University in New York, who said he felt "violated and devastated" by the incident.

The court heard that Donnachie and Mr Colchester entered the halls at 01:30 on 12 March to see another student who shared the flat.

Lithuanian-born Mr Reitblat said he had the 4ft by 3ft (1.2m by 0.9m) flag on the wall after being given it by his brother, an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier.

He said Donnachie noticed the flag, and said Israel was a terrorist state and the flag was a terrorist symbol.

He then unbuttoned his trousers, put his hands down his pants, pulled off a pubic hair and rubbed it over the flag.

Mr Reitblat said he then threw the pair out.

Sheriff Charlie Macnair told Donnachie, a history student and member of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, that he was satisfied he had behaved the way he had towards the Jewish student because Mr Reitblat was a citizen of the State of Israel.

He said: "This flag was his personal property. I consider that your behaviour did evince malice towards Mr Reitblat because of his presumed membership of Israel.

"I'm satisfied that you said Israel was a terrorist state and the flag was a terrorist symbol and I also hold that you said that Mr Reitblat was a terrorist."

Sentence on Donnachie was deferred for background reports.

Members of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who packed the public benches in the courtroom, booed, tutted and shouted "scandalous" as the sheriff rose to leave.

Outside the court, a tearful Donnachie said he would appeal.

He said: "This is a ridiculous conviction. I'm a member of anti-racism campaigns, and I am devastated that as someone who was fought against racism I have been tarnished in this way."

Mr Reitblat, who was also booed as he left the court, said he "welcomed" the conviction.

St Andrew University conducted its own investigation into the incident back in June but reserved its findings to avoid prejudicing the court proceedings.

A spokesman for the university said it had a long tradition of tolerance, respect and the right to freedom of expression, but was also a community which "abhors racial intolerance".

He added: "Mr Donnachie was informed this afternoon that his studies at St Andrews have been terminated and he will leave the university with immediate effect.

"Mr Colchester has been informed that he has been suspended for one year and excluded from university halls of residence. Any further misconduct on his part will lead to automatic termination of studies."

History of earthquakes in Palestine

Just trying to stay topical while the East Coast recovers from a minute of swaying...

64 BC Strong earthquake in Jerusalem; damage to temple and city walls

31 BC Severe earthquake in Galilee and Judea. Josephus reports "30,000 people and many animals killed in Judea"—serious damage at Jericho, Qumran and Masada.

30 AD, 33 AD Slight damage in Jerusalem

115 AD Destructive earthquake in Syria; possible tidal wave damage at Caesarea.

306 AD Destructive earthquake in Palestine; tsunami at Caesarea, destruction at Jerusalem.

363 AD Severe earthquake affecting most of Palestine and Jordan; Severe damage at Caesarea Philippi, Capernaum, Tiberias, Gadara, Sepphoris, Scythopolis, Sebaste, Gophnia, Jerusalem, Caesarea, Ptolmais, and Petra of the Nabataeans.

419 AD Moderate to severe earthquake in Palestine; Many towns and villages destroyed; Antipatris destroyed; severe damage in Jerusalem.

447 AD Thermal baths at Gadara destroyed; many people killed.

631 or 632 AD Earthquake in Palestine with aftershocks continuing for 30 days; widespread destruction.

749 AD Severe earthquake in Palestine; tens of thousands of deaths. Capernaum destroyed. Susita destroyed. Great destruction in Tiberias. Gadara thermal baths completely destroyed. Severe damage at Pella, Scythopolis and Jerusalem. Many of the greatest buildings in Jerash destroyed. Great destruction at Philadelphia. Tsunami on Mediterranean coast. Seiche in the Dead Sea.

1033 AD Swarm of severe earthquakes centered in the Jordan Valley which continued for some 40 days. Felt from Syria to Egypt and in the Negev. Much damage and loss of life in Ptolmais -- port reported to have gone dry for an hour before onset of destructive tsunami. Much destruction in Judea; damage to walls of Jerusalem; Much destruction at Tiberias. Jericho destroyed. Much damage at Hebron.

1182 AD Galilee and Judea; moderate to severe.

1202 AD Severe earthquake felt from Syria to Egypt. Severe damage in Caesarea Philippi, Scythopolis, Jerusalem, 'Sechem completely ruined', severe tsunami on Levant coast apparently causing serious damage at Ptolmais.

1546 AD Severe earthquake in Palestine; hundreds killed; flow of Jordan river stopped for two days by a landslide; tsunami on Mediterranean coast from Ptolmais south to Gaza. The Mediterranean receded "a long day's walk"; seiche in the Dead Sea.

1759 AD Severe earthquake affecting most of Palestine and Syria; between 10,000 and 40,000 people killed; severe damage at Nazareth; walls of Tiberias collapsed; seiche on the Sea of Galilee; tsunami at Ptolmais flooding city streets to a depth of 2 meters and throwing ships onto the shore.

1837 AD Severe earthquake with epicenter near Safed. Many thousands of deaths with entire towns destroyed. Rockfalls at Caesarea Philippi; 28% of the population of Tiberias killed -- city walls destroyed; seiche swept shores of Sea of Galilee killing many people. Moderate damage at Nazareth, Bethlehem, Hebron and Jerusalem.

1927 AD Destructive earthquake with 250-500 casualties; flow of Jordan river stopped for 21 1/2 hours by landslides; seiches in northern basin of Dead Sea.

1943 AD Strong earthquake throughout Palestine -- 1943 and 1927 earthquakes strongest in region during 20th century.

(from here)

A scholarly paper that looks at evidence of earthquakes using ancient Jewish sources can be seen here. There was one in 92 BCE as well.

The legal wonks that stopped the flotilla (Commentary)

From Alana Goodman at Commentary:

At a radical left-wing coffee shop in Washington, D.C. last month, Code Pink founder and “Freedom Flotilla II” passenger Medea Benjamin woefully recounted the moment she realized her boat, the Audacity of Hope, wouldn’t be legally permitted to leave a port in Greece to sail to Gaza.

“There was something called a ‘complaint’ that was put against our boat,” Benjamin explained to a crowd of anti-Israel activists stuffed into the back room of the restaurant. “Well, it didn’t take long for somebody to uncover that the person, or entity, that lodged the complaint was none other than this right-wing Israeli law center based in Tel Aviv, that knew nothing about our boat and certainly had no interest in the passengers’ safety.”

The “right-wing” law center that caused Benjamin so much grief is Shurat HaDin – the Israeli group that single-handedly took down the “Freedom Flotilla II” simply by filing creative lawsuits. In total, nine out of the 10 boats in the flotilla never touched Israeli waters, largely due to Shurat HaDin’s work.

Led by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and her husband Avi Leitner, the legal center is pioneering a new strategy of Israeli-self defense: Pro-Israel Lawfare.

“There is a way of fighting back, we just have to start thinking like Jews again,” Avi Leitner told me during the Leitners’ recent visit to D.C. “And remember, the Jews invented lawfare, the Jews invented law. So you don’t sit on your hands.”

The first step the legal center took against the flotilla was to target private companies that may have been assisting it. “We thought, what do boats need in order to sail?” Darshan-Leitner told me. “And we realized that all boats must have insurance.” Shurat HaDin began by contacting the major maritime insurance agencies, and informing them they might be criminally liable for “aiding and abetting” a terrorist organization if they provided insurance.

The response was very positive: some of the companies even said they were aware of the legal consequences, and had already made the decision not to work with the flotilla.

...So with Attorney General Holder on notice – and a Neutrality Act lawsuit filed in New York federal court – Shurat HaDin turned its attention toward Greece. The group discovered the country had a Neutrality Act similar to the one in the U.S., and it prohibited boats from leaving Greece to sail to illegal ports, including Gaza.

Shurat HaDin notified the Greek minister of civil protection about the flotilla, and he immediately blocked the ships from leaving Greece.

“The second thing he did was order the port authorities in Greece to raid the boats and to find what’s wrong with each and every boat – to be very, very particular,” said Darshan-Leitner, clearly amused. “And at that point, an additional six or seven boats were grounded. Because they found a lot of [problems] there.”

This was around the time Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin and her fellow flotilla activists finally caught on to the scheme. But by that point, there wasn’t much they could do.

“When the activists found that [the Audacity of Hope ship was] grounded, they came and they did a press conference, blaming us: ‘How dare this lawfare organization use lawfare against our boat,’” said Darshan-Leitner, laughing.

...“It evens the playing field. You can either sit there and moan about it, or you can actually try to do something about it,” said Leitner. “There is a way to fight back, there is a way to get good media, and there is a way to get the world to respect you.”

Egypt bans selling "lulavim" to Israel

From Al Masry al Youm:

Egypt’s Agriculture Ministry has announced a ban on the export of palm leaves to Israel starting this year and for the coming two years, a decision that some news reports have linked with recent violence along the Egyptian border with Israel in the past week.

The decision to ban the sale of Egyptian palm leaves to Israel has been hailed as an act of defiance on the part of the minister of agriculture, Salah Youssef. However, the minster's decision is not aimed entirely at Israel, but includes a ban on harvesting and exporting palm leaves and hearts nationwide, and reflects growing concern at the poor state of Egypt's population of palm trees, which is under pressure from over-harvesting and disease.

The need to protect the trees has been highlighted before but never enacted, most recently on 26 July this year, when the governor of North Sinai called for a ban on exports to Israel.

In 2010, Egypt exported 600,000 palm leaves to Israel, and around 300,000 palm leaves to Europe.

Israelis use the palm leaves in the ritual celebration of a Jewish holiday known as the Feast of Tabernacles.

It's interesting that the minister is using the excuse of "saving the palm trees" when in fact it is obvious that his decision is meant specifically against Israel and Jews worldwide. But when the Northern Sinai governor floated the plan, he didn't mention anything about tree disease.

Egyptian palm trees are mostly grown in the Sinai in the area around El Arish.

The palm harvesters aren't happy. A delegation of palm farmers visited Youssef, demanding compensation for the money they will lose.

Christians use palm leaves on Palm Sunday, but they can substitute other branches when palms aren't available. Jews are obligated to use a palm frond, called a lulav, on the holiday of Sukkot, coming up in October this year.

In other words, this decision is aimed specifically against religious Jews. Not that we can expect any human rights organization to denounce this state-sanctioned anti-semitism.

Egypt's economy must be doing great for them to decide that they can lose yet another source of revenue.

Muslim shop-owner defends himself for selling Israeli dates (updated x2)

This video is great:

An obnoxious British Muslim woman berates a Muslim shop owner in London for selling Israeli dates (alongside Palestinian Arab dates) on Ramadan. He points out, reasonably, that he is offering a choice for his customers and that if no Muslim would buy them he would stop selling them, and if she cared so much about Palestine she should go there and fight. She then causes a scene, he calls the police, and she gets even more hysterical.

(h/t jzaik)

UPDATE: Commenter Right sends us the store details, for those who want to thank him:

Sunfresh
Carlton Terrace
11-13 Green Street, Upton
London, E7

020 8470 3031

UPDATE 2: The owner caved.

(h/t Israellycool)

How to simultaneously adhere to and breach a cease fire

On Sunday night, Palestinian Arab terror groups in Gaza agreed to stop shooting rockets at Israel and Israel agreed to stop retaliating.

Yet there have still been rockets fired, some four rockets last night.

It seems that even though Islamic Jihad, Hamas and even the PRC whose leaders Israel incinerated signed on, one group conveniently refused: the PFLP.

They are now taking sole credit for rocket fire.

So Hamas can claim that it is against rocket fire to make human rights groups happy, and wink at the rogue militants who are so zealous in their hate that they just can't stop themselves. And they know that Israel will be reluctant to respond to comparatively limited rockets if they don't hurt anyone directly, and merely cause a million people to fear going to sleep - which is, after all, what terrorism is.

I have seen no indication that Hamas is trying to stop the rocket fire, while in the past they had - when convenient - arrested members of militant groups who were firing rockets at Israel.

A win-win for Hamas.