Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 29, 2011

What has Israel ever done for peace? (HonestReporting video)

Cute:

Hamas' cash problems continue

Ma'an Arabic has an article about how the Eid ul-Fitr holiday is not looking too happy for many Gazans, who are in much worse financial shape than they were for last year's Eid.

The reason? Hamas has not paid full salaries since July. And Gazans are worried that the money crunch will continue into the winter months.

There have been multiple reports that Hamas' financial crisis is a result of Iran's withholding cash from the group, because of Tehran's displeasure over Hamas not actively supporting the Syrian regime in murdering thousands. Iran is assumed to give Hamas the bulk of its $540 million budget.

While the media is reporting that the reason for the cutoff is Hamas' actions vis a vis Syria, but it is possible that Western economic sanctions against Iran have played a role as well. .

Any money Syria has been giving Hamas can also be assumed to have dried up, and it is entirely possible that Hamas' support for a truce with Israel even after its own members were targeted is due to their worries about the cost of another war:

Hamas chiefs did not plan or want this confrontation; not now. They were concerned about being blamed that they are pulling the rug from under Mahmoud Abbas ahead of the September independence bid. Moreover, the economic situation in Gaza is worsening. The government is having trouble paying salaries, with the amount of money pouring into the Strip at this time being a fraction of past fund transfers.

There is an important lesson here: terrorists cannot work without money, and their actions can be dictated more by monetary considerations than ideological ones.

The EU sanctions against purchasing Syrian oil are belated but welcome. And economic sanctions against Iran must be more drastic yet. Autocratic, terror supporting regimes are more concerned with staying in power than outsourcing terror.

Imagine the positive effect on Lebanon if Hezbollah loses all its Iranian cash as well! That can only happen if the cash to Iran is stopped, and that includes purchasing Iranian oil.

Money really does make the world go 'round, and the West is only slowly waking up to that.

PA hides mild "condemnation" of TA attack inside condemnation of Israel

You call this a condemnation?

. From WAFA Arabic:

The president condemned all attacks directed against civilians, including the incident that was committed in Tel Aviv early today.

The president stressed in a press statement that he condemns the Israeli attacks on Gaza, and the wave of raids and arrests carried out against our people in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

He reaffirmed his intention to seek membership and recognition of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders and with Jerusalem as its capital in the United Nations.

He said that “no attempts to divert attention will stop us from achieving our goal.”

The vague condemnation of the attack in Tel Aviv took up about 10% of the statement. The rest was a clear condemnation of specific Israeli actions.

Stung by the fact that people noticed that there was no condemnation of the Eilat attacks by the PA, Abbas created the most offensive "condemnation" possible by showing that he has no moral objection to deliberate attacks on civilians by his own people, and his only issue with them are that such attacks might distract from his goal of building a state where the national heroes are Dalal Mughrabi, Samir Kuntar and Yahya Ayyash.

Will "diaspora Palestinians" automatically become citizens of "Palestine"?

There has been an internal Palestinian Arab controversy about whether a declaration of a state would disenfranchise those of Palestinian descent.

A lawyer who helped draft the original Palestinian Declaration of Independence, Francis Boyle, is peeved at Guy Goodwin-Gill, the lawyer who claims that there is a downside to the unilateral declaration stunt in September:

In the Nov. 15 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence that was approved by the Palestinian National Council, representing all Palestinians all over the world, the executive committee of the PLO was set up as the Provisional Government for the State of Palestine --pursuant to my advice.

In addition, the Declaration of Independence also provides that all Palestinians living around the world automatically become citizens of the State of Palestine -- pursuant to my advice. So the executive committee of the PLO in its capacity as the Provisional Government for the State of Palestine will continue to represent the interests of all Palestinians around the world when Palestine becomes a UN member state.

Hence all rights will be preserved: for all Palestinians and for the PLO. No one will be disenfranchised. The PLO will not lose its status. This legal arrangement does not violate the Palestinian Charter, but was approved already by the PNC.

Unfortunately, Oxford professor Guy Goodwill-Gill [sic] has circulated a memo full of distortions. It is based on many erroneous assumptions. This professor is not aware of all the legal and constitutional technicalities that were originally built into the Palestinian Declaration of Independence to make sure that his doomsday scenario does not materialize -- at my advice.

The "Declaration of Independence" is an amusing document, filled with both lies about history and lies about the present, one that simultaneously praises terrorism while claiming to declare a peaceful state. The relevant section about citizenship seems to be this:

The State of Palestine is the state of Palestinians wherever they may be. The state is for them to enjoy in it their collective national and cultural identity, theirs to pursue in it a complete equality of rights.

If this 1988 document is indeed the operative legal declaration of independence for "Palestine" then the "State of Palestine" can never be a democracy. Fair elections cannot be done when most of the citizens live outside the "nation" they are citizens of.

Moreover, having them become citizens means that the government cannot stop them from flooding into Ramallah to demand their rights to live in their country immediately. And there is no doubt that tens of thousand would want to do exactly that.

Boyle goes on to say that the PLO is actually the government of "Palestine" and not the pseudo-democratically elected PA. The West can wave good bye to their appointed darling, Salam Fayyad, who has no place in Boyle's (or anyone's) conception of "Palestine."

Boyle, of course, fails to mention that the PLO has done nothing for more than half its constituents, quite happy to let them rot as stateless second-class members of Arab countries. The PLO has roundly ignored the wishes of Palestinian Arabs who are sick of being treated like pawns for the singular purpose of pressuring Israel.

The entire September stunt is not good for Israel, but it can easily become a disaster for "Palestine" and possibly the entire Middle East as the millions who have been cowed into silence for decades start to believe they have a say in their own futures.

Syria attacks a Damascus mosque, imam

From BBC:

Syrian security forces have attacked protesters at a mosque in the capital, Damascus, activists say.

Security officials stormed the al-Rifai mosque in the Kafar Susseh district, the activists said, reportedly wounding the mosque's imam.

Unconfirmed reports say at least one person was killed in clashes with troops on Saturday.

The UN says more than 2,000 people have been killed since protests against Syria's president began in March.

A video shot at the mosque shows protesters chanting "the people demand an end to the regime", and calling for the execution of President Bashar al-Assad.

As security forces stormed the mosque, protesters tried to barricade themselves in with bookcases and shoe racks, reports say.

The imam, Osama al-Rifai, who is in his 80s, is said to have been beaten up.

Where are the mass protests in public squares of Arab countries?

Derfner fired from JPost, and pretends to be a martyr

And he remains clueless as to what he said that was wrong, instead lashing out at his seeming oppressors:

I got fired by The Jerusalem Post today. The paper got hundreds of notices of cancellations of subscription after my blog post (“The awful, necessary truth about Palestinian terror”) of Sunday last week; the reason being given for my firing, though, is the substance of the essay, despite the apology I published later. A page-one notice to this effect will be published in the Post tomorrow.

My apology was to have run in the Post yesterday, but a logistical mix-up prevented it. Today the paper ran a column by Isi Liebler titled “Justifying murder – an abomination,” which, like nearly all of the right-wing websites attacking my original essay (I took it down from my blog upon publishing the apology), it gives extremely short shrift to all the things I wrote that show my intent was not to encourage terror, but the opposite.

As I noted when he apologized, no one is saying that he supports or encourages terror. What he was doing, explicitly, was justifying it. And from what he has written, it seems that he truly believes that attacking civilians is a "right" even if he personally believes it is wrong.

That is what is offensive. His inability to realize that would be comical if it wasn't so sad.

Instead, he goes into martyr mode:

What bothers me most is not that I got fired, but that I’m not being given the opportunity to fill in the picture that’s been so distorted in today’s Post column and in right-wing Web commentaries. The parts of the picture being obscured or outright hidden would show that while I misspoke myself harmfully, my intent was not to support, endorse, advocate, encourage or call for terror against Israelis, but to end it. This intent was clear not only in my apology, but in my original essay. By skewing my words so badly, today’s Post column, the Web commentaries and Post publishes on page one tomorrow portray a writer announcing that he wants Israelis to get killed, instead of one who’s trying to stop that from happening.

I didn't read most of the other critiques of Derfner but I did not see any that claimed that Derfner personally wants Israelis to be killed. I am certain that my original denunciation of his essay was not predicated on the idea that he supports terror. And nothing he has written since disproves anything I wrote about his original essay - that he believes that Palestinian Arabs have a "right" to attack and kill Jews, and he cannot find a single ethical problem with Palestinian Arab terrorism, even if he personally doesn't approve of it.

(h/t CHA, Zach N)

Palestinian Arabs again rejoice at terror attack in name of Allah

Early this morning a Palestinian Arab man was stopped by Tel Aviv police from his plans to murder as many teenagers as he could find in a party at a nightclub. He still managed to stab eight people, one in serious condition.

It is clear that the terrorist, yelling "Allah hu Akbar," knew about the party and his intent was to kill as many of the youth there as he could find.

Which makes him a hero to Palestinian Arabs.

The Fatah-leaning Palestine Today has three comments on the story. Autotranslation of comments is often obscure, but the happiness is obvious:

Allah hu Akbar - Lord every day we hear news of Avatar Halnoa [?] be in the death of Jews and loyal to them

Victory for Men - God is great and the victory of Islam, here they are men of God lifting his registration and under Jmaaag captives, O Lord

You are handed your right hand and hit the collecting -Army man will not fail to see our mothers for giving birth to welding heroes

Notice how every comment uses religious imagery to justify an attack on Jews.

The PalDF message board is similarly filled with praise and happiness. The fact that the assailant yelled "Allah hu Akbar" is especially endearing to that crowd.

Once again, it is not possible to find a single dissenting opinion in the PalArabic media or comments about a terrorist attack aimed at innocent civilians. We are always told about how much Palestinian Arabs want peace and are against terrorism, yet apparently not a single one feels strongly enough about it to actually state that opinion online in reaction to attacks like these. (General Arab reaction is mostly positive but not quite as unanimous as Palestinian Arab reaction.)

Please, if you can find any counter examples, let me know - I will be happy to correct this post.

No doubt these Jihad lovers will be magically transformed into peace loving secular democrats by the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state.

The PA's water lies debunked (JPost)

A very important article in JPost exposes the depth of the PA's lies to the international community regarding their oft-stated claim the Israel "steals" their water:

On June 15, 2011 The Jerusalem Post published an article about the Palestinian water crisis, written by the head of the Palestinian Water Authority, Dr. Shaddad Atilli.

In his article, Atilli wrote that Israel’s ‘discriminatory policies’ are to blame for the lack of water in Palestinian society. He claimed that Israel uses the Joint Israeli Palestinian Water Committee (JWC) to veto and delay Palestinian water projects. He also wrote that Israel illegally exploits 90% of the shared water sources.

Furthermore, he claimed that because of the Israeli theft of water and the destruction of water wells and treatment plants, people realize that the two-state solution is rapidly fading.

His libelous article, full of distortions, outright lies and false accusations, was yet another proof of the PA’s intransigence.

Recently our organization, Missing Peace, obtained authentic papers documenting meetings of the Joint Israeli Palestinian Water Committee (JWC), and correspondence between Colonel Avi Shalev, head of the International relations branch of COGAT, and Dr.Atilli. These documents paint an entirely different picture.

Contrary to Atilli’s outrageous accusations, the Palestinian Authority has been sabotaging the two-state solution by preventing the development of an independent water infrastructure for the future Palestinian state.

Since 2000 the PWA submitted 76 requests for permits to the office of the Civil Administration.

Subsequently 73 permits were issued by ICA and three denied because there was no master plan.

In a letter of June 8 2009, Shalev responded to Atilli’s complaint that ICA did not honor a PWA request to issue 12 of these permits. Shalev wrote that these permits had already been issued in 2001, and that ICA wondered why the PWA did not execute these projects.

Another 44 JWC-approved projects, the majority in Areas A and B, like the construction of a waste water treatment plant (WWTP) in Jenin that received approval in 2008 - have not been implemented. The German government even withdraw a plan to build a WWTP in Tulkarm when it concluded that the PWA could not handle the project.

When, back in November 2009, the PWA complained about a lack of funds, the Israeli government offered to finance water projects for Palestinian communities. The PA has yet to respond to this offer.

...The PWA did not implement projects in the Eastern aquifer that would have solved much of the Palestinian water crisis. More than half of the wells approved for exploitation of the Eastern aquifer have still not been drilled. The permits were issued in 2000.

In a letter written on April 4, 2001, the civil administration urged the PWA to execute these projects. A letter from June 8 2009 repeated that request.

Atilli also lied about Palestinian water consumption. In the JPost article he claimed that Palestinians are ‘limited to an average of just 60 liters.’ However, in 2009 his own PWA published a report that mentioned an average supply of 110 liters per capita per day.

Atilli’s level of chutzpa is best shown by his third claim, about Israel stealing water and destroying Palestinian water projects. In fact, Palestinians steal millions of cubic meters of water per year by drilling illegal holes into the water pipes of the Israeli water provider Mekorot. The Civil Authority fixes 600 of these illegal taps each year.

Furthermore, since 2008 Israel has asked the PA to re-establish the joint JSET water patrols that fought water theft before the El Aksa intifada.

The PA has refused.

Another reason for the loss of water is the poor maintenance of the Palestinian water infrastructure. A staggering 33% of the fresh water supply gets lost because of leaks, theft and poor maintenance.

Other documents provided solid evidence that the closing of 250 illegal wells was agreed upon in the JWC meetings. For example, minutes of the JWC meeting on November 13, 2007 show a consensus decision to destroy ‘illegal drillings and connections.’ Nevertheless, Atilli acted as if he never attended these meetings or co-signed the joint decisions.

He even had the gall to write urgent appeals to the international community as soon as ICA, after numerous appeals to the PWA to follow up on the agreed closure of illegal wells, finally closed those wells....

Read the whole thing.

The Dutch-language Missing Peace site is a fantastic resource for source materials that debunk Palestinian Arab claims and dig up the truth about the Middle East.

(h/t Yerushalimey)

Terrorists fired at the Erez Crossing last week. Did you hear anything?

From the MFA:

On Thursday night (August 25th), the terror organizations from the Gaza Strip continued launching rockets and mortar shells towards Israel.

During the attack several mortar shells hit the Erez Crossing, just as three Palestinian women and two infants were crossing back into the Gaza Strip after receiving medical treatment in Israel, causing damage to the crossing's infrastructure and an electrical shutdown. The power outage disabled gates at the crossing. Two of the women passed through safely but a third woman, along with her infant daughter, got caught between two disabled gates while rockets were falling.

The commander of the Erez crossing and another security officer rescued the woman and her daughter. All of the Palestinian women were brought to a protected shelter at the crossing where they were given a meal for the end of the daily Ramadan fast.

Those horrible Israelis!

This attack is not an anomaly. In the past the Gaza terrorists have repeatedly attacked all the crossings between Israel and Gaza - the same crossings that the international community insists must be wide open for unlimited transit of goods and people. These attacks often result in suspension of the crossings and delays for those people and goods scheduled to go through.

The Erez crossing in particular allows hundreds of Gazans to travel to Israel for medical treatment, as well as for NGOs to enter Gaza to help people there.

How often do you hear anyone - including these same NGOs - condemning attacks on the crossings? The international media all but ignored it (exceptions: CNN in context of Israel's response and Shanghai Daily behind a paywall.)

I cannot recall a single statement of condemnation by any NGO ever for terror attacks on crossings. Shouldn't people whose supposed main concern is the welfare of the people of Gaza strongly condemn those who attack the very means needed to help them?

(h/t Ian)

Pro-Israel, pro-Shalit rally at Trafalgar Square (plus EoZ poster sighting!)

From Richard Millett's blog:

Israel’s supporters came out in Trafalgar Square today to show sympathy with Israel as rockets continue to rain down from Gaza and to wish a happy 25th birthday to Gilad Schalit who is in his sixth year in isolation in Gaza having been kidnapped by Hamas from Israeli soil when he was 19.

There were some tremendous speeches.

Hasan Afzal, of British Muslims for Israel, said he supports Israel because it is “the only country in the Middle East where Muslims have freedom and democracy”.

Jonathan Sacerdoti spoke movingly about Gilad Schalit spending his 25th birthday “in prison, in Gaza with no contact with the outside world, his family or even the International Red Cross to ensure that his health is adequate”.

Joy Wolfe urged the crowd to ignore media lies about Israel and described Israel as a home for people of all religions.

She went on to call for an end to the double standards of the United Nations and some British MPs and said that Gilad Schalit probably doesn’t even know that today is his birthday and probably feels as if he has been forgotten. But she said that no one will rest until the Red Cross gets access to him and every government in the world is calling for his release.

It was an excellent afternoon arranged at very short notice by the British Israel Coalition and supported by Stand With Us.

It made a change from the previous Sunday’s terror rally at Trafalgar Square where the rhetoric called for war with Israel and signs called for Death to Israel. It’s a shame there wasn’t a similar pro-Israel rally at that time.

Read the whole thing; he has videos too.

The demonstration had some 500 people. I received this photo of the rally which shows one of my posters (click to enlarge):

Here's the poster:

Photo credit goes to StandWithUs UK official photographer Adrian Korsner Photography. H/t CiFWatch for letting me know.

Even Hezbollah is accused of being Zionist

The Lebanese March 14th movement is accusing Hezbollah of acting like Israel and of serving Israel's interests:

Several March 14 leaders attacked Hezbollah on Saturday and condemned the speech of its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah that he delivered via video link on Quds ( Jerusalem ) day last Friday night.

Phalange party MP Sami Gemayel compared Hezbollah to Israel in the way it has been expanding to take over Lebanon.

Gemayel said that Hezbollah is practicing “a unique policy of settlements” similar to Israel’s.
“Hezbollah depended on military power to control a certain area, and the Jews depended on the same thing to take over Palestine,” he told As-Sharq radio station.

March 14 MP Ahmad Fatfat said on Saturday that Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is the one who serves Israel’s interests.

“Didn’t he assassinate leaders in the national resistance? Isn’t he the one who pointed his weapons at the Lebanese people? Doesn’t that serve Israel?,” Fatfat questioned.

Don't Strip! (updated)

Yisrael Medad suggested a poster series to me, and how could I resist?

UPDATE: Wow, controversy! I'm getting emails as well as comments from people who are offended by these as well as those who love them.

I don't view the posters as tremendously sexist, although I see many women do. From my perspective they are using images that are quite tame nowadays to allude to an earlier era (hence my choice of fonts - although I think that the top one is Jane Russell from the 1940s, and she wasn't a stripper.) Yisrael chose the images and text, I did the layout.

Controversy is good in general when you want to get a message out, and that is what the aim is; I prefer messages that are more direct but there is a place for this approach (as in PETA's campaigns.) I have my doubts as to the effectiveness of the message, to be honest, as it is not obvious how to draw the line from the photo to the message. Maybe putting a leftist's head on a photo instead:

PA accuses Israel of stealing organs from terrorists

Palestine Today reports that PA Minister of Prisoners' Affairs, Issa Qaraqe, said that Israel is the largest global hub for trafficking in human organs, and is harvesting organs of "martyrs."

He said Israel is holding the bodies of the terrorists to "avenge" them and their families, as well as to hide the "crimes" Israel did to their bodies.

It is unlikely that anyone will denounce these outrageous and libelous claims.

In June, Israel refused to hand over the bodies of some 84 terrorists after initial reports to the contrary, instead keeping them as a bargaining chip in helping to get Gilad Shalit released.

The PA news agency scrubs a lie

From Ma'an on Friday:

Honduras has recognized the State of Palestine, the official Palestinian Authority news agency reported Friday.

The announcement came in a letter to President Mahmoud Abbas that Honduras recognized the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders and would back efforts to seek membership in the UN, WAFA reported.

The original WAFA announcement on Friday did say that Honduras recognized the mythical "1967 borders."

Here's the image of the autotranslated Arabic announcement:

However, the actual announcement from the Honduras did not mention any borders.

And WAFA has since removed that reference from its website. Here's the scrubbed version, again from the Arabic - with the exact same timestamp of 18:53:

It is a little unusual that WAFA scrubbed its original announcement, which may indicate some displeasure from the Honduran government on that point. It is more interesting that they tried to hide the change, which is not something that any legitimate news agency should do.

(h/t George Hale for helping find the cached Arabic announcement.)

Fatah/Hamas "unity" update: They can't agree on what time it is

From Ma'an:

For the first time in history, Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza will live in different time zones.

Clocks were pushed back an hour at the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on August 1 in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority cabinet decided Tuesday to revert to summer time (+3 hours GMT) at the end of Ramadan. The cabinet announced that the Eid Al-Fitr holiday which marks the end of Ramadan would begin Tuesday.

But the Hamas government's civil services bureau in Gaza announced Saturday that the government would continue to work on winter time (+2 hours GMT) after Eid Al-Fitr.

Unity!