Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Tunisia sent aid ship to Gaza - via Egypt

For the first time since the Tunisian revolution, Tunisia has sent an aid ship to Gaza - but they are not going straight to Gaza, rather through Egypt.

Which is why there are no news articles about this.

The Tunisians have been waiting for a few days to get permission from Egyptian authorities to bring the goods through Egypt to the Rafah crossing.

The aid includes wheelchairs and medicines.

Meanwhile, as usual, some 300 trucks full of material are being sent from Israel to Gaza today, including gravel, cement and iron for international construction projects.

Amazing AP bias in opposition to French ban on face veils

Headline: "Veiled Muslim women flout ban in bid for freedom"

Kenza Drider's posters for the French presidential race are ready to go, months before the official campaign begins. There she is, the "freedom candidate," pictured standing in front of a line of police — a forbidden veil hiding her face.

Drider declared her longshot candidacy Thursday, the same day that a French court fined two women who refuse to remove their veils. All three are among a group of women mounting an attack on the law that has banned the garments from the streets of France since April, and prompted similar moves in other European countries.

They are bent on proving that the ban contravenes fundamental rights and that women who hide their faces stand for freedom, not submission.

"When a woman wants to maintain her freedom, she must be bold," Drider told The Associated Press in an interview.

The article frames the French opposition to the veil as a sop to rabid Islamophobes, rather than an issue of security and human rights.

This article is a textbook example of media bias.

Israeli breakthrough in detecting breast cancer painlessly

From Reuters:

The mammogram has long been the test of choice for doctors examining women for signs of breast cancer. The test has a high detection rate, but many women find the procedure uncomfortable and are sometimes left bruised.

Researchers for Israeli company Real Imaging believe they've developed a painless alternative, using infra-red imaging.

Doctor Dhavid Izhaky is Real Imaging's vice president of research.

"Our system provides highest sensitivity for detection of breast cancer, it doesn't involve any ionising radiation, it's very comfort(able) - we do not apply any pressure on the breast and (it) is applicable for women with dense breasts".

Researchers say the system shows instant thermal signals emitted by cancerous cells. Izhaky says results can be analysed and diagnosed immediately without the need for x-rays or professional interpretation.

"We acquire three dimensional infra red imaging from the woman and the uniqueness of our system and the novelty is by providing automatic risk assessment. We do not require the radiologist to diagnose and interpret the images. The system does it automatically".

Electro-optical engineer Boaz Arnon pioneered the system after his mother died of breast cancer seven years ago:

"After several clinical trials, including multi centre clinical trials, we imaged more than 25 hundred patients in the last five years. We have a solution which is accurate, our sensitivity is higher than 90 percent for all ages, not just above 40 or above 50, including all ages, without radiation and the solution is ready".

Clinical trials have been undertaken in six medical centres across the country.

Dr Miri Sklar-Levy ran one of the trials at the Sheba medical centre in central Israel: "We have just concluded our blinded study of almost one hundred woman and the accuracy or the sensitivity was 92 percent with a specificity of 72 percent which is much above the results that we have with mammography."

Trials in Europe and the US are planned for next year.

If successful, Real Imaging hopes to provide a simple and pain-free alternative for breast cancer testing and encourage more women to have regular check-ups.

(h/t HuffWatcher)

Ramallah demonstration was a bust

There were plenty of news reports about the demonstration in Ramallah yesterday, all trying to make it look as large as possible:

But how many people actually were there?

From The World Bulletin:

Thousands of flag-waving Palestinians rallied Wednesday in towns across the occupied West Bank to show support for their president's bid to win U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state. The gatherings were carefully orchestrated, with civil servants and schoolchildren given time off to participate, and the mood seemed largely subdued. Still, a new poll indicated an overwhelming majority of Palestinians support President Mahmoud Abbas' quest for U.N. recognition of a state in the occupied West Bank, besiged Gaza and east Jerusalem.

In the city of Ramallah, the seat of Abbas' government, crowds of youths hoisted Palestinian flags in a downtown square and chanted slogans calling for the establishment of an independent Palestine. Others used the time to mingle and do some window shopping in the newly refurbished town center with tree-lined pedestrian areas.

A large mockup of a blue chair, symbolising a seat at the U.N., and giant Palestinian flags hanging from buildings provided a backdrop for the Ramallah rally, where attendence peaked at several thousand.

AFP says "at least 15,000" were at the demonstration. Considering that schools were out, the government closed, free transportation was provided and the rally included free concerts from popular bands, this is a small rally.

However, what is not as well reported was the possibly larger demonstration in Nablus - which took a distinctly anti-semitic turn:

Tens of thousands of Palestinians turned out in the northern West Bank city of Nablus in support of Abbas. Joined by a small ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect that opposes Israeli state, activists prayed at the nearby Joseph's tomb and raised a Palestinian flag.

Specifically going to a Jewish holy site is not a political move.

(There were also demonstrations in Hebron and Bethlehem.)

Will Obama release Pollard before the 2012 elections?

From the New Jersey Jewish News:

A longtime national activist in the fight to free convicted spy Jonathan Pollard believes his sentence will be commuted by President Barack Obama.

“I believe it will happen sooner rather than later,” said Farley Weiss.

Weiss said he based that assessment on several factors, including support from four prominent political leaders with access to classified information regarding the case. They are former Arizona Sen. Dennis DeConcini, former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee; former CIA director R. James Woolsey; Philip B. Heymann, former deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton; and Clinton White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum.

Moreover, the movement to free the former naval intelligence analyst has picked up the support of hundreds of legislators, legal scholars, and a large segment of the Jewish community, said Weiss. (Earlier last month, Robert Wexler, a former Democratic congressman from Florida and one of Obama’s closest Jewish confidantes, urged the president to release Pollard.)

Pollard has served 26 years of a life sentence for passing classified materials to Israel, longer than anyone else convicted of espionage on behalf of a U.S. ally.

Weiss suggested that Obama could use a Pollard pardon to shore up his faltering support among Jews who are wary of his policies toward Israel.

“This is an era of political expediency and a lot of people think he will do it because it’s politically beneficial,” said Weiss. “There is no constituency opposing Pollard’s release. So when it’s in their political interest and also the right thing to do, eventually a politician will do it.”

Releasing Pollard would definitely make political sense, especially when Obama is being increasingly seen as anti-Israel by the Jewish community and as the Republicans are increasing their attacks on the president because of his Israel policies.

Syrian death toll over 5000!

From IRIN:

Twice as many people have allegedly been killed in Syria - since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began six months ago - than the current UN estimate, and three times the regime's official tally, according to new statistics from human rights researchers and opposition activists in Syria.

The report by Avaaz, the global campaign group and its partner Insan, a leading Syrian human rights organization, said over 5,300 people have been killed.

A team of 60 human rights researchers verified the names of 3,004 people killed in over 127 locations across Syria from 18 March to 9 September, while an additional 2,356 people were registered as dead, but have not yet been verified, the report said.

Each of the 3,004 recorded killings was triple-sourced in line with international protocols for recording casualties of conflict, by at least one family member and two other contacts, such as friends, community leaders, clerks or imams of mosques.

The other 2,356 names have been recorded as killed but Insan researchers have not yet been able to triple-source each case, as the deaths were either reported in the Syrian state media or the bodies were taken away following injury or death and later not acknowledged by the authorities.

The total figure of 5,360 people killed is roughly double the current figure of 2,600 given on 12 September by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, while Amnesty International has documented the deaths of 2,121 people, not including members of the security forces.

The government acknowledges only 1,400 casualties.

“We knew the official numbers were way below,” Avaaz’s Henrietta McMicking said. “The 3,004 names have been verified, while we know that the 2,356 additional people are definitely dead, but we have not been able to verify their names under our stringent criteria.”

The as yet unverified figure includes 308 names of people reported killed in Syrian state-run media, 674 names of military personnel the authorities have reported killed, and 1,374 names of people who have been reported dead, but whose bodies have never been found.

I guess Western-educated ophthalmologists who marry glamorous women can be mass murderers as well. Who would have guessed it.

(h/t Benjamin)

"Non-violent" PalArab protest injures 16 month old baby

From YNet:

Hundreds of Palestinians clashed with Israeli security forces in several locations in the West Bank on Wednesday, as the Palestinian Authority launched its official statehood celebrations across West Bank cities.

A 16-month-old Israeli baby suffered light injuries when a stone struck her head in a riot between Tapuah and Migdalim junctions. She was taken to Schneider Hospital in Petah Tikva. Three Palestinians were arrested during clashes, and an Israeli citizen was lightly injured from stones hurled at him while he was travelling near the West Bank city of Halhul.

Around 40 Palestinians clashed with IDF forces near Beit Omar, and dozens of others rioted near the Qalandiya checkpoint.

Some rioters set tires on fire and stoned security forces, who used crowd-control measures to control the scene, including sonic cannons and tear gas.

In another incident, some 200 Palestinians rioted near Zif Junction, east of Hebron. Demonstrators stoned security forces, who used crowd-control measures there, as well.

Here's a photo of the baby:

The 1954 Miss World pageant was won by - Miss Egypt

Al Arabiya has an interesting article:

A sizable portion of Egypt’s intelligentsia tends to compare the years 1954 and 2011, both being transitional stages following revolutions that deposed a regime and changed the history of the country.

The protagonists of the two periods are always at the center of the comparison. Both Maj. Gen. Mohamed Naguib, Egypt’s first president, and Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the Higher Council for the Armed Forces, showed support for a democratic state and a multi-party system and advocated the army’s return to its barracks to give way to a civilian rule. Comparisons focus on one power that exercised non-negligible influence in both years – the Muslim Brotherhood, under the leadership of its Supreme Leader Hassan al-Hodeibi in 1954, and its political wing the Freedom and Justice Party, headed by the group’s prominent members Mohamed Mursi and Essam el-Erian.

Despite the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood as a player in the Egyptian political scene following the 1952 Revolution, a remarkable difference can be detected between the way religion was dealt with now and then.

More tolerance prevailed, linking religion to state never seemed that necessary, and the Muslim Brotherhood were the only Islamist group in 1954, whereas in 2011 moderation is quickly diminishing, fanatical interpretations of Islam are gaining ground, and another religious faction emerged as the Brotherhood’s rival and has become more popular in the Egyptian street: the Salafis.

A 1954 beauty pageant is a simple, but important, example of the absence of religious fanaticism at the time. In that year, Egyptians chose Antigone Costanda, an Alexandrian of Greek origin, to be Miss Egypt, and in the same year she was crowned Miss World and appeared on stage dressed in a bathing suit in the ceremony held in London.

It is easy to blame all of the Arab world's fanaticism on Islam, but 1954 Egypt was no less fanatic in hating Israel that today's Egypt - but it was in no way Islamist.

Obama: Peace requires compromise. Abbas: We'll never compromise. (poster)

President Obama's speech at the UN today had some good lines.

Here's one that nicely shows the difference between the Western mindset and how the Palestinian Arab leadership has been acting throughout their history.

Ramallah rally shows map of all of Israel as "Palestine State"

Here's a screen shot from a BBC video report on the rally in Ramallah today.

It shows one of those symbolic chairs decorated with a map of all of British Mandate Palestine - including Israel - as the "Palestine State."

Notice how the headline writer is completely at odds with the plain meaning of the video.

(h/t Anon)

Why a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state is a bad idea (video)

From Jewlarious, a video I missed last month but quite relevant:

"We don't want you in Palestine" (poster)

Based on this article.

Yes, Palestinian Arab leaders have no desire to dismantle refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan or even in "Palestine" after they declare a state - and they specifically refuse to give citizenship to their own people in the camps!

The reason is because they want to continue to use their own people as pawns to pressure Israel even after they have a state.

The goal of a "State of Palestine" has nothing - and I mean nothing - to do with helping a single Palestinian Arab who lives outside the borders of such a state, or those who are considered "refugees" by UNRWA within such a state. On the contrary - they will do everything they can to keep them miserable. No passports, no citizenship, no rights.

In fact, the only state in the Middle East that grants full rights to Palestinian Arab refugees from 1948 is Israel. And that will remain true even if a Palestinian Arab state is declared.

Dershowitz lecture: Defending Israel in the court of public opinion

A September 15th lecture by Alan Dershowitz can be heard (or downloaded) here (M4A) or here (MP3)

(h/t Russell)

All of the PLO's historic anti-Israel documents are on their UN website

The UN website of the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine contains all of the major PLO foundational documents.

These include such classics as the PLO's 1964 Charter - before the "occupation" - where they say:

Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.

And their 1974 10-point program where they proclaim:

4. Any step taken towards liberation is a step towards the realization of the Liberation Organization’s strategy of establishing the democratic Palestinian State specified in the resolutions of the previous Palestinian National Councils.

Interestingly, they have hidden the 1968 PLO Charter that said:

Article 9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it. They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it.

Article 10: Commando (Feday'ee) action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war. This requires its escalation, comprehensiveness, and the mobilization of all the Palestinian popular and educational efforts and their organization and involvement in the armed Palestinian revolution. It also requires the achieving of unity for the national (watani) struggle among the different groupings of the Palestinian people, and between the Palestinian people and the Arab masses, so as to secure the continuation of the revolution, its escalation, and victory.

Article 11: Palestinians have three mottoes: national unity, national (al-qawmiyya) mobilization, and liberation.

It is not under the link of the 1968 Palestine Charter but under "Decisions and Actions Related to the Palestine National Charter."

Under the 1968 Charter it says:

1. The PNC met in a special session on 26 April 1996 to consider the issue of amending the Palestine National Charter and adopted the following decision:

A. To abrogate the provisions of the Palestine National Charter that contradict the letters exchanged between Chairman Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of September 9 & 10 1993.

B. To mandate the legal committee of the PLO to present a new text of the Palestine National Charter.

The decision was adopted by more than the required two-thirds majority by a vote of: 504 in favor, 54 against, and 14 abstentions.

Yet nowhere can one find a list of which articles of the 1968 charter were abrogated, nor may one find the text of any subsequent charter.

And of course the PLO never did remove the denial of Israel from the charter. (h/t CHA)

(h/t Asher)

Poster: The PLO's strategy

Nabil Sha'ath said a lot of similar statements before and after the PLO supposedly embraced the two-state solution in 1988.

The insistence on the "right to return," Jerusalem and a Judenrein Palestine is nothing less than the realization of this long-standing PLO policy of destroying Israel in stages.

Source