Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Grapel prisoner swap with Egypt may include terrorists (updated)

From AFP:

Egypt is mulling its own prisoner exchange with Israel, swapping a U.S.-Israeli joint national suspected of spying for Israel for 81 Egyptians detained in the Jewish state, the state-owned daily Al-Ahram said Sunday.

Ilan Grapel, who has been in custody since June 12, has been accused of being an agent of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and of sowing sectarian strife and chaos in Egypt during the uprising which ousted president Hosni Mubarak in February.

Israel has strongly denied the claims, insisting the whole thing was a mistake and accusing Egyptian authorities of “bizarre behavior.”

Egypt mediated between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas to secure a deal under which more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners are to be freed in exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit, captured in 2006.

“All reports suggest that the Shalit deal will not be the only one concluded between Arabs and Israel in the coming days,” Ahram said.

It should “soon be followed by another deal, between Egypt and Israel, in which the spy Ilan Grapel... will be released in return for all Egyptians held in Israeli prisons,” the daily said.

There are 81 Egyptian prisoners, including three children, held in Israel, the majority facing criminal charges, including illegal entry to Israel, drug trafficking and arms possession.

Negotiations on an exchange are almost finished, the paper said.

“The success of the Egyptian mediation of the Shalit deal and Israel’s formal apology to Egypt for the death of Egyptian soldiers killed on the border by Israeli fire, certainly cleared the road for making the Grapel deal.”

Al Ahram published a list of the 81 prisoners that it says Israel would release. Most of their crimes are for illegally infiltrating Israel, drug charges, or weapons charges, with sentences from 3 to 15 years.

Two of them, however, may be terrorists: Atef Ahmed Hamdan Qudaih is a Palestinian who was sentenced to 20 years for attempted murder, and Mohamed Hassan Osman was sentenced to 15 years also for attempted murder. I have not been able to find out the details of these cases.

UPDATE: Sylvia in the comments notes that Egypt is holding another Israeli citizen, Ouda Tarabin, a Bedouin being held on trumped up spy charges who was arrested for visiting relatives in El Arish. It would be tragic if he is not included in any deal.

Attention BDSers: Remove your Microsoft anti-virus program!

From Ha'aretz, in an interview with outgoing Microsoft Israel executive Moshe Lichtman:

Another successful project conceived at Microsoft's Herzliya development center was the free antivirus program Microsoft Security Essentials.

"Two and a half years ago we decided we needed to offer a free security solution," Lichtman says. "At that time 60 percent of computers - 1.5 billion - were not protected by an antivirus program, and we wanted to change that. It was important to us that our antivirus program could be installed only on legal versions of our operating system. Within a year, that product, which was developed by fewer than 30 people, had 100 million downloads. It quickly became the No. 1 information security product. That is rare."

So as a service to people who want to boycott all Israeli products, if you are running Windows, look at the bottom right of your screen to see if there is an icon that looks like this:

If so, you had better uninstall that application immediately!

And since there are other innovations coming out of Microsoft Israel, you might want to get rid of Windows altogether.

Don't be a hypocrite - do it now!

And publicly tell everyone about it, with your email address, so that people worldwide can send you messages of congratulations, along with appropriate email attachments.

Palo Alto apartment complex bans Sukkah

From JWeekly:

A sukkah in the common area of a Palo Alto apartment complex has become the center of a burgeoning debate.

Abraham Berman, 81, who lives with his wife, Sylvia, 80, in the Sheridan Apartments, has erected a homemade sukkah on the complex’s second-floor patio every Sukkot for the past 11 years.

This year, the Palo Alto Housing Corporation, a nonprofit that manages 20 affordable-housing properties, informed Berman that he would no longer be permitted to build the structure, as part of a prohibition against personal property in common areas.

When Berman countered that the complex often has other “personal” decorations and religious symbols in common areas — such as a Christmas tree on the ground floor — housing officials informed him that the tree will be scrapped this year, as well, presumably at all 20 properties.

After erecting last year’s sukkah, Berman received a letter informing him of the rules. He tried to educate the property managers about Sukkot, the weeklong harvest festival, sending them photos of sukkahs erected in public areas, such as one at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

“I do this to present good will toward the world, and as far as I know everyone enjoyed it,” Berman said on Oct. 11, one day before the start of Sukkot. “I would say, Come in, have coffee, share something to eat. It wasn’t interfering with anything.” He added that he had no plans to defy the regulations.

But Berman said he was dismayed that the dispute might be morphing into a debate about public displays of one’s religion. “I don’t want this to be a situation where they use my sukkah to deny someone else their religious practices,” he said.

Georgina Mascarenhas, the director of property management, told the Palo Alto Weekly that the previous building manager at the complex had been remiss in allowing the structure to go up year after year, and that manager was replaced earlier this year.

“The issue is that residents are not allowed to put up anything personal in the common area,” she told the newspaper. “Whatever they do within their apartments is fine and we certainly don’t question that at all.”

As of Oct. 11, city officials were notified of the dispute and promised to take steps to mediate, but no solution had been reached.

From other news stories it is clear that Berman cannot put up a kosher sukkah on his balcony.

Political correctness run amok.

(h/t jzaik)

Chag sameach!

Wishing all my readers a great Yom Tov!

I will not be posting until at least Saturday night.

Arab teens spray "Death to Jews" on 4 Safed synagogues

From YNet:

Two 16-year-old teens were arrested in suspicion of spraying slogans reading "death to Jews" on four synagogues and vehicles in Safed.

During their investigation, the two admitted committing the acts and claimed they did it to protest the mosque arson in Tuba Zangaria. The two will be brought in front of a judge on Thursday for a remand hearing.

I still have never seen any condemnation of the vandalism at Joseph's Tomb. I anticipate a similar silence from all Muslim and Arab leaders about this attack.

Canada lands on Iran's s-list

From Iran's ISNA agency:

Iran said Canada is involved in Zionist regime's war crimes since it has provided weapons for the regime.

Iranian mission in the recent meeting of the UN General Assembly Disarmament and International Security Committee said Canadian "baseless" allegation on Iranian peaceful nuclear drive carries misleading information on humane aspects of the country's nuclear work.

Canadian ambassador has claimed the process of 20-percent uranium enrichment by Iran is "illegal."

"Uranium enrichment to that level is completely legal and aims to supply fuel for Tehran research reactor which provides medical isotopes for over 1,000,000 patients suffering cancer," the Iranian mission said.

Iran also criticized deadly silence of Canada on Zionist regime's secret plan to develop nuclear weapons without any international inspection which is a "serious threat for regional and international peace."

"Canada is one of the major weapons providers for Zionist regime and is involved in its crimes against occupied Palestinian lands. Canada should be tried," the mission added.

A badge of honor!

The first terrorist kidnapping in Israel

From 10million.org:

On the night of January 1, 1970, a group of Fatah terrorists infiltrated Metula from Lebanon and abducted a night watchman named Shmuel Rosenwasser. The terrorists, together with the abduction victim, withdrew to Kfar Kila which is located about two kilometers west of Metula in Lebanon. This was the first abduction attack perpetrated by a Palestinian terror organization inside Israel.

This terror attack was perpetrated to mark the anniversary of the Fatah’s first terror attack (placing a demolition charge at Israel’s national water conduit). January first was also considered the anniversary of the organization’s establishment. The Fatah claimed responsibility for the abduction several days after the attack and demanded that the State of Israel release 100 terrorists incarcerated in Israel while giving first priority to the terrorist Mahmoud Hijazi

Mahmoud Hijazi was a terrorist who served in the Fatah organization. On January 7, 1965 Hijazi commanded the Fatah’s first terror attack. Hijazi’s terror squad, which included 5 additional terrorists, detonated an explosive device at the water institute in moshav Nechusha situated in the Ela Valley in Israel. Hijazi was wounded and apprehended.

He stood trial at a military court which sentenced him to death. Hijazi appealed this verdict in the military appeals court, which ordered a retrial. During the trial, Hijazi demanded to be recognized as a prisoner of war. The court turned down this request and in May 1966, Hijazi was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Hijazi was only the second person in Israeli history to be sentenced to death, after Adolf Eichmann.

The decision to swap him for Rosenwasser was only a one-to-one swap. However, and in retrospect, that was the decision that emboldened Palestinian Arabs to continue to kidnap Israelis in order to bargain for Israel's release of other terrorists.

The Rosenwasser abduction was followed by a number of others kidnappings and attempted hostage taking, such as a 1974 attack in Beit She'an where terrorists broke into a family home for the purpose of taking them hostage and negotiating a release of terror prisoners. The 1974 Ma'alot massacre started off as a hostage drama as well. Even though Israel did not capitulate in any of the attacks on Israeli soil and usually killed the terrorists, their incentive to mount hostage-taking attacks did not lessen.

The prisoner-exchange train had already left the building in 1970. It is not possible to turn the clock back. Even if the current Israeli government had publicly announced that Shalit was considered dead and that there will be no negotiations, the public pressure in Israel would not have closed the door and Hamas would have waited for a different government to renew its demands.

For these reasons, I do not accept the argument that it is possible to remove the incentive for kidnappings by refusing to negotiate. The terrorists will continue no matter what.

Not that there aren't other options that should be explored. Reinstating the death penalty for terror attacks, which would remove any terrorists available for exchanges, may be unlikely to happen but it would be more effective - and humane. Israel has tried to seize terrorists on its own as bargaining chips but for some reason it never followed through to the end. Other possible but problematic ideas include cyanide pills for soldiers to kill themselves rather than be allowed to become hostages, or instructions to go after the kidnappers without any regard to the safety of the hostages.

Obviously, prisoner swaps are not ideal and depending on the circumstances they can be horrible mistakes. The Samir Kuntar debacle is a textbook example of the worst possible type of exchange.

But I cannot see a way that terrorists will ever stop kidnapping Israelis in an attempt to negotiate a release of prisoners.

Not since 1970.

The WZO writes a useless "Zionist" iPhone app

From JTA:

A new mobile app provides a database of information about Zionism and Israel.

The free “Zionation” app for iPhone and Android devices, developed by the World Zionist Organization’s Department for Diaspora Activities, includes a Zionist calendar that marks and provides background information on significant dates in the history of Zionism and the State of Israel.

The app, which supports Hebrew, English and Spanish, also notifies users about conferences and events occurring in their communities or around the world.

Gusti Yehoshua-Braverman, the co-chair of the Department for Diaspora Activities, said the app is designed to resonate with a younger Jewish generation.

“We believe that now more than ever, given the alienation among large segments of the Jewish community from the State of Israel, that it is our duty to encourage the younger generation to create their own Zionist Jewish identity based on knowledge and familiarity with major figures and historical events, values and achievements,” he said in a statement.

I downloaded this app, and it is as close to a useless application as you can imagine.

It contains three sections on its home page: "Yearly events," "Protagonists of Zionism" and the ever popular "About."

For October, it has exactly one event: the memorial day for Rahav'am Ze'evi. That's it. Nothing about the Yom Kippur War, for example. (But you can add Ze'evi's memorial day to your calendar!)

The awfully named "Protagonists of Zionism" section is even worse. It has five categories: Prime Ministers, Presidents of the State of Israel, Nobel Prize Laureates, Olympic Champions and Winners of the Eurovision.

Have all Zionist heroes been reduced to this?

It is like a really, really bad website, with very little information. Nothing interactive. Essentially nothing useful in its "database." The biographies are ridiculously short. It is only a week old and already out of date, since there is a new Israeli Nobel laureate.

If this is how the WZO is trying to engage young people, they are even more clueless than I would have imagined. I can guarantee that no "young people" will use this app more than once, probably to laugh at it.

I am shaking my head thinking how much this cost the WZO in time and money. If this is how they think they can engage Zionist youth, they might as well close that division - or hire someone who is not completely ignorant about how young people think.

Erekat lie of the day

From Wafa:

PLO Executive Committee Member, Saeb Erekat, Wednesday denied reports that the Quartet has proposed a meeting between the Palestinians and Israelis in Jordan later this month.

Erekat, speaking to Voice of Palestine radio, said the Quartet contacted the Palestinian leadership and denied statements by US State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, announcing the proposed meeting between both sides.

But in WaPo:

International Mideast mediators proposed a meeting between Israel and the Palestinians this month to relaunch stalled peace talks, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday the global spotlight on the conflict should be a catalyst to bring the two sides together.

On Sept. 23, hours after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas took his people’s quest for independence to the United Nations and asked for U.N. membership, the Quartet moved to revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. It set a 30-day deadline for the two sides to hold preliminary talks aimed at resurrecting direct negotiations and called for a peace deal by the end of 2012.

To keep up the momentum, the Quartet wants both sides to meet in Jordan on Oct. 23, the deadline they set for talks to resume.

Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said there would be no decision on whether the Palestinians would attend the meeting until a formal invitation had been received.

So Erekat knew about the proposal, even if it wasn't a formal invitation - and then he turned around and told Wafa that there was no proposal for talks at all.

Obviously the Quartet would not issue a formal invitation if it knows that one side will refuse, because that would be embarrassing. But it is just as obvious that the Quartet has been pushing for, and proposing, meetings between the two sides.

From Emirates 24/7:

Saudi Arabia’s religious police have told foreign players with tattoos on their arms to cover such drawings while on the field, saying they are adversely affecting young Saudis, a newspaper reported on Monday.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice sent a letter to the Higher Youth Committee asking it to warn all foreign players in the conservative Muslim Gulf kingdom to cover their tattoos before going into the field during matches, Sabq Arabic language daily said.

The letter cited Columbian player at Al Nasr Club, Juan Pablo Pino, whose hands and shoulders are covered with tattoos “in violation of existing rules.”

“These tattoos have negative effects on the Saudi youth…you are asked to draw the attention of all foreign players in the Kingdom to the need to abide by the rules and cover their tattoos during matches,” the letter said.

The paper said the letter contained a photograph of Pino, showing his two arms are covered with tattoos.

The paper said the letter followed a picture published in local newspapers showing Pino’s tattoos included some “Christian drawings.”

The 24-year-old Pino and his pregnant wife were detained by Commission members at a Riyadh shopping mall this week on the grounds he was wearing a T-shirt without sleeves.

SNL - Post Yom Kippur sketch

On Saturday Night Live, Andy Samberg takes Ben Stiller on a magical trip through a Jewish food paradise so he can eat after Yom Kippur.

Tunisian fencer forfeits match with Israeli

From QS Sport (Italy):

Discord yesterday at the World Fencing Championship in Catania. During the group stage of the women's fencing match, Tunisian Sarra Besbes was matched with Israeli Noam Mills . The Tunisian federation has asked its athletes not to face Israeli opponents, but if [Besbes] would not have appeared she would have been disqualified. So she ascended the platform and stood still, suffering the five thrusts that caused her defeat 5 -0. This defeat also forced her to face a stronger athlete in the next round, China's Li Na.

The judges could not take action against the anomalous behavior of Besbes, since she was in fact defeated. Besbes felt very bad for what happened, according to the people close to her, also because' this defeat has affected her world [ranking?] and at the end of the challenge she cried. Besbes did not want this incident to come out in the media. Among other things, the 22 year-old Tunisian, who is from a family of fencers, is not Muslim and trains in Paris . Also in Paris last year, the two athletes. Besbes and Mills, competed at the World Cup.

It is not in any case the first episode of this kind at the World Championships in Catania. On Sunday the Iranian fencer Sayyad Ghambari Hamad was up against Israeli Tomer Or in a qualifying match and he withdrew.

(h/t CHA via Wafa)

Details on the first set of prisoners (YNet)

From YNet:

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday night, Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen said that in the first phase of the swap, Israel will release 450 prisoners. Two months later, Israel will choose an additional 577 prisoners it wants to release.

All Palestinian female prisoners held in Israeli prisons are included in the list of 450 including Amina Mona, a young woman who lured a lovestruck Israeli teenage boy by the name of Ophir Rahum to a Palestinian city over the Internet, only to have him killed by waiting terrorists.

Israel will release 110 prisoners to the West Bank (14 to east Jerusalem) while 131 will return to their homes in the Gaza Strip.

Of the 450 prisoners to be released in the first phase, 280 are serving at least one life sentence.

However, Israel scored a major victory as nearly all top Palestinian terrorists will not be freed in the exchange, including:

Marwan Barghouti who was sentenced to five life sentences for his role in the murders of Israelis during the al-Aksa intifada

Abdullah Barghouti who is serving out 67 consecutive life terms for building the bombs that murdered 66 people

Ahmed Saadat who headed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and was responsible for the assassination of Israeli minister Rehavam Ze'evi

Hassan Salama, a Hamas leader who was convicted of murdering 67 Israeli citizens

Abbas a-Sayed, mastermind of the Park Hotel suicide bombing in which 30 Israelis were killed on the eve of Passover 2002

Ibrahim Hamed, who was found guilty of involvement in terrorist attacks that led to the death of 82 Israelis

"450 is a large number but 300 are leaving the area to Gaza or overseas," Cohen said.

Israel has been releasing a few hundred prisoners a month for years now, so waiting a couple of months and then releasing 577 of Israel's choosing is not too bad.

And the fact that the top terrorists are not being released is very good news.

Ma'an quotes other Israeli sources as saying that of the initial set of prisoners, 23 are from Fatah, 6 from the DFLP, 6 from the PFLP, and all the rest from Hamas.

Nothing like a breaking news story to show how ignorant the media is.

(h/t Dan)

Is the Shalit deal worth it?

I'm seeing a number of people in the comments, on Twitter and on groups I follow who are against the Shalit deal if it means that hundreds of murderers are freed in exchange.

The argument has two components.

One is that they are likely to kill Israelis in the future - as we have seen happen in the past, many times. And families of victims of the murderers are understandably upset at the thought that the monster will go free.

The other argument is that these one-sided swaps encourage terror groups to kidnap more people to facilitate more swaps.

I am sympathetic to these arguments. I've even made these arguments. And from a utilitarian perspective, they make a great deal of sense - one person's life is not worth the lives of many possible future victims.

However, there is a flaw in this logic, one that to me can tip the scales towards supporting the swap.

The fact is that the terror groups are already filled with people who would kill Israelis at every opportunity. The fact is that these groups already have a strategy of kidnapping any Israelis they can. With a few exceptions, most of the prisoners are not the brains behind successful terror attacks - they were just facilitators, people who are interchangeable with hundreds and thousands of other members of Hamas and Fatah and Islamic Jihad.

The reason that there have been relatively few terror attacks over the past few years isn't because of a lack of trying - it is because Israel is better at defending herself. The number of potential terrorists has remained steady at best, and the ones being released would not change that appreciably.

Yes, statistically there is a good chance that there will be future attacks involving some of the terrorists in this swap. But chances are the attacks would occur anyway with different people. Brainless terror drones are a dime a dozen in the territories.

The organizers who actually dream up new ways of killing should not be released. But most of the terrorists in the swap, from what I can tell, do not fit that description.

On the other side, a swap shows how much value Israel attaches to its people, and how unified Israelis are in grieving over tragedy and celebrating good news. It proves that one side values human life and the other despises it. We all know this, of course, but it is important to remind the world that there is a right and a wrong, a side that is moral and one whose entire existence is based on immorality. Additionally, the release of Shalit means that there is no longer anything that Hamas can hold over the heads of Israelis.

(None of this calculus applies if Shalit is, God forbid, not alive.)

I hope that this deal is finalized and that we can all celebrate the release of a healthy Gilad Shalit very soon.