Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, November 06, 2011

Pat Condell's great followup video

As a followup to this video I had posted, here's a new one from Pat Condell:

Even better, on YouTube he gives a bunch of links to back up what he is saying:

Wall of Truth - A few inconvenient facts
http://www.wall-of-truth.org/

What really happened in the Middle East
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f81j5Zk-GSA

The Middle East Problem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4

Is Israel An Apartheid State?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1dvwgjDAT8

The truth about the peace process
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAuBc_cbXo0

The truth about the West Bank
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=XGYxLWUKwWo

The real racism: Expecting Jews to die meekly
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=243452

Teaching children to hate Jews
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL0C2QvqIlo

Ignorant Islamic cleric teaches children to hate Jews
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpGRBu7mzrg

Teaching children to die for Allah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0inC2ZRWzG4

Teaching children to admire a suicide bomber
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=806ZNYWzE1M

Hamas: "Kill all Jews"
http://www.examiner.com/foreign-policy-in-baltimore/kill-al-jews-statement-co...

"Jews are apes and pigs"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQERHieZHcg

Overrated: Mahmoud Abbas
http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/4113/full

Laughable bigotry from the anti-Semitic Guardian "newspaper"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/19/israeli-lives-more-important-pale...

The Durban Perversion
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/40602

Norway's ambassador defends Islamic terror
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/07/26/3088704/envoy-compares-terror-in-i...

Anti-Semitism in Norway
http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/02/09OSLO114.html

Jews abandon Swedish city amid growing anti-Semitism
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jews-reluctantly-abandon-swedish-city-ami...

Jews being driven out of Malmo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9gdBX8q85Q

Sharia law for the new Libya
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036885/Libya-New-leader-Mustafa-Abde...

Amnesty urges Libya to tackle the "stain" of detainee abuse
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15284264

No room for Jews in the "new" Libya
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=241109

Banned speech: Hillel Neuer takes on the UN Human Rights Council
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhWgZu6tcZU

Israel's critical security needs for a viable peace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWmPqY8TE0

(h/t Sophie, Ian)

"Moderate" Palestinian Arab leaders pay homage to a master terrorist

Today, for the occasion of Eid al Adha, major PA leaders went to the gravesite of Yasir Arafat and put flowers and garlands on his grave.

They included Western darlings Mahmoud Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad.

Abbas said that he hopes that next year he can hold this ceremony in Jerusalem under an independent "Palestine."

Abbas, it will be remembered, has shown no more flexibility towards peace in the past seven years since Arafat's death than Arafat, the architect of modern terrorism, ever showed in his lifetime.

It will also be remembered that one of Abbas' promises is to move the gravesite of this syphilitic, genocidal, anti-semitic symbol of hate in the heart of the eternal Jewish capital of Jerusalem.

Flotidiots, as always, allege IDF brutality (updated)

The penultimate scene from Ziophobic Moonbat Theatre, from an ISM email:

Greek captain of the Tahrir Giorgos Klontzas has confirmed the use of violence on him by the israeli soldiers during his interrogation in a interview he gave to www.Omniatv.com

He specifically reports that he was handcuffed on hands and feet , very tightly which created a blood circulation problem and that in order to make him give his fingerprints he was held by three soldiers and one was holding him in a strangling way almost suffocating him.

At one point they stuck two fingers in his eyes creating very strong pain. He said that he was very calm, he did not speak aggressively and that he just requested to see a lawyer... He also confirms that some activists were very badly treated.

Imagine that. Handcuffs not lined with fur and soldiers who didn't say "pretty please".

Oh, and by the way, from Bloomberg News:

Medea Benjamin, one of the flotilla organizers, told reporters in a teleconference. There was no violence during the boarding and the activists offered no resistance, she said.

The final scene from the theater comes when the "survivors" go on their speaking tours embellishing their heroism and bravery.
(h/t Israel Awareness)

Terrorists love the Arab Spring

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh spoke poetically about the so-called "Arab Spring" at a mosque today during a sermon on the occasion of this week's Islamic holiday.

After taking credit yet again for the Shalit prisoner swap, the terror leader said that the Arab nation must pursue three goals: to get rid of the rest of the despotic regimes to open the way to what he calls "civilization," to work to be free from dependence on the East or West, and to work to liberate the rest of the "stolen" Islamic lands stolen, particularly Palestine and Jerusalem.

You don't have to read much between the lines to understand that the "despotic regimes" he is referring not only to Syria but also to include Jordan and Morocco and whatever is left that is secular in Lebanon; that "civilization" means radical Islamism; and that "stolen Islamic lands" also includes much of Spain.

It's beginning to look a lot like Winter....

Vacation open thread

Today was pretty much the only real vacation day Mrs. Elder and I have had all year.

Here is sunrise over the Atlantic this morning:

Have a great weekend!

Flotidiots lied, no humanitarian aid. What a surprise.

From YNet:

Navy forces boarded two vessels attempting to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip on Friday and towed them to the Ashdod port in Israel. All 27 pro-Palestinian activists onboard the ships will be transferred over to the police and Immigration Authority and later expected to be expelled from the country.

IDF officials remarked that they did not find any weapons or humanitarian aid onboard the ship. The troops boarded the vessels without any resistance and no one was hurt, the military said.

Since the flotidiots have always vastly exaggerated their "humanitarian" cargo, this is no surprise.

It is a spectacularly boring story.

Latest Latma

Didn't have a chance to watch it yet, but here it is.

The burqa mermaids

From ANSAMed:

The shapes of the mermaids that embellish the fountain of Zeus in the centre of Alexandria have been deemed "inappropriate" by the Salafist Al Nour (Light) party, which decided to "veil" them completely with a sheet during a meeting yesterday evening.

The incident, which was reported by the website of the Al Masri Al Youm newspaper, has unleashed a wave of comment and disbelief on Twitter, where the paper posted pictures "before and after the niqab" of the fountain of the sirens, upon which an enormous placard carries the words: "Egyptian women devote themselves to their husbands and their nation".

Political leaders of the party, which is at the head of a coalition of Islamist parties that will stand in the forthcoming Egyptian elections from November 28, had recently announced that they were against the statues, deeming them contrary to Islamic tradition, the newspaper reports. "Covering a statue of sirens will certainly lead us to Paradise. I can't wait," was the ironic reaction of one Twitter user.

Here's the before and after picture (right to left :) )

(h/t jzaik)

An implicit threat by the PA

From Reuters:

The Palestinians will not accept anything less than full U.N. membership and do not want an upgrade to an observer state in the world body, their foreign minister said on Thursday.

Riyad al-Malki's remarks suggested the Palestinians would not seek such an upgrade once their bid for full state membership meets its widely expected fate -- failure due to opposition from the United States and other governments.

"We do not want, after all of these struggles, sacrifices, and efforts by the entire Palestinian people, to accept an observer state in the United Nations. We will not accept less than we deserve: a full member state," he said.

Now, what exactly does that mean?

When a person says that something is unacceptable, there is an implied "or else" clause. It implies that Palestinian Arabs, who frame themselves as having nothing they can bargain with, will do something that will make people regret a decision of not giving them their full demands if they do not get what they want.

What is the "or else"?

Or else they will dissolve the PA? They will start a new intifada? They will ask Iran to start a war on their behalf? They will go back to their 1970s heyday of international airline terror? They will write nasty op-eds in Al Jazeera? Mahmoud Abbas will resign?

For a people who claim they are so desperate, they have no problem speaking as if they hold all the cards. There is a very real contradiction between their twin public positions of "we are helpless" and "you better do what we demand."

What is the implied leverage that Mahmoud Abbas has on the world to act like a mafioso?

Of course, Reuters being Reuters, rather than ask the natural follow up question "or else what?" they find some self-proclaimed "expert" to minimize the threat:

"This reads like a tactical move," said George Giacaman, a political analyst. "It could be directed toward the Americans, the Israelis, to show flexibility, but I would not view it as a final position."

What Reuters doesn't say is that Giacaman is at Bir Zeit University.

Blame Israel! (video)

An entertaining video that should be up for consideration in the Hasby Awards, from The Land of Israel.com:

(h/t jzaik)

Overnight open thread

I'm still traveling and very busy. Things will still be slow on the blog through the weekend.

So here's another awesome and thrilling open thread!

Airbrushing history (poster)

A poster based on this post.

The same series of stamps included Jewish and Christian shrines, as the British tried to make them as even-handed as possible. But you will have to look long and hard to find any Palestinian Arab textbook that includes, say, this stamp from the same time period:

Oh, sorry, I forgot: for the past few years the Palestinian Arabs have pretended that Rachel's Tomb is a mosque, not a Jewish holy site.

And the guardians of culture and history at UNESCO have enthusiastically supported this complete fabrication of history.

Sinai is now a huge arms market

This article is subscriber-only from the GeoStrategy Direct page, but here it is via Posterous:

Collapse in Libya, Yemen transforms Sinai into major arms market
TEL AVIV - Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has turned into a huge weapons market. Officials said a range of weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, could be acquired cheaply. "If you want to buy today a mortar or a machine gun or even a MANPAD [man-portable, air defense system] all you need is a few dollars and you get it," Israeli government counter-insurgency adviser Nitzan Nuriel said.

Nuriel said weapons have flooded Sinai from neighboring Libya as well as Yemen. He said the arms have been used to establish an Al Qaida presence meant to attack Israeli and Western interests in the region.

"The level of the threat is much more dramatic than it was a year ago," Nuriel, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, said.

Western officials agreed. They said Al Qaida has been bolstered by both Bedouins as well as hundreds of Islamist insurgents who escaped prison during the revolt against the regime of President Hosni Mubarak in February.

"The common wisdom is that Al Qaida has been weakened by the Arab Spring when you make a global assessment, on an ideological basis," Lorenzo Vidino, a researcher at Switzerland's Center for Security Studies, said. "But I would have to concur that on a tactical level they have benefited in places like the Sinai."

The officials, who attended a conference by Israel's Institute for Counter-Terrorism in September, said their assessment was shared by new military regime in Egypt. They said the Egyptian military was concerned over the power vacuum in Sinai amid the collapse of Mubarak's security forces.

"They left spaces where there is no government authority and it is pretty hard for us to know what is going on," Dutch Foreign Ministry counter-insurgency director Frank Van Beuningen said.

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon asserted that Iran was helping the insurgency network in Sinai. Ya'alon said Teheran was preparing for the fall of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and wanted to bolster other proxies in the region.

"Realizing that Assad's regime might not last for a long time they are already busy developing alternative channels to deliver arms to their allies," Ya'alon said. "They consider these surrogates not only as a tool for threatening Israel on a daily basis but also an integral component in their effort to deter Israel and the free world from taking harsher measures to make sure that they don't have the capability to develop nuclear weapons."

Israel has already approved an Egyptian plan to deploy thousands of soldiers, special forces as well as hundreds of main battle tanks in Sinai. But officials said Egypt has not shown the determination to eliminate Al Qaida and other insurgents.

"International cooperation can reduce the threat a little bit," Nuriel said. "At the end of the day you need strong response forces along the borders."

Iran says it will deploy ships in Atlantic Ocean

Lately there has been a lot of chatter about possible Israeli, or even UK and US, actions against Iran's nuclear program. I don't like reporting on rumors; there are reasons to be skeptical and there are plenty of others who are discussing this, not the least the Israeli media.

Beyond that, an Israeli missile test has been framed as a provocative act meant to send a message to Iran.

However, among all the arguments about whether Israel is being reckless and irresponsible, no one is noticing that Iran has ratcheted up tensions on their own - and the media ignored it.

From Tehran Times:

Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi confirmed on Monday that Iran plans to deploy naval vessels in the Atlantic Ocean.

“The Navy has a strong presence in the Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf, Sea of Oman, Indian Ocean and international waters and soon it will be present in the Atlantic Ocean,” Vahidi said as he visited the manufacturing of a destroyer in Anzali port on the coasts of the Caspian Sea.

From PressTV:

Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari says Iran will seeks to increase presence in international waters is in accordance with international law.

International waters belong to all countries and Iran's naval presence in the waters is in compliance with the international law, said Sayyari on Monday.

The commander pointed to the Iranian Navy's three-year presence in international waters and said that Iran's 16th fleet of warships is currently present in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, IRNA reported.

On October 9, the fleet of warships, which includes the domestically-built Jamaran destroyer and the Bandar Abbas frigate, left for the Gulf of Aden in line with efforts to provide security for Iranian trade vessels in the pirate-infested area.

Sayyari emphasized that as stated by the commander-in-chief, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Iran has no intention of carrying out acts of aggression against any country and Iranian naval presence in international waters displays the might of the nation.

He highlighted the significance of Iran's naval presence to provide food, energy and sea trade security and said it would prepare the grounds for the country's development.

The Iranian commander questioned US presence in the region and stressed that regional countries are fully capable of establishing regional security.

Sayyari's remarks came as Iran's domestically-manufactured Jamaran destroyer docked at Oman's port of Salalah on Monday.

Sending ships to NATO territory? Sure sounds like a provocation.

(h/t Yoel)

Sorry, Al Jazeera, I won't join your program

One of the weird consequences of running a popular blog is that I get emails that are, um, interesting.

A couple of days ago Al Jazeera English asked me to record a short video message about my opinions on the lightweight Assad interview at the Telegraph.

I am writing as we are doing a report on the protests in Syria and the media angle to this story. One angle we want to look at is President Assad's interview with the British newspaper the Sunday Telegraph.

During one part of our report we open up the floor to people who may have an opinion on the report we are working on. These people are called our Global Village Voices. I came across your blog online and your knowledge of the subject would strengthen the analysis of our report. I am writing to see if you would be interested in recording a comment for us for our show.

If so, you could consider one of the questions below to help you frame your answer:

1) President Assad hasn't been talking to Western media, but he broke that rule when he gave an interview to the Sunday Telegraph. What was the significance of the interview and Assad's message?

2) What has the Syrian government's media strategy been like? How has it evolved through the protests in the country?

3) How effective has the campaign of repression against Syrian media activists been?

Alternatively, feel free to formulate your own statement, our only request is that you stay to the media angle of the story. All you would need to do is a record a 30-40 second video clip of your answers.

The downside is that I would throw away my anonymity for 30 seconds of quasi-fame that would help an anti-Israel propaganda channel.

On the other hand, I could end up getting a few new readers - the types that watch Al Jazeera to begin with.

What a dilemma!