Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, November 11, 2011

Cars torched in anti-semitic Kristallnacht arson in Brooklyn

There’s shock and outrage in Brooklyn today after several cars were torched and numerous pieces of anti-Semitic vandalism took place in Midwood.

The incident was discovered at around 5 a.m., when residents awoke to see cars burning.

At least three cars were set ablaze and dozens of pieces of anti-Semitic graffiti were plastered along benches. The cars were damaged and the benches vandalized along Ocean Parkway between Avenues I and J. Among the vandalism: “KKK” scrawled nearby, as well as numerous swastikas.

“People are nervous, people are concerned,” Assemblyman Dov Hikind said. “The police are putting extra manpower into the community at synagogues and all over.”

The incident occurred on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, when Hitler’s Nazi’s launched a pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria.

“I’m used to swastikas, but three cars destroyed is a whole new dimension,” said Hikind. “Three cars completely destroyed as if someone had dropped them bomb on them is just a real tragedy.”

UPDATE 1/11/12: It might have been an elaborate insurance scam.

Latin Americans for Israel - a lot of them

From Daylife/Reuters:

Members of the movement, "Raise your voice: Peace in Holy Land", holds up a sign during a rally against the creation of a Palestinian state by unilateral decree in Tegucigalpa, November 10, 2011. The sign (C) reads, "No to the division of the State of Israel".

Who is behind this?

"Raise your Voice: Peace in the Holy Land" has a video (Spanish with English subtitles) that provides an answer:

The website for Paza en Tierra Santa is impressive - tens of thousands of people have shown their support, and it includes much of Latin America as well as Spain in its activities.

The person behind it, Dr. William Soto, last year presented a petition for the release of Gilad Shalit that contained half a million signatures!

Popular, grassroots support for Israel is not only found in the US and Canada, but also among Christians in Latin America. So much so that last year a cheesy Spanish-language music video singing the praises of Israel became a bona-fide hit, with millions of views.

There should be more publicity for this, as well as cooperation between this organization and English-language pro-Israel groups.

Nephew admits he can't prove Arafat was poisoned

I mentioned yesterday that Yasser Arafat's nephew and former "foreign minister" Nasser al Kidwa has been a broken record for years - always saying he was on the verge of proving Arafat was poisoned by Israel, and promising to be able to prove it Any Day Now.

He promised that he would release the French medical report translated to Arabic, and somehow this was considered news.

Nasser al Kidwa

Al-Qudwa says the report will answer "many questions," as it is the Palestinian people's right to get a clear answer about how Arafat died. The document has not previously been seen in Arabic.

The report by French doctors describes a platelet disorder and speculates on its cause, al-Qudwa says. The doctors ruled out cancer and an acute infection, he told Ma'an.

A third possibility was poisoning, al-Qudwa says, but the records show that doctors were unable to conclusively determine what poison, if any, was in Arafat's system.

"We have said that it is poisoning," he hinted.

There are many conditions that result in low platelet counts - including AIDS.

Anyway, this "news" - and Kidwa's allegations - are a bit old. From the New York Times, November 23, 2004:

Yasser Arafat's death remained a mystery Monday when his nephew said he could not rule out that the Palestinian leader had been poisoned.

Two hours after receiving his uncle's medical records, 558 pages long, from the French authorities, Nasser al-Kidwa told reporters that according to the files no trace of any known poison had been found in Arafat's body.

But he insisted that a "question mark" remained over the exact cause of Arafat's death Nov. 11 in Paris and was likely to remain for some time.

"We don't have proof that it was a case of poisoning, and we don't have proof that it wasn't," Kidwa, the Palestinian envoy at the United Nations, said at a news conference in the French capital.

While he stressed that Palestinian officials trusted the French doctors who treated Arafat during his last 12 days and accepted that toxicology tests ruled out any known poisons, Kidwa refused to exclude the possibility that other, unknown substances played a role in Arafat's death.

"I am not asserting anything, but we are not in a position to exclude anything," he said.

This is in contrast to comments from the Palestinian foreign minister, Nabil Shaath, who said the night before Arafat died at the Percy Military Training Hospital outside Paris that doctors had ruled out poisoning "completely."

Kidwa said the truth about Arafat's death was not just a matter for one person or one family, but for all Palestinians.

"The Palestinian people have the right to know," he said, pledging to share the medical report with the Palestinian leadership "as soon as possible."

When Arafat arrived in France for treatment at the end of October, his aides disclosed that he had a low count of platelets, which aid blood clotting, and a high count of white blood cells. They later revealed that the Palestinian leader suffered a brain hemorrhage that sent him into a coma.

Medical experts say the low platelet count makes hemorrhages more likely, but it is unclear what condition caused Arafat's platelet count to be low in the first place. A wide range of illnesses, from cancer to liver disease, could be consistent with such a condition.

And today, even with all the press rehashing things we knew for seven years, Palestine Todayreports:

Kidwa said during a ceremony last night to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the death of Arafat, "We renew our conviction of the responsibility of" Israel "for poisoning Arafat, but we recognize we have failed to get a definitive answer."

So expect to see identical news stories next year, and the year after....

Egypt closes Pyramids in fear of Jewish Masonic numerology plot

Just - wow:

Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) closed the Great Pyramids on Friday after protesters said various groups, among them Jews, planned to attend a numerologist ceremony on the Giza Plateau.

Egyptian media reported that some Egyptians feared that the event would be used by Jewish Masons to reclaim the Pyramids as ancient Hebrew structures, denying Egyptians their claim to the pharaonic monuments.

One SCA employee claimed that a crew of 1,200 Jews were planning to attend the event, crowning the mightiest of the three structures with a Star of David in order to assert the claim that Jewish slaves built the pyramids, and not the ancient Egyptians, Egyptian daily Al Ahram reported.

Former SCA Secretary General Abdel Halim Noureddin told Al Ahram Jewish Masons have been trying to cap the Great Pyramid since 1931 with the Jewish emblem, so this instance should not be surprising.

According to a report from British daily the Telegraph, a Polish numerologist group had, in fact, received permission from the Egyptian government to hold a ceremony at the pyramids in order to protect the world from "cosmic forces" aimed at destroying Earth next year.

The resulting commotion surrounding the event, including the attendance of Jewish Masons, pushed the SCA to cancel the event, called the "Ceremony of Love."

I really have to start a new site just to feed wild rumors to the Arab press. Who needs an air force- we can get them to do whatever we want by just planting a few well-chosen stories.

(h/t Amiyena)

Palestine Today reports about how Gaza terrorists are unanimous in their anger at Israel for threatening Iran's nuclear program.

A Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, called the threats a "Zionist orgy" taking place with no international criticism.

He re-affirmed that "the Zionist occupation and their threats are the real reason for the instability and chaos in the region and the entire Middle East."

Islamic Jihad's Sheikh Nafez Azzam said that it was a form of bullying and that Israel is holding world peace hostage with its actions.

The PFLP's Kayed al-Ghoul said that "Zionist threats prove once again that the [Zionist] colonial project is intended to provide support of capitalism in the region, and to keep the Muslim nations under control in order to plunder their resources. These threats prove that the so-called statelet (Israel) is a tool of the U.S. administration in the region." He also said that Israel aims to punish Iran for its support for the resistance forces in Gaza and Lebanon.

If these exact words were chanted by the "human microphones" at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations - no one would blink.

UNESCO complains about an Israeli editorial cartoon

UNESCO has made a formal complaint to Israel - about an editorial cartoon in Ha'aretz!

Israel's ambassador to UNESCO didn't know whether to laugh or cry when a senior official at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization called him in for a tongue-lashing on Wednesday. The reason? A cartoon published in Haaretz.

The November 4 cartoon, a riff on the government's anger at UNESCO's decision to accept Palestine as a full member, showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak sending an air force squadron to attack Iran, with Netanyahu ordering, "And on your way back, you're gonna hit the UNESCO office in Ramallah!"

When he met with Eric Falt, UNESCO's assistant director general for external relations and public information, Ambassador Nimrod Barkan was stunned to be handed a copy of this cartoon and an official letter of protest from UNESCO's director general, Irina Bokova. Falt told Barkan the cartoon constituted incitement.

"A cartoon like this endangers the lives of unarmed diplomats, and you have an obligation to protect them," Falt said, according to an Israeli source. "We understand that there is freedom of the press in Israel, but the government must prevent attacks on UNESCO."

Barkan pointed out that the government has no control over editorial cartoons printed in the papers. "Ask yourselves what you did to make a moderate paper with a deeply internationalist bent publish such a cartoon," he suggested. "Perhaps the problem is with you."

After Barkan reported the conversation to the Foreign Ministry, it cabled back: "What exactly does UNESCO want of us - to send our fine boys to protect UNESCO's staff, or to shut down the paper? It seems your work environment is getting more and more reminiscent of 'Animal Farm.'"

I could be wrong, but I interpreted the cartoon as being against striking Iran by pointing out the absurdity of an airstrike on UNESCO "on the way back" - meaning it is the exact opposite of incitement. Or perhaps the cartoonist was against what he felt was Israel's disproportionate reaction to UNESCO accepting "Palestine" as a member.

Either way, it appears that the Islamic-dominated UNESCO is teaching that organization how to properly react to cartoons that they find distasteful.

Another possibility is that now that UNESCO is now including Hamas as part of the "unity" Palestinian Arab delegation, perhaps they think that since at least one of their members has no problem attacking UN facilities when it serves their purposes, all of their members must be the same.

You know, equality.

Or maybe now that UNESCO is hurting financially,they just want some free security provided by Israel.

Egyptians say that gas pipeline bombs came from...Israel!

Egypt's Rose el-Youssef newspaper is reporting that Egyptian security sources are linking the latest gas pipeline bomb to a fugitive Egyptian businessman who had strong ties with Israel before the Egyptian revolution.

Hussein Salem is co-owner of the East Mediterranean Gas Company and was a close friend of Mubarak. He helped broker the agreement to sell gas to Israel and is not a popular person in Egypt because of that. He is being tried in abstentia for siphoning off billions in the deal. He is currently being held in Spain.

Nevertheless, Egyptian security sources have spun a theory where Salem instructed his people to sabotage the gas line so he can sue Egypt and recover the millions of dollars he loses for not being able to send gas to Israel. Salem's Israeli business partner, Yossi Meiman, is said to be involved in the scheme where the sophisticated explosives came from Israel, presumably smuggled over the border by Israeli Bedouin.

Hamas confirms this theory, telling Egyptian security officials that they do not have the type of explosives that were used in the bombing, and saying it must have come from Israel.

Well, there you have it!

Who wants peace? And who doesn't? (video)

A good one:

Gaza children have really crappy amusement parks

Gaza children celebrated Eid al Adha in an amusement park in Gaza City - but they didn't look happy about it.

They know that their amusement parks aren't nearly as good as Disney World or Six Flags. So while their parents try hard to buy them cheap toys to make them happy, they know, deep down, that their amusement parks are really crappy.

Flotillas are desperately needed to bring decent roller coasters, log flumes and teacup rides to the impoverished sector. Otherwise, Gaza children are forced to take junky rides like this one.

This is what an open-air prison amusement park looks like, and it isn't pretty.

But you must force yourself to look at the horror and see what the reality is for Gaza children - every day.

Call Viva Palestina, ISM and Free Gaza to ask how you can help improve Gaza's amusement parks. Because, otherwise, it is a crime against humanity.

And if anyone gets killed because a ride is not maintained properly, it is a slow genocide against all Gaza kids.

Iranian anti-semitic film trailer - translated

I mentioned earlier this week an anti-semitic Iranian film, and uploaded the trailer to YouTube.

MEMRI now has a translation, and it is even worse than it appeared.

Title: "Saturday Hunter"

Woman: I am Jacqueline, your beautiful nurse.

Cut to another scene

Rabbi Hanan to grandson Benjamin: You should be grateful to God that He did not create us as women.

Cut to another scene

Rabbi Hanan to woman: In order to fend off immorality, I hereby purify this woman.

Cut to another scene

Rabbi Hanan: This is the rule of Hanan.

Cut to another scene

Rabbi Hanan: Marry me.

Woman: I can't.

Rabbi Hanan: I will buy you God's paradise for all eternity.

God, shave all our sins away from our skins and our bones.

Woman: But I am a Christian. I don't understand the Jews.

Rabbi Hanan: We don't insist on religious women.

Cut to another scene

Title: "Saturday Hunter"

Rabbi Hanan to Arab: We are the children of Abraham. Now, who are you?

Cut to another scene

Benjamin: In the Holy Book it is written that killing is forbidden.

Rabbi Hanan: You idiot, the killing of Jews is forbidden.

We seek peace.

Footage of battlefield

We are civilized people

Footage of battlefield

This is war, you infidels. Don't you get it? It's war.

Footage of battlefield

The whole world is waiting for you in silence.

Benjamin: Oh, God!

Rabbi Hanan: God waits for you in silence as well.

Footage of battlefield

Rabbi Hanan: You must not betray the Jews.

Palestinian: I never want to taste failure or humiliation.

There is nowhere for you to flee. They will kill you.

Cut to another scene

Rabbi Hanan: Never reveal your inner thoughts to anyone.

Israeli contributions to US national interests

From Tablet:

Many foreign-policy experts, even as they acknowledge that the United States has a moral responsibility to stand with the sole democracy in the Middle East, argue that Israel is a strategic liability. Robert Blackwill, a high-level diplomat in Republican administrations and a self-described Kissingerian realist, is someone who you’d safely assume shares that view. But Blackwill wanted to see if that way of looking at things was actually true.

Along with Walter B. Slocombe, who served as undersecretary of Defense for Policy under President Bill Clinton, Blackwill detailed his findings in a paper just published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Israel: A Strategic Asset for the United States” argues that the United States not only shares national interests with the Jewish state—like preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and combating terrorism—but also reaps numerous advantages from the alliance.

The paper offers chapter and verse on Israeli contributions to the U.S. national interest. They include: Israeli counter-proliferation efforts, such as the 1981 bombing of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility and the 2007 attack on Syria’s secret nuclear facility at al-Kibar; joint military training exercises, as well as exchanges on military doctrine; Israeli technology, like unmanned aerial systems, armored vehicle protection, defense against short-range rocket threats, and robotics; missile defense cooperation; counterterrorism and intelligence cooperation; and cyber defense. Blackwill and Slocombe conclude that the alliance is in fact so central to U.S. national interests that U.S. policymakers should find ways to further enhance cooperation with Jerusalem.

Blackwill and Slocombe’s detailed list is a unique event in the ongoing U.S. policy debate over the advisability of this bilateral relationship. Blackwill says that for all the media attention devoted to Israel, he and Slocombe were surprised to find no comprehensive account of Israel’s contribution to the U.S. national interest existed previously. “I figured I’ll just Google it,” he told me this week over the phone. “But there was no existing encompassing list. So, we went item by item, making sure we had the facts straight. We didn’t exaggerate or overstate the contribution.”

The authors gave a presentation about the paper at the Washington Institute on Tuesday:

The paper itself can be seen here. Followng is the main part, that actually lists Israeli contributions to the US:

Through joint training and exercises as well as exchanges on military doctrine, the United States has benefited in the areas of counterterrorism cooperation, tactical intelligence, and experience in urban warfare. The largest-ever U.S.-Israel joint exercise is scheduled for spring 2012.

Israeli technology promotes American interests. Increasingly, U.S. homeland security and military agencies are turning to Israeli technology to solve some of their most vexing technical problems. This support ranges from advice and expertise on behavioral screening techniques for airport security to acquiring an Israeli-produced tactical radar system to enhance force protection. Israel has been a world leader in the development of unmanned aerial systems, for both intelligence collection and combat, and it has shared with the U.S. military the technology, the doctrine, and its experience regarding these systems. Israel is also a global pacesetter in active measures for armored vehicle protection, defense against short-range rocket threats, and the techniques and procedures of robotics, all of which it has shared with the United States..

In the vital realm of missile defense cooperation, the United States has a broad and multifaceted relationship with Israel, its most sophisticated and experienced partner in this preeminent domain for the United States. Israel’s national missile defenses—including the U.S. deployment in Israel of an advanced X-band radar system and the more than 100 American military personnel who man it—will be an integral part of a larger missile defense architecture spanning Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Persian Gulf that will help protect U.S. forces and allies throughout this vast area. For this reason, the director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency recently praised the specific contribution that Israel’s integrated, multilayered command-and-control network makes to the U.S. military’s ability to defend against the Iranian missile threat..

While it is certainly true that Israel gains significantly from generous U.S. financial assistance to its military—most of it spent in America—Israel’s defense industries have certain unique competencies that benefit the United States. One result is the growing importance to the U.S. military of Israeli defense goods, as the United States has taken advantage of access to unique Israeli capabilities in key “niche” areas of military technology. Overall, the value of annual U.S. purchases of Israeli defense articles has increased steadily over the past decade, from less than a half billion dollars in the early 2000s to about $1.5 billion today. Among the Israelideveloped defense equipment used by the U.S. military are short-range unmanned aircraft systems that have seen service in Iraq and Afghanistan; targeting pods on hundreds of Air Force, Navy, and Marine strike aircraft; a revolutionary helmet-mounted sight that is standard in nearly all frontline Air Force and Navy fighter aircraft; lifesaving armor installed in thousands of MRAP armored vehicles used in Iraq and Afghanistan; and a gun system for close-in defense of naval vessels against terrorist dinghies and small-boat swarms. Moreover, American and Israeli companies are working together to jointly produce Israel’s Iron Dome—the world’s first combat-proven counter-rocket system..

Counterterrorism and intelligence cooperation is deep and extensive, with the United States and Israel working to advance their common interest in defeating the terrorism of Hamas, Hizballah, and al-Qaeda and its affiliate groups by sharing information, supporting preventive actions, deterring challenges, and coordinating overall strategy. Joint Special Forces training and exercises, collaboration on shared targets, and close cooperation among the relevant U.S. and Israeli security agencies testify to the value of this relationship..

More broadly, Israel is a full partner in intelligence operations that benefit both countries, such as efforts to interdict the supply of parts to Iran’s nuclear program or to prevent weapons smuggling in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. This intimate relationship reinforces overall U.S. intelligence efforts by providing Washington with access to Israel’s unique set of capabilities for collection and assessments on key countries and issues in the region, since Israel is able to focus resources and attention on certain targets of central importance to the United States. Such was the case, for example, when Israel passed to the United States conclusive photographic evidence that Syria, with North Korean assistance, had made enormous strides toward “going hot” with a plutoniumproducing reactor. As Israel’s strategic intelligence collection capabilities (e.g., satellite and unmanned aerial systems) mature and improve, this cooperation and exchange of intelligence information and analysis will increasingly serve U.S. national interests..

Given that Iran and its allies in the greater Middle East represent clear and present dangers to U.S. interests, Israel’s military—the most powerful in the region—plays an important role in addressing those threats posed especially by Syria, Hizballah, and to some extent, Iran itself. The ability of the Israeli armed forces to deter the military ambitions of destabilizing regional actors promotes American national interests because it presents our common enemies with an additional— and potent—military capability to resist their aggression..

Looking to the future, Israel’s world-class expertise in two cutting-edge areas of national security—cyber defense and national resilience planning and implementation—will increasingly redound to the benefit of the United States. Israel is a primary place where the United States can build an enduring partnership to try to secure the cyber commons, as enunciated in the administration’s International Strategy for Cyberspace. With its world-class information technology, R&D, and cybersecurity capabilities, Israel will be an ever more important player in efforts to secure cyberspace and to protect critical U.S. national infrastructure from cyberattack. Through the Israel-based activities of major U.S. companies or the licensing in the United States of Israeli technologies, Israel’s excellence in cybersecurity already benefits critical U.S. infrastructure such as banking, communications, utilities, transportation, and general Internet connectivity. And if security concerns of both parties can be managed, Israel can become a major partner in efforts to exploit the military applications of cyberpower, in the same way that the two countries have established collaborative relationships in intelligence and counterterrorism. Finally, drawing on its experience in building a flourishing economy and vibrant democracy despite decades of conflict and terrorism, Israel has a role to play in helping the United States deepen its own internal resilience in dealing with terrorist threats against the homeland and the impact of natural disasters..

Ha'aretz outdoes itself

In the middle of an otherwise fairly straightforward news article about Israel releasing female prisoners, Ha'aretz illustrates the story - and captions the photo - this way:

How objective Ha'aretz is!

UPDATE: The inevitable, silent correction:

(h/t DF)

UPDATE 2: Apparently, the first version was the illustration to the ridiculous Alon Idan article in October. Ha'aretz simply grabbed the graphic and caption for use in this article.

Interestingly, when they changed it, that same caption changed in the original article as well - so now an article written a few days after the swap has a caption saying "last month." I guess Ha'aretz' database of photos is hard-coded with their captions. (h/t StamEhad in the comments)

Ambition: Undecided

Here is the yearbook picture of Natie Finkel, who graduated from the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in Chicago in 1960.

He became a rabbi, Nosson Tzvi Finkel, and grew to become the head of the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem where he built it into the largest yeshiva in Israel, with over 6000 students, over the past 21 years.

He passed away this week of a heart attack after a long fight with Parkinson's.

100,000 people attended his funeral.

Not bad for a kid from Chicago who didn't know what he would be doing after high school.

Propaganda from a "Palestinian theologian"

Hudson-NY has an interesting article by Malcolm Love about "Palestinian theologian" Mitri Raheb.

Here are some excerpts:

The "first assumption" of his new way of thinking, he announced, is that "the Bible could not have been written anywhere else but in Palestine." Now, such books as Esther and Revelation explicitly state that they were composed outside the Land of Israel (in Persia and on a Greek island respectively). Is Raheb so ignorant of his Bible?

His second assumption is outrageous, echoing nineteenth century attempts to obscure the Jewish origins of Jesus, which peaked in the "Aryan Christianity" of Nazi Germany. It is that "the Palestinian people and part of the Jewish people are the continuation of the peoples of the land" whereas "Israel represents Rome of the Bible, not the people of the land."

Why? Because "I'm sure if we were to do a DNA test between David, who was a Bethlehemite, and Jesus, born in Bethlehem, and Mitri, born just across the street from where Jesus was born, I'm sure the DNA will show that there is a trace. While, if you put King David, Jesus and Netanyahu, you will get nothing, because Netanyahu comes from an East European tribe who converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages."

Even if Raheb's claims about the ancestry of himself and Binyamin Netanyahu were true, he would be putting them at the service of a shameless racism. But, of course, he also has not the slightest evidence to support those claims. He knows nothing of Netanyahu's ancestry. And he himself, for all he knows, may be descended from Greek pilgrims or from Europeans who arrived with the Crusaders, as I have pointed out elsewhere. As for DNA, had he taken the trouble, Raheb could have found that genetic studies on Jews have shown that European Jews are genetically much more closely related to Jews in the Middle East, and even to some non-Jews there, than to non-Jewish Europeans.

Recall that the leitmotif of "Christ at the Checkpoint" was the claim that today Israeli checkpoints would prevent Joseph, Mary and Jesus from ever getting to Bethlehem. In fact, of course, if today a Jewish couple expecting their first child tried to set up house in Bethlehem, they would be denounced by the UN, the US State Department and all the world's foreign ministries as illegal settlers. And Mary would be lucky to live long enough to give birth.

So here comes Raheb to the rescue. As Yasser Arafat liked to say, Jesus and Mary were not Jews but Palestinians; so no problem. "And being born just across the street from where Jesus was born," adds Raheb, "I always loved to say that most probably one of my grand, grand, grand, grandmas used to babysit for Jesus." Once again, Raheb displays ignorance of or contempt for his Bible. According to Matthew's Gospel, the Holy Family fled Bethlehem for Egypt shortly after the birth of Jesus. If anyone babysat for Jesus, it was Copts.

We need not pursue further Raheb's "new thinking" except to note its fundamental aim: to show that wherever the Bible talks about a Chosen People, it means today's Palestinians and specifically the Palestinian Arab Christians. Yes, he really means to make that preposterous claim. Consider a few quotations, and note that his initial inclusion of "part of the Jewish people" has vanished: now it is just Palestinians.

"Actually, the Palestinian Christians are the only ones in the world that, when they speak about their forefathers, they mean their actual forefathers, and also the forefathers in the faith." "So, that is the reality of the peoples of the land. Again, they aren't Israel. This experience I'm talking about, it's only the Palestinians who understand this, because Israel represents Rome." "It was our forefathers to whom the revelation was given..."

If one reads attentively all the "Palestinian theology" produced by Raheb and Ateek and their like, one finds that this claim about Palestinian chosenness, with the concomitant disqualification of Israel, is the whole point of the exercise. All the rest is baseless rigmarole, churned out in the attempt to get to that conclusion.

I didn't know it was so easy to make up theologies. Good to know. Maybe I'll make one up where Palestinian Arabs are really Philistines and quote liberally from Samuel I 7.

Iran ups the ante

FARS news reports that a senior Iranian official is threatening World War III if Iran is attacked:

Responding to a question about Iran's capability to target Dimona nuclear facility in the occupied Palestinian territories, Iranian Armed Forces Deputy Chief of Staff for Cultural Affairs and Defense Publicity Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri told Al Alam News Network that the center "is the most accessible center to Iran", and stressed that Iran enjoys the capability even to target areas farther the nuclear plant.

As regards a possible US or Israeli military aggression against Iran, Jazayeri underscored, "Our capabilities and our defensive tactics will definitely make the enemies, including the US and the Zionists, repent (their action)."

"The US or any other regime may initiate a war, but definitely they will not be the side who ends it," he underlined, and stated, "Iran can manage any military move."

Last night, a senior member of the Iranian Parliament's National Security Commission warned that Israel would find itself in war with Iran in Tel Aviv streets if it dared to attack the Islamic Republic.

"Israel is not in the size to launch a military strike on Iran, but if it takes such a foolish action, the Iranian militaries will fight with the Zionist soldiers in Tel Aviv streets and will force them out of the Palestinian soil," member of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Seyed Hossein Naqavi told FNA on Tuesday.

Naqavi also warned that in case Iran comes under a military attack, the battlefield won't be Iran, but "the entire Europe and the US".

"Iranian forces will fight with the enemies with maximum might and power all throughout the European and US soil, if Iran comes under attack," he reiterated.

And Iran's Supreme Leader says that Iran will attack even if it feels threatened:

Iran “will respond with full force” to any attack − or even any threat of military action − the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told students at a Tehran military college Thursday.

“The enemies, especially America and its stooges and the Zionist regime (Israel), should know that it is not Iran’s custom to invade any country or nation. But it will respond with full force to any aggression or even threats in a way that will demolish the aggressors from within,” he said, according to a statement on his official website.

Another Iranian "expert" was quoted in PressTV:

He said Israel is more vulnerable in difficult times “because even if Israel fires 100 missiles at Iran it will not even displace a few Iranian families” but four ordinary Iranian missiles are enough to make one million Zionists flee.