Gaza "siege" news

Today, the besieged Gaza Strip received 220 truckloads of aid. It included 13 truckfuls of cement, gravel and iron for construction projects, 40 trucks for UNRWA projects.

In addition, it exported 4.9 tons of strawberries and 6.5 tons of peppers and cherry tomatoes.

Today is typical.

I am fairly certain that if you add together all of the aid sent by Viva Palestina, Miles of Smiles and Free Gaza over the years, they would not equal the amount of aid sent today alone from Israel.

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PA lights Christmas tree in city that is losing its Christians

Ramallah was once a Christian city. It had a clear Christian majority under Ottoman and British rule.

When Jordan annexed the town, though, the demographic balance changed. By 1967 it was roughly half Muslim.

Christians fled from Ramallah in the 1990s as the Muslim population grew.

In February 2002, a spat between a Christian and a Muslim turned into a Muslim attack against many Christian-owned businesses, and the PA did nothing to stop it:

[D]etails were emerging of a rampage of Palestinian Muslims against Christian shops and churches in Ramallah after a road-rage slaying last Thursday.

... [P]olice made no attempt to stop the mob, which besieged and damaged a widely respected youth center associated with the Boy Scouts of America after torching the Christian properties.

Palestinian police and security agencies finally stepped in when the rioters moved on local churches.

"The truth is this is a problem between Christians and Muslims," said one Christian businessman. "There is no security for us. Everyone is taking the law in his own hands....This [accused] man's brother, they burned his house, his shops, his cars, and the police of Ramallah stood by and watched. This is the democracy of Palestine?"

"The chief of security at Kalandia was in charge of this rampage," said a Muslim shopkeeper. "The mayor of Ramallah came, saw what was happening, and withdrew. I am a Muslim, but I condemn this. These are savage people."

Altogether, while Christians used to make up 10% of the Palestinian population, that number has now gone down to as little as one percent.

But even though the Palestinian Authority has a horrendous record of protecting its beleaguered Christian population, they are happy to pretend that everything is OK to the world.

Yesterday, PA prime minister Salam Fayyad participated in the lighting of the Ramallah Christmas tree where notables made speeches about how all Palestinian Arabs love Christmas, how Jesus came from Palestine to establish peace, and how they are still living under the yoke of horrendous Israeli occupation.

I'm sure that the 1% of remaining Christians in the territories feel much better.

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Iran claims to have 3 US, 4 Israeli spy drones

From Tehran Times:

Iran plans to put foreign spy drones it has in its possession on display in the near future, according to an informed source close to the Tehran Times.

National reporters and foreign ambassadors based in Tehran will be allowed to visit the exhibition.

The latest domestically manufactured electronic warfare equipment will also be put on show at the exhibition.

According to the source close to the Tehran Times, the foreign unmanned aircraft that Iran has are four Israeli and three U.S. drones.

The most advanced spy drone in Iran’s possession, which was recently downed, is RQ-170 unmanned U.S. plane, which the Islamic Republic announced on December 4 had been brought down by the country’s armed forces.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in a recent exclusive interview with Fox News, said that the stealth drone campaign along the Iran-Afghanistan border will “absolutely” continue.

A number of countries have reportedly asked for permission to inspect the aircraft.

According to the source, the four Israeli drones that are now in Iran’s possession had violated the country’s airspace along the eastern borders, and the three U.S. unmanned aircraft had penetrated into the country’s airspace along either the eastern or southern border.

In an interview published on January 2, 2011, the commander of the Aerospace Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, announced that the Iranian military forces had brought down two foreign spy planes over the Persian Gulf, not mentioning the exact date and location of the events.

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Hundreds of North Korean nuclear and missile experts in Iran

From the Korea Times, November 13:

Hundreds of North Korean experts involved in the Stalinist regime’s development of nuclear and missile programs are working in major facilities across Iran, a diplomatic source said Sunday.

“We have confirmed that hundreds of North Korean engineers and scientists have been working at more than 10 nuclear and missile sites in Iran through Humint (human intelligence),” the source said. “The collaboration has been taking place for years.”

North Korea has long been suspected of helping the Islamic state with a secret weapons program.

The source said the North Korean experts are from “Office 99,” under the North’s ruling Workers’ Party Munitions Industry Department. The secret bureau is widely believed to be responsible for the Stalinist regime’s exports of weapons and military technology.

In June this year, the Japanese daily Sankei Shimbun reported that Pyongyang dispatched 160 nuclear experts to Iran in an attempt to sell its nuclear and missile-related military technologies.

It claimed that the cash-strapped North was looking to sell its technology to overcome financial difficulties that have worsened since the international community slapped sanctions on it for nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. Since then, arms exports have been one of the major sources of hard currency for the communist North.

The conservative newspaper noted that the North Korean experts were believed to have helped Iran remove a computer virus from its systems at some uranium enrichment facilities and a centrifugal separator.

Last week, the Sankei Shimbun also reported that Tehran and Pyongyang have been jointly operating a secret nuclear research institute in Iran, saying 10 North Korean nuclear weapon scientists are allegedly at the institute to give advice to Iranian physicists.

It went on to say that the institute received “MCNPX2.6.0,” a version of North Korea’s nuclear development software that analyzes the interaction of particles, exposure levels and other factors crucial for the construction of nuclear reactors and warheads.

Iran has thus far denied its military cooperation with the North and insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian energy purposes only.

Some corroboration comes from Michael Ledeen:

The huge detonation at Karaj, which, as I have explained, surprised the attackers and distorted our understanding. The operation was aimed at the Revolutionary Guards Corps, specifically at General Hassan Tehrani Moghadam, who was both the architect of the national missile program and one of the nastiest officials in that legendarily nasty organization. The attackers did not know that there was a large quantity of rocket fuel on the base that day (which was the reason Moghadam was there). The special fuel came from North Korea, and it was supposed to double tne range of Iran’s missiles. The explosion that killed Moghadam and scores of his comrades ignited the rocket fuel, with dramatic results. To date, 377 dead have been reported to the supreme leader’s office. Among the dead are the attackers–they couldn’t escape the big explosion–and at least four North Korean officials, who were there for the celebration.

---

Ledeen's article points out that all of the recent Iranian explosions and other attacks - including some that were not widely reported - seem to have come from insiders, and he doesn't believe yesterday's Al Arabiya story that Khamenei was the target at Karaj either:

The attackers came from the internal opposition, and so far as I know they had no ties to any foreign anything, not a foreign intelligence service, not a foreign military organization, not a foreign government.

Of course, as always with things Iranians, you’ve got to caveat what you think you know. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been misinformed. But, on the other hand, I’ve been a lonely voice for quite a while, saying that the opposition (call it the Green Movement, for lack of an updated logo) would become more violent, that the movement was, if anything, more powerful than it was at the time of the big demonstrations a year and two years ago, and that the regime was full of opposition sympathizers and collaborators.

Because it’s obvious that whoever’s blowing up Iran, they’ve got a lot of help from some very important insiders. Don’t take it from me; ask Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He knows that if his enemies can blow up those installations, they can blow up most anything. Of late, Khamenei hasn’t been particularly active in public events. Like his buddy, Hezbollah chief Nasrullah, he’s keeping his head down and his profile low.

Not that Khamenei has taken vows of solitude and silence. He’s fired several top Revolutionary Guards generals and colonels. Al Arabiya and other lovers of fairy tales would have us believe that Khamenei was the target of the Karaj bombing, and therefore he purged the Guards. But Khamenei wasn’t the target (there was no reason to believe he would attend the ceremony; after all, he didn’t even show up for the inauguration of the Bushehr nuclear plant), and while some of the Guards were indeed fired because of the bombings–they came from the counter-intelligence and “defense” organizations who are supposed to protect such facilities–others were fired because of their involvement in the burgeoning financial scandal. Other “analysts” suggest that Khamenei’s son had joined President Ahmadinejad in trying to kill the old man, but there is nothing to it. Ahmadinejad might well want Khamenei to reach paradise with all due speed, but he wasn’t involved in this affair.

The sources upon whom I rely for such information tell me there is more to come, and I’m sure that the supreme leader believes just that. He may not know the provenance of the army amassed against him and his regime, and he may well convince himself, as our own entrail readers have convinced themselves, that he is under siege from the satanic forces in Washington and Jerusalem. But I don’t believe it. Maybe–probably, even-Stuxnet. I don’t think the Greens are up to that one. Maybe, if you insist, some of the assassinations of the physicists, although I rather suspect they were suspected of disloyalty and were rubbed out by the regime.

But this is a major campaign, and I think it represents the revenge of the Iranian people against their torturers, murderers and oppressors.

(h/t Missing Peace)

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Iran destroys dome design with hundreds of Jewish stars

From YNet:

The Tehran Municipality has demolished the dome in the city's central square on Tuesday due to criticism that the monument featured Stars of David, which are associated with Judaism.

The Iranian news agency Fars reported that "part of the dome in Revolution Square, which resembles the symbol of the Zionist regime, has been destroyed by municipality workers."

According to the report, the ornamental tiling that adorned the dome has been removed, leaving it bare. It is unclear whether the dome is to be overlaid again with more appropriately-themed tiling.

Fars said that the measure was taken due to mounting disapproval of the dome's appearance. A different Iranian website reported that worshipers from a central mosque held a protest march a few days ago, urging the municipality to remove the Jewish symbols.

Here's the dome, in the middle of Revolution Square, before the destruction:

Don't see the stars? Iranian websites help you out:

Ah, there they are. So let's destroy this evil Jewish Zionist symbol.

And what does it look like after we are done eradicating this evil from our midst?

Yes, right now the stars are more obvious than they were before!


But there is another issue here. The Israeli flag does not only have stars - but two straight lines as well!

As all Muslims and Arabs know, those two lines represent the Nile and the Euphrates, showing Israeli expansionist designs. They are just as terrible as the six-pointed star itself. In fact, I have it on good authority that practically every building in every major city in Iran was secretly designed by Zionist engineers to include at least two parallel lines, usually on the outside walls, just to covertly show their supremacy.

Just to play it safe, that Iranians should also destroy all of their structures that include parallel straight lines.

(h/t T34 and someone else I can't find)

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EoZ on your tablet and smartphone!

I just signed up to be a content provider on Google Currents.

Currents is an application that converts newsfeeds into an attractive format where you can read them on iPods, iPhones, iPads and Android devices, on or offline - for free.

From the few minutes I played with Currents, it looks good, although I don't think it automatically updates its editions when I update the blog.

If you want to check it out, just download Google Currents onto your mobile device, search for Elder of Ziyon and add it.

If you like it and want to use it, let me know, or else I won't remember to keep it updated.

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Child terrorists in training at Hamas rally today

Aren't they cute?

(Update - the last photo was from a couple of years ago. I got it from Al Manar in an article about the rally that has since been replaced.)

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Dutch will not ban kosher, halal slaughter of animals

A followup to this April post, from AFP:

Plans requiring animals to be stunned before halaal or kosher slaughter received a blow Wednesday after parties in the Dutch parliament’s Upper House said they would give it the thumbs down.

The majority of parties in the 75-seat Senate indicated during a late-night debate they would vote against amended legislation ─ approved by the Dutch Lower House earlier this year ─ that would see a ban on ritual slaughter without stunning being enforced.

“It still needs to be voted on later this month, but it’s unlikely that it will go through,” said Jurjen Bugel, a spokesman for the Upper House, who said a December 20 “no” would stop the proposed amended legislation in its tracks.

He said the majority of parties, including the ruling coalition Freedom and Democracy party (VVD) and Christian Democratic CDA had said it would not support the amendment.

Dutch law required animals to be stunned before slaughter but made an exception for ritual halaal and kosher slaughters.

In June this year, the Dutch Lower House voted in favor of the amendment proposed by the country’s Party for Animals (PvdD), which holds two seats in the 150-seat parliament.

The Senate’s vote however is the final word on the issue.

The plan drew outrage from both the Dutch Muslim and Jewish communities, whose representatives insisted ritual slaughter respected the animals' welfare and that those doing the slaughtering received expert training.

Although the initiative had been given the red light, Dutch authorities would continue to discuss the issue with Jewish and Muslim communities, Coen Gelinck, the spokesman for Agriculture State Secretary Henk Bleker, told AFP.

“Minister Bleker will continue to talk to these communities to see how the suffering of animals during slaughter can be lessened,” he said.

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Lying Silwan photograph wins award

From Ha'aretz:

A photograph depicting the chairman of an organization dedicated to bolstering Jewish presence in Jerusalem running over two Palestinian children who were hurling stones at him was chosen as the best photograph at the "Local Testimony" 2011 exhibition.

"Local Testimony" is a regional exhibition of photojournalism, running concurrently with the annual "World Press Photo" exhibition that features international press photographers. This year's exhibit is shown at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv.

The winning photo was shot for the French News Agency (AFP ) by Ilia Yefimovich, in October 2010 in Silwan, next to Jerusalem's Old City. The driver, David Be'eri, chairman of Elad Association, a group dedicated to strengthening Jewish settlement in the area, claimed after the photo was published that photographers were part of a Palestinian ambush and that the photo was actually staged.

Yefimovich vehemently denies these claims. "Who staged the photo? It can also be interpreted in defense of the driver. Who staged it? The children who felt like being run over that day?"

There was video of the incident:


As we noted at the time:

The boy was running towards the car even during the impact. The car honked the horn to get him out of the way. Clearly the driver was worried about his safety and didn't want to stop, and for good reason - we see his back windshield smashed by the innocent, youthful rocks being thrown.

The driver was swerving to avoid a different stone-thrower. In other words, he had a car behind him and two kids in front of him; if he would have stopped he would have been in mortal danger.

And there are a whole bunch of photographers there, whose presence makes the kids want to act with bravado and who might have actually been goading them into throwing rocks.

See also Honest Reporting at the time.

The photo is undoubtedly dramatic - and also clearly deceptive. (The photographer's protests that the photo could be seen as a defense of the driver is laughable.)

Shouldn't award-winning news photos be chosen based more on how accurately they tell the truth than how sensational they are?

(h/t CHA)

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Top Ten anti-Israel/anti-semitic slurs of 2011 (SWC)

From the Simon Wiesenthal Center:





To be fair, it seems that Erdogan (#2) probably said "hundreds or thousands," not "hundreds of thousands" and that CNN's translator made a mistake. The rest of the quote is accurate and quite absurd enough.

(h/t Jewess)

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On Palestinian Arab nationalism

I never fail to be amazed at how Thomas Friedman, who regards his writing as "brilliant," is so clueless.

His latest column shows how no matter how many years he has covered the Middle East, his understanding is still superficial.

I love both Israelis and Palestinians, but God save me from some of their American friends — those who want to love them to death, literally.

That thought came to mind last week when Newt Gingrich took the Republican competition to grovel for Jewish votes — by outloving Israel — to a new low by suggesting that the Palestinians are an “invented” people and not a real nation entitled to a state.

...If the 2.5 million West Bank Palestinians are not a real people entitled to their own state, that must mean Israel is entitled to permanently occupy the West Bank and that must mean — as far as Newt is concerned — that Israel’s choices are: 1) to permanently deprive the West Bank Palestinians of Israeli citizenship and put Israel on the road to apartheid; 2) to evict the West Bank Palestinians through ethnic cleansing and put Israel on the road to the International Criminal Court in the Hague; or 3) to treat the Palestinians in the West Bank as citizens, just like Israeli Arabs, and lay the foundation for Israel to become a binational state. And this is called being “pro-Israel”?

Gingrich announced clearly that he supports a two-state solution. This was reported, albeit snarkily, by Friedman's own newspaper. Apparently, Friedman's three choices are all equally wrong, as are his assertions of what Gingrich "must mean."

In fact, even Friedman seems to know that his position is hypocritical. Note that he is speaking only about the "2.5 million West Bank Palestinians" and not Gazans. He knows that his logic falls apart with Gaza, as Israel did none of the three things he claims it "must" do in the West Bank.

So how can one reconcile Gingrich's statements with a two-state solution?

I cannot speak for him, but his characterization of Palestinians as an "invented people" is correct, as I have shown. They don't even know their own history.

If a group is recognized as a people by both its own members and people outside the group, that is a pretty good indication that it really is a people.

Jews have been considered a nation both by their own people and by others for thousands of years. The earliest possible date you can find for Palestinian Arabs to assert their nationhood is less than a century ago, and even then it was a small minority.

Moreover, for the most part, Palestinian Arab nationalism has not been a genuine expression of a desire for independence. It has been a desire to erase Jewish nationalism. It was true in the 1920s, when the Mufti of Jerusalem in an instant shifted from supporting pan-Syrian nationalism to Palestinian Arab nationalism. It is true today, when "moderate" Saeb Erekat places the "right of return" - to demographically destroy the Jewish state - as exactly as important as the creation of a Palestinian Arab state.

What kind of a nationalism demands that its own people be transferred to an enemy nation?

Since 1948, Palestinian Arabs have become a people of sorts. This is mostly due to the political machinations and mistreatment by the Arab nations and their own leaders, but for sixty years or so they have a shared history. They deserve some rights, and Israel certainly does not want most of them to become citizens.

But by any measure, the Palestinian Arab claim to nationhood is far weaker than that of the Jewish nation. In a way, it can be considered the Scientology of nationalisms - a recent construct that does not deserve the same respect as other more venerable belief systems. Even Friedman seems to be saying that their rights of nationhood stem completely out of the potential danger of them not gaining their demands, not any inherent rights they deserve because of their weak peoplehood.

What Friedman and even much smarter people like Jeffrey Goldberg don't get there is that a lot of daylight between giving them autonomy commensurate with how much they deserve it, and their maximal demands that these pundits seem to accept without protest.

Jerusalem is the most obvious example. If Palestinian Arabs are indeed an invented people, whose documented interest in Jerusalem is less than a hundred years old and even then has directly correlated with Jewish influence in the city (they didn't seem to care about it much from 1949-1967), then their claim to Jerusalem is objectively much weaker than that of the Jewish nation. So, from the perspective of competing nationalisms, why should anyone take their claim on the Old City seriously? On the contrary: their words and deeds show that they deserve to govern none of it, and whatever they manage to control they will use specifically to eliminate any Jewish connection to the city. As recently as last week the mayor of Hebron said that he would ban Jews from worshiping in the Cave of the Patriarchs - a clear indication of how Palestinian Arab nationalism is a negative reaction to Jewish nationalism, not a positive, independent expression of a desire for freedom.

If they do not end up with Jerusalem and its Jewish suburbs, does that make a possible Palestinian Arab state any less real? Does that affect their potential independence? Not at all. But Friedman and the other pundits cannot seem to grasp that the solution is not a choice of "take it or leave it." Arab intransigence does not translate to a valid claim. And fear of terrorism is not a reason to give in to terrorists and their supporters.

Palestinian Arabs can gain local autonomy. Or they can gain independence in a smaller area than they demand.Or they can create a federation with Jordan on parts of the West Bank that is acceptable to Israel.  Or Israel can unilaterally withdraw from specific areas of the West Bank while keeping areas necessary for security. There are options - as long as the world doesn't blindly accept Palestinian Arab propaganda about what the borders of their state must be.

Friedman and the other "experts," however, cannot seem to distinguish between giving Palestinian Arabs a desirable level of autonomy and giving them everything they demand. And their inability to distinguish the two - and to frankly be honest about the shortcomings of Palestinian Arab nationalism - is doing a disservice to real peace.

Because real peace cannot be built on lies.

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Charges of corruption against Hamas leader Haniyeh

Fatah media is reporting about a YouTube video has surfaced accusing Hamas president Ismail Haniyeh and his family of hiding a vast fortune.  It starts off showing Haniyeh giving a speech in his mosque saying that the people of Gaza are suffering in the heat without air conditioning, and then shows that this mosque has ten AC units and a generator.

It then shows expensive cars and apartments allegedly owned by Haniyeh's family, and further alleges that Haniyeh has been taking public Gaza lands for his own private enterprises.

There is nothing corroborating the charges, but the fact that they are out there and being reported is most interesting. Especially during supposed "unity" talks.

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Hamas celebrates 24th anniversary, brags it has killed 1365 Israelis

Today Hamas is celebrating its 24th anniversary with a mass rally in Gaza City:

Interestingly, this is the 24th anniversary in the secular calendar, not the Islamic calendar.

As I had mentioned before, the logo for the celebrations shows a weapon emerging from the Dome of the Rock:

Hamas also released some statistics for the occasion: 

1848 "martyrs"

1365 Israelis killed
6411 Israelis wounded
1117 terror attacks
87 suicide bomb missions
11,093 rockets and mortars shot to Israel

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas continues to lie and claims that Hamas is accepting the 1967 borders and a truce.

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"November Iran blast an attempt to assassinate Khamenei"

From JPost:

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khamenei has ordered the arrest of a number of senior members of the Revolutionary Guards he suspects of planning to assassinate him, pan-Arab news Channel Al Arabiya reported Tuesday.

Khamenei demanded an investigation of the detainees, "and others," about the alleged assassination plot, an "informed source in Iran" told the Emirati news station.

According to the source, "some of those" detained had invited Khamenei to come and visit the same weapons depot near Tehran where a large blast killed 17 people, among them the head of Iran's ballistic-missiles program.

Khamenei was invited to visit on Novemeber 12, the same day as the blast, according to the Al Arabiya report.

Mojtaba Khamenei, Khamenei's son and an ardent supporter of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was one of the officials that was arrested, according to the report.

The explosion at Bidganeh, near the city of Karaj, was the first of three mysterious blasts to occur in Iran in the last few months.

The excellent Missing Peace website had reported two weeks ago that Khamenei was supposed to be at the base that day - which means that if it isn't already on your daily reading list, it should be.

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Israel has no freedom of religion? (UPDATE)

A perfect example of media bias from Ha'aretz:

What do Israel, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan have in common? All of them scored a big fat zero on the annual freedom of religion index published by CIRI, the Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights Dataset.

The index, which measures governmental restrictions on freedom of religion and freedom from religion, ranks 195 countries. Of these, fully 52 scored zero, including Russia, Romania, India, Mexico and Turkey. Israel has scored zero on CIRI's scale for several years now.

The index ranks countries on a scale of zero to two, where zero indicates severe and widespread governmental restrictions on religious freedom, one indicates moderate restrictions and two indicates almost no restrictions. The countries that received a score of two included many Western states, like the United States, Sweden, Austria, Belgium and Poland, as well as non-Western states like South Africa, Angola and Lebanon. Countries with a score of one included Italy, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Ukraine, Thailand, Spain and Mongolia.

CIRI has been collecting data on parameters comprising 15 "internationally recognized human rights" annually since 1981. The project is run out of Binghamton University in upstate New York, with funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation. It is headed by two professors, David Cingranelli of Binghamton and David Richards of the University of Connecticut.

Rabbi Uri Regev, president of Hiddush - For Religious Freedom and Equality, said the CIRI index "reveals to the world the sorry fact that when it comes to freedom of religion, Israel is closer to extremist Islamic countries than to the democratic Western world. In no other enlightened democracy is the principle of freedom of religious undermined to such a large extent."

"What causes this shameful situation is the practice of [political parties] buying power in exchange for capitulation to religious coercion, while ignoring the wishes of the majority of people in both Israel and the Diaspora. Israel is becoming famous worldwide as the leader of the democratic world in assailing freedom of religion and conscience, something that is liable to deal a mortal blow to our status in the free world and to Western countries' attitude toward us."

Let's first look at the bias in the Ha'aretz article.

• The words "big fat zero" are hardly indicators of a reporter digging deep into the story.
• The only person interviewed is a person who is inherently biased in one direction.
• The person interviewed obviously does not know the reasons why Israel got the score it did, and makes a guess based on his own unfounded assumptions.
• Ha'aretz itself made no attempt to figure out what CIRI's criteria were for their scoring.
• Ha'aretz made no attempt to see if CIRI's methodology itself may be flawed.
• CIRI released many different scores, and Ha'aretz chose only one of them.

Now, why did Israel score a zero?

I don't know. Despite CIRI's claims that its data is objective, reliable and replicable, they do not specify the sub-criteria they use to determine each individual country score.

Here is their description of how they determine freedom of religion:

Government restrictions on religious practices are:
(0) Severe and Widespread
(1) Moderate
(2) Practically Absent

When coding freedom of religion, you should score the country based on the government’s practices. Even if a country has laws to protect freedom of religion, that country should be scored based on the actual practices of the government in relation to freedom of religion.

The following constitute restrictions on religion:
• Instances where citizens are prohibited from proselytizing,
• Instances where members of the clergy are prohibited from freely advocating partisan political views, supporting political candidates of their choice, and otherwise freely participating in politics (Note: Voluntary restraints on clergy as part of tax-free arrangements do not qualify as a restriction on freedom of religion),
• Arrest, detention, physical violence, or official government harassment of religious authorities or officials should be coded as a ZERO,
• Forced conversions or restrictions on conversion to minority religions by government officials,
• Instances where citizens are arrested, harassed, or physically assaulted/intimidated for their religious activities,
• Restrictions on access to places of worship and on building permits, especially by minority religions,
• Instances where stringent laws apply only to religious minorities (as opposed to all other religions) is religious discrimination. Examples include burdensome or unfair registration requirements for minority religions only; restrictions on proselytizing and on forced conversions to minority religions; restrictions on access to places of worship; and denial for the permission of construction of churches and places of worship,
• Instances of government restrictions on the types of religious education offered in public schools. An example could be a student who adheres to a minority religion being forced to receive religious education in the dominant religion.
• Imposing religious beliefs through public laws. For instance, imposing Shari’a law on persons that do not follow Islamic law or do not wish to follow Shari’a law should be considered a restriction on freedom of religion.

What kind of governments score a zero, one or two?

ZERO
• Governments that arrest, detain, use physical violence, or harass religious authorities or religious minorities or atheist.
• Governments that force conversions to a dominant or state sponsored religion or restrict conversions to minority religions.
• Countries where citizens are harassed, arrested, or physically assaulted or intimidated for religious activities.
• Governments that place restrictions on access to places of worship or interfere with a group’s ability to hold worship services in private settings such as homes.
• Instances where stringent and burdensome laws apply only to religious minorities (as opposed to laws uniformly applied to all religious groups) or to atheists are considered religious discrimination. Examples include burdensome or unfair registration requirements for minority religions only, forced conversions to minority religions, restrictions on access to places of worship. Bans on proselytizing, denial of building permits, and interference with building places of worship are NOT considered stringent and burdensome laws.

ONE
For a country to receive a score of ONE for freedom of religion, the government will not have restricted any of the above rights listed in the category for ZERO (Severe and Widespread Restrictions), but it may be the case that:
• Governments that place bans on proselytizing. This includes proselytizing bans uniformly applied to all religious groups in a country, as well as instances where proselytizing bans target only certain religious minority groups.
• Governments that deny building permits or construction of places of worship to minority groups, as long as there is no mention of governmental interference with communal worship in private settings such as homes.
• Reports that mention the government denying groups recognized religious organization status, nonprofit association status, corporation status, or classify certain minority groups as cults, even if such classification prevents the group from receiving government benefits such as tax-exemption or subsidies.
• Governments that prohibit clergy from freely advocating partisan views, supporting political candidates, or participating in politics unless this restriction only prevents the group from receiving government benefits such as tax exemption or subsidies. In this event the country should be reported as a TWO.
• Governments that place restrictions on religious education that is offered in public schools.
• Governments that have policies that discourage atheism or modestly discriminate against atheists.

TWO
Countries in which the government respects the rights to freedom of religion for ALL citizens in practice should be coded as TWO. No mentions of restrictions on freedom of religion should be listed in a country that is scored as a TWO.

So how does Israel get a score of zero? From these criteria one would expect Israel would receive a one. (Note that even by Uri Regev's criteria quoted in Ha'aretz, Israel should still get a one.)

Could it be that CIRI is including Palestinian Authority and Hamas practices under the Israel score? Or is it because Israel arrested someone like Raed Salah who is a radical anti-Israel terrorist supporter but who is also a cleric, making the score an automatic zero ("Arrest, detention, physical violence, or official government harassment of religious authorities or officials should be coded as a ZERO")? Perhaps the fact that Israel does not allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount  is the reason ("Governments that place restrictions on access to places of worship")? Or is CIRI not quite as objective as it pretends to be?

We don't know the answer.

And neither does Ha'aretz.

(h/t CHA)

UPDATE: CIRI replied to me:

Thank you for your interest in the CIRI Human Rights Data Project. There are several reasons that Israel receives a 0 for Freedom of Religion in 2010.  According to our coding guidelines (which can be viewed at http://ciri.binghamton.edu/documentation/ciri_coding_guide.pdf), any state “where citizens are harassed, arrested, or physically assaulted or intimidated for religious activities” receives a score of 0 on our Freedom of Religion indicator.  According to the U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report on Israel (http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2010/148825.htm), following an episode in late 2009 where a member of Women of the Wall was arrested for wearing a prayer shawl and reading aloud from the Torah at the Western Wall, “In January 2010, Israeli police detained Anat Hoffman, a founder of Women of the Wall and advocate for Reform Judaism in Israel, on suspicions of disturbing the peace for her role in organizing prayer services for women.”

The US State Department lists several other restrictions on Freedom of Religion imposed by the Israeli government in both Israel and the Occupied Territories.  For instance, the State Department reports that:

“For example, the government continued to discriminate against non-Orthodox Jewish citizens through some policies based on Orthodox Jewish interpretations of religious law. A minority of Jews is Orthodox, and the majority of Jewish citizens objected to exclusive Orthodox control over fundamental aspects of their personal lives. Approximately 360,000 citizens who immigrated to the country from the former-Soviet Union under the Law of Return but are not considered Jewish by the Orthodox Rabbinate cannot be buried in Jewish cemeteries, divorce, or marry within the country. A 1996 law requiring the government to establish civil cemeteries remained inadequately implemented…In order to marry in government-recognized ceremonies, Jews had to undergo marriage counseling administered by the Orthodox religious authorities. As part of this counseling, all Jews--including the secular majority and those who practice Reform or Conservative Judaism--were instructed to respect traditional Orthodox family roles.”

Also, the U.S. State Department states that Israel imposes significant religious restrictions on Bedouins and other Arab groups throughout Israel and the Occupied Territories.  For instance:

“The approximately 80,000 Bedouin living in unrecognized villages were unable to build or legally maintain mosques as a result of longstanding government policy to deny ownership claims, building requests, and municipal services in such communities. Mosques existed in unrecognized Bedouin communities but, as with homes and other community structures, the government considered them illegal and therefore subject to demolition…The government of Israel continued to apply travel restrictions during the reporting period that significantly impeded freedom of access to places of worship in the West Bank and Jerusalem for Muslims and Christians. Citing violence and security concerns, the Israeli government imposed a broad range of strict closures and curfews throughout Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories since 2000… All Palestinian religious groups faced restrictions in practice, such as closures and long waits at Israeli border crossings, which often impeded travel for religious purposes.”

Finally, the State Department report makes manifest that almost all religious groups in Israel and the Occupied Territories face government-imposed restrictions, to some degree, on their ability to visit and worship at religious sites throughout the country.  Furthermore, it makes clear that Orthodox Jews face the fewest restrictions while Muslims and Arab Christians likely face the most.

Taken together with our coding guidelines, these events require us to give Israel a score of 0 for Freedom of Religion in 2010.

I replied with why I disagree:

Thanks for your reply.

If I understand your criteria correctly, the only example you give that would necessitate a score of zero is the single episode concerning the Women of the Wall. Every other example seems to fit better with a category of a one. The restrictions on Bedouin mosques is effectively a zoning issue; synagogues were demolished as well in illegal outposts. Restrictions on Palestinians praying in Jerusalem are based on purely security considerations, in no way can this be construed as discriminating against religion.

Even the episode with Anat Hoffman does not seem to be a strict violation of freedom of religion, as it was only for a single place that has rules approved by Israel's Supreme Court. She can certainly pray and read from the Torah in other synagogues around the land.

Obviously Israel is not perfect but it seems that a score of zero, which Israel seems to have had for many years now placing it in the same category as Saudi Arabia, seems excessive.

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