Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, December 24, 2011

"Nittel-nacht" open thread

It is "nittel-nacht," and one of the time-honored customs is to avoid blogging all night. (Or something like that.)

Here's an open thread.

Egyptian gas line to Israel blown up again

For the eleventh time this year, the gas line from Egypt to Israel and Jordan was blown up.

The company responsible for the line, GASCO, sent investigators out to see the extent of the damage. It also informed the Misr Insurance Corporation of the damage so it could be compensated.

Hmmm.

Earlier this week, Jordan and Egypt negotiated new pricing for the gas.

Chanukah Video Night 4: The Avoda - Spread the Light

The Guardian: "Mary and Joseph wouldn't make it into Bethlehem" (updated)

Every year we are treated to stories where reporters use Christmas as an excuse to bash Israel.

Here's one from The Guardian:

If Joseph and Mary were making their way to Bethlehem today, the Christmas story would be a little different, says Father Ibrahim Shomali, a parish priest in the town. The couple would struggle to get into the city, let alone find a hotel room.

"If Jesus were to come this year, Bethlehem would be closed," says the priest of Bethlehem's Beit Jala parish. "He would either have to be born at a checkpoint or at the separation wall. Mary and Joseph would have needed Israeli permission – or to have been tourists.

"This really is the big problem for Palestinians in Bethlehem: what will happen when they close us off completely?"

Al Arabiya reports that some 30,000 Christian pilgrims are expected to visit Bethlehem this weekend.

There is no problem for Palestinian Christians to visit. There is no problem for tourists to visit. 500 Gazans are even visiting. Is it really so strange that Israel must give permits for people to cross from or through Israel to PA-controlled areas? And are these permits really difficult to obtain?

CiFWatch has much more.

UPDATE: Commenter Ira_rosen says:

Indeed, The Guardian is correct. If Mary and Joseph tried to get to Bethlehem today, it would be difficult. They were Jewish.

Latma video: Christmas in Eurabia

(h/t Basketballpro66)

Rock throwers hiding behind an ambulance

Tweeted by Captain Barak Raz of the IDF, about the weekly riots in Nabi Saleh:

We've seen this before here and in other riots - hiding behind an ambulance while throwing rocks

He also noted that an Israeli border police officer was hit in the face by one of those harmless rocks.

The YouTube videos of the weekly protests are carefully edited to cut out any rock throwing. For example, here's a screen shot from last week's riot, where you cannot see a single rock thrown - but you see plenty of rocks littering the road behind the Israeli police:

Linkdump - Hudson NY edition

There have been a bunch of great posts in Hudson-NY this week, so here are some of them:

Arab Apartheid by Khaled Abu Toameh

"Kairos Palestine": From Mendacity to Megalomania by Malcolm Lowe

Radical Islamic Television Arrives in Spain by Soeren Kern

Betraying Ben-Gurion by Efraim Karsh

The Muslim Brotherhood Unmasked by Herbert I. London

Turkey Reaffirms Its Support for Palestinian Cause And more from the Turkish Press by AK Group

Spain's Jew-Hating Majority by Anna Mahjar-Barducci

Muslim Persecution of Christians: November 2011 by Raymond Ibrahim

Canada's State-Sponsored Fight Against State-Sponsored Anti-Semitism by Christine Williams

Arab Spring Sending Shudders Through Christians in the Middle East

Khaled Abu Toameh

From Wikipedia, first round results

Al Masry al Youm reports on the second phase of the parliamentary elections in Egypt.

As with the first round, it looks like the Muslim Brotherhood has done exceptionally well, with the more extreme Salafist Nour party in second place.

The majority of the seats were won by the MB's Freedom and Justice party. In Giza, they scored an impressive victory; in Sohag, MB combined with Nour to win most seats. In the East, the MB swept, and this was the pattern for most districts.

Tomorrow the official results of one of the run-off elections are supposed to be announced.

At the moment, the Freedom and Justice party has 49% of the seats assigned by the election. Because of the way the runoff elections work, I think it is possible that the Muslim Brotherhood can end up with an absolute majority of seats, even without a coalition with Nour.

Erdogan's ironic quote of the day

From Bloomberg:

Turkey froze political and military relations with France in retaliation for the approval by the French parliament’s lower chamber of a measure that makes it a crime to deny genocide against Armenians a century ago.

The government recalled its ambassador to Paris for consultations, canceled a joint meeting of economy and trade ministers in January and halted all programs for training and cultural affairs, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday in televised remarks in Ankara following the vote.

The quote:

“People will not forgive those who distort history, or use history as a tool for political exploitation,” [said Erdogan.]

Yes, those 1.5 million Armenians just caught the flu.

And the IHH members aboard the Mavi Marmara were wielding "peace batons" and stabbing Israeli soldiers with flowers.

Last week, Turkey's foreign minister said that Turkey's policies have isolated Israel and helped bring it to its knees. But yesterday, Israel canceled a $141 million military contract with Turkey - not exactly the actions of a nation on the ropes.

Next week the Knesset may pass a bill saying the Jewish people will never forget the Armenian genocide and asks that the Knesset mark the event with a special memorial session held every year, in a move sure to anger Ankara further.

But meanwhile Turkey is at loggerheads with its former allies in Iran and Syria, the EU has been cool to its moves and this latest French law has it in a tizzy.

Which means that Turkey's actions have isolated Turkey a lot more than it has isolated Israel.

The purposeful ambiguity of terrorists joining the PLO

Reuters reports that Hamas and Islamic Jihad plan to join the PLO.

Rival Palestinian factions took a significant step towards reconciliation Thursday as the Islamist group Hamas said it planned to join President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestine Liberation Organization.

Abbas held a meeting in Cairo with leaders from the factions, including Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal, where a committee was formed to prepare for the inclusion of Hamas, as well as the smaller Islamic Jihad, in the PLO.

Hamas has refused to recognize Israel or renounce violence, while the PLO has signed interim peace accords. It was unclear how Hamas would be included in the PLO, given the discrepancy.

The committee will now prepare for an internal election of the PLO parliament in order to facilitate Hamas and the Islamic Jihad membership.

One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Hamas's Mashaal had told Abbas that his group was "in favor of peaceful resistance and a truce in Gaza and the West Bank at this stage".

The official offered no further explanation on what that might mean. Hamas has said in the past it would agree to a long-term truce with Israel, but remains sworn to its destruction.

Islamic Jihad clearly sees this as a method to restructure the PLO - away from its signed peace agreements with Israel:

An Islamic Jihad leader said Thursday that joining an "interim leadership framework" of the PLO did not necessarily mean it had formally joined the Palestinian body.

Khaled Al-Batsh told Ma’an that joining the organization requires a clear framework for how the PLO will be restructured.

He added that if there was an agreement concerning these issues, Islamic Jihad would become a member in the organization. However, if there was no agreement, the group said it was still willing to contribute.

“We’re now in the phase of national dialogue," he said. "We’re in the interim leadership framework, which will handle restructuring the PLO, and we hope to succeed.”

Batsh also said "We support reconciliation on the basis of building a unified Palestinian authority in the framework agreement on a national project that meets the need of the Palestinians, as part of upholding our right to resistance and national principles."

Hamas takes a similar stance, saying that this is an opportunity for the PLO to include all Palestinian Arab factions (meaning, terror groups) and elect new members for its national council and executive committee. Meshal also railed against the PLO's unilateralism.

Abbas and his cronies, of course, will do everything they can to present this to the West as if the PLO is not reneging on its signed agreements while they will say in Arabic that the PLO can accommodate the inclusion of unrepentant terror groups.

Their strategy will be to find an ambiguous enough formula that desperate Western leaders can embrace with their eyes wide shut, using their penchant for wishful thinking to patch over the gaping divide between Hamas and PIJ and any possible peace process and then to blame Israel for showing reluctance to negotiate with its would-be exterminators.

It might take a couple of years, but soon we will see op-eds in major newspapers asking exactly what is wrong with Hamas' idea of a "long term truce" before annihilating Israel, or saying that Islamic Jihad has embraced the peace process. Things that are still considered somewhat absurd will become mainstream thinking by dint of repetition of sound bites by the new PLO leadership.

After all, that's what happened with the PLO itself. Remember that it has been over a decade since the PLO supposedly changed its charter to remove all references to destroying Israel and armed resistance - and yet in the meantime it has never published a revised charter!

The Palestinian Arab leadership is skilled at creating just enough ambiguity to allow credulous Western leaders and pundits to mentally fill in the rest with what they fervently hope the terrorists and their supporters are saying. They know that Western wishful thinking goes a long way to help their cause.

UNESCO stops funding PalArab kid magazine that thanked Hitler

A followup to this story from Europe-Israel:

A day after a protest from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to UNESCO’s Director-General over a Palestinian youth magazine which published materials exalting Hitler, UNESCO has agreed that it « will not provide any further support to the publication in question. »

Zayzafouna, a magazine which supposedly promotes democracy and tolerance, published an article by a ten-year-old Palestinian girl who said that in her dreams, Hitler told her, “Yes. I killed them [the Jews] so you would all know that they are a nation who spreads destruction all over the world.” The article was brought to the public’s attention by Palestinian Media Watch.

A letter from the office of UNESCO’s Director-General read:

UNESCO’s attention has been drawn to the February 2011 issue of the Palestinian children’s magazine Zayzafouna. This magazine is published by an NGO of the same name under the patronage of the Palestinian National Commission for UNESCO, which is the national body set up by the Palestinian Authority to facilitate its work with the Organization. The February issue features a story written by a 10-year-old girl in which Hitler is quoted by her as stating that he “killed [the Jews] so you would all know that they are a nation who wreak havoc on Earth”. While UNESCO upholds freedom of expression as an integral part of its mandate, the inclusion in this publication of a statement that may be interpreted as an apology of the holocaust is contrary to UNESCO’s constitutional mandate and values. It is totally unacceptable.

UNESCO supported the publication of three issues of the Zayzafouna Magazine six months after the February 2011 issue. The support was provided for these issues following agreement with the editorial board that they would focus on building greater appreciation amongst Palestinians for their heritage and culture. They were to open the way for positive dialogue aimed at overcoming the consequences of the Middle East conflict, and to fight against stereotypes that may be conducive to violence. It was UNESCO’s intention to foster a positive view ofPalestinian heritage based on the values of tolerance and UNESCO’s mandate of building peace in the minds of men and women. This vision guides all of UNESCO’s activities, and we urge all partners to work in this direction.

UNESCO is shocked and dismayed by the content of the February issue, and has requested more detailed information and clarification from the editors of the magazine and to Palestinian Authority.

UNESCO strongly deplores and condemns the reproduction of such inflammatory statements in a magazine associated with UNESCO’s name and mission and will not provide any further support to the publication in question.

The Organization, which is deeply committed to the development and promotion of education about the Holocaust, disassociates itself from any statement that is counter to its founding principles and goals of building tolerance in the full respect for human rights and human dignity.

From what I can tell, UNESCO only funded the magazine for a few issues; the latest issues no longer had its logo.

The last issue of 2010 had a tribute to Yasir Arafat.

The issue beforehand had a story about a child visiting his father in prison, ending off with "I am aware that the enemies are the ones who prevented my father from returning home."

The previous issue to that one was the last one to have the UNESCO logo.

Chanukah Video Night 3: Chanukah Rights!

From Six13:

Muslim Brotherhood is suddenly against Egyptian protests

My, how things change after one wins an election.

Firas Press (possibly quoting Al Balad News) is quoting Muslim Brotherhood and Nour officials as saying that Egyptian security should respond to protesters "with an iron fist."

A Nour party spokesman told a rally that protesters in Tahrir Square are not innocent, but a group of terrorists that the Military Council must address "with full force."

The Nour spokesman also questioned the morality of women protesters who sleep outside the home and in public squares.

Doonesbury blames US troops for Christian exodus from Iraq

Yesterday's Doonesbury comic betrays a very interesting mindset.

AP looked at this phenomenon in 2009:

Christians first began leaving Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, during the economic sanctions and repression under Saddam Hussein, who pushed more Islamist policies. But the trickle turned to a flood after Saddam was toppled in 2003 and the violence escalated, said a prominent Iraqi Christian lawmaker, Younadem Kana.

"I hope to leave for any other place in the world," said Sheeran Surkon, a 27-year-old Iraqi woman who fled to Syria in 2004 after she received death threats, her father disappeared and her beauty salon was blown up.

Sukron awaits resettlement to another country, saying she can’t tolerate the violence and new Muslim conservatism in Iraq.

"How can I live there as a woman?" she asked.

Daoud Daoud, 70, a former civil servant in the northern city of Mosul, now spends his time waiting with dozens of others at a Damascus, Syria, resettlement center, hoping to follow his children to Sweden.

"Iraq as we once knew it is over. For us there is no future there," he said.

More than 2 million refugees of all religions have fled Iraq since the 2003 invasion. The recent ebb in violence has lured some Muslim refugees to return in small numbers.

But few Christians contemplate going back, the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees reports.

"They simply do not feel safe enough. They cannot sufficiently count on state security or any other force to protect them," said the the agency’s acting representative in Damascus, Philippe Leclerc.

In a report last year, the head of its Iraq support unit said that Christians are more likely than other fleeing Iraqis to register as refugees in an effort to emigrate to a third country.

"The vast majority of Iraqis still want to return to Iraq when the conditions permit — the notable exception being religious minorities, particularly Christians," the report said.

"When I came here to my parish in Karrada, we had 2,000 families," said Monsignor Luis al-Shabi, 70, who started at St. Joseph’s 40 years ago. "But now we only have 1,000 — half."

The situation is worse in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora to the south — where 30,000 prewar Christians fled during the six years of war. The now-quiet neighborhood has only a single church and a handful of Christians.

More troubling, when a group of Christian families recently tried to return to homes in Dora, two Christian women were killed, Iraq’s Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly said in an interview after meeting with the pope in nearby Jordan.

Execution-style killings late last year targeted Christians in Mosul, as did a string of bombings. In March of last year, the body of Mosul’s Chaldean Christian archbishop was found in a shallow grave a month after he was kidnapped at gunpoint as he left a Mass.

Since then it got worse:

Abdullah al-Nawfali, who heads the Christian endowments fund, says there has been a sharp increase in the number of Christians leaving Iraq since the October 31 suicide attack on the Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad.

More than 50 Christians, including two priests, and seven policemen were killed when Iraqi security forces stormed the Baghdad church in which Islamic terrorists wearing explosive vests were holding worshippers hostage.

Nawfali says the number of Christians emigrating from Iraq in November -- immediately after the church siege – more than doubled from the previous month, and the rate of increase in December was even higher.

He says these statistics suggest that Iraq is in danger of losing its Christian community, which has lived for centuries alongside Muslims and other ethnic and religious groups.

To artist Garry Trudeau, Islamists aren't to blame for murdering and persecuting Christians. Iraq's government and army are blameless for not protecting their religious minorities. No, it is America's fault! Life was so great under Saddam Hussein - why can't we go back to running Iraq with a homicidal dictator?

When Copts inevitably flee Egypt for similar reasons, is Trudeau going to write any comics wishing that Mubarak was back in power? Or will he find a way to blame that on America as well?

We all know who is behind persecution of religious minorities in the Middle East. But some people just can't stop themselves from blaming Big Satan (and, inevitably, his little brother.)

Using Trudeau's logic, the publishers of the Mohammed cartoons are to blame for the people killed in the ensuing riots. Which is an interesting position for a political cartoonist to take.