Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

US Embassy/Tel Aviv does better hasbara than Israel

Israel saving literally thousands of American lives:

But I thought that Israel endangered Americans. That's what Walt keeps saying!

There are other very interesting videos on that channel, as Shapiro goes around the country and shows highlights. Including a visit to the Mir Yeshiva and one to industrial parks where Arabs and Jews work together.

Here's another where he test drives a Better Place electric car in Israel:

It looks like many US Embassies have video channels, but there aren't too many videos like these made by the others. Some will show performances, like the videos out of Cairo.

I have a feeling that some anti-Zionists will not be happy about this....

(h/t Omri)

Both Syrians and their rebels are Zionists!

Every day, the official Syrian SANA news agency has an article that has a variation of this theme:

Political Analyst Sharif Shhadeh said that Syria faces a Zionist-US project to undermine its resistant role in the region, adding that the Arab League's decisions are clear evidence on its involvement in the conspiracy.

Last week Syria even said that they captured Israeli arms and explosives from the rebels.

But the opposition says that it is Syria that is doing the bidding of those nationalist Jews:

A Syrian child holds banner reading “Israel protector, we coming to get you” during a demonstration against President Bashar al-Assad in Idlib. (Reuters)

Obviously, both sides are right. We are behind everything that happens in the Arab and Muslim world, and we manipulate them so they fight each other and buy our weapons and paper cups.

Jericho jockeys sing this song, doo-dah, doo-dah

A photo essay of a thoroughbred horse race in Jericho from Palestine Times:

The horses look severely oppressed because of the choking Zionist policies.

Turkey denies it is giving aid, a new HQ to Hamas

From Today's Zaman:

Turkey has dismissed claims that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal will be moving to Turkey, adding that Turkey also didn't pledge aid to the Palestinian party.

Turkish government spokesman and Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç told a news conference on Monday following a Cabinet meeting that Mashaal's office being moved to Turkey is out of question. He added that news reports claiming the Turkish government would give the Palestinian group millions of dollars in aid are also not true.

In a response to a question about Hamas moving to Turkey after leaving Damascus, Arınç said Hamas is an organization that has been recognized by Turkey and has formed a government in the Palestinian territories following democratic elections in 2006. “Khaled Mashaal's stay in Turkey is out of question,” Arınç told reporters.

Mashaal recently visited Turkey which, unlike its fellow NATO members, recognizes Hamas as a legal political party.

Some diplomatic sources had stated that Turkey promised to provide Gazan Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's administration with $300 million to support its annual budget. The Turkish Foreign Ministry had earlier dismissed such reports.

Arınç noted that Turkey's goal is to realize peace process between Israel and united Palestinian political factions. He said Turkey is closely interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that Turkey believes strengthening the unity of Palestinians will benefit the Palestinian people. He underlined that Hamas and its leaders are “significant figures” in this process and that Turkey's relations with Hamas is limited only to what he said.

Turkey's rhetoric against Israel has gone significantly down in recent months. It even suspended all lawsuits against Israel over the Mavi Marmara.

"Med-Red" rail link proposed

From Reuters:

Israel said on Sunday it plans to build a railway line linking its Red Sea and Mediterranean ports that could handle potential overflow from the Suez Canal on the freight route between Asia and Europe.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet the idea of ships dropping off goods in one port to be picked up by a second ship at the other, had stirred "great interest" from major exporters India and China.

The project has yet to receive final approval or secure funding. Israel has not issued any cargo volume projections for the proposed electrified railway that would run 350 km (220 miles) from Eilat, on the Red Sea, to Ashdod, on the Mediterranean some 30 km south of Tel Aviv.

"Laying this line thus has strategic importance, both national and international," Netanyahu said in public remarks at the opening of a cabinet discussion on the project.

Israeli officials rebuffed any suggestion the railway plan came in response to political turmoil in Egypt and the rise of Islamist parties, though Israel has quietly been preparing for the possible erosion of its landmark peace accord with the neighbouring Arab power.

One official told Reuters the railway was a safeguard against the Suez proving incapable of handling surging maritime trade. The canal handled 8 percent of global seaborne traffic in 2009, Egyptian authorities say.

"There is going to be a lot of pressure on the Suez, and the idea here is to find an insurance should the canal not be able to deal with the volume," the official said.

Asked if the Israeli project might bite into Egyptian revenues from tariffs to sail the Suez, the official said: "We do not in any way intend to do anything of the sort."

And the idea that Western-hating fanatics might be in sole control of on of the most important waterways in the world might have a wee bit to do with the calculation.

Oded Eran, a retired Israeli diplomat who is now senior research fellow at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies, said global traders were increasingly looking at overland transport alternatives to sea routes.

"Going through Suez costs a lot of money in demurrage," he said, describing the time-consuming process of ships obtaining permission to enter the canal and transiting.

Israeli media projected the train line would cost around $2 billion to build. Its Transport Ministry said it was seeking a Chinese company to build it and estimated it would take up to five years to complete.

Israeli officials linked the project to wider efforts to vitalise Israel's southern desert regions, including a pipeline between Eilat and Ashdod which is envisaged will pump natural gas from Mediterranean platforms for export through the Red Sea.

Interestingly, Reuters completely ignored what Bibi said was the primary reason for the rail line - as a passenger line that would whisk tourists from Tel Aviv to Eilat in two hours.

(h/t Ian)

Gaza divorce rate goes up. Israel blamed, of course.

Palestine Press Agency reports that the divorce rate in Gaza has been increasing, reaching 17% last year.

The reason?

[Experts] attribute the high divorce rate among Palestinian youth to unemployment, which increased as a result of the split between Fatah and Hamas, as well as the Israeli blockade which is still deeply hurting parts of Palestinian society, including married life which now lack the minimum requirements needed.

Yet the divorced people interviewed in the article give lots of reasons - none of which these analysts choose to mention.

One man divorced his wife because she liked to go out without his permission. Another did because of "extreme stubbornness and suspicious actions."

One woman said "I wish to live a life like I see in Turkish TV, where they are people who are civilized and respect the women and their privacy, and you cannot find this in Gaza, where the orders of her husband are a sword hanging over the neck of his wife."

Now, if you blame the higher divorce rate on Israel, who can you blame for a low divorce rate?

In fact, Palestinian Arabs used to brag that their divorce rate is the lowest in the Arab world.

In the first two years of the intifada, the divorce rate in the territories plummeted as much as 70% in Nablus - because, according to this book, men couldn't afford the expense of a new bride.

So poverty causes divorces, and it also causes a reduction in divorces - and either way, Israel is at fault!

Incidentally, recent divorce rates are 20% in Saudi Arabia, 24% in Bahrain, 25.6% in the UAE, 34.8% in Qatar and 37.1% in Kuwait.

I'm sure that Israel is to blame somehow for that as well.

Douglas Murray on a nuclear Iran (video - Cambridge debate)

This is a worthwhile speech to watch. Apparently from March 2011.

(h/t Tundra Tabloids)

Fogel massacre postscript: The lying mother of a murderer

I noted on Sunday that the mother and aunt of Hakim Awad, one of the murderers of the Fogel family in Itamar praised him on official Palestinian Authority TV.

The mother said, "My greetings to dear Hakim, the apple of my eye, from the village of Awarta, 17 years old, who carried out the operation in Itamar (i.e., killing of 5 Fogel family members), sentenced to 5 life sentences and another 5 years, in prison."

At the time of the arrests, however, the same mother of Hakim Awad was adamant that he was innocent!

Ma'an reported then that this same mother had a series of alibis:

Nouf Awwad told Ma'an on Sunday - the day reports of the allegations against her son were made public with the lifting of an Israeli gag-order on the case of the slain settlers - that Hakim was still recovering from a recent surgery, which prevented him from walking long distances and required him to use the toilet every hour.

"We have the medical records, he is in unstable health," she said, adding that the family is gathering the papers to present as evidence in defense of Hakim.

She said Hakim had undergone testicular surgery in November at the Rafidiya Hospital in Nablus.

"He was at home [the night of the murders] and went to bed at 9:30 [p.m.]," she said.

Hakim, who was detained in early April during the third sweep of detentions carried out by Israeli forces, has remained in detention since that time, and has had no contact with his family. Nouf said she "could not rule out" the idea that her son had been tortured and confessed under duress.

This same mother told another newspaper that "one of the soldiers told me there we want to conclude the investigation of this crime, even if we have to fabricate the charge against any person from the village."

Anti-Israel activists seized on the mother's statements as "proof" that Hakim was tortured and framed by Israel. Once the murderers confessed in open court as to how proud they were, these critics became curiously silent about their previous accusations.

And they continue to believe the obvious lies that Palestinian Arabs spin about Israel without any skepticism.

(h/t Dan)

Top issue in Malaysian politics? Israel!

From WSJ:

Recent comments by Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim have demonstrated yet again how issues related to Israel continue to divide this majority-Muslim country – and could influence the country’s next national election.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Anwar responded to the question of whether he would open diplomatic ties with Israel by stating his “support” for “efforts to protect the security of the state of Israel,” while at the same time backing the “legitimate rights of the Palestinians.” He stopped short of saying he would establish diplomatic relations between the two states – what he describes as a “tricky” issue – and stated that any change to the status quo would remain contingent on Israel recognizing the aspirations of the Palestinians.

Malaysia is one of three Southeast Asian nations including Indonesia and Brunei that does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, though limited economic ties exist between private companies in both countries.

“Some refuse to recognize the state of Israel,” he said, “but I think our policy should be clear – protect the security [of Israel] but you must be as firm in protecting the legitimate interests of the Palestinians.”

The comments triggered a storm of debate and criticism, with members of the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and other groups accusing the leader of abandoning the Palestinian cause – an emotive cause long-supported in the majority-Muslim Southeast Asian nation.

Lawmakers called on Mr. Anwar’s opposition coalition to release an official statement on the issue, while president of the right-wing Malay group Perkasa Ibrahim Ali said he would raise the issue in Parliament.

Mr. Anwar responded by saying he supported a “two-state solution” with Palestine, a policy he said was no different from the official stance adopted by the United Nations and Malaysia itself.

“I am issuing a stern warning to anyone trying to twist my statement just so that they can say that I have betrayed the aspirations of the Palestinian people,” he said in a statement to the press. His party’s stand “is to defend the rights of whoever it is that has been victimised,” the statement said.

Here is some Malaysian reaction:

Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's support for Israel's security efforts is a signal to the Zionist regime and the United States that he is their man.

With Malaysia's general election nearing, Anwar is trying to gain the backing of powerful countries in order to come to power, although he has to go against his party's struggle for human rights.

Former Parti Keadilan Rakyat deputy president Dr Chandra Muzaffar said Anwar's statement to The Wall Street Journal sent a clear message that he was in favour of US lobbyists and Zionist interests.

"Anwar understands that for the US, as far as Arab-Israel conflict is concerned, defending Israel matters most. And he knows that US lobbyists judge other countries' leaders based on their stand on the conflict.

"By coming out with such a statement, furthermore in an interview with the The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Zionist media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Anwar is telling them that he is a man whom they can depend on," Chandra told the New Straits Times yesterday.

More proof we Jews really do control the world.

Nasser, in 1955, felt most refugees wouldn't want to "return"

In 1955, the US was still trying to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Arab states. Egypt insisted that any peace plan include Israel giving Egypt significant territory in the Negev in order to form a strong connection between Egypt and Jordan. This would mean that Israel would either give up Eilat, which is what Egypt wanted, or Eilat would be effectively cut off from Israel.

As always, the issue of Palestine refugees came up, and Gamal Abdel Nasser said something surprising.

From a telegram from the Embassy in Egypt to the Department of State, November 27, 1955:

[Nasser] agreed majority of refugees would no longer desire return [to] Israel or would not remain after they saw present conditions. (He referred to lot of the Arab in Israel as that of “Class B” citizens.) He thought however it would be most difficult for any Arab leader to take a position which deprived the refugee of his right to return. He therefore favored an approach which would allow the refugee to make his own decision about repatriation vis-à-vis resettlement and compensation. He agreed that this would be most difficult for Israel and wondered whether some impartial sensing of the real refugee opinion was possible through an agency such as UNRWA which could relieve both Israel and Arabs of difficult political problem. Told him I feared any such poll would indicate a far greater desire to return to Israel than would be actual case if opportunity were in fact presented.

Diplomats and Arab leaders knew that in the end, the majority of Palestinian Arab refugees wanted to move on with their lives as full citizens of any Arab state. But the rhetoric about "return" was so extreme that no one would dare admit it publicly - not the leaders, not the diplomats and not the refugees themselves. UNRWA, for its part, continued to insist that the refugees would never accept any alternative to full repatriation.

This is a small example of the playacting that Palestinian Arabs do to this very day. They are so afraid of saying anything against what is considered politically correct for them that they will reflexively say the standard line if they perceived any chance that their true thoughts would get them into trouble. In 1955, it was "return," today it is the many "eyewitnesses" to events that never occur.

It is an interesting footnote.

An Israeli team of bakers won two first-place awards at the International Baking Championships held in Rimini this past week.

They won in the healthy bread category, for a pita bread stuffed with fresh spinach and cheese risotto balls. They also won in the dessert category, for a strawberry and fruit brioche-style Black Forest.

Based on these results, the Israeli team was declared the winner of the champtionships, with the Germans coming in second place and Australia in third.

While this is hardly an important news story, I have a question for those who call themselves "pro-Israel" but who manage to spend their entire days trying to dig up whatever dirt they can on the Jewish state.

When you read a story like this, are you proud?

People who are truly pro-Israel would feel a sense of pride, even if only a little, at the idea of the Jewish state winning a baking championship while competing against heavyweights like the US, France and Germany. They would feel the same way when Israel wins medals in the Olympics or when an Israeli wins a Nobel Prize.

Those who only pretend to be pro-Israel would not. They would studiously ignore the story, or try to find a reason why it is not such a good thing, or even try to frame it as if it proves some calumny or another about the state they pretend to love.

The reason is simple. People who are truly pro-Israel identify with Israel; those who only pretend to be pro-Israel identify with her enemies. Their emotional effort is not aimed at binding with Israelis, but with distancing themselves from them. To them, if a story about Israel is not wholly negative, it is not something to be publicized.

A look at the tweets of many of the so-called "pro-Israel" critics leaves one with no doubt as to how most of them really feel.

(h/t Yoel)

New map of Jewish land holdings in Syria

In December, I wrote about the little-known fact that the Jewish National Fund owns some 53 square kilometers of land in Syria. I showed a map of some of their holdings made in the 1930s:

Now, Guy Bechor writes (in Hebrew) many fascinating details on this story, about how a member of Hovevei Zion named David Rosenberg encouraged the purchase of land in the Hauran and tried to get Jews to settle there. Some did, in various settlements with names like Tiferet Binyamin and Nachalat Moshe. The settlements were attacked by Arabs and the Turks disallowed any further Jews from moving in, which doomed the enterprise.

The land was owned by the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA), which gave the lands to the JNF in the 1950s.

Here are his maps:

Bechor also shows a Hebrew poster for a tour to visit these lands in the summer of 1935 - since there were no fences along the borders, Jews could just take a trip to Syria to visit historic Jewish lands in the Golan and Hauran.

He goes on to show that in the 1940s, Syria simply confiscated much of the PICA-owned lands. Bechor estimates that between the Golan and Hauran, the JNF owns some 100,000 dunam (100 square km.)

(h/t Yoel)

UPDATE: My Right Word has more.

The bizarre conspiracy theories of the anti-Israel Left

A nice piece at False Dichotomies by Alex Stein:

The best – and kindest – way to describe Richard Silverstein is that he’s silly. Very silly indeed. He sincerely believes that his blog makes an important contribution to world peace, so important that he regularly asks readers to give him money. After a frustrating first few years as a blogger, while he tried to find a bigger audience, most respectable publications realised that he was silly and wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Then he realised that he could reinvent himself as a ‘whistle-blower’,publishing stories that wouldn’t pass the Israeli military censors. This got him the attention he craved, including one or two profiles in the Israeli media. Some of his exposes were accurate; many were not. In assessing his sources, he seems to go by the principle that if it seems to be bad for Israel then it must be true. Needless to say, this isn’t necessarily the way to go if you want to be taken seriously.

Earlier today, in a report that someone with Silverstein’s prose might describe as ‘breathless’, he declared: “An exclusive report from a confidential highly-placed Israeli source says that a booby-tapped drone crashed and exploded at the top-secret Israeli airbase Sdot Micha.” According to this ‘confidential highly-placed source’, the drone was probably sent by Hizbollah/Iran, and the mainstream media reports (that it was an Israeli drone which malfunctioned) were a cover-up.

Over at +972, Dimi Reider convincingly demolishes Silverstein’s claims. His analysis seems reasonable. But he doesn’t stop there. The obvious conclusion is that Silverstein can’t be trusted (those who want to point out that he sometimes gets it right should be reminded that even a broken clock is correct twice a day), but Reider says he has unwittingly played into the IDF’s hands. “But the real question is: who would have us believe this highly improbably hypothesis is true? Iran is mostly trying to avoid escalation [by reassuring Israel that it is perfectly comfortable with its existence - Alex]. Why it would give Israel a perfect casus belli by launching such a blatant military attack, which causes no significant damage, is beyond me; but I can well imagine plenty of people within the IDF who would dearly like a casus belli to bolster their case for an attack on Iran. If I were Richard, I would be extremely suspicious of any information – especially uncorroborated information – that helps the pro-war camp in Israel. Not to mention that the source might be acting in good faith, but is being hoodwinked by his own sources within the system.”

Now, Dimi is far more intelligent than most of the folk out there who oppose Jewish statehood, and he’s certainly far more intelligent than the man with no sense of irony who calls his blog Tikun Olam. He must know that Silverstein’s a bit of a dupe. But here his world-view has forced him into some ludicrous contortions, especially now that Israeli footage of the drone proves that it was indeed Israeli. If the IDF wanted us to believe that Iran/Hizbollah had crashed a drone in Israel, why wouldn’t it just say so? Why would it bother coming up with a plausible – and verifiable – story about an Israeli drone malfunctioning? Why would it choose to use a consistently inaccurate and possibly unhinged blogger to try to convince the world that Iran was attacking Israel? Has he heard of Occam’s Razor?

The only conclusion to be drawn from this episode is that Richard Silverstein shouldn’t be taken seriously. But then most of us knew that a long time ago.

MSM finally starts noticing the "unity" sham

It only took ten months....

Rival Palestinian movements Fatah and Hamas are delaying implementation of their reconciliation accord, paying lip-service to the deal while each pursues its own agenda, analysts say.

Last April, the rivals signed a reconciliation agreement which stipulated the holding of fresh presidential and legislative elections in May 2012 and the quick formation of an interim government of independents in the meantime.

The deal also called for a prisoner exchange, removal of restrictions on the distribution of each movement’s newspapers in the other’s territory and the issue of passports to Gaza residents by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.

But the implementation has been painfully slow, with successive rounds of talks at various levels attempting to speed up the process.

Hamas last week gave the long-awaited green light for the reopening of offices of the Central Election Commission in its Gaza fiefdom.

But the CEC still awaits a decree from Palestinian president and Fatah chief Mahmud Abbas authorizing it to update electoral rolls unchanged since the last election six years ago.

Both sides have stressed their desire to repair the rift, but political scientist Mukhaimer Abu Saada of Gaza’s al-Azhar University said little of the deal appeared to have been implemented.

“On political prisoners, we hear that they are close; that the issue of Palestinian passports, newspapers will be settled,” he told AFP. “Every day we hear new promises.”

“They each still have their own calculations,” said Omar Shaaban of Palestinian think-tank Palthink in Gaza, suggesting both sides hope to strengthen their positions.

“(Abbas) thinks he can get something out of talks with Israel and Hamas relies on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. They want to wait.”

Earlier this month, independent Palestinian MP Mustafa Barghuthi, who heads a committee charged with helping implement the deal, warned that it was not being implemented.

“Talks have not started on the formation of the government, giving the impression that the deadlines have no value,” he said.

Although surveys of voter intentions give Fatah high scores, the movement fears entering a presidential fight with anything less than a cast-iron candidate, according to Mahdi Abdul Hadi of the Jerusalem think-tank PASSIA.

“Even though Abbas told them, ‘I’m not running,’ they did not believe him and could not find an alternative,” he told AFP.

Within Hamas, he said, a gap has opened between the head of the Hamas government in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, and the leader of the movement in exile in Damascus, Khaled Meshaal.

“There is a power struggle between Hamas in Gaza and Damascus,” he said.

Meshaal arrived in Jordan on Sunday on his first official visit there since his expulsion in 1999, a trip seen as a turning point in historically difficult relations between Amman and the Islamist movement.

Haniya was to leave on Monday for a regional tour that includes a stop in Iran, which radically opposes any compromise with Israel.