Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

How many universities worldwide have "American Day"?

The University of Haifa did, on January 19:

I was curious if I could find any other university worldwide that ever had an American Day.

I found only one: Hebrew University, last March.

Can you imagine a scene like this in any European university, or in any other Middle East country?

Here is video from the US Ambassador to Israel on his trip to Haifa, including this event and visits to GE Health Israel (where they manufacture ultrasound equipment) and a science museum.

This is one part of Israel that the anti-Israel crowd doesn't want you to see. Israelis love America. They don't resent it, they aren't jealous of it, they don't take it for granted - they simply love America.

And the feeling is mutual - even though a small but noisy bunch of haters try their hardest to change that.

Jimmy Carter says a couple of Iranian nuclear bombs is no big deal

How immoral can a Nobel Peace Prize winner be?

From Time Magazine, behind paywall, quoted in Huffington Post:

Well, of course, the religious leaders of Iran have sworn on their word of honor that they're not going to manufacture nuclear weapons. If they are lying, then I don't see that as a major catastrophe because they'll only have one or two military weapons. Israel probably has 300 or so.

Only slightly less outrageous: Noam Sheizaf at +972mag -one of the intended victims of any Iranian bomb - shows this same quote from Carter. His takeaway fact is that - warmongering Israel has 300 nuclear weapons, seemingly confirmed as "probably" by an ex-president who hasn't seen any intelligence reports for over three decades.

(h/t Ian)

Fake photo of soldier stepping on girl goes viral (UPDATED)

YNet Hebrew notes that Facebook and other social media is awash with copies of this image, often with a caption claiming that this is an IDF soldier stepping on a Palestinian Arab girl:

YNet traced it back to a Twitter image from June, but that one was captioned as if it happened in Syria.

There are thousands of copies throughout the Internet.

Israeli site Tazpit noted it in June, and did some basic research:

The soldier in the photo appears to be holding a Kalashnikov AK47 which is not used by the Israeli army, but used often by the Palestinian police forces and terror organizations. The IDF is known for using M16 and M4 weapons, and its uniforms are different from the soldier's uniform that appears on the photo.

The Israeli Governmental Advertising Agency told "Tazpit" earlier today: "the photo has been checked by the IDF Spokesperson and after investigating, it seems that the photo is not authentic and that the soldier is not Israeli. Unfortunately, the use of such photos is a known method, trying to harm Israel's image on the internet and is part of the social networks war of information".

I don't think it is from Syria. This looks completely staged. It might even have been some street theater.

Daled Amos discussed this photo last year.

(h/t Dan)

UPDATE: A funny spoof:

Pun/phrase untranslatable without a lot of explanation, sorry.

(h/t Kramerica)

UPDATE 2: Tweeter Michal found the originals - and as I suspected, they were done as street theater, apparently in Bahrain, in December 2009 during celebration of the holiday of the 9th of Muharram:

UPDATE 3: A great collection of spoof Photoshops of this event at an Israeli site (h/t View To Mideast)

Mahmoud Abbas' jihad against InLightPress newspaper

Over the past few days, Challah Hu Akbar at Israellycool has been documenting a remarkable attack on a Palestinian Arab newspaper, apparently ordered by Mahmoud Abbas himself, after it published some articles critical of him.

The site, InLightPress, suffered from a DDoS attack that the paper said been orchestrated by the PA government and authorized by Abbas personally.

A couple of journalists have also been arrested by the PA in recent days.

InLightPress is down as of this writing, and this time it looks like a more traditional hacking attack rather than a denial of service.

Fears of Syrian chemical weapons going to Hezbollah

From Israel HaYom:

The transfer of chemical weapons from Syria to Hezbollah would be tantamount to a declaration of war, a senior defense official said on Tuesday, adding that Israel would not accept such a move and would act to prevent it.

In light of the recent events unfolding in Syria, Israeli officials are concerned the regime may try to transfer its advanced weapons – including non-conventional weapons – to the Lebanese-based terrorist organization Hezbollah.

Syria has transferred advanced weapons to Hezbollah control in recent years, but the weapons have remained on Syrian soil in accordance with Assad's instructions, to avoid their possible destruction by Israel. With the increasing belief that Assad's rule is expected to end in the near future, some analysts have warned he may decide to transfer arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The delivery could include a large number of long-range missiles, advanced anti-aircraft systems that could threaten Israel Air Force flights in the north, and chemical weapons.

Syria is believed to possess the world's largest stockpile of chemical weapons, including some of the deadliest chemical agents known, such as sarin and the nerve agent VX. Their chemical agents have already been integrated in warheads mounted on advanced Scud missiles.

The weapons are currently under the tight supervision of military forces loyal to Assad, but may be transferred to Hezbollah – possibly even at Iran's behest – because Lebanon is currently perceived as more stable than Syria. "We are seeing a paradoxical process unfold, in which Syria is undergoing a process of 'Lebanonization' and vice versa," said the senior Israeli defense official. "Syria, which was an island of stability in the past is now being torn apart by military clashes. Lebanon is now perceived as being the more stable of the two," the official added.

For Israel, the transfer of such weapons – and especially chemical weapons – to Hezbollah would be crossing a red line. The senior official said such a situation would be tantamount to "a declaration of war." Unlike Syria, whose weapons are mainly a deterrent, "Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that is much less predictable and cannot be allowed to entertain itself with unconventional weapons," the official said.

Jane's reported in 2003 that Syria had 100 long range ballistic missiles with VX warheads aimed at Israel.

(h/t Yoel)

A group of children held a press conference in Gaza yesterday, saying that they will lead marches against the division between Fatah and Hamas.

They claimed that there are some 30,000 children in the territories who are being exploited for labor, being underpaid, and often forced out of school. 32 of the tunnel workers who have been killed in accidents were children. They complained that their exploitation is a violation of a number of international conventions and yet no one is trying to help them.

This might be related to the protests that are planned for 7 PM today where disgruntled Palestinian Arabs plan to bang pots and pans from their homes to protest the division. In both cases, the protests are smartly designed to be difficult to be stopped by the authorities.

It is too early to tell, but this might be the beginning of the Palestinian Arab version of the Arab Spring.

LA Jewish Journal supports fake Gaza children's art exhibit

Last September, there was a controversy over the Oakland Museum of Children's Art canceling an exhibit of artwork supposedly drawn by Gazan children.

At the time, I brought some evidence that the artwork was not conceived, or in some cases even drawn, by children at all. Commenters with art backgrounds generally agreed that these were not the works of children. Additionally, the lack of any names on the artwork itself, and the sponsors not publicizing the names of the artists themselves, is more than a little fishy - where else is art shown without publicizing the name of the artist?

But the organizers pushed on, finding other venues. And now the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles is supporting them, in an article called "Who's afraid of children's art"?

[The controversy] about the situation in Oakland caught the eye of Jordan Elgrably, an Arab Jew and one of the co-founders of the Levantine Center in Los Angeles. “I said, ‘Well, what are people really afraid of?’ ” Elgrably said recently, speaking on the phone from the park, his children at play a few feet away. “This is kids, and it’s from their experience. It’s searing; it’s real. We should host this.”

Around the same time Elgrably was contemplating Walker’s op-ed, an e-mail from MECA, the organizers of the failed Oakland exhibition, popped into the in-box of Amani Jabsheh, a Los Angeles-based peace activist. MECA was looking for places to show the work around the country, and they needed help. Jabsheh knew she had to do something. “When I saw what they painted — that’s their reality. I want people to see how the children suffer there under the occupation.”

According to Jabsheh, it was Rachel Corrie, a young American woman who was killed while protesting in front of an Israeli bulldozer, who inspired her to get involved in promoting peace in the Middle East. She saw what Corrie had done and thought to herself that if someone like Corrie, who shared no background with Palestinians, was getting involved, she couldn’t sit on the sidelines. “She was not Muslim, she couldn’t speak the language, you know, [had] nothing [in common] with us, and since that time, I’ve felt an obligation as a human being to do my part,” Jabsheh said.

Jabsheh wrote back to the organizers and MECA, and they put her in touch with another woman in Los Angeles who had also contacted them, Dara Wells-Hajjar. When Jabsheh and Wells-Hajjar connected, they realized that they’d both worked with the Levantine Cultural Center and that it would be the perfect place to stage the exhibition.

Elgrably agreed. “For a decade now, we’ve been championing a greater understanding of the Middle East and North Africa by presenting arts and educational programs that really attempt to bridge political and religious divides,” he said of the Levantine Center.

To think that an exhibit like this promotes peace is more than a stretch. Many of the drawings promote hate; for example there are multiple drawings showing mosques engulfed in flame with Israeli aircraft and tanks nearby.

That last drawing, as I have shown, is a direct copy of a famous poster by anti-semitic artist Latuff, down to the path of the rocket.

Many others do not reflect any reality that children in Gaza would have witnessed. They seem to more reflect Western Israel-haters' ideas of what the children should be drawing.

No reputable museum would show an exhibit without proving the provenance of the artwork. Fake pathos should not replace the truth. Any venue for this exhibit has the responsibility to determine who drew these pictures and under what circumstances.

Because this is not art - it is propaganda. And chances are pretty good that it is a hoax as well.

Turkey's seeming correction (Zvi)

Zvi comments on this post:

Well, you know, when your (meaning Erdogan's) shiny-new Arabist foreign policy blows itself to smithereens in the most spectacular manner possible,

And when you realize that some of the Europeans that you spurned are now voting to condemn you for the genocidal rampage that your country has always refused to acknowledge, and you've realized that threatening them just makes Europeans think that you're an idiot,

And when you realize that even the irrevocably anti-Israel UN supports the legality of the Gaza blockade that you insisted was illegal,

And when you realize that the Israelis whom you stabbed in the back immediately discovered the most promising energy bonanza in the eastern Mediterranean, and when this rapidly brings Israel together with Cyprus, partly because you gave up your influence with Jerusalem when you stabbed Israel in the back,

And when you realize that your "great friend" al-Assad is courting the PKK again,

And when you realize that your new buddies the Iranians are "smuggling weapons to terrorists through your soil" ... without your approval,

And when you realize that your new "friends" the Russians simply won't listen to you, and are going to protect their old friends in Damascus, the ones who are feeding the PKK,

And when you think about it honestly and realize that because you threw all of your reliable, sophisticated, influential friends under the bus, YOU HAVE NO RELIABLE AND INFLUENTIAL FRIENDS LEFT AT ALL,

Well, you really must start thinking "maybe I'd better start picking my battles." Certainly, hosting the overtly genocidal Hamas terror group would piss off not only the US but the EU. Not to mention certain Gulf Arab regimes who view anything connected with Iran, Syria OR the Muslim Brotherhood as poison.

So you (Erdogan) try to turn down the temperature on the completely unnecessary fights that you started in order to get "in" with the crowd that is now self destructing. After all, you don't need yet another diplomatic train-wreck to your credit, do you?

Maybe you (Erdogan) start courting the poor, stupid, forgiving Jews who used to stand up for you - yeah, we're very stupid and very forgiving - the Jews whom you stabbed in the back. You show "Shoah" on a TV station and hope that everyone will get all excited by this "signal" and forget about "Valley of the Wolves." You put out press about how you held Holocaust Remembrance Day events, and hope that everybody will forget about the Armenians. You say that hosting Hamas is "out of the question" and hope that everyone will forget your warm cuddles and diplomatic cover for Hamas in the very recent past. You blast Russia for its support for the Syrian regime, and hope that everyone will forget your own snuggles with al-Assad only a year before. You hem and haw after an earthquake and accept only a tiny portion of the assistance that Israel offered, and hope that your voters care more about burning Israeli flags than they care about freezing Turks.

Not to mention that you (meaning Erdogan) accepted the Qaddafi Human Rights Prize scant months before that vile dictator's people rose up and extinguished him. THAT one is a "must" for the "Most Epic Fails" album. You (Erdogan) wish that you could forget about that one yourself.

But Erdogan has not decided to make peace with Israel. He's not going to do that. Attacking Israel is too ingrained in many within his party, and his support for a bunch of psychopaths on the Mavi M. has left him no line of retreat without completely humiliating himself and his country (more than he already has, that is). The right-wing Islamist ideologues within his AKP remain vehemently anti-Semitic.

Erdogan has stopped throwing fuel on the bonfire, but he has not put it out, and I see very little likelihood that he will do so. If the Turkish people have any sense, they will evict the AKP and its disasters from office in the next elections. But I don't see that as a very likely possibility.

Malaysian accuses rival of cozying up to Jews

I noted yesterday that the hot topic in Malaysian politics is that an opposition leader, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, was accused of being "Zionist" and having relationships with prominent Jews because of an interview he gave in the Wall Street Journal.

So naturally he is accusing his accuser of being a Jew-lover himself:

PKR has accused Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad of having close ties with Zionists and pro-Israeli US leaders back when he was prime minister, stating that these were well-recorded facts.

Dr Mahathir had yesterday labelled arch rival Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as a Jewish sympathiser and a leader who disregarded the plight of the Palestinians. The former prime minister was responding to Anwar’s recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, in which the latter expressed support for “all efforts to protect the security of the state of Israel.”

In a statement today, PKR communications director Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad (picture) said Dr Mahathir had “twisted” Anwar’s remarks, and that the former PM had conveniently forgotten his “close ties” with the US and pro-Jewish lobbyists.

“Anwar has explained that his statement in the Wall Street Journal played up by Umno and their media is consistent with a two-state solution which is an initiative accepted by the Arab world, Malaysia as well as Hamas, who are Palestinian freedom fighters.

“Mahathir might seem to be against Zionists and the West but he actually has a good relationship with them, to the point where he was willing to sign a private military agreement with America in 1984 — the Bilateral Training and Consultation Agreement (BITAC) which enabled the US to conduct military training in Malaysia,” said Nik Nazmi.

The PKR leader claimed that Dr Mahathir paid Jack Abramoff, a Zionist lobbyist, US$1.2 million (RM3.7 million) to arrange a meeting with former US President George W. Bush shortly after Anwar was sacked as deputy prime minister.

“This has been admitted by Dr Mahathir himself,” said Nik Nazmi, adding that Abramoff had close ties with Bush as well as Israeli extremists.

The Seri Setia state assemblyman said that according to a Newsweek article Abramoff collected funds for the Jews in Israel to be used in their fight against the Palestinians, and that he (Abramoff) eventually pleaded guilty to charges of corruption and fraud in 2006.

Dr Mahathir had also claimed that his former protégé had close ties with many US elected representatives who were Jews, and that he was their “friend”, and named Paul Wolfowitz as one of them.

Wolfowitz, a former US Secretary of Defence and World Bank president, is of Jewish descent.

Muslim politicians have long vied for support from Malays by denouncing what they say are inhumane acts of aggression by Israel towards its neighbour.

Anwar has previously been attacked as a supporter of the Zionist movement due to his interaction with prominent Jewish figures in the West.

But the opposition leader turned the tables on Umno and Barisan Nasional in 2010 when he claimed public relations firm APCO Worldwide, then contracted by Putrajaya, was responsible for both the 1 Malaysia and 1 Israel campaigns.

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.