Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, February 02, 2012

Tech-washing!

From WSJ:

Who is going to be Europe's main technology hub? While London and Berlin both see themselves as claimants to the title, if you look at the numbers (and you take a Eurovision Song Contest view of the Continent) arguably neither can challenge Tel Aviv.

It was Ron Huldai, Tel Aviv's 13-year mayor and a former combat pilot, who, while London's Tech City was not even the subject of an interdepartmental memo, had got on with building a tech center second only to Silicon Valley. He did it not by installing high-speed fiber or hosting conferences. His approach, as he said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, was much simpler.

"Tel Aviv had become a city that people used, not a city they lived in," he said. "We are creating a good place for hi-tech people to live in—I am doing it for the people working in hi-tech," he said.

It is the ''Field of Dreams'' model. If you build it, they will come. It is no coincidence that Tel Aviv was recently named the world¹s best gay city.

"It is about building an environment that is supportive," he said. Young digital entrepreneurs tend to be counter-cultural— attracted to cities that are vibrant, diverse and international. One third of the city is under the age of 35, and there is one bar for every 200 residents.

His bottom-up model—worry about the people—has proved successful.

According to a report commissioned by the city, Tel Aviv and its surrounding area, hosts more than 600 early stage companies. Access to venture capital is, per capita, 20-fold greater in Israel than in the rest of Europe. "If you take the amount of VC per capita, in Europe, it is $7. In the U.S. it is $72. In Israel it is double that," Jan Müehlfeit, Microsoft's European chairman asserted last year.

Those damn Zionists, going through an elaborate charade to make Tel Aviv a tech-friendly city in order to cover up their crimes!

Hamas leader calls for re-evaluation of "unity" saying Fatah is not serious

Khalil al-Hayya, head of Hamas' political party "Change and Reform," has called on Hamas to re-evaluate the unity agreement with Fatah in light of Fatah's postponement of a meeting meant to create a framework for negotiations.

He said in a statement, "Unfortunately, the reconciliation track needs a re-evaluation. None of the agreements that have been made on 20 December have been implemented. Reconciliation is not a media or political slogan, it benefits us and the Fatah movement, and to get those benefits one must be prepared to pay. We want to truly end the state of division without equivocation and without the disappearance behind the media or political slogans to reach the stage of full partnership in the PLO or the Authority or otherwise, and without this conviction, the reconciliation concept will remain elusive."

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that Fatah's postponement of the meeting indicates that Fatah is not serious about reconciliation.

And this meeting wasn't even to do anything concrete.

Egyptian MP blames soccer deaths on - well, you know who.

From MEMRI:

Mustafa Bakri: Our country is entering a state of anarchy. This anarchy is caused by America, Israel and the former regime. Look at the New Middle East scheme. Don't talk about all the minute details. What happened in Port Said is a continuation of what happened in Muhammad Mahmoud Street, in Al-Qasr Al-Ayni Street, across from the government, across from Maspero, and in the soccer match against Tunisia. They are all connected. It is an attempt to bring this country down.

How predictable was this?

Gazans attack Ban Ki Moon's vehicle

From Ma'an:

Dozens of people threw shoes and stones at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's convoy as it entered the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Ma'an's correspondent said.

No one was injured during the hostile welcome and the vehicles, which crossed into the Hamas-ruled territory from southern Israel, pushed through the crowd and sped away.

Ban is visiting the region to try to restart long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Many of those who protested as the UN convoy passed were family members of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons. They hit the vehicles with signs bearing slogans accusing Ban of bias towards Israel and of refusing to meet the relatives of Palestinian prisoners.

Who is Moon meeting in Gaza?

From WaPo:

In Gaza, he met with U.N. relief officials, aid groups and human rights organizations.

He also visited a U.N.-funded housing project in southern Gaza, where protesters held up signs saying, “We want to lift the siege on Gaza” — referring to Israeli restrictions on the entry and exit to and from Gaza of people and goods.

Ban’s visit was being heavily secured by Hamas security forces, but he will not be meeting with members of the Hamas government, who are widely shunned internationally over their refusal to renounce violence.

Islamic Jihad came out with a statement criticizing Moon, saying that Gazans don't need financial assistance or food, but rather someone to stand besides them. Given that UNRWA is a dedicated UN agency with a huge budget dedicated to only Palestinian Arabs, and that the UN has dedicated more time and resources to their problems than to any other people on Earth, this is a curious claim.

There is a long history of Palestinian Arabs attacking UN personnel; the first UNRWA report in 1950 mentions a few of them.

The Syrian office of the Agency, located in Damascus, was destroyed by explosives and a bomb was thrown at a truckload of workers in Lebanon. Threats of violence have been made against individual employees of the Agency.

The UN's criticism of these attacks has always been muted.

(h/t Ian)

Egypt imprisons popular actor for "insulting Islam"

From Al Arabiya:

The Egyptian film star and the Arab world’s most famous comedian, Adel Imam, received a three-month jail term with hard labor for his portrayal of Muslim characters on stage and screen, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

Al-Ahram online reported that Imam has been given the sentence in addition to a fine of approximately $166 for “defaming Islam” in some of the roles he has played.

Imam, who is considered to be one of the Arab world’s biggest film stars, with 40 years of box office hits in and plays under his belt, was sentenced in absentia.

Imam had criticized Hamas at the outset of the Gaza war - and afterwards.

He also made a film in 1994 about the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism:

Egypt's film industry is the bedrock of popular culture throughout the Arab world, and "The Terrorist" in the month since its release has become the top Egyptian movie moneymaker of all time, earning half its $447,000 budget in the first three days of its release. It has opened in theaters throughout the Arab world, despite threats from Islamic extremists and decrees banning it in Jordan and northern Lebanon.

Then it shows the perpetrator of many of the attacks-[Adel Imam], dressed in Islamic militant gear as Brother Ali-hit by a car and left to convalesce in the home of an upper-middle-class family in the Cairo suburbs. With his true identity unknown to the family, Ali living in their midst learns the meaning of love and tolerance. He finds himself listening as the family roars with laughter at the ravings of a militant cleric, singing in the shower when he learns the family's beautiful daughter loves him, and impetuously hugging the Christian Copt he formerly loathed when the two men watch with rapture the Egyptian soccer team score a victory.

Imam's huge popularity is the engine behind the film's popularity. His expressive and not particularly handsome face has become the mirror of the Egyptian middle class, with its tribulations, celebrations and frustrations. This is not the first time Imam has taken on militant Islam. Six years ago, as fundamentalists in the militant stronghold of Asyut in southern Egypt declared art forbidden under Islam, Imam took his theatrical troupe on the road, performing for poor Egyptians in the heart of Asyut.

Imam has always been considered close to the Mubarak regime.

The Islamic Winter is descending over Egypt.

Did the U. of Penn bend the rules to allow BDS conference?

This weekend, the University of Pennsylvania will host a conference calling to destroy Israel via boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

I am generally on the side of free speech. To me, the best way to fight such a hatefest is with the truth, and the Philadelphia community is doing an admirable job of countering the conference.

But a recent article at Front Page magazine by Sara Dogan shows that the university seems to have bent its own rules on allowing a brand-new student organization to spring up specifically to host the hate-Israel crowd.

U Penn officials have turned a blind eye (and deaf ear) to the growing public outcry about the conference, claiming that it is solely a student matter and that, to stretch credulity, the university literally has no information regarding the conference, its funding, its sponsors, or its arrangements to use university facilities.

I made several calls to university officials to see if I could uncover the truth about Penn’s sponsorship or funding of or cooperation with the BDS conference.

I first spoke with Executive Director Karu Kozuma at the Office of Student Affairs and hit a brick wall. Kozuma claimed that all funding decisions are handled by students themselves and he did not have any information on whether PennBDS receives student funds either in general or for the upcoming conference. Finding it a bit hard to believe that a university would exercise no oversight in such matters, I asked if there was a list showing all the Student Activities Council allotments for student organizations in the past year. Kozuma claimed there was no public record of this. He claimed to have forwarded my inquiries to the student leaders of PennBDS but I received no response.

A week after my initial call Kozuma responded by email to clarify that PennBDS had only recently become a recognized student organization and as such was not eligible to receive student activities funds for three months. He went on to explain, “As a student organization, Penn BDS receive a number of privileges to use at their discretion as resources are available. These include staff consultation and advising, administrative support, and free use of available common campus spaces. Depending on the campus space and type of activity, university facility hosts may charge student organizations for audio/visual, labor, security, and other costs. Use of the space itself is generally gratis. With the planned upcoming event, Penn BDS has reserved available campus spaces and is working with facility hosts to determine its A/V, labor, and other needs, which would incur costs as for other student groups.”

Many observers and critics of the PennBDS conference and movement note that it appears to have sprung up overnight out of thin air. Yet Penn does have rules and regulations governing how long a student organization must be in existence before it may be officially recognized by the University and thereby be eligible to use university facilities free-of-charge.

The Student Activities Council (SAC) website notes that in order to apply for recognition, the first step toward achieving funding, a student organization at Penn must fulfill several criteria. As the website specifies, “All groups seeking SAC recognition must have been in existence for at least one year. Additionally, the group must have a board with a mix of upper classmen and a roster of past events the group has already put on. The group must also demonstrate an appeal to a reasonable portion of the Penn Community” (emphasis added).

I once again emailed Kozuma to inquire whether PennBDS had met these criteria– in particular, whether the group had existed for a full year prior to its recognition by the Student Activities Council. My inquiries met with no response, raising questions about whether the Student Activities Council and the administrators who oversee it may have bent the rules for PennBDS. Attempts to contact PennBDS directly to ask these questions were also ignored.

I also tried to extract information from the university’s main public relations line and was again told that the conference was strictly a student affair being handled by PennBDS, that the university was not sponsoring it, and “it didn’t go through our office.” I reminded him that there had been a national public outcry over Penn’s hosting of the conference—I thought that at least the university would have drafted a standard statement for reporters–and tried asking for more information, but was again shut down. I tried asking whether Penn BDS was being required to pay for the use of university rooms and facilities but was told again, “I don’t know anything about it.”

This unconcern and lack of transparency on the part of Penn, a university that once had a reputation for being more welcoming to Jews than its Ivy League counterparts, was disturbing.

Free speech is one thing. Ignoring your own stated rules to support hate is quite another.

(h/t David R)

Disgusting BBC piece sympathizing with a child-killer terrorist

The BBC's idea of a hero:

A two-bed flat not far from the cornice in Qatar's capital, Doha, is now home for 47-year-old Ibrahim Shammasina from Ramallah.

His new living room is twice as large as the cell in the Israeli jail where he spent 19 years.

"A minute of freedom is worth more than all the possessions in the world," says Shammasina. "Prison, it's a grave - as if you're in a grave but still alive."

Shammasina was sentenced to 23 years in jail for his role in the 1990 murder of three Israelis and a further 20 years for planning a kidnapping. Despite spending almost half his life in prison, he does not regret his actions.

"When there is an occupation, you're forced to," he says. "It's your duty, the duty of every Palestinian, to resist the occupation. If I didn't resist, I would just have surrendered."

Out of one of the bedrooms steps Ibrahim's frail 85-year-old mother, Tamam. While he was in prison, Ibrahim's brother, father and wife all died.

His mother, who peppers every sentence by giving thanks to God, could not see her son for years.

Understandably, she has now decided to come to Qatar to be with him.

Despite the time they spent apart, she supports what he did.

"No, I don't regret it. I don't regret it," she says simply.

Also visiting Shammasina for a few weeks is one of his two sons, 24-year-old Iyad.

His father has been in prison for most of his life, but he says that he does not feel any anger towards him, although they do not have a typical relationship.

"He's more my friend than my dad," says Iyad.

The BBC allows Shammasina to talk about how horrible prison is, how wonderful freedom is, and how important resistance is. It describes how heartbroken his mother is, how he is trying to rebuild his family, and how tragic it is that his brother, father and wife all died while he was imprisoned. The entire is designed to make the reader sympathize with him and with the tribulations he has had to endure.

But it doesn't say a word about his victims.

Who did Shammasina kill?

Lior Tubul and Ronen Karmani, were both seventeen years old (some reports say Ronen was 18.) On a summer day in 1990, they went to visit their girlfriends north of Jerusalem.

Shammasina abducted them, bound their hands behind their backs, gagged them and then stabbed them dozens of times, so that their faces were unrecognizable. They were dumped in a ravine nearby.

This subhuman scum was also involved in murdering a taxi driver, Rafi Doron, as well as abducting and killing a hitchhiking soldier, Yehoshua Friedberg.

This happened during that non-violent first intifada we hear so much about.

This is the monster - and child-killer - that the BBC is asking its readers to sympathize with.

(h/t IranAware)

Erdogan freaks over an American author's refusal to visit

From NYT:

The publication in Turkey of a new work by Paul Auster — even before it is released in the United States — would seem to be a cause for celebration there. But instead it has provoked a war of words between Mr. Auster, who has used the occasion to call attention to human rights violations in that country, and the Turkish prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, who mocked the author as “an ignorant man.”

The dust-up began when Mr. Auster gave an interview to the daily newspaper Hürriyet in Turkey, where his book “Winter Journal” has recently been published. Mr. Auster said he would not visit the country “because of imprisoned journalists and writers.”

“How many are jailed now?” Mr. Auster said in the interview. “Over 100?”

That elicited a strong if not especially concerned reply from Mr. Erdogan on Tuesday at a meeting of his AK Party in Ankara, Reuters reported.

“If you come, so what?” Mr. Erdogan said. “If you don’t come, so what? Will Turkey lose prestige?”

Well, until Erdogan went nuts over this issue, hardly anyone would have even known about this. In one fell swoop, Erdogan managed to make Auster a much more famous author and simultaneously made himself look like a petty child.

But he didn't end there:

Mr. Erdogan went on to criticize Mr. Auster for having previously visited Israel, saying: “”Supposedly Israel is a democratic, secular country, a country where freedom of expression and individual rights and freedoms are limitless. What an ignorant man you are. Aren’t these the ones that rained bombs down on Gaza? The ones that launched phosphorus bombs and used chemical weapons. How can you not see this?”

Auster answered:

Whatever the Prime Minister might think about the state of Israel, the fact is that free speech exists there and no writers or journalists are in jail. According to the latest numbers gathered by International PEN, there are nearly one hundred writers imprisoned in Turkey, not to speak of independent publishers such as Ragip Zarakolu, whose case is being closely watched by PEN Centers around the world. All countries are flawed and beset by myriad problems, Mr. Prime Minister, including my United States, including your Turkey, and it is my firm conviction that in order to improve conditions in our countries, in every country, the freedom to speak and publish without censorship or the threat of imprisonment is a sacred right for all men and women.

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.