Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, February 04, 2012

New Turkish aid ship for Gaza - going through Ashdod

Could it be that Turkey learned a lesson?

A Turkish ship carrying medical aid for people in Gaza has arrived at Ashdod Port in Israel, Turkish Deputy Premier Bekir Bozdag confirmed Saturday.

Bozdag was quoted by Turkish daily, Zaman, that innocent civilians not only die by shelling but can be killed by the strict siege they are being held under, which prevents the entry of food, medicine and other basic needs.

He said his country had presented a request to the Israeli Defence Ministry, to allow safe passage for the aid ship in October last year.

The ship carries aid worth USD 1.5 million to the Gazans.

If they would have done that in 2010, nine lives would have been saved.

AFP defends photo of Arab allegedly run over (updated)

I reported last week about a series of photos, one of which was published by AFP, supposedly showing an Arab man - Mohammed Abu Qbeita - in agony after one of his legs was tun over by a truck.

Here is the AFP photo:

CAMERA did an investigation and found that there were many holes in the story:

After checking with both Palestinian and Israeli sources, it seems that the man was not at all injured, and there is no evidence that he was run over. On the Palestinian side, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), which provides comprehensive weekly reports about all injuries, fatalities, incursions, and other incidents in both the West Bank and Gaza, makes no mention of this alleged injury in its report for Jan. 19- 25. In addition, the Palestinian Ma'an News Agency did not cover the alleged injury, even though it does report on Israeli army activity that day nearby in Tel Rumeida. And Ma'an also reported a hit and run incident, in which a Palestinian teen was hit by an Israeli driver at a checkpoint this morning. Presumably, then had this worker actually been run over and injured on Wednesday, Ma'an would have carried the story. Nor does it appear that any English-language wire service or other media outlet covered the alleged injury.

On the Israeli side, Capt. Barak Raz, spokesman for the Judea and Samaria division who had spoken to soldiers at the scene, told CAMERA the following: IDF soldiers were on site to provide security for the Civil Administration, which was preventing Palestinian construction in an area not permitted for building. One Palestinian worker was lying on the ground next to the trailer when he started to scream that he had been run over. Nobody saw him get run over. First he complained that his left leg was injured. An army medic checked him and saw nothing. The medic did, nevertheless, wrap him in a bandage since the worker was carrying on that he had been run over. The man then subsequently claimed that it was his right leg which was injured. According to Raz, the Palestinian Red Crescent, which was also on the scene, checked him, and likewise found absolutely nothing wrong with him.

In short, at worst, this incident is staged, as Raz contends, and the man pretended to be run over and injured, while neither happened. At best, there is zero independent confirmation that he was injured. If neither AFP nor IHT can substantiate the claim, it ought to be immediately retracted.

AFP is denying any impropriety on the part of their photographer, and say the story is true:
These claims are false.

AFP’s Jerusalem bureau and photo editor interviewed other media representatives present at the scene and watched video footage filmed by other colleagues showing the construction worker being carried away on a stretcher. Their trust in the events described by Hazem Bader is unequivocal.

Reporters from AFP Jerusalem bureau also interviewed the injured construction worker, Mahmud Abu Qbeita, on February 1 as well as the doctors that treated him at Yatta hospital. The following is a translation from Arabic of the medical certificate issued on the day of the incident : “Yatta Hospital Prescription for Mohammed Abu Qbeita To whom it may concern, The above mentioned person has attended the emergency service at the hospital. He was suffering from severe pain in his right leg. He said that an Israeli military vehicle ran over him. In the medical examination we found that he has pain in his right knee, pain in his pelvis, and pain in the neck, and has difficulty in walking. We conducted X-RAYS on him and found fractures. He has been advised to consult the orthopedic department."

Here’s a transcript of the interview given on February 1 by Mohammed Abu Qbeita: "I was working on this site for the first day. It was the first time I'd been working there. Some time after we started working the Israeli army arrived. All of a sudden, a lot of them, started saying it was forbidden to build there. I didn't know that because I hadn't worked there before, but they said it was forbidden and we had to stop and they wanted to demolish what was already at the site. They were shouting a lot and I started walking over to where my stuff was so I could get my phone and my ID card and that's when the tractor hit me. It hit me twice, first on my side, which knocked me over on the ground. Then it drove over one of my legs. I didn't see it coming. It went over one of my legs, one was under the wheel, the other one was outside it. (Asked whether he heard it coming) I didn't hear it, there was a lot of noise, a lot of shouting. Even if I heard something, I didn't respond because I never imagined that it would hit me. (Asked who was driving?) It was one of them driving, one of the army, the Israelis. I don't know who he was. It was our tractor, for our work, but he was on it and driving. (Asked if he went to the hospital?) Yes, I went to the hospital, they examined me and treated me and I have a medical certificate and I will show it to anyone who wants to see it. Anyone who wants can talk to me and take a picture of my leg and of me."

In the light of these inquiries and based on the trust we have in our photojournalist, AFP Management does not believes that this event could ever have been staged.

Given the ferocity of the attacks against the AFP Photo service, we have decided to release this statement in order to set the record straight. We will not make any further comment.

Here is the "medical certificate" that AFP translated:

Assuming that AFP is representing this correctly, here's what doesn't add up.

Since when do hospitals release statements about patients for the public ("To whom it may concern") on the date of the incident, days before anyone published any accusations that this did not appear to be true?

How can a person whose leg was run over by a heavy truck be able to still walk, even "with difficulty?"

If Qbeita was play-acting in the photo, why would a statement by him be considered verification to AFP in the least? Couldn't they find someone else to interview who was at the scene?

Why does Qbeita still say that he was run over by a tractor when the wheel he is under is clearly from a truck?

How on earth could he have been run over in a muddy road, from a spectactularly muddy tire, without any visible mud on his leg at all?

How, given how he is positioned, could the truck have run over only one of his legs? How could it have knocked him down - was it going in reverse?

Photos of him going on a stretcher are hardly proof. And what did the videos show? Certainly not him being hit, or else AFP would have stated so.

While it is possible that AFP's photographer was not part of the staging of this incident, it seems very unlikely that the victim was truly run over by the truck, especially given contradictory evidence from the scene. And the PA Ministry of Health is not exactly above politics.

(h/t @cetypeestfou)

UPDATE: See CAMERA's comprehensive response.

Many Arabic maps include all of Jerusalem in Israel

Arabic media are reporting that Joseph Khouzam, an official for the Cairo International Book Fair, has confiscated a number of atlases distributed via Europe, including from National Geographic, showed Israel taking land away from "Palestine." He then "adjusted" the maps to be presumably more accurate.

Apparently, these books were in English, although it is hard to say from the articles. The articles themselves are all illustrated with a detail from an Arabic map of the area. That map seems to come from Wikipedia.

This specific map can be seen on dozens of Arabic sites.

And it includes all of greater Jerusalem, as defined by Israel, on the Israeli side!

It seems that many Arab websites just took the map from Wikipedia and posted it on their sites, without even noticing that the supposed capital of Palestine - so important to them, we are told - is depicted as being fully within Israel!

Ban Ki Moon still doesn't get it

Ban Ki Moon's speech at Herzliya was not a terrible speech by any means, but it was far from a good one.

Filled with cliches and UN boilerplate, it did not break any new ground.

It is strange that he completely glossed over the most important issue, Iran, and spent the bulk of the speech talking about Palestinian Arab aspirations and frustrations.

And when he did, although he thinks that he tried to take into account Israel's viewpoint, his words show that he misses the point.

A couple of examples:

The United Nations helped bring the State of Israel into this world. It did so in the name of peace, not war. Yet the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is entering its seventh decade.

No, the Israeli-Arab conflict is in its seventh decade. The Zionist-Arab conflict is now in at least its 14th decade. To call it the "Israeli-Palestinian" conflict is to completely misunderstand history, and how Arab nations have been using Palestinian Arabs as pawns since 1948.

So has the UN, via UNRWA, since at least 1960, as it has abandoned all pretext of solving the "refugee" problem and instead works to perpetuate it.

The current peace process began in Madrid more than 20 years ago. It raised high hopes - but delivered two decades of delay, mistrust and missed opportunities.

There are two reasons that the peace process has failed.

One is because the Palestinian Arab leadership has made a conscious decision that peace is less important than their pride, and they are unwilling to compromise over what they believe are their "rights" - and the UN is partially to blame, by giving them false hope for decades based on its one-sided resolutions supporting them again and again even when they were responsible for the most heinous crimes.

The other is because of a small thing called the Second Intifada, that was organized and led by Israel's so-called "peace partners." Moon is suggesting that they be rewarded for their reign of terror only a few years ago, and that they should gain more concessions than beforehand from the victims of that terror. The UN is not supposed toreward aggression, but this is what Moon is doing in this speech.

The creation of functioning and well-governed Palestinian institutions is clearly a strategic Israeli interest. Yet these advances are at risk. Why? Because the politics is not keeping pace with developments on the ground.

Here's a key point.

There is no doubt that the PA has made great progress in security and in some institution building. And there is no doubt that this helps Israeli, and Palestinian Arab, interests.

But if those gains are threatened by the lack of progress in negotiations, then that shows that there is a fundamental problem. It means that Palestinian Arab self-interest is not enough to concretize these gains. It means that the underlying Palestinian Arab psyche is not mature enough to build up and keep their own gains on the ground, and are willing to throw it away when they don't get what they demand.

It is not a stretch to say that this indicates that Palestinian Arab hate towards Israel is stronger than their own self-interest.

Failure of negotiations should have nothing to do with whether the PA keeps an effective security force, or creates its own currency, or opens up new markets for goods and services. They have areas that they govern themselves, they have areas that they secure themselves, and how they act within those areas is not affected one bit by the success and failure of negotiations.

Can you imagine Moon saying that Palestinian Arab actions - in refusing to negotiate, or in their continuing incitement against Israel and Jews on their TV programs and school textbooks, or in their disregarding signed agreements - might cause Israelis to turn to violence against them? It is absurd. yet he is saying that Israel is responsible for any possible negative acts that Palestinian Arabs might do!

Moon has bought the biggest lie of all - that Palestinian Arabs are, fundamentally, children whose own actions and decisions are byproducts of outide influence rather than their own, mature choices.

In these circumstances, Israel must think carefully about how to empower those on the other side who wish for peace.

The reverse of this statement is nonsensical - that Moon would tell Palestinian Arabs "how to empower those on the other side who wish for peace." Because every Israeli wishes for real peace.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the other side.

The stunts like the UN bid are not meant to create peace, but to avoid negotiations and compromise. They are games. They show that there is no seriousness on the Palestinian Arab side.

If Ban Ki Moon wants peace, he should not be lecturing Israelis. He should be lecturing those who seem to act - as his own words indicate - as if peace is merely a tactic and not a goal.

(h/t Dan)

January Qassam misfire report

According to GANSO's two semi-monthly reports:

Four rockets exploded prematurely from the Middle Area of the Gaza Strip.
One exploded prematurely from the Gaza City area.
Three Qassams either exploded on the ground or fell short from northern Gaza.
One Qassam shot from Khan Younis fell short.

That's nine Gaza rockets that exploded in Gaza in January.

Latest Latma

Only fair this week.

Islamists win Kuwaiti parliament vote

Al Arabiya reports:

Kuwait’s Islamist-led opposition won the majority seats in a snap election for the wealthy Gulf state’s fourth parliament in less than six years, while women candidates did not win a single seat, according to official results released on Friday.

Sunni Islamists took 23 seats compared with just nine in the dissolved parliament, while liberals were the big losers, winning only two places against five previously.

No women were elected, with the four female MPs of the previous parliament all losing their seats.

The snap polls were held after the ruler of the oil-rich Gulf state dissolved parliament following youth-led protests and after bitter disputes between the opposition MPs and the government.

Opposition candidates and ex-MPs who spearheaded a movement to oust Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed al-Sabah as prime minister were tipped to expand their influence in parliament, riding a wave of frustration at the impasse and perceived corruption.

The country is still run by the Emir and Prime Minister, both from the Al Sabah family, but this is an indication that things aren't quite going their way. (The endemic corruption in the previous parliament didn't help matters.)

Is there anyone who still believes that the "Arab Spring" is a liberal movement?

Answering a typical slur in 500 characters

Ramzy Baroud, in Ma'an, goes over some well-worn ground:

It goes without saying there should be no room for any racist discourse -- Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, or any other -- in the Palestine solidarity movement, which aims at achieving long-denied justice and rights for the Palestinian people.

A racist discourse is predicated on racial supremacy, which is exactly what Palestinians are resisting in Israel and the occupied territories.

But the "Jewish and democratic state" of Israel is riddled with so many contradictions, the kind that no straightforward narrative can possibly capture.

Many scholars and rights groups have discussed the way in which irreconcilable values defined the very character of Israel from the onset.

According to Adalah (meaning 'justice' in Arabic), the legal center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel: "Israel's Declaration of Independence (1948) states two principles important for understanding the legal status of Palestinian citizens of Israel. First, the Declaration refers specifically to Israel as a 'Jewish state' committed to the 'ingathering of the exiles.' (Second)…it contains only one reference to the maintenance of complete equality of political and social rights for all its citizens, irrespective of race, religion, or sex."

...The controversy is embedded in the purposeful intellectual and political elasticity by which Israel defines, or refuses to define itself. It claims to be Jewish as well as democratic. It claims to embody religious ideals but also to be secular. It claims to be liberal, while it is militarily oppressive. It claims to uphold 'equality' for all, while it is racially exclusive.

And if you dare to challenge these irreconcilable contradictions, you are termed an anti-Semite or a traitor -- or both.

Ma'an only allows 500 character responses. So here is mine:

This is a straw man argument.

The tension between being a Jewish and democratic state is well known, but it is not a contradiction. It is certainly no more racist than every single Arab state declaring themselves as such (implying discrimination against non-Arabs), and most saying they are Muslim, in their constitutions. Including Palestine's.

It is anti-semitic to deny the Jewish people, and only Jews, the right to self determination. That is where Israel's critics sometimes cross the line.

Of course, those points can be expanded considerably. Maybe Ma'an will ask me to write my own op-ed.....

Sinai Egyptians rioting because butane cylinders smuggled to Gaza

From Al Masry Al Youm:

Minya residents protesting the shortage of butane gas cylinders blocked train traffic in Upper Egypt Thursday.

“Resident gathered at 9:50 am on Thursday on railways of Malateya station, located between Maghagha and Bani Mazar stations,” head of the Egypt Railways Authority Hani Hegab said in a statement.

Hegab called on citizens to end the protests, saying they hinder other people’s interests and cause the authority huge losses. Demonstrators in various towns have repeatedly disrupted rail traffic over the past year to call attention to various problems.

Hundreds of Gerga City residents in Assiut blocked the rails on Wednesday for almost seven hours, saying that gas cylinders are being sold for eight times their actual value of around LE6.50.

What the newspaper doesn't say is the reason for the shortage - because the cylinders are being smuggled to Gaza.

As Al Wafd reported earlier this week, there isn't so much a butane shortage as a cylinder shortage. Gangs have been forcibly taking the cylinders and smuggling them to Gaza, where the price is higher than even the Egyptian black market.

This is not a new problem. Here is a report from last June, where Assistant Secretary General for North Sinai Governorate Maj. Gen. Jaber Al-Arabi said that the reason for the continuing crisis of butane gas cylinders is due to the their smuggling through the tunnels into the Gaza Strip, which leads to shortages and increased demand.

The funniest thing out of Iran - Cardboard Khomeini

From the NYT blog:

To celebrate the 33rd anniversary on Wednesday of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s triumphant return from exile, Iran re-enacted his arrival at a Tehran airport, using a cardboard cutout to stand in for the late Iranian leader.

Photographs of the ceremony published on Tuesday by Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency seemed to lend themselves to parody, with Farsi and English Internet satirists treating them as bizarre authoritarian kitsch.

The photos showed a band playing welcome music as dozens of men in dress uniforms clutched roses and lined up on a tarmac for the staged arrival of the cardboard Ayatollah Khomeini.

The Twitter account for the English-language Iranian blog Pedestrian was characteristic of the reaction:

Haven’t laughed this hard in SO long. Iranian blogistan is on comedy fire with the cardboard Imam: baztab.net/fa/news/1787/%… #Iran #Khomeini

— Sidewalk Lyrics (@pedestrian) February 1, 2012
The anonymous creator of Cardboard Khomeini has taken part of one of the photographs, the ayatollah’s oversize likeness being carried by two security officers in sunglasses, and pasted it into a variety of iconic images like the Beatles “Abbey Road” album cover, the moon landing and Ronald Reagan’s 1980 inauguration.

Shortly after the airport arrival, another cardboard cutout made an appearance in southern Tehran at Refah School, which served as Ayatollah Khomeini’s base of operations. There, it was joined by officials, including the education minister, who sat in a large circle with the silent version of the revered leader and awkwardly drank tea.

In [one parody,] the cardboard Khomeini complains that he was not served a glass of tea. "I'm the Supreme Leader! Where is my tea???"

Here's my contribution:

(h/t CHA@Israellycool)

Iran blocks nuclear inspectors from visiting key site

From AOL Defense:

A dramatic visit by UN inspectors to Iran amid rising international tension failed to get answers about whether Iran seeks the bomb.

Iran tried to draw maximum publicity through a show of cooperation with inspectors from the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency who visited Tehran this week. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Iran was "prepared to make arrangements for inspection" of nuclear sites but that the IAEA team had not asked to go.

But IAEA chief inspector Herman Nackaerts and the agency number two Rafael Gross, who headed the inspectors, did not want to visit nuclear sites, which are already monitored by the IAEA. They wanted to see Parchin, a weapons testing ground, and also to see crucial documents and scientists who work there or are connected to such work, diplomats said. The IAEA had published in November an extensive report about alleged atomic weapons research by Iran, and Parchin was a key link in this. The IAEA has also been seeking for years to interview the man believed to head Iran's alleged covert military nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and once again did not get to him.

The Iranians refused access to Parchin, saying it was not a site where there is nuclear material and so the IAEA which verifies use of such material had no business there. This, however, goes to the crux of what the IAEA is now trying to do, which is to verify possible nuclear weapons research that may have been carried out without nuclear material. This can include learning how to make the trigger which sets of atomic bombs or the neutron initiator which speeds up the explosive chain reaction. The IAEA needs to investigate such matters, grouped under the heading "possible military dimensions" of Iran's nuclear work, before it can say whether the Iranian program is a peaceful or military one.

Iran continues to play games, knowing that appearing to cooperate will take some of the pressure off from powers like Russia.

An email from a grieving father and grandfather

I received this email from Michael Craig Palmer:

Greetings!

On Friday, September 23 last year, two Arabs motivated by hatred for Jews murdered my son Asher and his son Yonatan. Asher was driving from his home in Kiryat Arba to spend Shabbat with his wife, Puah, and her parents in Jerusalem. Puah was five months pregnant when her husband and son were murdered.

Last week, Puah gave birth to Orit. Asher had chosen the name Orit before he died.

The two Arabs who murdered Asher and Yonatan didn't know them. They targeted cars driven by Jews on the eve of Shabbat. Their motivation was anti-Semitic hatred. They wanted to kill Jews, any Jews and had been trying along with a gang of accomplices to kill Jews for several weeks. Asher and Yonatan were their first and only success. Several days after the murders, the Israeli security forces arrested them and the rest of their gang and they are now in jail awaiting trial.

The hate-motivated murders of Asher and Yonatan and birth of Orit have been significant news in Israel. Here are a couple of links to recent coverage. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/152173
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4180871,00.html

The deaths of Asher and Yonatan at the hands of Arab terrorists and the birth of Orit hold, in my opinion, a lesson of struggle and survival for Jews worldwide.

I'm contacting you about this so that more people can hear this story, consider the lessons, and find a point of connection and hope between Jews in Israel and outside Israel. Ideas that you may have on how Asher and Yonatan's short lives can be honored by discussing them in public would be very appreciated. Thanks.

Regards,
Michael

Next week, on Tu B'Shvat at 1:00 PM, the family will dedicate and start planting a new vineyard in Kiryat Arba in memory of the martyrs. They plan to turn it into a park and playground to be dedicated to the baby Yonatan.

You might have noticed an advertisement on the right sidebar for the Honest Reporting Mission to Israel taking place May 30-June 5.

As I wrote in an advertorial last year, the Mission always has first-rate speakers and tours. The Honest Reporting Mission is a fantastic way to actually meet and ask questions of newsmakers and policymakers in Israel. I would love to go and interview all of them for the blog!

Which brings up a point. The Honest Reporting folks told me that if a certain number of my readers join the Mission, they will let me tag along for free.

Therefore, I have a vested interest in getting as many of my readers to go to the Mission as I can! And if I get to go, this blog will have a great week filled with video and exclusive interviews.

So if you have some vacation time coming up at the beginning of June, you should consider spending an unforgettable week in Israel. Just sign up and tell them that you head about the Mission from me. Who knows - you may get to hang out with me for a week!

Groundhog Day moment - 30 years of the same threats from Iran

From JTA, November 15, 1982:

A monthly periodical called "Imam" which is published by the information department of the Iranian Foreign Office has been sent to the United Nations correspondents in Geneva. The title on the cover reads, "Israel Must be Destroyed."

The editorial states: "The deliverance of the Islamic countries from the international imperialism headed by the United States of America is dependent upon the destruction of Israel which is the symbol of that superpower in the region."

It adds: "It is sad to be reminded of the fact that had the war with the aggressive regime of Iraq not been forced on Iran, our brave people would have directed their struggle and resources towards the achievement of that objective."

French Jewish mother wins custody battle with Saudi prince who kidnapped child

Bittersweet:

The Paris criminal court ordered Prince Sattam al-Saud from the kingdom’s founding royal family, to hand over custody of his daughter Aya to her French mother, Candice Cohen-Ahnine, and provide child support of €10,000 (£8,300) a month.

For the past three-and-a-half years, the prince has kept Aya in a Riyadh palace despite efforts by the French foreign ministry and President Nicolas Sarkozy's office to resolve the issue.

But the French court ruling appears to have had no effect on the prince. “What do I care of Sarkozy?” he is cited as telling Nouvel Observateur magazine. “If need be, I’ll go like [Osama] bin Laden and hide in the mountains with Aya.”

Miss Cohen-Ahnin, 34, and the prince met in London 14 years ago at Brown’s nightclub and their daughter was born in November 2001.

Their relationship continued until 2006 when he allegedly announced that he was obliged to marry a cousin, but that she could be a second wife. She refused and they separated.

Miss Cohen-Ahnine claimed that her daughter was taken from her during a visit to Saudi Arabia in 2008 and that she was held in the prince’s palace where she had only fleeting meetings with her daughter.

She said she managed to leave when a maid left her door open and she sought refuge in the French embassy.

Miss Cohen-Ahnin was eventually spirited out of the country after the prince allegedly produced a document purporting that she had been Muslim but had converted to Judaism — a crime punishable by death.

She said she was concerned about her daughter’s upbringing when she discovered Facebook photos of her in a niqab and playing with her father’s firearms.

Despairing at the lack of diplomatic progress, she published Give My Daughter Back, a book recounting her ordeal, in October.

Since the court ruling, the prince faces an international arrest warrant for ignoring the custody sentence.

Mrs Cohen-Ahnine said the court ruling was a “great victory for me and vindicates everything I have said … but I’m still very worried for my child’s future.”

The prince denied ever having kidnapped the child or the mother.

The prince said he would send lawyers to France to challenge the court decision but not his daughter.

“France hasn’t got the right to take her back. She is a Saudi citizen and a princess. They cannot oblige a princess to leave this country,” he said.

Digital Journal adds:

International Family Law states that under Saudi law "A foreign parent cannot take her or his children out of Saudi Arabia if the other parent is a Saudi national even if the foreigner has been granted custody rights." This position is reiterated by the U.S. State Department which advises "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction." Saudi law always favors a Muslim parent over a non-Muslim parent, and the family members of the father have more rights than a childs mother.

So there is at least one Jewish princess in Saudi Arabia - who can never leave.