Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, June 29, 2012

Who painted this picture of the Third Temple?

Where on the Internet can you find this picture?

On the Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation site!

Of course it is meant to rile up the readers about supposed Zionist plans to destroy the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, but it is ironic that you can find pictures like this more often on Arabic sites than Jewish ones.

Hamas writer rues the bad old days before the first Intifada

A writer in the Hamas-oriented Felesteen site writes about how things were when he grew up in the 70s:

When I was a young child in the seventies at demonstrations on the occasion of Earth Day or the anniversary of the Nakba, I would hear people shout: "Khaybar Khaybar Jews, Muhammad's Army will be back."

We shouted these slogans, even though Palestine was far from Islam. Women wore scandalous short clothes, and grocery stores sold liquor and also sold soft drinks in public, and the Jews used to come every Saturday to shop from our markets and would walk secure in our streets ... The Jewish employers would share happy occasions with their Palestinian workers, dancing with them and drinking wine and beer at weddings together. The ideas that were prevalent at the time were closer to Kufr them to faith, such as Arab nationalism, communism, secularism. Even so we would shout throughout Palestine: "Khaybar Khaybar Jews, Muhammad's Army will be back."

You can learn more about Hamas - and history - from a personal anecdote like this than from a thousand Arab op-eds in the New York Times.

The danger to the Church of the Nativity sure isn't from Israel

From YNet:

UNESCO's World Heritage committee has voted to approve a Palestinian bid to place the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on its list of sites of World Heritage in Danger.

The Palestinians had pressed to have the church and pilgrimage route inscribed as an emergency candidate at the meeting of the World Heritage 21-nation committee in St. Petersburg, Russia.

UNESCO spokeswoman Sue Williams said the committee voted 13-6 on Thursday to put the iconic Christian site on the list. Two nations abstained.

Emergency status for the candidacy meant the Palestinians could take a shortcut to getting the church on the list.

Some nations saw the move as an attempt by the Palestinians to mix politics and culture.

The United States and Israel, neither of which is on the committee, were among nations opposed to the Palestinian proposal of an emergency candidacy for the iconic Christian site, shortcutting what is usually an 18-month-long process to apply for World Heritage recognition.

So is the Church of the Nativity in real danger, or is this a cynical political move?

PA officials are unambiguous:

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad welcomed UNESCO's decision, saying it strengthens the Palestinians' determination to act toward the establishment of an independent state within the 1967 borders.

"It's time for the UN and its organizations to take a political, legal, cultural and moral stance to put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people, and prevent the risk posed to its cultural heritage due to the actions of the Israeli occupation," he said.

"This global recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people is a victory for our cause and for justice," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP, as Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat called it "a historic day."

"These sites are threatened with total destruction through the Israeli occupation, through the building of the separation wall, because of all the Israeli sanctions and the measures that have been taken to stifle the Palestinian identity," the Palestinian delegate said after the vote.

But the application to UNESCO the PA didn't say that the danger to the church was because of Israel - but because of water leaks.

Birthplace of Jesus: the Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage Route, Bethlehem (Palestine) was also placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger as it is suffering from damages due to water leaks.

Hmmm..the Palestinian Arabs saying one thing to one audience and a completely different thing to another. Sounds familiar.

Amazing how the church survived when Israel actually was in charge of the Church of the Nativity on a day to day basis.

The problem of the church roof leaking is an old one - and one that Israel offered to fix when Bethlehem was under full Israeli control. From AP, November 21, 1990 (click to enlarge):

The roof problem obviously has nothing to do with Israel, and priceless artifacts in the church have been getting damaged by leaks for a very long time. And the Palestinian Christians opposed Israel fixing the problem that is now regarded as an "emergency," at least in the application to UNESCO.

The biggest irony, of course, is that the Palestinian Arab leaders are saying that they want to preserve a holy Christian site at the exact same time that the Christians under their rule have been fleeing. From Gatestone Institute:

The drive to have the Church of the Nativity recognized as a global heritage site is nothing short of offensive. Christians have been driven out of their ancestral lands; Palestinians have shown nothing but hostility to both Christians and Jews. Moreover, Christ himself was a Jew.

Upon the birth of the State of Israel in 1948, Bethlehem had a Christian population of over 80 percent. With the rise of the Muslim population, Christians dwindled in numbers. Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority took over the town in 1995, thanks to the Oslo Accords. Along with the PA, came a tribal political system which caused Bethlehem's Christian population, already at 15%, to further sink to 2% today. Under this political system Christians are targeted, seen as inferiors, and subjected to threats, violence, discrimination and acts of terrorism.

Upon entering Bethlehem Yasser Arafat was strategic in overtaking the Christian populace. He first expanded municipal boundaries to include 30,000 Muslims living in refugee camps, as well as Muslim Bedouins who lived east of the town.

The first and second intifadas further drove Christians out of their ancestral town as they became trapped in the crossfire between the Palestinians and Israelis. The violent struggle predictably drew international attention, and created the ideal platform for Palestinian sympathizers to levy blame on the so-called Israeli "occupation."

Israel's so-called "occupation" and "aggression" were solely based on self defense: both the Palestinian and Hamas Charters call for Israel's obliteration; Israel's southern cities is still live under nearly daily attack by hostile Arab States and forces seeking its destruction.

The Muslim aggression on the other hand is based on a conditioned, generational hatred against the Jews (and Christians) evidently determined to see the Jews of the State of Israel, a country the size of Vancouver Island, pushed into the sea, while an Islamic Caliphate is formed to rule the Middle East.

(h/t Leo Daf Hofshi)

UPDATE: Don't forget that the terrorists who cynically used the church to protect them from being captured by Israel in 2002, and who did great damage to the church itself, are considered heroes by the majority of Palestinian Arabs.

UN confirms that Arabs lied about dead child

I reported last Sunday that Hamas held a major funeral for a five-year old boy killed in Gaza.

The UN's OCHA-OPT's weekly Protection of Civilians report notes what really happened:

Armed factions also intensified the firing of projectiles, including Grad rockets, at southern Israel...Some of the projectiles dropped short of the Gaza/Israeli border or exploded prematurely, killing a five-year old Palestinian child, and injuring a total of 15 Palestinians.

This is separate from the two-year old girl killed the week before by a Qassam rocket who the Arabic media said was killed by Israel.

Every single Arabic news site reported as a fact that he was killed by an Israeli warplane, and not one of them I could find reported Israel's denials.

If you are an Arabic speaker, there is no way you would know that all those stories were lies (outside of reading OCHA's Arabic report.)

And yet the news media and the leftist hate-Israel sites still quote Gaza officials without any skepticism, even when they are the biggest, provable liars.

Hamas now blaming Syria for murdering Ranaja in Damascus

From YNet:

Who assassinated Hamas official Kamal Ranaja? Hamas is pointing fingers at two opposite directions – Israel and the Syrian regime.

While members of the terrorist organization blamed Israel's Mossad for the Damascus assassination, other Hamas members claimed that Bashar Assad's forces were behind the hit.

The main reasoning for this hypothesis is that the method of the assassination does not fit the Mossad's MOs. Arab media reported that Ranaja suffered a particularly brutal death.

According to the report, assassins broke into his apartment, interrogated him under torture and the murdered him. The assassins then cut off his head, placed the severed body parts in a closet and set the apartment on fire – not forgetting to take away with them some secret documents.

"The Mossad would have killed him differently, this was not its MO," said Mohamed Hifawi, a member of the Local Coordination Committees (LLC) in Syria on behalf of Hamas. "Israeli assassins would have done it quicker and cleaner and would not have wasted time needlessly abusing the body."

"The way the body was mutilated and the attempt to burn the house are all methods that point to the involvement of the (Syrian) security forces," he told AFP.

In a message to the French news agency, Hifawi mentioned other details which support his supposition. "He was visiting Syria and nobody knew he was in the country apart from the security services who gave him permission to enter.

"He arrived at an apartment in a neighborhood in Qudsaya which was under a curfew and could only be accessed by the security forces and the regime's thugs."

Israeli experts agreed:

Former senior Mossad member Rami Igra said, “Practically, it’s not reasonable that Israel or a Western country would settle accounts with a man like this, at this stage, in Syria. He’s not big enough.

“He’s not important enough. To assassinate him would be a very complicated, dangerous operation, and it would be taking a huge chance. I don’t see Israel or any Western country willing to take this risk,” Igra said, noting the unstable Syrian situation.

On the other hand, “it would not be a problem for any gang in Damascus, maybe one working for Assad, to do this,” Igra added. “With certainty I can say, it was not Israel.”

Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior terrorism expert from the Interdisciplinary Center’s Institute for Counter-Terrorism, agreed.

He said the most likely entity behind the killing was the Syrian regime, since Ranaja may well have been “involved in smuggling weapons to the Syrian opposition,” particularly to the Muslim Brotherhood.

“If he really was an aide to Mabhouh,” Karmon said, referring to reports that Ranaja was the aide of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the late Hamas arms smuggler assassinated in Dubai, “then he had connections to weapons smuggling.”

“The Muslim Brotherhood is in a state of crisis with the regime. There is a reasonable chance that he provided arms to the opposition,” Karmon added.

A second possibility is that Hamas itself killed Ranaja after suspecting him of pocketing cash given to him to pay for weapons, ships and smuggling teams.

“We saw this happen with Fatah, when Arafat killed his own operatives in Europe for stealing cash,” Karmon noted.

(h/t Yoel)

CNN interview of British victim of sexual assault in Tahrir Square

Earlier this week, Natasha Smith, a journalism student and reporter from Great Britain, wrote a searing and incredibly brave article on her blog describing in sickening detail how she was sexually assaulted in Tahrir Square during the celebrations of Mohamed Morsi's victory in the Egyptian elections on Sunday:

But in a split second, everything changed. Men had been groping me for a while, but suddenly, something shifted. I found myself being dragged from my male friend, groped all over, with increasing force and aggression. I screamed. I could see what was happening and I saw that I was powerless to stop it. I couldn’t believe I had got into this situation.

My friend did everything he could to hold onto me. But hundreds of men were dragging me away, kicking and screaming. I was pushed onto a small platform as the crowd surged, where I was hunched over, determined to protect my camera. But it was no use. My camera was snatched from my grasp. My rucksack was torn from my back – it was so crowded that I didn’t even feel it. The mob stumbled off the platform – I twisted my ankle.

Men began to rip off my clothes. I was stripped naked. Their insatiable appetite to hurt me heightened. These men, hundreds of them, had turned from humans to animals.

Hundreds of men pulled my limbs apart and threw me around. They were scratching and clenching my breasts and forcing their fingers inside me in every possible way. So many men. All I could see was leering faces, more and more faces sneering and jeering as I was tossed around like fresh meat among starving lions.

...I began to think, “maybe this is just it. Maybe this is how I go, how I die. I’ve had a good life. Whether I live or die, this will all be over soon. Maybe this is my punishment for some of the emotional pain I’ve caused others through some foolish mistakes and poor judgement recently. I hope it’s quick. I hope I die before they rape me.”

She's back in England now where CNN interviewed her:

This has been a major problem in Egypt throughout the revolution, as we have documented. But it was happening in Egypt for years.

Zulus and Christians rally for Israel - in South Africa

From AFP:

Several hundreds of people staged a protest march in Pretoria on Thursday against South Africa's plans to stick "Made in the Palestinian Territories" labels on goods from the area.

Around 300 members of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) and the Inkatha Freedom party marched peacefully and handed over a petition against the labelling to the Ministry of Trade and Industry, ministry spokesman Sidwell Medupe told AFP.

South Africa's Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies has argued that consumers must be informed of a product's origin, as is common practice in other parts of the world, including the European Union.

Reverend Kenneth Meshoe, leader of the ACDP argued however that "the South African government must not involve itself in the political agenda of organisations and anti-Israeli lobbies."

The government has issued a notice of intention to introduce "Made in Palestinian Territories" tags and will make a decision after a public consultation process that ends on July 10.

The proposed law for labeling only those Judea and Samaria goods made by Jewish companies is itself a model of how ignorant people are of history.

It includes this statement:

"The government of South Africa recognises the state of Israel only within the borders demarcated by the United Nations in 1948. Such demarcated borders of Israel by the UN do not include Palestinian territories occupied after 1967."

There were no borders demarcated by the United Nations in 1948.

The UN proposed a partition resolution where a Jewish State would exist alongside an Arab State in 1947, but that resolution was never implemented as it wasn't accepted by any Arab nation, who decided to destroy Israel instead. That resolution is not international law. Israel's legal basis is not UNGA 181 but the fact that Jewish nationalists survived and won a war waged against them meant to exterminate their presence in Palestine. (This is without going into the legal basis of the League of Nations' action in 1922 supporting a Jewish homeland in all of Palestine west of the Jordan, partitioning off eastern Palestine into the new entity called Transjordan for the Arabs.)

The lines that became what is incorrectly called "Israel's 1967 borders" were armistice lines that were agreed upon between Israel and the Arab nations, under UN oversight, in separate negotiations in 1948 and 1949.

In fact, UNSC 242 notes this by saying that there must be "secure and recognized borders" between Israel and the Arab world.

So which "borders" are South Africa referring to?

When people are ignorant of basic facts,of course they come up with ignorant resolutions.

Betar and the PA's attempts to destroy Jewish history

From Diana Muir Appelbaum:

An interesting contest is being waged over a Judean hilltop known as Betar or Battir.

This hilltop village with a system of stone-walled hillside terraces has been nominated by the Palestinian Authority for recognition as a World Heritage Site, and has won the Melina Mercouri International Prize for the Safeguarding and Management of Cultural Landscapes, awarded by UNESCO.

...The World Heritage site nomination caught the attention of a number of commentators since the village is best known under the older, Hebrew version of the name: Betar. Betar was the military headquarters of the Bar Kochba Revolt, a Jewish revolt against Roman rule in 135 CE, and it was that revolt’s last stronghold. When Betar fell, the defenders and their leader, Shimon Bar Kochba, were killed. The event is commemorated by the villagers who call the ancient defensive tower “Khirbet el-Yahud”, “the Jewish ruin”.

...The ancient village dated back to the Iron Age and the archaeological discovery of a “Lmlk” seal impression establishes that it was part of the Judean kingdom in the eighth century BCE. The site was abandoned after the battle. Bar Kochba apparently chose the small, hilltop farming village because it has a constant spring of water and was on a defensible hilltop beside the Jerusalem-Gaza road. The archaeological survey done in 1993 by David Ussishkin (D. Ussishkin, “Archaeological Soundings at Betar, Bar-Kochba’s Last Stronghold”, Tel Aviv 20, 1993, pp. 66-97) reports that the the Jewish liberation fighters hastily threw up crude stone fortification walls, incorporating parts of the walls and buildings of the Jewish village.

In effect if not in intent, UNESCO has awarded the Mercouri prize to a set of retaining walls at least the upper tier of which belonged to an ancient Jewish village.

The Jewish claim to the land is that Jews are the original people of the land, as attested by the ancient Jewish kingdoms.

The Arab claim to the land is that they are the indigenous people of the land, as attested by farming villages like this one. It is not an unreasonable claim, but perhaps nominating an ancient Jewish village for UNESCO World heritage Status is not the most effective way to make it.

Some of David Ussishkin's research from Betar is online. He notes:

The line of the fortification wall, dating apparently to the time of the Second Revolt, is visible along most part of the site and was studied in the excavations. The northern part of the summit which was not settled was left outside the walled area. The city-wall was built as a retaining wall, its lower part supported by a fill on the inside, thus resembling a terrace on the hilly slope. It contained several semi-circular buttresses or towers (see picture), and at least one rectangular buttress or tower on the western side. Apparently built in a hurry, the wall was carelessly and inconsistently constructed.

So indeed the upper terrace is of Jewish origin, and was not meant to be a terrace at all but a fortification.

The Hebrew LMLK seal found on pottery in Betar establishes it as a Jewish town nearly a millennium before the Bar Kochba revolt, as the many LMLK-stamped artifacts are all from around the time of King Hezekiah, around 700 BCE. LMLK means "for the King."

Any way you look at it, Betar is Jewish. Which is almost certainly why the Palestinian Arabs choose it to commemorate "Palestinian history."

Because they want to erase Jewish history.

UPDATE: See also My Right Word.

The toy guns are that"insult Aisha" fueling Sunni-Shiite tensions

Remember the toy guns that Muslims said were insulting Mohammed's wife Aisha?

It looks like they are the linchpin in growing Sunni-Shiite tensions throughout the Arab world.

Really.

Plastic toy guns—the kinds with flashy lights and sound effects—were an unlikely source of sectarian tensions Friday. Yet following his weekly sermon in Saida, Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir brandished the toys and accused Lebanese Shia of fomenting sectarian tensions by putting an audio recording on the toy guns that, according to Assir, says in Arabic, “hit Aisha,” a wife of the Prophet Mohammad and a revered figure in Sunni Islam but not in Shia Islam. Addressing Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Nabih Berri, the leaders of Shia parties Hezbollah and Amal respectively, during his sermon, Assir said: “If you don't take heed of this issue, I will not let you sleep at night as long as I live.”

Assir’s words were reminiscent of those uttered by Sudanese Sheikh Mohammad Al-Amin Ismail who, in a video uploaded in September of last year, also accused Shia of distributing anti-Sunni toy guns. But from when Ismail plays the audio from the guns in his video, it is evident that the recording is in English and that the uttered words are, "Go, go, go! Pull over! Save the hostages!"

These two cases are not unique. In October 2011, 1,500 toy guns were removed from shelves Saudi Arabia for “mocking and offending” Aisha, and a week later nearly 100 more were seized in the United Arab Emirates. More recently, on May 6 of this year, an Egyptian MP held up a plastic toy gun in the People’s Assembly and said it is offensive to Egyptian and Muslim culture as it says the words, “shoot Aisha.”

The increased Sunni-Shia tensions in Lebanon reflect a growing regional antagonism between the two groups, according to Hazem Saghieh, political editor of the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat. The ongoing crisis in Syria, a country whose politics is intrinsically linked to Lebanon’s, is increasingly being seen in Sunni-Shia terms. So too is the ongoing conflict in Bahrain and past protests in Saudi Arabia.

Following Assir’s accusations, both Lebanon’s General Security and Dar al-Fatwa, the seat of the highest Sunni authority in the country, investigated the claim. On Saturday, they both rejected Assir’s accusation as unfounded. The head of Dar al-Fatwa’s Public Affairs department, moreover, confirmed the audio as saying: “Go, go and take the hostages.”

In a phone interview with NOW Lebanon, Assir maintained that while the English sentence was clearly audible, an Iraqi accented voiceover that insulted Aisha was added to the recording.

They don't need to have Jews around to act crazy. They manage to do it on their own just fine, thank you.

Arab columnist calls Israeli offer to help Syrians "blackmail"

On Monday I reported about an Israeli organization that is sneaking into Jordan to help Syrian refugees, and linked to an Israeli Channel 2 news report on the topic.

I admit I wasn't thrilled with the made-for-TV portions where they (presumably the TV producer) tell the Syrians that they are Israeli and the astonished reactions are filmed. The TV station was staging things for drama, as they are wont to do. But here we see an Arab TV journalist, Diana Mukkaled, who really thinks that this entire endavor is simply blackmail on the part of Israelis!

Syrian regime loyalists received a gift from Israeli TV when the latter screened a short film about people labeled “activists” who risk their lives by entering “hostile territory” in order to support Syrian refugees. “Assad is slaying Syrians while the world is standing still, but some people are taking action … Israelis,” is how the film starts.

This is more than enough for “patriots” who are out to protect Arab rights to take advantage of the plight of Syrian refugees inside and outside Syria in order to promote the conspiracy theory that attributes the Syrian revolution to a Zionist/Western scheme.

The film shows how a group of Israelis, disguised as Bedouins, enter areas sheltering Syrian refugees in Jordan (though the country is not named in the film) and start befriending them and providing them with supplies. They tell them they are Israelis and use cameras to zoom in on their faces that display a mixture of astonishment and confusion.

There is a woman whose husband was attacked by Syrian regime thugs and needs an urgent surgery or else would lose his eyesight. When she knows that those offering her help are Israelis she starts crying for she would rather have her husband lose his eyesight than resort to this kind of help.

The film ends with a question posed by one of the Israelis in the group about the nature of the animosity between Syrians/Arabs and Israelis. He wonders if Israelis extending a helping hand to Syrian refugees now would be latter attacked by those same refugees in the future.

Is there a cheaper form of blackmail than offering to save a refugee’s eyesight provided that it is done in Israel?

This film will not make a difference for Syrian refugees nor would it change the stance of Israeli authorities who are from the beginning of the Syrian revolution siding with the Syrian regime because it provides with border stability. It will also have no impact whatsoever on the Arab-Israeli conflict that is much more complicated that a few scenes screened for a film and which are not even plausible.

However, the way Israeli TV hurried to make use of the tragedy of Syrian refugees reveals the shallowness with which it understands the future relationship between the Arab Spring and the conflict with Israel. It also reveals absolute insensitivity.

Portraying the “moral superiority” of Israeli activists through putting Syrian refugees to tests related to their stance on Israel is a cheap attempt that would ultimately fail in undermining the Syrian revolution or making its aims any less noble.

Yes, she says that Israelis helping Syrians is "insensitive."

Yes, she says that Isrselis offering to help save a Syrian's eyes in Israel is "blackmail."

Yes, she says that the people doing this are really trying to shore up the Syrian regime.

Yes, she says that Israel TV is trying to undermine the Syrian revolution.

The clown who hands out candy to make the homeless Syrian kids laugh? He is an Assad supporter!

Israel Derangement Syndrome - the seething hatred that twists everything any Israeli does to make it into an insidious, anti-Arab plot - seems to be an incurable disease, even among educated, presumably liberal Arabs.

PA TV host prays for Israel's destruction

From PalWatch:

Palestinian Authority television interviewed a Syrian journalist who claimed to have seen a top secret CIA memo from the Clinton administration. This CIA memo allegedly predicted that Israel would not survive beyond the year 2022. The PA TV host responded with a short prayer that this prediction should be fulfilled:

Syrian journalist, Al-Bujayrami: "What I'm going to say, no one has ever heard. A report was submitted by the American Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, to former US President Clinton. It was written on the report: 'Eyes only.' 'Eyes only' means for the President's eyes only. No one else is allowed to see it."
PA TV host: "Top secret."
Al-Bujayrami: "It's more classified than 'top secret.' ... The CIA says [in this report]: 'If things continue as they are, we don't think that Israel will continue to exist after the year 2022...'"
PA TV host: "By Allah, from your mouth to Allah!"
[PA TV (Fatah), June 12, 2012]

I've seen this claim before, and tracked it down to that bastion of truth, Iran's PressTV.

The funny thing is that this report was supposedly written during the Clinton administration and claimed then that Israel would not last twenty more years. Well, it's been twelve years since the Clinton administration, and I haven't detected any weakening. I guess they padded the year to 2022 because 2019 seemed a little unrealistic.

Then again, the CIA did once predict that the Jewish state could not possibly survive.

The track record of the many who have made that prediction over the years is approximately 0.00%.

Link'in from Ian

Founding National Myths Fabricating Palestinian History by David Bukay

“The vast literature proving the historic Jewish connection to the Land of Israel has been extensively manipulated and distorted as part of the Palestinian politics of nationalism. Propaganda, indoctrination, and socialization, both domestically and internationally, are essential parts of the strategy and tactics of asserting Palestinian nationhood and statehood. By appropriating to themselves the values, traditions, and historical facts that belong to the Jews, Palestinians have managed to fabricate a "legitimate" history and political traditions out of nothing while denying those of Israel.”

Racism in Arab Lands by Michael Curtis

“Discrimination, intolerance, and racism in the Arab world persist in many forms: they affect women; all non-Muslims; dark skinned people, Blacks, would-be refugees, and migrants. Among those groups and peoples who have been denied political and civil rights are Kurds, the non-Arab people whose language belongs to the Iranian group; Berbers, the pre-Arab native people of North Africa; Turkmen who speak their own language; the Christian Copts in Egypt; the Assyrians or Assyro-Chaldeans in Iraq subject to both ethnic and religious persecution; and Jews. Christians and Jews are still regarded as dhimmis ["tolerated" people], defined in different ways but always as second-class citizens. Extreme Islamists, regarding them as infidels, have used violence against many, including the Copts and the Bahais, as well as against Jews.”

Reactions to Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi:
Iran Declares War against the Jewish People by Alan M. Dershowitz
Camera reminds Prof. Waltz that he said the Iranians were “rational”: This is Who Kenneth Waltz Thinks Should Have a Nuclear Bomb

“Foreign Affairs, a leading journal covering foreign policy, has published a piece in its July-August issue by Columbia University Professor Kenneth Waltz advising us not to worry about an Iranian nuclear bomb. In fact, Waltz says "a nuclear-armed Iran would probably be the best possible result of the standoff and the one most likely to restore stability to the Middle East." Dismissing American and Israeli concerns as "typical of major powers, which have historically gotten riled up whenever another country begins to develop a nuclear weapon," Waltz argues that the Iranian leadership is rational.”

EU raps Iranian VP Rahimi over anti-Semitic speech

"The High Representative is deeply disturbed by racist and anti-Semitic statements made by Iranian First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi at the UN International Day against Drug Abuse," Ashton stated.”

UN head calls on Iran to refrain from anti-Semitic comments

BDS fails
London hosts conference touting Israeli innovation

"Any assumption that the UK is a fertile ground for the boycott campaign against Israel was laid to rest on Tuesday as London hosted one of Europe’s largest hi-tech conferences aimed at enhancing the strong connection between the UK and Israel in innovation.
Held in central London, Innovate Israel 2012 was attended by over 500 business leaders, investors, decision makers and government representatives.”

Israeli cherries sold in Iranian markets
Tehran's media says Israeli fruit sold in local markets despite mutual trade ban

Russia is open for Israeli business, says expert

Egypt to Block Jewish Pilgrims From Holy Site

“Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday it had told Israel that it would not be “appropriate” for Israeli pilgrims to make an annual visit to the tomb of a 19th-century Jewish holy man in the Nile Delta.”
“An Islamist politician involved in organizing protests against the march meanwhile said that visiting the gravesite in the village of Daymouta, 180 kilometers (112 miles) north of Cairo would be a “suicide mission” for Israelis.”

We may have confused Turkish jet for an Israeli one, Syrian minister claims

Omran al-Zubi says Friday’s downing of an F-4 was a mistake, and that Israeli planes are ‘welcomed by fire’"Turkish planes and Israeli planes look alike,” the minister told the Turkish news station A Haber.
Although the Turkish and Israeli air forces both purchased McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom fighter jets from the United States, the IAF decommissioned its last F-4 in 2004.

Save the children…except when they’re Israeli. - Richard Millett

“With politicians, NGOs and charities totally impotent to stop massacres in Syria and starvation and disease in Africa they got back to doing what they do best; delegitimising Israel.”

Israel persuaded Russia not to sell Syria missiles'

“Barak says J'lem influenced cancellation of sale of S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Damascus worth around $100m.”

Palestinian Christians falsely claim Bethlehem is "surrounded" by a wall

From CAMERA:

Palestinian Christian activists and their allies have a difficult time describing the security barrier accurately. They describe the barrier as completely surrounding Bethlehem when in fact it does not.

Bishara Awad, president of the Bethlehem Bible College has uttered this falsehood, as has his son, Sami Awad, director of the Holy Land Trust. Both Bishara and Sami live in Bethlehem.

Lutheran Bishop Margaret Payne has also uttered this falsehood and has refused to retract it when challenged by CAMERA. The news show 60 Minutes has made the same false statement and has refused to correct.

Now it is Diyar, a Bethlehem-based consortium led by Lutheran Pastor Mitri Raheb that is broadcasting this falsehood.

Diyar bills itself as “a group of Lutheran-based, ecumenically-oriented institutions serving the whole Palestinian community ‘from the womb to the tomb', with an emphasis on children, youth, women & elders.”

In a Diyar-produced video posted on Youtube on Jan. 18, 2012, a narrator states the following:

The city of Bethlehem, birthplace of Jesus Christ and home to more than 40,000, is now encircled by an eight-meter high concrete wall. This apartheid wall as many have come to call it, has turned Bethlehem into a walled ghetto, cutting through Palestinian land, destroying neighborhoods and imprisoning its population.

This statement is false in two ways. First of all, not all of the barrier is comprised of a concrete wall. Much of the barrier is built with a security fence. Secondly, the barrier does not “encircle” Bethlehem but instead passes by its northern and western sides.

The falsehood appeared again in a letter sent by newly-minted Diyar employee, Rev. Victor Makari, Ph.D.

Makari, who currently works as regional consultant for the Religion and State Program for Diyar, mischaracterized the security barrier in a June 23 202 letter to his supporters in the U.S.

Makari, who previously worked for the Presbyterian Church (USA), Makari wrote that he was

…humbled and encouraged daily by the endurance and tenacity of hope of our Palestinian neighbors, living within the confines and restrictions of the Israeli Occupation – a 25-ft-high concrete wall that has surrounded the West Bank andenclosed Bethlehem for 10 years now…

...Why do Palestinian Christians and their allies have such a difficult time getting it right about the security barrier?

Here is a map of the security barrier from B'Tselem, showing that Bethlehem is hardly "surrounded":

Facebook may add "Insha'Allah" button for events

From Bikya Masr:

Arabic-speaking Facebook users want the social networking website to add an “Insha’Allah” button to the platform for the Middle East. And Facebook seems ready to make the move to boost its regional presence.

According to Immanuel Simonsen from Multilingual Search, “Facebook has identified a strong wish from Arabic natives to include an “Insha’Allah” (Arabic term meaning “God Willing” that indicates hope for an aforementioned event to occur in the future) button for Facebook events.”

While Facebook may not be the most popular social media network in the Arab world, this addition “looks to be the first new localized feature for the Arabic market.”

“However small this current adding, it’s indicative of Facebook now actively trying to adapt its product to better reflect and accommodate the specific needs of the Arabic world, and representatives from Facebook Arabia have already made it very clear that this is just the first of many alterations to come,” says Simonsen.

How about a mini-Grad rocket button for Gazans? A "fatwa" button for Iranian clerics?

The possibilities are endless....

Two Arab youths arrested for setting fires on Mount Scopus

Maariv (and Palestine Today) report that two Arab youths were arrested for setting recent fires on Mount Scopus near Hadassah Hospital and an army base.

The youths were from Issawiya. One of the youths confessed and implicated the other.

13 soldiers were treated for smoke inhalation for that fire last Sunday.

There have been a series of hundreds of suspected arson fires around Jerusalem over the past month, and Arabs are suspected of setting many of them.

There were reports that the deadly Carmel fire last year was also purposefully set by Arab arsonists.

It appears that this is a new form of "resistance" where Arabs are purposefully setting fires in the land they supposedly love so much, exhausting Israeli fire and emergency forces.