"Settlers storm Joseph's Tomb" and "Al Aqsa Mosque"

Palestine Press Agency reports that "Hundreds of settlers stormed at dawn Tuesday, the 'shrine of Joseph' east of Nablus under guard by the Israeli occupation army, as clashes broke out in the vicinity of the Balata refugee camp."

Surprisingly, Ma'an's coverage this time is reasonable, and contradicts claims of clashes:

Hundreds of settlers visited Joseph's Tomb in Nablus overnight Monday, local sources told Ma'an.

More than 20 buses carrying the settlers were seen by the tomb amid a heavy Israeli military presence, locals said.

Settlers performed prayers until the early morning hours before leaving the area. No incidents were reported.

Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, the site was to remain under Israeli control. But the Israeli army evacuated the premises in October 2000 shortly after the start of the second intifada, or uprising, and it was immediately destroyed and burnt by the Palestinians.

The restoration of the tomb was completed recently, and following improved security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, the army allows Jewish worshipers to make monthly nocturnal pilgrimages to the site.

Meanwhile, Hamas' Palestine Times says that "usurpers" had "stormed" the Temple Mount, what they call the Al Aqsa Mosque. Significantly, it also complained about "foreign tourists" on the Mount, indicating that they are almost as upset over any non-Muslim on the Mount as they are about Jews.

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Corries lose lawsuit; Israel-haters pretend verdict was fixed

From JPost:

The Haifa District Court on Tuesday ruled against the family of Rachel Corrie, the American pro-Palestinian activist struck and killed by a bulldozer in Gaza.

In the verdict, Judge Oded Gershon invoked the principle of the combatant activities exception, noting that IDF forces had been attacked in the same area Corrie was killed just hours earlier.

Reading a summary of his 62-page decision, the judge described Israel's investigation into the incident as appropriate and said it had no mistakes.

YNet adds:

Corrie in front of a different bulldozer

In a ruling read out to the court, Judge Oded Gershon called Corrie's death a "regrettable accident", but said the state was not responsible because the incident had occurred during what he termed a war-time situation.

At the time of her death, during a Palestinian uprising, Corrie was protesting against Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

"I reject the suit," the judge said. "There is no justification to demand the state pay any damages."

He added that the soldiers had done their utmost to keep people away from the site. "She (Corrie) did not distance herself from the area, as any thinking person would have done."

He rejected a claim of negligence explaining that the bulldozer's driver had limited vision unlike Corrie. "She consciously put herself in harm's way," Gershon said. The accident had been self inflicted, he added.

Judge Gershon pointed to three entry bans and noted that the Philadelphi route had effectively been a war zone formally declared a closed military zone at the time of the accident. He mentioned that the US had issued an Israel travel advisory warning its citizens to avoid Gaza and the West Bank.

The judge added that the organization where Corrie worked "abuses the human rights discourse to blur its actions which are de facto violence. He claimed that it specialized in disrupting IDF activity. "This included an army of activists serving as 'human shields' for terrorists wanted by Israeli security forces, financial and logistical aid to Palestinians including terrorists and their families, and disruption of the sealing of suicide bombers' houses."

Judge Gershon also rejected the Corrie family's claims that Military Police had not done its best to investigate the incident.

Israel haters didn't even wait for the verdict before revealing their game plan: to disparage Israel's legal system, ignore the voluminous decision's contents, and to rally around a single sound-bite the same way that they organize Twitter hashtags to gain trending topics.

In this case, the keyword they decided upon was "impunity." And they chose that word before the verdict was even read.

Yesterday, the anti-semitic and Israel-bashing Mondoweiss site started the campaign with a pre-emptive article called "Verdict in Corrie trial another test of Israeli impunity."

Ben White in Al Jazeera simultaneously wrote "Whatever the judge's decision, this case has shed light on Israel's grave breaches of human rights and the impunity enjoyed by its military."

Since then, that keyword has been used all over.

The Corrie's lawyer said "While not surprising, this verdict is yet another example of where impunity has prevailed over accountability and fairness."

Cindy Corrie: "From the beginning it was clear that there is a system to protect soldiers and provide them with impunity at the cost of civilians. Now we know that the protection for soldiers extends to the court."

The anti-Israel pundit crowd came aboard next in this campaign:

Mya Guarnieri tweeted: "Not surprised that Israeli judge has ruled Rachel Corrie's death an accident... it is part of the Israseli army's culture of impunity. Better said, the Rachel Corrie verdict points to the state of Israel's culture of impunity."

Joseph Dana: "Israel might want to consider changing its name to 'impunity' after this verdict in the Rachel Corrie case."

Max Blumenthal: "Further confirmation of army impunity & occupation law in Israel's justice system."

In other words, not a single one of these critics- respected in the mainstream media - have read the actual verdict, nor has a single one given any proof that the judge here is ignoring facts or twisting the legal system, or that Israel's legal system is inherently biased. They are just asserting it because they have determined Israel's guilt ahead of time. Their comments reflect their hate, not any actual facts. And in this case, it appears that they are acting in concert as a semi-organized campaign, not even doing original analysis, and using the same playbook to maximize their campaign's effectiveness.

(We can expect HRW and Amnesty to come out with similar statements any hour now, as they are known to give their opinions disparaging the Israeli justice system before even reading their actual words. It will be very interesting to see if they also use the word "impunity.")

You can bet that not a single one of Israel's critics will do an exhaustive, credible critique and analysis of the 62-page legal opinion.

Because they are not after the truth.

They are after Israel.

UPDATE: the verdict (in Hebrew) is online (h/t Yenta)

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The Butler did it

From JPost:

The city of Frankfurt is slated to present the prestigious Theodor Adorno Prize, which comes with a 50,000 euro award, to a US professor who advocates a sweeping boycott of ties with Israel’s cultural and academic establishment and has defended Hezbollah and Hamas as progressive organizations.

The prize recipient, Dr. Judith Butler, a professor in the rhetoric and comparative literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley, has courted intense criticism in Germany, Israel and the US ahead of the September 11 ceremony.

Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, a Frankfurt-based Middle East expert, told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday that by presenting the Adorno Prize to Butler, the city of Frankfurt is legitimizing a “de facto boycott of its partner city Tel Aviv’s academic and cultural institutions,” because Butler supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign targeting the Jewish state.

Von der Osten-Sacken sparked the effort to rescind the award to Butler in a widely read early June article on the website of the Berlin weekly Jungle World titled “Adorno prize for Hamas fan.”

Judith Butler defended herself in Mondoweiss and denied describing Hezbollah and Hamas as progressive:

My remarks on Hamas and Hezbollah have been taken out of context and badly distort my established and continuing views.... I was asked by a member of an academic audience a few years ago whether I thought Hamas and Hezbollah belonged to “the global left" and I replied with two points. My first point was merely descriptive: those political organizations define themselves as anti-imperialist, and anti-imperialism is one characteristic of the global left, so on that basis one could describe them as part of the global left.

Really? Let's look at the video:


Butler says:

 I think, yes, understanding Hamas/Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive that are on the left; that are part of a global Left is extremely important....Again, a critical and important engagement, I mean I certainly think it should be entered into the conversation on the Left."

While she goes on to say in Mondoweiss that she is personally against violence (in the video she is slightly more equivocal, only saying that some on the left might oppose violence or encourage other non-violent options), the fact remains that she adamantly described Hamas and Hezbollah as being on the left - and insistied that describing them as such is "extremely important."

She is clearly lying in the Mondoweiss article. She was giving her own opinion as to where in the political spectrum Hamas and Hezbollah fall, not explaining how they describe themselves.

But besides the lie, her stated opinion in the video is nothing short of amazing. A celebrated academic who is unabashedly left-wing goes out of her way to describe Islamist groups - groups that are anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-human rights and really totally opposed to everything that progressives say they hold dear - as part of the fabric of the Left, her Left, the political philosophy that she is proudly part of.

And there is only one possible reason why she can describe these regressive Islamist groups as part of her Left: because they are anti-Israel. 

Butler's views are so twisted that she believes that hating Israel is really the only criterion one needs to be considered progressive! 

Giving such a person a major academic award is indeed outrageous.

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"Jerusalem" at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair

A very cool find by Yisrael Medad:

The Jerusalem exhibit was one of the [1904] St. Louis Fair’s most expensive and ambitious undertakings. “Gigantic in its conception” and “gigantic in its execution,” as its planners described, it was an enormous replica of the Old City of Jerusalem on a 1:1 scale. The largest model of Jerusalem ever built, it stretched over more than 10 acres and consisted of around three hundred structures (including astonishingly realistic copies of the Dome of the Rock, the Wailing Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the Tower of David). The structures were interconnected by twenty-two winding streets and alleys, and were girded by a faithful reproduction of the walls of Jerusalem. Once inside the model, the fair’s visitors could take part in dozens of activities. They could take a tour of the holy sites with a turbaned guide, follow “in the footsteps of Jesus” along the Via Dolorosa, and view a diorama of the scene of the Crucifixion. They could take a bumpy camel or donkey ride and shop for Holy Land souvenirs in an oriental bazaar. They could also mingle with the hundreds of Jerusalem natives—Moslems, Christians, and Jews— who were imported to St. Louis for the duration of the fair, and who could be seen walking around in oriental garb conducting religious ceremonies or working in their artisan workshops and booths.

Here are some photos:

At one point, part of the exhibit caught fire:

Believe it or not, this is not my first post about the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

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How Muslims misrepresent Western science as supporting the Koran

I have been receiving thousands of hits, many from Muslim countries, trying to research the recent Arabic newspaper articles about supposed scientists who converted to Islam after realizing the "truth" of the Koran through their studies.

In 2002, the Wall Street Journal wrote about this phenomenon, and that article explains much of what we are seeing today. One of their schemes was to invite scientists, along with honorariums and other perks, to answer questions about their fields and try to manipulate them into saying that the Koran's descriptions match what they say.

Oh, and one of the founders of this initiative happened to be good friends with Osama bin Laden.

Joe Leigh Simpson, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, is a church-going Presbyterian.

But thanks to a few conferences he attended back in the 1980s, he is known in parts of the Muslim world as a champion of the doctrine that the Quran, Islam's holy book, is historically and scientifically correct in every detail. Dr. Simpson now says he made some comments that sound "silly and embarrassing" taken out of context, but no matter: Mideast television shows, Muslim books and Web sites still quote him as saying the Quran must have been "derived from God," because it foresaw modern discoveries in embryology and genetics.

Dr. Simpson is just one of several non-Muslim scientists who have found themselves caught up in the publicity machine of a fast-growing branch of Islamic fundamentalism.

Dubbed "Bucailleism," after the French surgeon Maurice Bucaille, who articulated it in an influential 1976 book, the doctrine is in some ways the Muslim counterpart to Christian creationism. But while creationism rejects much of modern science, Bucailleism embraces it. It holds that the Quran prophesied the Big Bang theory, space travel and other contemporary scientific breakthroughs. By the same token, it argues, the Bible makes lots of scientific errors, and so is less reliable as the word of God. Muslims believe the Quran to be God's revelations to the prophet Muhammad, as told to him by an angel.

Before the planets and stars, modern science has largely concluded, the universe was probably a cloud of dust and gas. The Quran presaged that conclusion in the seventh century, Bucailleists argue, in a text saying Allah "comprehended in his design the sky, and it had been as smoke." The discovery of black holes in space? Foreseen in the passage, "Heaven is opened and becomes as gates."

While disdained by most mainstream scholars, Bucailleism has had an important role in attracting converts to Islam and in keeping young, Western-leaning adherents faithful. Widely taught in Islamic secondary schools, the doctrine fosters pride in Muslim heritage, and reconciles conflicts that students may feel between their religious beliefs and secular careers in engineering or computers.

Says Zaghloul El-Naggar, an Egyptian geologist who touts the doctrine on a popular weekly television program shown in the Arab world: "One of the main convincing evidences to people to accept Islam is the large number of scientific facts in the Quran."

Bucailleism has been propelled by a well-funded campaign led by Prof. El-Naggar's onetime protege, Sheikh Abdul Majeed Zindani, a charismatic Yemeni academic and politician. Founder and former secretary-general of the Commission on Scientific Signs in the Quran and Sunnah, based in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Zindani organized conferences where Dr. Simpson and other scientists appeared and were videotaped.

Mr. Zindani also is a friend and mentor to another Bucailleism devotee of Yemeni descent: Osama bin Laden. The world's most wanted man has regularly sought Mr. Zindani's guidance on whether planned terrorist actions are in accord with Islam, says Yossef Bodansky, biographer of Mr. bin Laden and staff director of a U.S. congressional task force on terrorism. "Zindani is one of the people closest to bin Laden," says Mr. Bodansky, who attributes the book's findings to interviews with various intelligence agencies, current and former terrorists and others.

Bucailleism began gaining momentum around 1980, when Mr. Zindani became director of a team at King Abdulaziz University that sought out Western scientists visiting Saudi Arabia. His breakthrough came when one of his assistants, Mustafa Abdul Basit Ahmed, presented a leech to Keith Moore, a University of Toronto professor and author of a widely used embryology textbook.

Mr. Ahmed wanted to show that a verse from the Quran, which states that God made man as a leech, was an apt simile to describe early human gestation as seen under a microscope. Mr. Ahmed says Prof. Moore was bowled over by the resemblance between the leech and the early embryo. Since the Quran predated microscopes, Prof. Moore, son of a Protestant clergyman, concluded that God had revealed the Quran to Muhammad. Prof. Moore has disseminated this view not only on Mr. Zindani's videos but in many lectures, panel discussions and articles.

Prof. Moore sanctioned a special 1983 edition of his textbook, "The Developing Human," for the Islamic world, that was co-written by Mr. Zindani. It alternates chapters of standard science with Mr. Zindani's "Islamic additions" on the Quran. In its acknowledgments, among "distinguished scholars" who gave "full support in their personal and official capacities," Mr. Zindani lists Sheikh Osama bin Laden, alongside Dr. Simpson and other Western scientists. Prof. El-Naggar, the Egyptian geology professor who taught Mr. Zindani, says Mr. bin Laden became intrigued by Bucailleism in his college days after hearing Mr. Zindani lecture, and helped pay for the book's publication.

Now a professor emeritus, Prof. Moore declined to be interviewed. Reached in Toronto, he said he was busy revising his textbook and that "it's been 10 or 11 years since I was involved in the Quran."

In 1984, after being denied a permanent position at King Abdulaziz, Mr. Zindani turned to the Muslim World League, a nonprofit organization primarily funded by the Saudi government. The World League provided financial support to establish the Commission on Scientific Signs. Mr. Ahmed, who moved to Chicago in 1983, was put on its payroll at $3,000 a month, and traveled from coast to coast cultivating U.S. and Canadian scientists.

The commission drew the scientists to its conferences with first-class plane tickets for them and their wives, rooms at the best hotels, $1,000 honoraria, and banquets with Muslim leaders -- such as a palace dinner in Islamabad with Pakistani President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq shortly before he was killed in a plane crash. Mr. Ahmed also gave at least one scientist a crystal clock.

Mr. Ahmed, who left the commission in 1996 and now operates an Islamic elementary school in Pennsylvania, says he reassured the scientists that the commission was "completely neutral" and welcomed information contradicting the Quran. The scientists soon learned differently. Each one was given a verse from the Quran to examine in light of his expertise. Then Mr. Zindani would interview him on videotape, pushing him to concede divine inspiration.

Marine scientist William Hay, then at the University of Colorado, was assigned a passage likening the minds of unbelievers to "the darkness in a deep sea ... covered by waves, above which are waves." As the videotape rolled, Mr. Zindani pressed Prof. Hay to admit that Muhammad couldn't have known about internal waves caused by varying densities in ocean depths. When Prof. Hay suggested Muhammad could have learned about the phenomenon from sailors, Mr. Zindani insisted that the prophet never visited a seaport.

Prof. Hay, a Methodist, says he then raised other hypotheses that Mr. Zindani also dismissed. Finally, Prof. Hay conceded that the inspiration for the reference to internal waves "must be the divine being," a statement now trumpeted on Islamic Web sites.

"I fell into that trap and then warned other people to watch out for it," says Prof. Hay, now at a German marine institute.

Similar prodding failed to sway geologist Allison "Pete" Palmer, who was working for the Geological Society of America. He stuck to his position that Muhammad could have gleaned his science from Middle Eastern oral history, not revelation. On one video, Mr. Zindani acknowledges that Mr. Palmer still needs "someone to point the truth out to him," but contends that the geologist was "astonished" by the accuracy of the Quran. Mr. Palmer says that's an overstatement. Still, he has fond memories of Mr. Zindani, whom he calls "just a lovely guy." He and the other American scientists say they had no idea of Mr. Zindani's ties to Mr. bin Laden. And in any case the U.S. didn't regard Mr. bin Laden as an outlaw at that time.

...University of Pennsylvania historian S. Nomanul Haq, a leading critic of Bucailleism, says the notion of inheriting traits from ancestors was commonplace in Muhammad's time. He attributes the rise of Bucailleism to a "deep, deep inferiority complex" among Muslims humiliated by colonialism and bidding to recapture faded glories of Islamic science.

According to its current secretary general, Hassan A.A. Bahafzallah, ...the commission raises about $250,000 a year from individuals and businesses, besides its subsidy from the Muslim World League. It has operated five conferences since 1986, most recently in Beirut in 2000, each costing about $100,000.

The legacy of those conferences lives on. Among other products, the commission distributes a videotape, "This is the Truth," which intersperses Mr. Zindani's interviews with non-Muslim scientists and his commentary -- including the prophecy that unbelievers "will be exposed to a fire in which every time their skin is burnt, we will replace them with new skins."

At the risk of making this post way too long, it is worthwhile to read this critique of the aforementioned Keith Moore's use of the Koran by PZ Myers:

I’ve run into this particular phenomenon many times: the True Believer in some musty ancient mythology tells me that his superstition is true, because it accurately described some relatively modern discovery in science long before secular scientists worked it out. It’s always some appallingly stupid interpretation of a vaguely useless piece of text that wouldn’t have made any sense until it was retrofitted to modern science. My particular field of developmental biology has been particularly afflicted with this nonsense, thanks to one man, Dr. Keith L. Moore, of the University of Toronto. He’s the author or co-author on several widely used textbooks in anatomy and embryology — and they are good and useful books! — but he’s also an idiot. He has published ridiculous claims that the Qur’an contains inexplicably detailed descriptions of the stages of human development, implying some sort of divine source of information.

I’ve mentioned this before. For instance, the old book claims that at one point the embryo looks like a piece of chewed gum, or mudghah, and Moore announces, “by golly, it does, sorta”, throwing away all the knowledge we have about the structure and appearance of the actual embryo, which is not a chewed lump. I’ve actually seen these kooks show pictures of a piece of gum and an embryo and declare that they are similar. It’s insane. It’s pareidolia run amuck and swamping out actual scientific information for the sake of propping up useless superstitions.

You may not have heard of him before, but I regularly get email from Muslims telling me that as a developmental biologist, I ought to follow Islam because of its insights into embryology, which don’t exist. Thanks, Dr Moore, you dumbass.

Well, now the Muslim cranks have another coup, having persuaded some other dumbasses to publish an appallingly bad paper in the International Journal of Cardiology, a credible peer-reviewed journal. Or, at least, formerly credible.

The paper is disgracefully bad. It’s basically a compendium of an assortment of references to anatomy and health from the Qur’an, endorsing them as accurate sources of information. For instance, the Qur’an prescribes three techniques for healing, “honey, cupping, and cauterization,” and gosh, we now know that “Honey contains the therapeutic contents sugars, vitamins, anti-microbials, among other things”!

Are you impressed yet?

Since this is a cardiology journal, the article also finds it necessary to waste the readers’ time with blather about blood and arteries. Here’s an example of the Prophet’s profound knowledge of the circulatory system.

Another great vessel mentioned in the Qur’an is the Al-Aatín or aorta “We would certainly have seized his right hand and cut off his Al-Watín,” [20]. Al-Watín has been translated into different, yet similar words, including “aorta”, “life-artery”, and simply “artery”. This verse is taken to mean that if the Prophet Mohammed was lying about the teachings of God, then God would have grabbed the Prophet Mohammad’s arm and cut a vital artery, certainly killing Mohammad. This verse confirms that 1. Blood was indeed viewed as a vehicle for life and 2. The artery directly leading from the heart is vital to survival. By analyzing the different translations and exegesis of Al-Watín, it can be safely assumed that it is the aorta that the author of the Qur’an is referring to in this verse.

Hmmm. So a warlike society that had many soldiers running about chopping into people with swords was aware that cutting major arteries would lead to rapid blood loss and death. I have no idea how they could have figured that out without an omniscient god whispering the explanation into the ears of priests.

The holy book also talks about heart disease, something else a readership of cardiologists would find interesting. Does this sound like well-informed medicine to you?

The Qur’an shares with the Hadeeth a metaphorical description of the heart as a possessor of emotional faculties, thus giving the heart many characteristics that modern science attributes to the brain. As is popularly stated in Islamic culture, every action is dependent upon intentions, and “…what counts is [to God] the intention of your hearts…”. These actions, whether “good” or “bad” determine the health of the heart, namely if it is a sound or diseased heart. A diseased heart is one filled with qualities such as doubt, hypocrisy, and ignorance among many others. Possessors of such qualities have a “hardened,” diseased heart. Other malaise qualities contributing to a diseased heart includes blasphemy, rejection of truth, deviation, sin, corruption, aggressiveness, negligence, fear, anger, and jealousy, among others.

The authors of the Qur’an and of this paper seem to have confused poetic metaphor with science.

Finally, read this compendium of scientific responses to the article in the cardiology journal.

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Monday links

From Ian:

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Why Sunni Islamism is the world’s greatest threat

To understand al-Qaida, which of course goes under many names and regional local groups, is simple. It has one strategy: kill!
“One step forward, one step back; tell the Western reporters and politicians what they want to hear. Pretend to be moderate in English while screaming death curses in Arabic.
These are the people who are coming to power. They hate their Shia counterparts generally and will kill them, too, at times. They will drag down their countries’ economies.
Ironically, they will succeed in making Israel relatively stronger as they beat and burn and tear down, as they set back their countries’ economic advancement, as they kick half the population (the female half) down the stairs.”

BBC spends a third of £1 million concealing Middle East 'Balen Report'

A Freedom of Information request released by The Commentator shows how desperate the BBC is to hide the Balen Report

Violence in a Christian residential complex in Jerusalem

This occurred on Monday, August 20, from 8:00 p.m. to midnight when a group of fifty boys attacked the residential complex for 79 families which is part of a project of the Franciscans of the Holy Land. Following a brawl between young people of the Christian area and some neighbors, friends were called and they all attacked the complex, yelling, throwing stones, smashing cars and windows of houses.
A number of residents were injured and one had to be hospitalized for treatment. ”They do so because they know that we will not respond with violence!” protested David Josef, a father of five children, as he emphasized: “This is the third time this happened to us in two years …”

MEMRI:
Syrian-French Writer Adnan Azzam Links Syria Conflict to Zionism and Napoleon



When the new Germany lost its innocence

In almost every East German town you will see people wearing neo-Nazi emblems or slogans on their clothes or on their cars. Even more important is the grass-roots work of that party and similar organizations. They organize community festivals, sport events, concerts and youth centers. Thereby, they establish structures independent of the state and succeed in presenting themselves as the real alternative to the traditional political parties in Germany.

IAEA Evidence Shows Israel, Not Obama, Talking Sense About Iran

"Time is running out not only on the countdown to the day when Iran will be able to quickly assemble a bomb but until the point where it will no longer be possible to use force to prevent them from doing so. Four years of Obama policies toward Iran have shown the administration to be willing to do nothing but talk about the need to avert this danger. The latest information from the IAEA is more proof that despite the media campaign orchestrated from the White House intended to undermine Israel’s appeals, it is Jerusalem, and not Washington, that is talking sense about Iran."

'Isolated' Iran boasts kings, PMs at NAM summit

Tehran opens conference with diatribe against Israel, exhibits cars of nuclear scientists "killed by Zionist regime elements."

Bulgaria hosts ceremonies for Burgas terror attack victims

The three-day visit to include a meeting with the Bulgarian president, prime minister and minister of tourism, as well as Israeli Ambassador to Bulgaria Shaul Kamisa One family not able attend due to inability to pay the $700 ticket to Bulgaria.

Palestinian Attorney General Resigns, Known for Suppressing Opposition

Egypt: 76 convicted for attack on Israeli Embassy

Seventy-five of the defendants received suspended one-year sentences Sunday, while one defendant tried in absentia was given a five-year prison term.

Galliano stripped of Legion of Honor

At the Tower of David, a glimpse into a citadel touched by everyone but the legendary king

Likely built by Maccabees about a millennium after King David’s death, the site contains traces of everyone from Herod to the Jordanians

Arab-Israeli solar company wins EUREKA grant

Yafa Energy could be a bridge over which Arab-Israeli technology finds its way to industries in the Arab world seeking renewable energy solutions.
“Eureka! Yafa Energy has become the first Arab-Israeli company to win a prestigious European Union EUREKA (Exceptional, Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration) grant. Awarded through Israel’s Prime Minister’s office, Yafa was named as the best technological initiative from an Israeli minority community.”

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Also:
Iraqi Political Analyst Haidar Said: We Iraqis Do Not Possess the Courage to Criticize Our Violent Past (MEMRI)


HuffPo Hearts Hamas

Signs Suggest Iran Is Speeding Up Work on Nuclear Program (NYT)

Scandinavia - The Liberal Anti-semitic sanctuary

(h/t O)

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"By next year, Allah willing, Israel will be annihilated."

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Professor Gamal Zahran, head of the political science department at Port Said University, which aired on Al-Alam TV on August 17, 2012.

Gamal Zahran: Jerusalem is at the heart of the Palestinian cause, and the Palestinian cause is the cause of all Arabs and Muslims. Therefore, the elimination of the Zionist entity is beyond debate, and the only question has to do with the circumstances.

I believe that the Arab revolutions, which broke out in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen – as well as in Bahrain and elsewhere – generate the peoples' hope that one day, Jerusalem and Palestine will return to them.

Interviewer: Why keep it only as a hope? Why not act on it?

[...]

Gamal Zahran: The reason is that so far, the revolutions have not reached the throne of power. It is difficult to transform this hope into reality until these revolutions come to the forefront.

[...]

We are constantly keeping the memory alive among the younger generations, so that they will realize that the Palestinian cause is an essential one. The hope and the memory will later turn into action. By next year, Allah willing, Israel will be annihilated.

[...]

The cynicism of the highlighted text is well known to readers of this blog, but it is rarely expressed so explicitly.

If the "Palestinian cause" is so essential, it wouldn't need constant indoctrination. If it was so essential, then Egypt and Jordan would have encouraged an independent Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza between 1948 and 1967. If it was so essential, then Egypt would give citizenship to any Palestinian Arabs who seek it.

All that is really "essential" to the Arab world is Israel's annihilation, not the "Palestinian cause." They would prefer that the entire area of British Mandate Palestine be turned into an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland than have even a tiny Jewish state existing anywhere in the area.

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Also, a bonus MEMRI clip showing some mainstream Muslim antisemitism (no transcript available as of this writing):

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Jordanian farmers upset over West Bank egg imports

Ma'an reports:

A truckload of eggs produced in the West Bank was exported to Jordan via King Hussein Bridge on Sunday, turning a new page in commercial relations between Jordan and Palestine.

The eggs were collected from farmers in Qalqiliya in the northern West Bank, who welcomed the step as a vital alternative to the Israeli market.

“This is a remarkable Palestinian accomplishment which enables Palestinian farmers to sell their products to our Jordanian brothers,” said Adnan Zaid, a farmer from Qalqiliya.

Who could be against Palestinian Arabs exporting their eggs to Jordan?

Apparently, Jordanian farmers.

A story in Ad-Dustour says that a shipment of "Israeli" eggs were shipped to Jordan - also on Sunday, also over the Sheikh Hussein Bridge.

The article quotes the head of a Jordanian farmers union complaining about these eggs supposedly imported from Israel, saying that their prices undercut those of Jordanian egg farmers. Not only that, but he alleges that Israeli chickens have diseases that Jordanian chickens do not, and their eggs can make consumers sick. Moreover, Jordanian egg farmers produce enough eggs to satisfy the entire country.

It seems likely that the union leader is lying, and is really referring to these eggs from Palestinian Arab farmers that could lower prices for Jordanians. So he uses the oldest trick in the Arab book - calling his enemy "Zionist" and pretending that the PalArab eggs are really Israeli.

Which must be eggsapserating for the Palestinian Arabs who want to expand their market. (Sorry.)

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Hamas minister calls for suicide bombings inside Israel

Palestine Times reports that the Hamas minister for prisoner affairs, Dr. Attallah AbuSebah, has called for Palestinian Arab suicide attacks inside Israel in order to pressure Israel to release more Arab terrorists from prison.

He made this call during a Hamas-organized rally in Gaza City.

Abu Selah also called for kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.

The speakers at the rally said that Israeli policies of solitary confinement are a violation of international law, although I am unclear as to exactly which law that might be.

What can be better than a demonstration that simultaneously cites international law while calling to blow up women and children?

Why, the venue of this protest - in front of the Red Cross headquarters!

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Latest horrible Israeli crimes

Aya, a six-year old Gaza girl with suffering from advanced leukemia, only wanted to visit the beach.

From Israel's Channel 2, subtitled by Sass Video:

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Activist blames Jordan, not Israel, for stopping bus at Allenby

From AFP:

Jordan on Sunday barred pro-Palestinian US and European activists from trying to cross into the West Bank to deliver school supplies to students.

"Two buses carrying 100 activists were not allowed to leave the Jordanian side" of Allenby Bridge Crossing, also known as King Hussein Bridge between the West Bank and Jordan, Walid Atallah, a spokesman for the "Welcome to Palestine" campaign in Jordan, told AFP.

"The Jordanian authorities stamped their passports and charged them fees and everything was okay. When the buses left, the last checkpoint on the Jordanian side was closed. No reason was given."

Atallah said the "activists left the buses and started to demonstrate near the checkpoint. One of them fainted and was taken to hospital."

"This was deliberate. Jordan did not want Israel to be held responsible for denying the activists entry," he added.

This directly contradicts what they said yesterday:

Dozens of foreign peace activists were denied entry into the West Bank by Israeli authorities at the Allenby Bridge crossing on Sunday evening, organizers of the third 'Welcome to Palestine' initiative said.

"The Welcome to Palestine Campaign decries the Israeli denial of entry via the Allenby Bridge to over 100 internationals who wanted to visit us in the occupied Palestinian Territories," organizers said in a statement.

AP says that Israel admits stopping them, though:

French organizer Olivia Zemor of the "Welcome to Palestine" campaign said Israeli authorities asked no questions and stamped "entry denied" into the passports without an explanation.

Israel's Defense Ministry denounced the protesters as "provocateurs and known troublemakers."

Earlier, Zemor told reporters in the Jordanian capital, Amman, that the group aimed to deliver one ton of school supplies to Palestinian children in refugee camps in Bethlehem.

In a statement late Sunday, the Israeli Defense Ministry called the effort a "failed publicity stunt." It said Israel exercised its right to deny them entry.

"There are no restrictions whatsoever on bringing in school supplies," the statement said. "If these activists sincerely wanted to bring in school supplies, they had countless options to do so. There are no shortages of school supplies in the West Bank."

The EuroPalestine site says that both events happened. The first bus was stopped by Israel, and the second by Jordan, according to the site.

Of course, the WtP spokesperson says both were stopped by Jordan. But the official statement said that both buses were stopped by Israel ("Israeli denial ... to over 100 internationals.")

Whatever happened, we see that these "activists" cannot be trusted to even keep their own stories straight, and any media that relies on them for information is acting irresponsibly.

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Disappearing (Photo art from Yemen)

This stunning piece of photo-art was created by a female photographer from Yemen, Boushra al-Moutawakel, specifically to comment on the changes in how Yemeni women have been covering themselves in recent years.

 I saw it at this Spanish site.

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1940 Britain claimed "German agents" among illegal Jewish refugees to Palestine

The British White Paper of 1939, passed on the eve of the destruction of European Jewry, was a death sentence for tens of thousands of Jews who wanted to escape the Holocaust.

Illegal ships of Jews continued to attempt to infiltrate Palestine, and most were turned away - often to tragic consequence. Even as the situation grew more and more dire, British officials remained adamant in severely limiting the number of Jews who could enter Palestine.

On February 7, 1940, Vernon Bartlett asked that the ban on immigration be lifted. The answer, by Malcolm MacDonald, alleged that there was a danger associated with illegal immigration:

Mr. Bartlett asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the tragic plight of some 2,000 Jewish refugees now marooned in small barges on the Danube is due mainly to the fact that shipowners are threatened with confiscation of their ships and imprisonment of their crews if captured near the Palestine shore; and will he consider raising the ban on further immigrants to Palestine to cover these victims of Nazi racial doctrines?

Mr. M. MacDonald I understand that reports have reached the Foreign Office that a number of Jews who were on their way to embark at a Rumanian port on a ship chartered for the purpose of carrying illegal immigrants to Palestine were recently stranded on the Danube. It is well known that masters and crews of ships engaged in this illegal traffic are liable to imprisonment and the ships to confiscation.

...The normal objections to illegal immigration are increased in time of war owing to the danger of enemy agents travelling to Palestine by this means. In the circumstances I cannot adopt the hon. Member's suggestion.

This supposed fear of enemy agents became an actual allegation in a debate on March 20, even though no proof was offered:

Mr. Stokes asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that amongst the Jewish illegal immigrants into Palestine there are German citizens, many of whom are German spies; and what steps he proposes to take to stop this illegal traffic on that account?

Mr. M. MacDonald: Yes, Sir. Though local inquiries have not yet produced conclusive proof, the High Commissioner has strong reasons for suspecting that the passengers of two ships which about a month ago landed illegal immigrants in Palestine included German agents. These persons, together with other illegal immigrants, are held in detention camps. As regards the second part of the Question, His Majesty's Government and the Palestine Government are taking various measures to suppress the traffic in illegal immigrants.

§Mr. T. Williams Will the right hon. Gentleman state exactly what he implies when he states that many of these illegal immigrants may or may not be German spies?

Mr. MacDonald I cannot add to the answer which I have given, which was that the High Commissioner has strong reasons to suppose, from information at his disposal, that some of these people are German agents.

§Mr. Shinwell Can the Minister say how many have been detained?

Mr. MacDonald Some hundreds.

§Mr. Lipson Has my right hon. Friend any reason to believe that these German agents are Jews?

Mr. MacDonald As I say, we have not any conclusive proof, but from the information we have received we understand that there are strong possibilities that some of the Jewish members of these parties are German agents.

§Mr. Leach Would they not be in serious danger of their lives in such company in such a ship?

No answer is recorded.

This allegation was followed up on April 3:

Mr. T. Williams asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many of the several hundred illegal immigrants into Palestine, who were detained as suspected German agents, have been charged with this offence; and with what result?

§The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Malcolm MacDonald) As I made clear in my reply to the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) on 20th March, only a portion of the illegal immigrants recently landed in Palestine who are held in detention camps are suspected of being German agents. While the High Commissioner has strong reasons for his suspicions, inquiries have not yet produced conclusive proof.

§Mr. Williams Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the High Commissioner is likely to obtain sufficient evidence?

§Mr. MacDonald I could not say.

§Mr. Williams Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that this suspicion casts grave reflection upon large numbers of people; and does he not think it is incumbent on the High Commissioner at the earliest possible moment to clear those who are not in any way identified in spying on behalf of Germany or anybody else?

§Mr. MacDonald I am sure that the High Commissioner will share that wish, but in present circumstances it may not be possible to get conclusive proof, and we must give the benefit of the doubt to the State in those circumstances.

§Mr. Mander Is it not the case that certain Jewish organisations have offered to do everything in their power to prevent these German agents getting in, and that their offer of assistance has not been taken up by the Colonial Office?

§Mr. MacDonald I am not aware of that, and I am certain that if offers of help have been made they have been accepted.

Macdonals insists that evidence exists that German agents are among the detained Jews, but even weeks after their detention he cannot reveal any details, nor can he even say that any evidence is conclusive.

And he never did return to the topic. As far as I can tell, not one Jewish immigrant was charged with spying for Germany.

But there was one postscript. On April 3, as seen above, MacDonald claimed that any offers of help by Jewish organizations to help vet the immigrants for German ties would be welcomed. He was lying.

From the April 17 debates:

Mr. Mander asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what reply was sent to the New Zionist organisation which, on 14th February, offered to assist him in weeding out German agents from among illegal immigrants into Palestine?

Mr. M. MacDonald His Majesty's Government naturally felt unable to entertain this offer from a body which is known to be engaged in promoting this illegal traffic.

§Mr. Mander Did not the right hon. Gentleman say the other day that he had received no offer of assistance and that if he did, he would be prepared to accept it?

Mr. MacDonald It depends entirely on the value of the offer. We regard this particular offer as valueless.

From all evidence, the British authorities in Palestine made up the charge that there were Jewish German spies, and they used this bogus charge to punish all Jews attempting to flee the Holocaust in 1940.

UPDATE: Yisrael Medad adds:

a) this was highlighted previously, most notably in Bernard Wasserstein's book, Great Britain and the Jews of Europe, http://www.amazon.com/Britain-Europe-1939-1945-Bernard-Wasserstein/dp/0718501829, where you can read the internal FO telegrams and missives which stopped even children & youth from exiting Europe due to that espionage charge.
But worse was the Jewish establishment attitude. In Zaar's book, (http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qwork=5701150&matches=6&cm_sp=works*listing*title) you can read in the Appendix, pgs. 280-285, how Henry Montor, Exec. Vice-Chair of the UJA, argued against Revisionist illegal immigration because criminals and prostitutes were among those fleeing. And that those organizing the escape via the boats, were in it for ... profit. He wrote also (the letter was to a rabbi in Maryland) stating that "Palestine cannot be flooded with … old people or with undesirables." The letter is dated February 1, 1940.

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Oh, by the way, more rockets today

From Times of Israel:

Two rockets fired from Gaza hit factories in an industrial area near Sderot Sunday morning, injuring two people and causing damage to buildings.

One man was reported lightly injured and another suffered from shock from one of the rockets that hit around 9 a.m. A second rocket hit a factory, and caused no injuries.

A third Kassam rocket landed in the same area near Sderot about an hour later. No damage was caused.

And at least one more in the afternoon.

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Sunday links

From Ian:

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Liberman steps up offensive against Abbas, calls for ultimatum on PA chief

Foreign minister says that if Palestinian president does not abandon bid for UN and return to negotiations, he should no longer be seen as a partner for peace

PMW: Terrorist murderer glorified twice in one month on PA TV

Ramadan: Islam’s ‘Holy Month’ of Christian Oppression

Thirty years later, Australian police reopen hunt for Israeli Consulate bombers

Following talk with Jordanian-born terrorists jailed in US, authorities take new look at 1982 attack

Fact or Fiction?: 1001 Muslim Inventions Comes to Washington D.C.

"History is often determined in great battles. But ongoing battles about history can redefine it. The 1001 Inventions exhibit is diminished with a more understandable me-too-ism, a desperate search for cultural pride despite the technological dominance of the West after the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution. But as Orwell noted, language and word choice are powerful weapons in battles about history. National Geographic has an obligation to clarify whether the words and claims in 1001 Inventions is history, legend, or a mix of both, before another half-million Americans march through their doors."

A New Slur Calling people "Holocaust-obsessed" is the new holocaust denial.

"I admit I was stunned in exploring this question to find no less than 272,000 Google hits for "obsessed with the Holocaust." And it's not just racist sites (including David Duke's) or anti-Zionist sites like Mondoweiss."

In firing Trevino, Guardian’s hypocrisy laid bare

"The supreme hypocrisy of the Guardian has been laid bare, as it demonstrates that it is morally unburdened by hideously anti-Semitic, pro-terror commentators and journalists but will cravenly give in to arguments by extremists suggesting that those on the mainstream American right — commentators who take the threat to Western values posed by Islamist terrorism seriously — are beyond the pale."

Libya Sufi shrines attacked 'by Islamist hardliners'

A shrine in the Libyan capital Tripoli venerating a Sufi Muslim saint has been partly destroyed - the latest in a series of attacks blamed on ultra-conservative Salafi Islamists.

Merah case: the minute of silence earned him a reprimand (French)

"Five and a half months after the fact, the high school English teacher Flaubert in Rouen who called his students to observe a minute of silence in memory of Mohamed Merah killer Toulouse, will make his return to the students. Another institution of the academy."

Pinkwashing! Activists protest inclusion of Israeli-backed films in Queer Film Festival

"The documentary, Invisible Men, by gay Israeli director, Yariv Mozer, follows in part the journey of Louie, a gay Palestinian who seeks refuge in Israel after receiving death threats from his own family, only to face harassment and deportation, before eventually fleeing to Europe."

A Letter to Aly Raisman From an IDF Soldier

"...a letter to olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman, the American and Jewish gymnast who performed to the tune of Hava Nagila in London, from an officer in the Israel Defense Forces. The letter was posted by the author on Aly’s Facebook page."

A smarter inhaler for asthmatic kids

This Israeli invention delivers the medication better, gives the patient real-time feedback and provides hard data for the physician.

British Mandate's 1938 Annual Report Details the Arab Revolt
The Library of Congress Archives Provide the Full Picture

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Also, from Al Arabiya:

More than 300 bodies found in Syrian town of Darya

Fighters bulldoze Sufi mosque in central Tripoli (Libya)

Tunisia TV executive goes to jail for satire broadcast

YNet: Germany cooperated with Black September after Munich Massacre

German newspaper Der Spiegel revealed Sunday that German authorities cooperated with Black September, a Palestinian terror group, after it had carried out an attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

Germany, it was reported, did so for fear of additional attacks on its soil.

According to the report, the German government held secret contacts with the planners of the Munich Massacre. Several months after the attack, Germany's then foreign minister, Walter Scheel, met secretly with several Black September members to "rebuild trust."

Jonathan Schanzer: Hamas' corruption

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