Sunday, September 02, 2012

From YNet:
A Palestinian man residing in the West Bank village of Beit Furik, near Nablus, was arrested for allegedly poisoning a Raanana family and a police volunteer in October 2011.

Adnan Othman Nasaara, 46, has reportedly admitted to lacing food and drink in the Lerner family home with pesticides, because he "hates Jews."

The police also arrested two other suspects in the case. One has been identified as Hassan Abd el-Rahim, 27, from Tira, who denies involvement in the act. The identity of the second suspect has not been revealed.

According to the police, he admitted his involvement in the case and reenacted it for the investigators.

Police investigator Ilana Kosinovesko told Ynet that in his interrogation, Nasaara said he "hates Jews because they're Jews."
But YNet says something curious:
Major-General Ilan Mor, of Hasharon Subdistrict Police, said that it was unclear whether the suspect was planning to perpetrate similar nationalistically-motivated crimes in the future.
When the criminal admits that he "hates Jews because they are Jews," how can anyone construe his crime as "nationalistically motivated"?

Israel's critics accuse Zionists of bringing up anti-semitism at the drop of a hat, and yet YNet is going out of its way to claim that an admitted anti-semite is really just "pro-Palestinian"!

UPDATE: Hebrew-speaking commenters note that the Hebrew phrase "for nationalistic reasons," על רקע לאומני, is a known euphemism for racial attacks.

Saturday, September 01, 2012

Judith Butler, who has been in the news recently because of the controversy over her receiving the Adorno Prize, has also just released a book called "Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism." The blurb describes it in dense Butlerian prose:
Judith Butler follows Edward Said's late suggestion that through a consideration of Palestinian dispossession in relation to Jewish diasporic traditions a new ethos can be forged for a one-state solution. Butler engages Jewish philosophical positions to articulate a critique of political Zionism and its practices of illegitimate state violence, nationalism, and state-sponsored racism. At the same time, she moves beyond communitarian frameworks, including Jewish ones, that fail to arrive at a radical democratic notion of political cohabitation. Butler engages thinkers such as Edward Said, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi, Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin, and Mahmoud Darwish as she articulates a new political ethic. In her view, it is as important to dispute Israel's claim to represent the Jewish people as it is to show that a narrowly Jewish framework cannot suffice as a basis for an ultimate critique of Zionism. ...

Butler considers the rights of the dispossessed, the necessity of plural cohabitation, and the dangers of arbitrary state violence, showing how they can be extended to a critique of Zionism, even when that is not their explicit aim. She revisits and affirms Edward Said's late proposals for a one-state solution within the ethos of binationalism. Butler's startling suggestion: Jewish ethics not only demand a critique of Zionism, but must transcend its exclusive Jewishness in order to realize the ethical and political ideals of living together in radical democracy.
In her book she seems to be trying to use "Jewish ethics" to prove that Zionism is illegitimate. The blurb indicates that she falls short in her quest, so she must recruit Arab thinkers like Said and Darwish to round out her philosophical basis.

And yet she is telling the media that her critiques of Zionism are based on Jewish tradition. As she wrote in her response to the Adorno critics:
In my view, there are strong Jewish traditions, even early Zionist traditions, that value co-habitation and that offer ways to oppose violence of all kinds, including state violence. It is most important that these traditions be valued and animated for our time – they represent diasporic values, struggles for social justice, and the exceedingly important Jewish value of “repairing the world” (Tikkun).

...[I seek] to affirm what is most valuable in Judaism for thinking about contemporary ethics, including the ethical relation to those who are dispossessed of land and rights of self-determination, to those who seek to keep the memory of their oppression alive, to those who seek to live a life that will be, and must be, worthy of being grieved. I contend that these values all derive from important Jewish sources, which is not to say that they are only derived from those sources. But for me, given the history from which I emerge, it is most important as a Jew to speak out against injustice and to struggle against all forms of racism. This does not make me into a self-hating Jew. It makes me into someone who wishes to affirm a Judaism that is not identified with state violence, and that is identified with a broad-based struggle for social justice.
She is saying that her adamant rejection of Israel is solidly based on Jewish sources and the Jewish ethical tradition.

This is an absurd theory.

What Butler is really doing is trying to find a Jewish philosophical framework on which to hang her own hate. And she will twist facts, history, Jewish law, and anything else that gets in the way of her ultimately untenable beliefs.

The first indication that Butler is Jewishly ignorant comes from the quote above, where she talks about "the exceedingly important Jewish value of 'repairing the world' (Tikkun)." The modern concept of "Tikkun Olam" is a purely liberal invention; the words come from Jewish tradition but not how Butler understands it. The phrase is not mentioned once in the Tanach. Its Talmudic formulation has nothing to do with social justice. Perhaps its best definition comes from its most popular usage, in the thrice-daily Aleinu prayer, where it says:
We put our hope in You, the Lord our God, that we may see Your mighty splendor, to remove detestable idolatry from the earth, and false gods will be utterly cut off, to perfect the world through the Almighty's sovereignty; then all humanity will call upon Your name...
Is removing idolatry and seeking a world that accepts the God of Israel something Butler seeks? Of course not. Her concept of "Jewish values" has nothing to do with Judaism and everything to do with shoe-horning today's progressive politics into a Jewish-sounding mold.

Butler's concept of Judaism is not only naive. It is knowingly deceptive.

The first chapter of Butler's book opens with a bizarre theory about Moses that is emblematic of her dishonesty about Judaism:
It came as a surprise to me, and also a gift, to read one of Edward Said’s last books, Freud and the Non-European, not only because of the lively reengagement with the figure of Moses it contains, but because Moses becomes for him an opportunity to articulate two theses that are, in my view, worth considering. The first is that Moses, an Egyptian, is the founder of the Jewish people, which means that Judaism is not possible without this defining implication in what is Arab.’ Such a formulation challenges hegemonic Ashkenazi definitions of Jewishness. But it also implies a more diasporic origin for Judaism, which suggests that a fundamental status is accorded the condition by which theJew can not be defined without a relation to the non-Jew. It is not only that, in diaspora, Jews must and do live with non—Jews,and must reflect on how precisely to conduct a life in the midst of religious and cultural heterogeneity, but also that the Jew can never be fully separated from the question of how to live among those who are not Jewish. The figure of Moses, however, makes an even more emphatic point, namely, that, for some, Jew and Arab are not finally separable categories, since they are lived and embodied together in the life of the Arab Jew....One key foundational moment for Judaism, the one in which the law is delivered to the people, centers upon a figure for whom there is no lived distinction between Arab and Jew.
The first problem is that Butler (and, apparently, Said) don't even seem to be aware that ancient Egyptians were not Arab.

Beyond that, outside of Cecil B. DeMille, what evidence is there that in Jewish tradition Moses accepts himself as an Egyptian at all?

The answer is, of course, none.

Butler might regard actually looking at Biblical sources to be beneath her in her quest to find reasons for her hate, but I'm not quite so conceited. Here is the description of Moses' upbringing in Pharaoh's palace in Exodus:
And the daughter of Pharaoh ... saw the ark among the flags, and sent her handmaid to fetch it. And she opened it, and saw it, even the child; and behold a boy that wept. And she had compassion on him, and said: 'This is one of the Hebrews' children.' Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter: 'Shall I go and call thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?' And Pharaoh's daughter said to her: 'Go.' And the maiden went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her: 'Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages.' And the woman took the child, and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, and said: 'Because I drew him out of the water.' And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. ... Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian...
According to the Biblical story, Moses never once identified as an Egyptian. He nursed as a Jew and he identified as a Jew when he grew up. (Notably, his step-grandfather Pharaoh also didn't identify him as one of the family, seeking to kill him for murdering a regular Egyptian, rather than covering it up as he would have for his own relative!)

It is telling that Butler uses an Arab to interpret the story in a way that she can twist to fit her pre-existing bias. For Butler, the ideal Jew lives in the Diaspora, without a home; this is what she calls "diasporic values." Yet even the straight Biblical text contradicts her thesis; Moses was always a Jew who was forced to live outside his Land, the one unfulfilled wish of his life. Moses, as a Jew during the first Disapora, sought exactly what real Jews have sought in successive disaporas - to return to Israel, the land of their forefathers.

This is not only a theme of Moses' life, but also of other Biblical figures - there are lengthy narratives of Jacob and Joseph's lives outside Israel and how they tried to maintain their ties to the land, even to the point of making their descendants promise to bury them in Israel.

You would know none of this from reading Butler. She can't be bothered to base her ideals of Judaism in something as prosaic as the Bible, preferring instead Said and Hannah Arendt, (Similarly, Butler cannot be bothered to base her definition of gender on something as distasteful as biology.)

Butler is so conceited (her writing style is meant to show off her supposed brilliance at the expense of clarity) that she cannot be bothered with reality, preferring to reside in the ivory tower of her mind. She as much as admits this in her book:
It may be that binationalism is an impossibility, but that mere fact does not suffice as a reason to be against it.
There is one simple reason why binationalism is an impossibility - it is because the Jews would be slaughtered. But that isn't enough of a reason to be against it! 

Don't call her anti-semitic, though. The Jews would only be slaughtered in reality, which is a world Butler seems to find distasteful. In her mind, they would live together with Arabs in wonderful harmony. It's worth the risk, when you are Judith Butler.

Finally, it is notable that Butler's entire book about how Jewish ethics cannot abide war does not mention the actual Biblical conquerors of the Land of Israel once. I imagine that Butler would argue that King David, composer of the Psalms, does not adhere to Jewish values.

If one wants to argue a point on the basis of Jewish ethics or history or religion, then one must at least make an attempt to explain the many counterexamples that prove the opposite. Butler, however, relies on New-Agey concepts far removed from Judaism like "tikkun olam" instead of tackling real Jewish concepts, ethics and history. Again, reality is not her friend.

If the goal of a philosopher is to reveal the truth, then Butler is more like an anti-philosopher - someone who obscures the truth in order to force reality into her bizarre mindset, much of which is filled with irrational hate towards the only Jewish-majority state.

This is why she does not deserve awards or accolades, but rather derision.
  • Saturday, September 01, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ian:

Bolton to Israel: Attack, It's Your Right
Former U.S. Ambassador to UN says Obama will not attack Iran, so Israel has to do it.
"I blame not only Obama, but the [G. W.] Bush administration," he added. "Sanctions are only good if they are comprehensive, swiftly applied and rigorously enforced. Obama has met none of those conditions."

‘Sparks fly’ over US policy on Iran at meeting between Netanyahu and US envoy
Prime minister bashes Obama’s ineffectual stance, US Ambassador Shapiro says he’s misrepresenting president’s position, newspaper claims
“Instead of effectively pressuring Iran, Obama and his people are pressuring us not to attack the nuclear facilities,” he reportedly said. He concluded by saying that the time for diplomacy had run out, the Yedioth report said.

Iran doubles capacity of bunker enrichment plant, ‘significantly’ hampers inspection, IAEA charges
UN nuke agency says Fordo site now contains more than 2,000 centrifuges that can enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels

Ayatollah Khamenei Embraces Occupy Wall Street Movement
He claimed that just as 99% of Americans allegedly battle "against the wealth and power in America," so too the 120 nations of NAM battle against "a faulty international structure" dominated by the U.S. and Israel.

Ahmadinejad, hosting Abbas, offers to mediate reconciliation talks with Hamas
Iranian president boasts ‘We are the only country which has never recognized the Zionist regime’

CIF Watch: ‘Comment is Free’ contributor claims International Solidarity Movement is“non-violent”.
“Just because individual ISM members may not personally fire the weapons which kill and maim Israelis, an organization which aids and abets the Islamist terror groups, like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, that intentionally murder innocent Jews is – by definition – a reactionary,
anti-peace, pro-violence movement.
No amount of sophistry or doublespeak can obfuscate this painfully obvious fact.”

Fresno Zionism: Rachel Corrie and Evergreen State
“Shockingly, Evergreen State College is proud of her, and offers an annual scholarship in her name:
This [$2,000] scholarship is for students dedicated to gaining a better understanding of the Middle East and to working locally or internationally to further Middle East peace. Applicants must show how they will use their studies to promote human rights and social justice through community activism and/or political advocacy.”
“Areas of interest related to the Middle East may include: Arab culture and Arabic language, US Policy in the Middle East, and peace, justice and conflict resolution studies.”

Air force strikes two terror targets in Gaza
The Israel Air Force struck two terror targets in the Gaza Strip overnight Friday. Direct hits were confirmed. The military was responding to rocket fire on southern Israel from the strip.

Also:

JE Dyer on "Egypt trash talks US; US shows weak on Iran"

Friday, August 31, 2012

  • Friday, August 31, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Starting last night, the Batsheva Dance Company is performing in Edinburgh, Scotland. Naturally, the Israel-haters are out in force, both noisily protesting outside and - last night - interrupting the performance three times from inside the theatre.

A number of Israelis refer to the BDS actions against Israeli artists as "cultural terror." I think that is an overstatement, and it also gives them too much credit. In reality, what they do is cultural graffiti.

On the surface, one might think that both graffiti artists and BDSers are motivated to get an important message out to the world. The scrawler on walls is, after all, spending time creating something for people to look at, and the boycotters are noisily chanting for their cause.

But only a little digging finds that both of them are driven not by altruism but by egocentrism. Just as graffiti artists usually emphasize painting their own code names, BDSers are obsessed with their own sense of self-worth. A look at their triumphant tweets shows that they are proud not so much at getting their message out as in bragging about successfully doing something very simple - shouting. Even then, as is often the case, they wildly exaggerate their supposed victories in order to feel important. (They showed great happiness and pride at forcing an Israeli official to use the side door to avoid injury.)

Both the graffiti artists and the BDSers will carefully plan their crimes, coming up with ways to avoid the police and security guards. The fundamental skills needed for both are quite limited - anyone can spray paint and anyone can shout robotic slogans. The fact that some are more talented than others in their space doesn't detract from the basic fact that they are both immensely proud of thinking that they can bypass authority, something that take very little skill.

Another commonality they have is the misguided notion that what they are doing makes a difference. They think that their illicit activities somehow serve a higher purpose, and they ascribe false morality to immoral activities.They regard themselves as having a more refined notion of what is right and wrong than ordinary people. This is again an offshoot of their fundamental egoism.

Related to that is that both groups are so self-centered that they have an utter indifference to the effects their acts have on others. Their actions cost them little but they cost the public a great deal, in extra security as well as in the psychic costs of living in an environment made deliberately uncomfortable by selfish blowhards.

Finally, in both cases, when they do get caught by authorities, they believe that this gives them more credibility in their own communities.

In the end, the self-righteous BDSers are no more than a bunch of kids with paint cans.

  • Friday, August 31, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
The complete text of Ayatollah Khamanei's speech to the NAM summit is online, and it has some doozies:

The UN Security Council has an illogical, unjust and completely undemocratic structure and mechanism. This is a flagrant form of dictatorship, which is antiquated and obsolete and whose expiry date has passed. It is through abusing this improper mechanism that America and its accomplices have managed to disguise their bullying as noble concepts and impose it on the world....Torture and assassination are permissible and completely ignored if they are carried out by America, the Zionists and their puppets.

...The U.S. and its Western allies have armed the usurper Zionist regime with nuclear weapons and created a major threat for this sensitive region. Yet the same deceitful group does not tolerate the peaceful use of nuclear energy by independent countries, and even opposes, with all its strength, the production of nuclear fuel for radiopharmaceuticals and other peaceful and humane purposes. Their pretext is fear of production of nuclear weapons. In the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran, they themselves know that they are lying, but lies are sanctioned by the kind of politics that is completely devoid of the slightest trace of spirituality.
And spiritual people like Khamanei wouldn't lie, would he? I mean, the thousands of centrifuges being built underneath mountains are for medicine, right?
...The summary of this matter is that on the basis of a horrible Western plot and under the direction of England in the 1940s, an independent country with a clear historical identity called “Palestine” has been taken away from its people through the use of weapons, killings and deception and has been given to a group of people the majority of whom are immigrants from European countries.
Well, maybe he'll lie a teensy bit.
...Political and military leaders of the usurping Zionist regime have not avoided any crimes during this time: from killing the people, destroying their homes and farms and arresting and torturing men and women and even their children, to humiliating and insulting that nation and trying to destroy it in order to digest it in the haraam-eating stomach of the Zionist regime, to attacking their refugee camps in Palestine itself and in the neighboring countries where millions of refugees live.
Apparently, Khamanei wants all non-kosher restaurants in Tel Aviv to close down.
Even now after 65 years the same kind of crimes marks the treatment of Palestinians remaining in the occupied territories by the ferocious Zionist wolves.
Doesn't he mean a crossbreed between wolves and pigs?
Now I would like to give a benevolent piece of advice to American politicians who always stood up to defend and support the Zionist regime. So far, this regime has created countless problems for you. It has presented a hateful image of you to the regional peoples, and it has made you look like an accomplice in the crimes of the usurping Zionists. The material and moral costs borne by the American government and people on account of this are staggering, and if this continues, the costs might become even heavier in the future.
If the leaders of Iran would kill themselves and democratic elections would follow, the US would save even more money!

Just a benevolent piece of advice.
  • Friday, August 31, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ian:

IDF Blog Palestinian Terrorist Group Graduates Its First Class from New Academy
"The PRC, along with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, tries to enlist and train as many terrorists as they can in order to be able to fire rockets into Israel and fight the Israel Defense Forces. The PRC has established the Shahid Imad Hamad Academy of Military Training for this purpose. This week, the first class graduated from the academy."

Israel’s Right to Exist Not Based Upon UN Resolution
"Jewish rights to the Land of Israel are steeped in four millenia of facts. The right to re-establish a country on the entirety or any portion of this land stems from writ and deed, and from the continual presence of Jewish communities dwelling in the land throughout the epochs. Living descendants of these die-hard, holdout communities are firm links in the chain of generations, and proffer irrefutable proof. Every archaeological Tel and architectural artefact testifies to the truth. All remnants and ruins bear witness. Relics substantiate and place-names verify."

Romney: Obama 'threw Israel under the bus'
As he accepts Republican presidential nomination, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney slams president's Iran policy • Every American is less secure today because Obama failed to slow Iran's nuclear threat ... We're still talking, and Iran’s centrifuges are still spinning, says Romney.

Iraqi Ally of Israel Dispossessed of his Home, he Says by Iraqi PM Maliki
"Former Iraqi Parliamentarian Mithal al-Alusi, who in a series of recent interviews with The Algemeiner has spoken of Iran’s alleged bribery of numerous Iraqi officials, says he has received notice from the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that he is being dispossessed of his home in Baghdad’s Green Zone."

UN investigator condemns Corrie court ruling
Richard Falk, a UN special rapporteur on human rights says decision "a victory for impunity for Israeli military."
Jimmy Carter calls Corrie ruling ‘unacceptable’
Former US president says decision exonerating IDF in activist’s death ‘confirms a climate of impunity
[There's that word again! -EoZ]

Pro-Palestinian group offers BDS tour of Australian stores
Sally McGregor, an American podiatrist who founded the Brisbane shop in 1994, said members of the group occupied her store until police were called and eventually moved them on, the newspaper The Australian reported Thursday.
“I am really scared that they will return and damage my business, but I will not be told what I should or should not stock,” she told J-Wire, a local Jewish website.A letter was given to owners of several stores visited by the group, asking them to “stop importing and selling goods from Israel,” according to the Justice for Palestine website.
Danny Lamm, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told The Australian: “These mafia-style tactics have no place in contemporary Australia. The shop owner deserves our admiration and every support for refusing to be stood over.”

LAPD: ‘Active’ Terror Plots Linked To Iran, Hezbollah, ‘Sovereign Citizens’
The Department is currently tracking “government of Iran operatives, Hezbollah, sovereign citizen, homegrown violent extremists, animal rights groups” and others, Downing said.
He added that Iranian or Hezbollah agents may initiate attacks locally if war erupts between the U.S. and Iran.

Muslim Persecution of Christians: July, 2012 by Raymond Ibrahim

Egypt's Salafi Party Objects to Banning Sex Slavery by Raymond Ibrahim

‘June 67 taught them respect’: Heavy-metal Swedes hail the IDF
Hard rockers Sabaton spend their only free day on tour in Israel visiting Ammunition Hill and army base in West Bank

The greenest house in the world?
Students at Ariel University marshal all sorts of techniques to build an environmentally sound abode

Israel Daily Picture Ottoman General at the Damascus Gate 1916
“...the street was full of observant Jews dressed in their Sabbath finery.”


Richard Millett: Paralympics are Go: Israeli team receives warm welcome from home crowd.

And a full-length dramatic film about the Jewish founder of the Paralympics, Sir Ludwig Guttmann:



Also, Iran's translator tampers with Morsi's NAM speech. (h/t O)
  • Friday, August 31, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Digital Journal:



Technology is making a bigger and bigger impact in the classroom and this summer, RoboThespian, a robotic actor, got a summer job as a guest science teacher for a group of grade 5 and 6 students in Israel.

Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, describes RoboThespian as a robot that gestures, has facial expressions and multiple vocal effects. It was purchased by Israel’s National Museum of Science, Technology and Space from British company Engineered Arts Limited back in 2010 for a Robot Zoo exhibition.

Then this month the robot was put to work, giving a live lesson to kids on the science of levers. Prof. Igor Verner of the Technion’s Department of Education in Technology and Science tells the Institute’s magazine Focus, “We’ve just witnessed one of the first ever formal science lessons given by a robot.”

(h/t NoCamels)
  • Friday, August 31, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
While the idea of countries refusing to compete against Israel in international sport is reprehensible enough, it will be interesting to see if they also refuse to compete in the Paralympics,which are going on now.

So far, I've only found one competition where an Israeli and Arab were together, the second heat of the men's 100m backstroke that was held yesterday. Israeli swimmer Yoav Valinsky competed in the lane right next to Iraqi Jawad Kadhim Joudah Joudah. Neither of them advanced but Joudan ended up in fourth place with Valinsky in sixth.

Israel is competing against UAE in a shooting competition but in that case the athletes are not competing at the same time. Israel's other main sports seem to be table tennis and sailing, with no apparent Arab or Iranian competition.

So far, one Israeli swimmer has won one bronze medal. 

By the way, this commercial for British TV coverage of the Paralympics is a must-see:



  • Friday, August 31, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Palestine Press Agency reports that vegetable prices have risen dramatically in Gaza recently, while the prices of fruit have declined.

According to a dealer interviewed, the reason for the rise in prices is that Gazans have been smuggling their vegetables through Rafah tunnels to sell them to Saudi Arabia, which pays better than the local market.

The produce smuggled out include tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant.

Earlier this month, a shipment of vegetables was exported from Gaza through Kerem Shalom to Saudi Arabia, according to Arab media.

Saudi vegetable prices doubled over the summer due to a severe shortage because of the high summer temperatures and drought conditions, so the idea that there is a black market in imported Gaza vegetables is not so far-fetched. 

In July, Saudi Arabia ended a 20-year ban on importing vegetables from Jordan as well, apparently to ease the shortage.


  • Friday, August 31, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ma'an:
Egyptian security officials said Thursday that three Bedouin men from the Sinai are suspected of involvement in the killing of an Islamist militant earlier this week.

Two of them fled to Israel on Wednesday, while another was captured by a Jihadi group, the officials said.

Egyptian intelligence reports also accused Israel's security service Mossad of being involved in the operation.

Ibrahim Owida Nasser Madan was killed in an explosion while riding his motorcycle south of Al-Qasiya, 15 kilometers from the Israeli border, on Sunday.

At the time, an Egyptian intelligence report said he was hit by a missile fired by an Israeli drone.

Other officials told Ma'an that Madan may have been killed by a missile which exploded while militants were trying to launch it.

Israel told Egyptian authorities it was not involved in the incident, Egyptian security sources said.

Madan, a member of a Jihadi militant group, had just been released by Egyptian security services after he was detained a few days ago during an Egyptian security campaign in northern Sinai, the intelligence report said.
This article doesn't directly say that Madan was killed by a drone, but Egyptian media is saying that. According to those reports, the Bedouin acted as spotters and called in the drone to kill him.

Their evidence? They say that there was a crater three meters deep and three meters wide where the motorcycle exploded, and if he was carrying explosives or ran over a mine it would not create such a crater.

That would be convincing evidence - if it was true. But here are two photos of the motorcycle; the first one while it was still burning and unlikely to have been moved:



Can you see any crater, let alone one ten feet deep?

In fact, the photos pretty much prove that it was not an Israeli drone that killed him. The accusations of Bedouin who escaped to Israel could be a cover-up in order to hide the fact that Egyptian security could not find them, or it might actually be true that the Bedouin who know the desert went over the border just to hide until the heat is off.

I somehow doubt that the Mossad has drones!

A Daily Star (Lebanon) report at the time made a bit more sense:
Witnesses said he was killed in an explosion as he tried to fire a rocket, and as an Israeli military drone hovered in the sky above its side of the border.

But the Mossad story is so appealing when you are already a crazed conspiracy theorist who already blames the Mossad for everything. Like most Arabs and some of their biggest fans.

UPDATE: Challah Hu Akbar points out that these photos, while accompanying a number of stories about the incident, are from an earlier Sinai incident. The real photos show a crater but it still does not look like it came from a missile (which would leave some shrapnel, directed downward), rather an explosion or a landmine: It does appear to be 3 meters wide in the sand but not close to three meters deep.


UPDATE 2:
Egyptian police said they found a decapitated head in Sinai on Friday of a man kidnapped by Islamist militants, reportedly for his role in assassinating an extremist.

A security official said another man, also accused in the assassination, was believed to have been kidnapped by the Bedouin militants.

A Bedouin tribal source said the head found in the Muqatta area in north Sinai belonged to Manazil Bereikat from the same tribe of an extremist killed in a mysterious explosion near the Israeli border on August 26.

At the time, witnesses said the militant, Ibrahim Ouda Bereikat, died in a blast as he tried to fire a rocket into Israel. Security sources said he might have been killed in a landmine.

The Bedouin source, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said the militants behind Manazil’s kidnapping accused him and several other men of planting a booby trap to assassinate Ouda Bereikat.

The security official said two other men the militants were hunting to avenge Ouda Bereikat’s death fled across the border into Israel.
Booby trap, landmine, malfunctioning rocket, missile? The stories change with the wind.
  • Friday, August 31, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Is this even considered news anymore?:
The Color Red alert was sounded twice in Sderot and the surrounding area in the early hours of Friday morning. A short time later a rocket exploded in Sderot, hitting a home but miraculously – no one was injured...

Security forces arrived at the scene to remove the Qassam rocket, which failed to explode completely when it hit the house.

An additional rocket exploded in an open area in Sderot, no injuries were reported.

Later on Friday morning a rocket fired from Gaza has hit the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, evidently exploding in an open area – but security forces have yet to locate the explosion site.

Limor Aflalo, the owner of the house that was hit by the rocket, told Haaretz that this was the second time a Qassam has hit her home: "This happens to us again, it's just desperation, thank God that there is damage only to property and not to any person, this is a great miracle, but at some point these miracles stop," she said.

"I'm not going to leave my house. In 2007, we left the house because of the Qassams, but I can't leave again, and now we're going back to that reality. It is hard for my children to deal with this. I do not believe in the phrase 'be strong' anymore. It's so sad that this is happening and that they are allowing this to happen. This is the fifth [rocket] to fall in our neighborhood, the second in my house. We hope it will stop," she added.

The rocket fell on the ceiling of her home. It broke the roof of her house, and then landed in her neighbor's garden.

The mayor of Sderot David Buskila said on Friday, "We can't relax here, we are going back to the tough days [of rockets falling] in Sderot. Sometimes there are lulls but the shooting has gone on for 12 years now. There was a miracle here."
GANSO did not report on any of these rockets.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

  • Thursday, August 30, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Notice how the people are drawn in a single-line outline - no child does that.
Festivals and Events Ontario supports and gives grants to various public festivals in Ontario, Canada. This year they gave $40,000 to MuslimFest, which takes place this weekend.

Normally, there would be nothing wrong with that. But in this case, MuslimFest is a hatefest.

It is showing an exhibition of the fake children's artwork from Gaza that is nothing but contrived anti-Israel propaganda, as I discussed previously.

Already a year ago I showed evidence that most of the "art" was not drawn by children at all, both from the style and from the simple fact that the artists didn't sign their names nor are they named in the exhibit. I added more information in this article for the Algemeiner.

This exhibit is vicious anti-Israel hate that uses a falsified story about the "art"origins in order to incite hate against Israel. Yet this fake art exhibit continued to be shown across the US and Canada.

Eye on a Crazy Planet reports that Muslim Brotherhood-linked IRFAN is also sponsoring this festival.

FEO should have more oversight on what they give their money to. The idea that a public festival is a venue for indoctrinating hate is something that simply should never happen in Ontario.

(h/t BlazingCatFur)
Yesterday, I asked whether Rachel Corrie received college credit for joining the ISM in Gaza. I based this on a 2003 article that said that all Evergreen students in Rafah were getting independent study credit.

It looks like Corrie had set up her trip to Gaza as an independent study course at Evergreen. A lengthy 2003 article in Mother Jones tracing Corrie's journey says:
In the fall of her senior year a friend returned from five months in Gaza and talked enthusiastically to Corrie about the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian activist group founded just the year before. A motley collection of anti-globalization and animal-rights activists, self-described anarchists and seekers, most in their 20s, the ISM upholds the right of Palestinians to carry out "armed struggle" and seeks "to establish divestment campaigns in the U.S. and Europe to put economic pressure on Israel the same way the international com- munity put pressure [on] South Africa during the apartheid regimes."

...Corrie proposed an independent-study program in which she would travel to Gaza, join the ISM team, and initiate a "sister city" project between Olympia and Rafah.
So indeed, Corrie went to Gaza with the expectation of receiving college credit for her work.

I still don't know which of her teachers sponsored her study program. Footnotes in the book based on her journals list three radical anti-Israel teachers who encouraged her to go: Simona Sharoni (who I mentioned in yesterday's post,) Steve Niva and Jean Eberhardt.

Steve Niva is a piece of work. In an article he wrote for Electronic Intifada on the first anniversary of Corrie's death, he defended her for burning the American flag - and made it sound like it was her patriotic duty!

Israeli apologists frequently circulate a picture of Rachel burning an American flag at a Palestinian demonstration, as if to prove that she was an irresponsible promoter of anti-American hatred.

Yet the most important point that her critics miss is that the symbol of an American questioning her government’s policy in the Middle East is extremely important and highly beneficial to Americans in general. It is very important for Americans to show people in this region that America is not monolithic and that some American civilians strongly disagree with their government’s policies. Lack of exposure to these voices is a major factor that increases the likelihood of terrorism and animosity towards American citizens.

Compared to the immensely dangerous impact on regional public opinion of the widely disseminated images of U.S. Marines placing flags on Iraqi government symbols during the recent war, Rachel’s act appears altruistic. Americans should be thankful for people like Rachel who uphold deeply rooted American values about freedom from illegitimate domination and for presenting a progressive image to the world.

Get that? Burning the symbol of America represents American values!

The Mother Jones article disputes the Corrie's parents contention that the area was not a war zone (they repeated this last night in a videoconference call): It also confirms the Haifa judge's contention that there were hidden explosives in the area that had to be cleared .
Masked militants from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades prowl the city's sandy alleyways at night, past gray cinder-block homes and shops whose walls are covered with "martyr" posters and brightly painted images of assault rifles and exploding Israeli tanks. Nightly gun battles pit Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers (apcs) patrolling the border strip -- known by the Israelis as "Philadelphi Road" or the "Pink Line" -- against guerrillas firing anti-tank missiles, grenades, and Kalashnikovs. Roadside bombs lie buried in the sand, and a local Bedouin family controls a lucrative business smuggling weapons from Egypt via tunnels dug as deep as 100 feet and often concealed inside Palestinian homes.
And it appears that Corrie naively thought that her status as an international would be a kind of force field that would protect her, no matter what. As the article goes on to say:
Corrie had come to Rafah a paper radical, primed for outrage, but with little real-world experience. That changed immediately. On her first night in Rafah, she and two other human shields, a fellow Olympian and an Italian, set up camp in a heap of rubble inside Block J, a densely populated neighborhood along the Pink Line and frequent target of gunfire from an Israeli watchtower. By placing themselves between the Palestinian residents and the troops, and hanging up banners announcing the presence of "internationals," the activists hoped to discourage the shooting. But the plan backfired. Huddling in terror as Israeli troops fired bullets over their tent and at the ground a few feet away, the three activists decided that their presence at the site was provoking the soldiers, not deterring them, and abandoned the tent.
But even after this incident, Corrie still believed that she was invincible because she was an "international." She wrote on February 22, nearly a month after arriving in the Middle East:
People can’t get to their jobs and those who are trapped on the other side can’t get home; and internationals, who have a meeting tomorrow in the West Bank, won’t make it. We could probably make it through if we made serious use of our international white person privilege, but that would also mean some risk of arrest and deportation.
Joe Smith, another ISM member, admitted that they felt invincible:
It's definitely easy to get cocky in this war zone when a tank is shooting at people and you walk up to them and shout at them, 'Hey, I'm here!' and they pack up and leave. You get so used to this idea, 'Hey, they won't hurt us.' It [Corrie's death] has really made me realize how naive and cocky I was.

Corrie's professors and her ISM comrades told her that her "whiteness" would protect her, because Israeli  kill Palestinian Arabs purely for racist reasons.  She even wrote that in a February 27 email:
When I come back from Palestine, I probably will have nightmares and constantly feel guilty for not being here, but I can channel that into more work. Coming here is one of the better things I’ve ever done. So when I sound crazy, or if the Israeli military should break with their racist tendency not to injure white people, please pin the reason squarely on the fact that I am in the midst of a genocide which I am also indirectly supporting, and for which my government is largely responsible.
This is what Rachel Corrie was taught, and this is what she believed.

Her mentors encouraged her to risk her life for their anti-Israel cause, falsely telling her that she was protected because she was white and from America and had a magic fluorescent vest and a magic bullhorn and magic signs that can stop tanks and bulldozers.

No wonder that after her death, her martyrdom is celebrated. By dying, Rachel Corrie managed to make the difference she was indoctrinated to make. And, according to the same Joe Smith, it was all worth it:
The spirit that she died for is worth a life. This idea of resistance, this spirit of resisting this brutal occupying force, is worth anything. So the life of one international, I feel, is more than worth the spirit of resisting oppression.

(h/t Ian, Nevet)
  • Thursday, August 30, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Ma'an reports:
A previously unknown militant group claimed responsibility Wednesday for an attack on the Israeli city of Ashkelon with five Grad missiles the previous evening.

"The Mujahadeen consultative council in Jerusalem and its environs" said it would continue its attacks targeting Israeli areas near Gaza in response to its crimes against Palestinians.

Israeli authorities said two rockets and a mortar shell were fired into southern Israel late Tuesday. There were no reports of injury or damage in the attacks.
Don't you love how these "previously unknown groups" pop up all the time in Gaza - and they manage to get their hands on mortars and rockets?

Especially since every weapons tunnel into Gaza is monitored and controlled by Hamas?

GANSO says this is what they noticed Tuesday night:
MU, 29 AUG: Overnight, Pal. ops. fired 8 mortar shells and 3 HMRs ["home-made rockets"] toward the Green Line. 2 mortars and 1 HMR dropped short. No injuries or damage reported.
Luckily for Gazans, the ones that fell short didn't hit any homes. This time.

Meanwhile, Israel is complaining to the UN, and the UN is ignoring it:
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor has submitted another complaint to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon over the rockets that have been fired from Gaza on Sderot. Prosor accused the UN of inaction, urging the global body to condemn the violence.
  • Thursday, August 30, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ian:



Prosor: Roar of Gaza rockets fall on deaf ears to UN
Israeli Ambassador to the UN pens letter to UNSC president in response to report stating that Gaza won't be "livable" by 2020.
"A group of researchers on the moon could have produced a more accurate and balanced report on Gaza than the one the UN produced this week, Israel’s ambassador Ron Prosor wrote Wednesday in a blistering letter to Security Council President Gerard Araud."

How Many Millionaires Live in the "Impoverished" Gaza Strip? by Khaled Abu Toameh

Syria's War Spills Into Lebanon by Michael J. Totten

Palestinians Face Own Diplomatic Tsunami

In stinging rebuke to hosts, UN chief denounces Iranian anti-Israel threats and Holocaust denial
“I strongly reject any threat by any [UN] member state to destroy another, or outrageous comments to deny historical facts such as the Holocaust,” Ban said.
“Claiming another UN member state does not have the right to exist or describe it in racist terms is not only utterly wrong but undermines the very principles we have all promised to uphold,” the UN chief added.
Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters in Iran, accused Israel of being made up of “bloodthirsty wolves,” a day after Ban asked the cleric to tone down his rhetoric against Israel.

Australian Jews protest news reports about abuse by IDF
"The newspaper reports triggered a scathing response Tuesday from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s president, Dr. Danny Lamm, who described it as “crude propaganda” and challenged the testimonies, which he said were “anonymous, non-specific as to times and places, devoid of critical detail and untested by any kind of cross-questioning.”

Egypt may resume civilian nuclear program, Morsi says
Egyptian nuclear ambitions were discarded following the 1967 defeat at the hands of Israel. Egypt signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968 but delayed ratifying it, presumably because it had evidence that Israel had embarked on a nuclear weapons program

Red Cross halts most Pakistan aid in wake of doctor's beheading
"The killing of an ICRC official in Quetta had seriously worried staff members of the organization about their security in Pakistan, particularly in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Dale, who converted to Islam, ran a health program in Quetta when he was kidnapped on January 5 while going home from work."

MEMRI Man Crucified By Al-Qaeda-Affiliated Ansar Al-Shari'a For Allegedly Directing U.S. Drones In Yemen.

Upper Nazareth square dedicated for Munich athletes

Hamas Condemns Mahmoud Abbas for Saying “Israel Is Here to Stay”
During the meeting Abbas said that ”Israel is here to stay, no matter what certain extremists say…It is not that there is one state too many in the region; rather that there is one state too few.”
Now, Hamas has condemned Abbas for making this statement and says that he must apologize to the Palestinian people for taking such a position.

Hamas Accused of Torturing Salafi Leader in Gaza

Activists Call for Transparency From Mahmoud Abbas on Property & Bank Accounts in Jordan

Iranian World of Warcraft gamers blocked by sanctions (Surely the Iranians will abandon their nuclear bomb now!)

New worlds discovered, courtesy of US-Israel team
Kepler-47 is the first multi-planet solar system found in a binary star system

Israel To Make Agric Tech Available to Ghanaian Farmers
Israel is a world leader in agricultural research and development; this has led to dramatic increases in the quantity and quality of the country’s crops.
The drive to increase yields and crop quality has led to the development of new seed and plant varieties.
A statement issued by the organizers of the show quoted the ambassador as saying that, with an increasing population, Ghana was faced with the challenge of satisfying rapidly growing food demand.

Also:

Judith Butler and the politics of hypocrisy

Who Killed Rachel Corrie?



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