Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Tuesday links

From Ian:

New Video Shows Palestinians, Left Wing Activists Cutting Down Olive Trees

"A new video entitled “Harvesting Incitement” released by the Shomron Regional Council today on YouTube purports to show Palestinians and left-wing activists cutting down olive trees in a tactic meant to frame West Bank settlers as the perpetrators according to an unnamed witness in the video. “They cut down these trees to start a fire in the media or in their ovens. It’s suspicious because it comes close to the Jewish settlements. They get close enough it becomes a security problem as well,” the witness says."

Jordan: King Abdullah Losing the Support of Tribes? by Khaled Abu Toameh
The Jordanian tribe is now planning a huge rally against Israel, with whom it has a peace treaty. Other tribes have been invited to join the rally, posing a major and unprecedented challenge to the monarchy.

EU Wins ‘Nobel Appeasement Prize’

"There is nothing that I can think of that would recommend giving this honor to a bunch of unelected bureaucrats sitting in Brussels. All too often, the EU’s foreign policy interventions have been marked by cowardice."

France as a Palestinian Camp - Old Fuhrer, New Furors

"More important is that French mainstream is also guilty for what is happening to the Jews. Palestinian terrorists are daily called “militants” and Flotilla jihadists are turned into “humanitarians” by the intellectuals, while the tribunals easily pardon the Jew-killers, who are always labelled as “youths”. To quote Pierre-Andre Taguieff, they "dissolve the anti-Jewish acts in a rising tide of delinquency".

French Jews denounce 'anti-Semitic' flood on Twitter
French anti-racist and Jewish organisations on Monday condemned what they called a wave of anti-Semitism sweeping over the micro-blogging site Twitter using the hashtag #unbonjuif (a good Jew).

European satellite axes Iran's anti-Semitic channels
Europe’s top satellite service Eutelsat barred on Monday 19 Iranian state-controlled television and radio channels from broadcasting in Europe.
According to a spokeswoman from Eutelsat, the measures “reinforced EU Council sanctions.”
See also Honest Reporting: EU Sanctions Knock Iran’s Press TV Off the Airwaves

Iran cracks down on underground 'illegal' churches
Iranian media reports blame "Zionist propaganda" for targeting vulnerable Muslims, converting them to Christianity.

Do you Support Arab Progress? Then, Listen to Genuine Arab Liberals & Reject Guardian’s Analysis

"If you want to know how best to advocate for hundreds of millions of Arabs – at least those genuinely supporting a real democratic “Spring” – you can begin by reviewing the Guardian’s coverage of the region and adopting a political persuasion based on the complete opposite of what you read."

Washington Should Play the Funding Card on PA’s UN bid

"UNESCO director Irina Bokova griped publicly last week about how much her organization is suffering from the U.S. funding cutoff sparked by its admission of “Palestine” last year. That provides Washington with real leverage to foil the Palestinian Authority’s planned bid for UN General Assembly recognition as a nonmember observer state later this fall. Incredibly, however, the administration doesn’t seem to be making use of it."

Israelis in south told to stay close to bomb shelters
Al-Qaida jihadists in Gaza and Sinai vow to avenge Israel's killing of their chief. Egyptian military on alert for booby-trapped cars approaching security installations. IDF raises alert level near Egypt border area and along major southern highway.

The Attacks on Israelis You Won’t Read About Anywhere Else, October 7-12

Swiss advertising offends Muslims
(Google translation) “The virulence of the Internet is not surprising Turkish journalist Cemil Baysal. So shortly after the excitement caused in the Muslim world by the film "Innocence of Muslims", "Muslims feel that many Christian slogan as a provocation and an attack against Islam."

Depeche Mode returning to TLV
Depeche Mode, the legendary British synth-pop band, will perform in Israel next year.

Also:

Henry Clifford's deceptive ads return to Metro North. CAMERA demolishes them. Years ago, CAMERA also showed how the Dayan quote had been taken out of context.

New iPhones snapped up in Gaza despite high prices, poverty

Prices ranged from 4,500 Israeli shekels ($1,170) for the 16 gigabyte model to 5,700 ($1,480) for 64 gb.

"I ordered 30 and I've sold 20 so far," said one dealer. "We can order as many as we want."

HuffPo has a terribly titled but very good article that sums up the huge amount of archaeological and historic evidence that Jews lived in ancient Israel, unlike how Arabs like to pretend they didn't.

(h/t Tamar)

Iran's PressTV hires another Western Jew-hater

I noticed this article in Iran's PressTV, by Mark Glenn. While PressTV has interviewed Glenn numerous times before, this seems to be his first foray as a columnist for the fact-challenged media outlet.

Back in the early days of this blog when I actually had the time to follow the crazy anti-semitic Left, I noticed that this same Mark Glenn had no problems espousing pure Jew-hatred. For example, he wrote:

While the other two Middle Eastern faiths that are Judaism’s organic enemies–meaning Christianity and Islam–elevate the virtues of humility, charity and righteousness, Judaism not only elevates, but institutionalizes and legislates the vices of haughtiness, supremacism and callous disregard for other human beings. It is the codified mindset of mankind’s first murderer, Cain, who slew his brother Abel over reasons of envy and economics. Gentiles exist to serve the Jews. Rape of gentile children, murder, lying, theft, usury, all these things that have been condemned in every other religion around the world are given full sanction in Judaism when it benefits the tribe....

Judaism is nobody’s friend, and the sooner that the rest of us–Jew and non-Jew alike–come to realize this, the better off we will be. Get rid of it. It is a cancer. Cut is out and throw it away, as Jesus instructed that we do. It has never and will never be of any benefit to mankind. We cannot live in any kind of ‘peaceful co-existence’ with it. It is a declaration of war, and as long as it exists out there, mankind will never have peace.

Another time Glenn told a horrible story of a child murdered by the evil Jews in Gaza - a story that he completely made up.

And in a particularly hilarious article, he looked at the rabidly anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect and decided that hey were waaaaaay too Jewish for his tastes.

I could see it in their faces and in particular in their eyes…centuries of it. Hundreds of years of being taught–generation after generation after generation–700,000 days worth of it–that there was one group of people better than everyone else…That all the objective rules of right and wrong did not apply when dealing with Gentiles…That–just as the Jewish Holy Books of the Talmud and Kabbalah declare–a state of war exists between the divine sphere of the Jews and the satanic sphere of the non-Jews and that, just as that old saying went with regards to war, ‘all is fair…’

I could see by their features that the gene pool from which they had been ladled was very small, very exclusive and violently against any new dogs joining the pack. They were part of an artificially-created/genetically modified species made up of kissing cousins who were all related to each other in a manner that was way too close and which was probably–biologically speaking–not safe. I could see in their own features the characteristics that have been made famous by their well-known brothers and sisters throughout the history of the bloodiest 100 years of mankind’s existence, the ‘Jewish Century’ as it was put by the writer Yuri Slezkine–the Trotskys, Dershowitzes, Sharons, Feinsteins, Greenspans, and Sandlers. Each of the ‘good Rabbis’ had that well-known effeminate whine in each of their voices that is always one half-step short of a whimper of complaint.

Now Mark Glenn has joined the roster of Western Jew-haters who write for PressTV.

He'll feel right at home.

(By the way, here's the list of all of the PressTV editorialists.)

Arabs upset at latest alleged UNRWA plan to teach the Holocaust

In 2009, Arab media exploded with the rumor that UNRWA schools planned to teach about the Holocaust to Palestinian Arab kids in Gaza.

The UN had to issue a strenuous denial that they would even consider such a thing. One Arab newspaper even quoted the UNRWA head as saying he was totally against it, a quote that UNRWA later denied.

Soon afterwards, UNRWA announced that it would indeed incorporate the Holocaust into its curriculum on universal human rights, but there is no evidence that it ever did so.

Now, the same rumor is hitting Jordan.

Al-Ghad reports

UNRWA will return to teaching the so-called Holocaust in the context of material enrichment, after freezing it for a while, despite its denials of it.

Informed sources in the UNRWA/Jordan teachers committee said that a decision with the agency to teach enrichment material about the Holocaust, after previously being forced to freeze work on the topic, as a result of the overwhelming uproar against it.

Sources added to al-Ghad that "UNRWA is seeking to exploit the preoccupation with current internal situation, in addition to the uncertain atmosphere in the region, in order to teach suspicious topics that harm the Palestinian cause."

Introduced in this framework would be materials that discuss resolving conflicts and crises, and resolving conflict peacefully, and to cite the so-called plight of Jews and victims of Nazism and their right to live in peace.

A statement issued yesterday by the Executive Committee of Teachers of UNRWA in Jordan expressed "outrage and condemnation of this decision, which conflates the executioner and victim, and urged "the teaching of private Palestinian cause, especially the right of return of refugees to their homes and lands that have been displaced them due to the Zionist aggression in 1948."

For its part, UNRWA's management denied any plans to "to teach about the Holocaust in its enrichment activities, saying its commitment is to the educational curriculum of the host countries, and it has no intention to change it.

Jordanian teachers know that the topic of teaching Arabs something that could make Jews appear as anything less than bloodthirsty monsters is an easy way to create a huge backlash in their "moderate" country. It isn't only that the teachers are anti-semitic, but they know that everyone in Jordan would agree that Holocaust education is a terrible topic to inflict on their children.

If that isn't anti-semitism, I don't know what is.

Meanwhile, UNRWA never answered my questions about their curriculum and school material that teach about jihad and martyrdom, in Gaza. These materials directly contradict UNRWA's official educational vision in that they glorify violence.

Apparently teaching Jihad is OK while teaching that millions of Jews were killed 70 years ago is strictly out of bounds for this progressive, Western-funded UN agency.

Arab workers see sex with Jewish women as a form of "jihad" (updated)

According to a 2010 study done by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and supported by the UN, some Arab laborers in Israel regard having sex with Jewish women to be a form of jihad, or holy war.

Yesterday, I reported that Gulf News published an absurd story claiming that a Palestinian labourers working in Israel are at a high risk of sexual harassment by Israeli women, based on a supposed report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

Since then, the Gulf News report has been picked up by other media, none of which bothered to find the original "report" to see if there was any truth to it.

So I looked again - and actually found the study.

Not surprisingly, it says something quite different than what is being reported.

Called "Risky Behavior by Migrant Laborers" and found on the UNFPA page, it was published in 2010. It is only available in Arabic.

The study was meant to find out how much Palestinian Arab laborers knew about safe sex and how to stop sexually transmitted diseases among them.

While indeed 77% in one focus group of workers, and 52% in another, claimed that they were "harassed or sexually harassed," those terms are not defined. From the context it appears that if they even see an Israeli woman with shorts on the bus they consider that harassment.

Moreover, many of them admit that they work in Israel in order to have sex. They hang around clubs, go to massage parlors and try to take advantage of Jewish women, especially Russians who are judged to be "easy." Some workers are married; most are single, but both categories will try to get laid. Many of them use their time in Israel to act out their fantasies.

In addition, the study says, there is a great fear among single Arabs that they won't know how to perform on their wedding nights, so they really want to gain experience and look at Israeli Jewish women as the ones they can practice on. The study specifically notes the sexual deprivation that they experience as they grow up as one of the factors behind their risky behavior in Israel.

But there is one other factor that some use as justification to have sex with Jewish girls: Jihad.

According to the study, some of the Arabs regard sex with Jewish girls as a form of "jihad" - as a way to punish the Jews! As one puts it, this is a form of "revenge" on Israelis.

The overwhelming sense from reading the report is that Arab workers are the ones who are stalking Jewish women in Israel, and when they say they are being harassed it is really a projection of their own fantasies, as they travel from their villages where women are completely covered and find themselves surrounded by women they believe are shameful but also enticing.

As far as I can tell, this study was never publicized, nor translated into English.

There is one thing that everyone in the study has in common, as well as the labor official quoted in the Gulf News - a view of Jewish women that is completely demeaning. If Israeli Jewish men would have made these sorts of statements, the media would be shouting about their "racism" and intolerance. But here, in a study that the UN supports, there is not a word about Arab male misogyny and anti-semitism. The sickening bigotry is accepted as a fact, and the Jewish women who are victims of Arab predators are utterly ignored.

And it will be ignored. We won't hear anything about how Arab men actively demean Jewish women from "progressive" sites like 972mag or Mondoweiss. We won't hear any word of protest from Judith Butler. The Huffington Post will be silent. Because to them, Israeli Jewish women cannot be considered victims when the victimizer has been canonized as the ultimate victim.

This is yet another example of how the world allows Arabs to behave in ways that are totally unacceptable when done by others.

UPDATE: I found an executive summary in English of the report on the UNFPA site, but it does not go into the detail of the actual Arabic report.

At Bar Ilan, 100 Yiddish students are - Arab!

From Al Monitor, translating from Yediot Aharonot:

“Yiddish intrigues me with its majesty and its enigmatic, refined musical tone. I have no explanation for the fact that I have always felt a connection to this language.”

Contrary to what you might expect, the speaker of these lines is not a Polish poet or German philosopher. He is Yusuf Alakili, 50, from Kfar Kassem, currently investing much effort in his studies for a Master’s degree in literature at Bar Ilan University’s Hebrew. Alakili studies Yiddish on the side for his own enjoyment.

How did this affair start? “In the 1980s, I worked with a Jew of Polish origin who lived in Bnei Brak, and Yiddish was the main language there. I was captivated by its musical tone and decided to study it in earnest. My dream is to read Sholom Aleichem’s Tevye the Dairyman [the inspiration for Fiddler on the Roof] in its original language.”

And what bothers him? “I don’t know who is to blame, but I don’t understand why this magnificent language is neglected, when such an extensive body of literature exists in Yiddish. Did you know that [Nobel Prize laureate] Agnon started writing in Yiddish, and only later transferred to Hebrew?” he asks.

Alakili is not alone. About a quarter of the 400 students studying Yiddish at Bar Ilan are Arabs, says Ber Kotlerman, academic director of Bar Ilan’s Center for Yiddish Studies. According to Kotlerman, some of the Israeli Arabs are searching for a way to connect to the Jewish culture with which they must cope, and it is not easy for them.

“Even Jews in the Diaspora search for this — a way to connect to the local culture — and it is wonderful that Yiddish can be a sort of ambassador, a bridge between nations and cultures,” he says. “Take, for example, the case of Tevye the Dairyman, whose daughter marries a Christian and he sits shiva [the traditional Jewish mourning ceremony] for her. Two years ago, a female Arab student approached me to say that her father would do the same thing if she fell in love with a Jew,” says Kotlerman.

Salam Bashara, 22, of Tira, is currently finishing her undergraduate degree in Arab literature. She explains how the Yiddish language and culture move her greatly.

”I fell in love with Hebrew literature back in high school. When I studied Yiddish, I became acquainted with Sholom Aleicham and the early works of Agnon," and also watched various films, such as the wonderful movie "The Cantor from Vilna."

"The cantor’s loss of his son [to the surrounding secular culture] is a universal experience, something that everyone can identify with,” says Bashara, who hopes one day to write her masters thesis on the parallels between Arab and Yiddish literature.

Az der barg geyt nit tsu Makhmedn, geyt Makhmed tsum barg.

Israeli media is reporting that Gaza fighters fired shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles last week at Israeli aircraft, according to Yediot Aharonot. The missiles missed and no injuries or damage were reported.

Sources said the missiles were probably the Strela-2/SA7, a Soviet-era shoulder mounted missile.

This is the first time these missiles were used by Gaza terrorists, althoughthere have been reports that Gaza groups had them for years. As early as 2001, Israel intercepted a weapons ship headed towards Gaza that included Strela missiles.

When Libya fell there were numerous reports about sophisticated weapons flooding the region.Last January, weapons smugglers in the Sinai claimed that they sold thousands of surface-to-air missiles from Libya to Gaza - but kept some for themselves for eventual use against Egyptian forces.

"Recipe for Peace" - satirical video

(h/t Yerushalimey)

"Bomba style" - Black Israeli humor about Iranian nukes (video)

(h/t Yerushalimey)

Those storming Jews keep visiting their holiest place

Palestine Today says

Monday morning, a number of settlers stormed the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque from the Mughrabi Gate.

A guards of the holy mosque told our correspondent that the storming operation was still continuing, accompanied by reinforced elements of special police units of the occupation to provide protection and escort for suspicious settlers during their tours in the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The guard pointed out that a number of extremists performed Talmudic rituals and rites in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque today.

Yesterday, the Al Aqsa Foundation said that some 30 Israeli police "stormed" the Temple Mount, apparently to protect a small group of Jews who they photographed.

The biggest story on the Al Aqsa site is that during September, the anti-semitic Arabs counted some 1300 "settlers" "desecrating" Judaism's holiest spot, amongst tens of thousands of Muslims and several thousand foreign tourists.

The Muslim leaders are now encouraging Muslims schools to go on field trips to the Mount in order to counterbalance the few dozens of Jews visiting the area with hundreds of bored Arab schoolkids.

The Foundation points out that the Jews are trying to make Jewish visits a normal thing so that they get used to it and the outrage will naturally dissipate, and they promise they will never let that happen. But of course, it already is, as the general Arabic media has been reducing their coverage of the visits, albeit slowly, and the Al Aqsa Foundation needs to fabricate outrageous claims in order to get their daily screeds noticed.

I wonder if any pro-Palestinian Arab "human rights" groups support the rights of Jews to freely visit - and pray at - the Temple Mount. So far, I haven't seen any, nor any mention of this in HRW or Amnesty's websites.

Monday links

From Ian:

Ministry: French Official Denies Jewish Connection to the Land
The Foreign Ministry upbraided France's Consul General in Jerusalem over his denial of the Jewish connection to historical sites in Israel

The Foreign Ministry on Thursday upbraided the French Consulate General in Jerusalem over remarks made by France's Consul General in Jerusalem, Frédéric Desagneaux, that the Ministry said “denies the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel.” In a statement, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor said that Israel was “shocked that the French Consul General was joining forces with those who would rewrite history to reflect specific agendas and erase the Jewish and Israeli connection to the Land of Israel.

In his remarks, Desagneaux discussed “the important archaeological projects that French archaeologists had helped to uncover in Palestine,” including the Qumran Caves and Masada, stressing their connection to “Palestinian history. We have seen how important these heritage sites are to international recognition of Palestine, and France intends to continue to lead the movement to recognize the Palestinian's management of these sites,” he said.

Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews (REVIEW)

"How, asks Cravatts, “did the academic left come to hate Israel,” which had been looked on by most (not all)) liberals prior to June 1967 with approval and sympathy? By 2007 Stanley Fish could observe in the New York Times that at most American universities “anti-Israel sentiment flourishes and is regarded more or less as a default position.”
"The liberal UC Berkeley historian Martin Jay (in Salmagundi, winter/spring 2003) merely blamed Jews for “causing” the “new antisemitism; but Paul Krugman (Princeton) went a step further (New York Times, October 23, 2003) by “explaining” (away) the Malaysian Mahathir Mohamad’s regurgitation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as “anti-Semitism with a Purpose”; and then the liberal historian1 Tony Judt (NYU) outdid both of them in the New York Review of Books (October 23, 2003)—the Women’s Wear Daily of liberal academics–by calling for the end of the State of Israel as the panacea for the ills of the world."

New Threats to Free Speech by Nonie Darwish

"The truth regarding that low-budget video, however, is that all the stories in it were taken from the Islamic books on Mohammed's life, "Sirat Rasul Allah" ["The Life of the Messenger of Allah"], the earliest biography of Muhammad, as well as from quotes in the "Hadiths," acts or sayings ascribed to Muhammad. The stories were not the invention of the producer of the film; they were tasteless and unholy, but they are all found in Muslim scriptures. The problem with Islam is that Muslims riot and burn and kill those who repeat what already exists in their scriptures."

Palestinian group to PA: Release jailed journalists By KHALED ABU TOAMEH

Palestinian Journalists Syndicate in Gaza calls for the release of reporters arrested by PA security forces in West Bank.
One of the journalists, Walid Khaled, has been on hunger strike since his arrest on September 18, the syndicate said. Khaled was arrested by the PA only days after he had been released from Israeli prison.
Khaled works for the Palestinian newspaper Falasteen [Hamas]. Last week a PA judge ordered his release, but the PA has refused to obey the order.

Qaradawi urges Muslims to support Jerusalem’s cause

In his Friday sermon at Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Mosque, he recalled that “when a Jew (*) burned a small portion of a pulpit of Al Aqsa mosque back in 1969, all Muslims and Arabs of the world hurried to create what came to be known as the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to deal with the issue”.

*[actually it was an Australian Christian]

PMW: PA Minister honors murderer of two [Israeli women] by attending his daughter's wedding

PA TV song broadcast more than 15 times: "Jaffa, Acre, Haifa, and Nazareth are ours"

This song was performed in front of PA Chairman Abbas and other senior PA officials at a Fatah event in 2011. Since then, PA TV has broadcast it more than 30 times.
PA TV is directly controlled by the office of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

CIFWatch: Guardian video falsely claims that Hezbollah drone was shot down over “Palestinian territory”

BBC Watch: BBC World Service hosts antisemite Gilad Atzmon
Jerusalem Syndrome at the BBC comedy quiz QI

“...if the BBC is going to mention Jerusalem in what purports to be a general knowledge-related programme, then obviously it is not a good idea to present the city as a place connected solely to Christianity and Islam.”

Israeli legal group threatens to sue Australian charity for funding terror group
Shurat HaDin alleges that World Vision gave more than $1 million per year to an arm of the PFLP

Former Lebanese PM joins growing chorus of Nasrallah criticism
Fouad Siniora says Hezbollah could unilaterally drag Lebanon into a military conflict with Israel; Saed Hariri calls move ‘uncalculated adventure’

Israeli network cable experts to go cable-less
RIT Technologies, one of the world’s leading network cabling topology firms, has a new system to eliminate network cables

"Even better than an efficient cabling system, however, is a system that connects servers, routers, computers, and other devices without cables at all — and RiT this week announced that it had begun final development of the first product in its new Indoor Wireless Optical Network (IWON) product family, which, the company says, will enable companies to utilize high-speed, high-bandwidth networks using symmetrical, bi-directional optical links, eliminating the need for cumbersome cabling networks and switching panels."

Eat More Chocolate, Win More Nobel Prizes?

"Can eating chocolate boost your brain power enough to get you a Nobel Prize? A scientist examined whether a country's per-capita chocolate consumption was related to the number of Nobels it had won -- a sign of a nation's "cognitive function." Using data from chocolate producers in 23 countries, he found "a surprisingly powerful correlation."

"Israeli women sexually abuse Palestinian workers" (updated)

Every time I think that Arab lies can't get any more absurd, along comes a new one. From Gulf News:

This scene from a movie may be the basis for the "field study."

Palestinian labourers working in Israel are at a high risk of sexual harassment by Israeli women, according to a recent field study conducted by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. The study found that 77 per cent of the Palestinian labourers in Israel had been subject to sexual harassment by Israeli women.

In an interview with Gulf News, Shaher Saad, the President of the Union of the Palestinian Labourer Federations, said the Palestinians face a real problem with the labourers who work in Israel on permits other than the official legal work permits.

He stressed that the problem increased further with the illegal labourers who are smuggled into Israel and spend days and weeks there for work. He said those labourers usually are blackmailed, harassed and forced to get involved in illicit and intimate affairs.

“There are about 55,000 Palestinian labourers who enter Israel for work through illegal and unacceptable methods,” he said. “The real focus needs to go to those illegal labourers who get sexually harassed.”

Those horny Israeli temptresses!

Before we go on, let's get one thing clear: the Gulf News didn't even bother checking the webpage of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, which links to no such study as of this writing.

So the only person making this claim is president of the Union of the Palestinian Labourer Federations, who is obviously against any Palestinian Arab working in Israel - and is willing to do anything to stop it.

Saad said his union has come up with extensive programmes to raise the awareness of the Palestinian labourers, mainly targeting illegal workers. “Aids is a key enemy fought by the union,” he said.

He said Palestinian labourers should be extremely careful inside Israel knowing that some Israelis will take advantage of the labourers and harm them. “The Israelis only care for their joy and interests and pay no attention or consider judicial consequences when they handle Palestinian labourers,” he said.

“We are forcing Palestinian labourers outside the West Bank in searches for better work place and Israel is the ideal destination,” he said.

So far, the Palestinian authorities have failed to imposed an HIV test for labourers who have worked in Israel, especially before they marry. An increasing number of HIV patients have been reported by Palestinian medical authorities. “This is an alarm and this issue should be taken in a more serious way,” Saad said.

Maybe Israel should impose venereal disease tests on all incoming Palestinian Arab laborers? Sounds like it is a public health issue!

I can't wait for Mondoweiss to publish this....

(h/t Israel Muse)

UPDATE: I actually found the study. It is quite different, and very revealing. See here.

New "mini-Flame" malware discovered, related to Gauss/Stuxnet

From PC Magazine:

Researchers have uncovered a new virus with ties to the Flame and Gauss malware. According to Kaspersky Lab, its latest discovery has "many similarities to Flame," prompting researchers to dub it miniFlame.

"MiniFlame is in fact based on the Flame platform but is implemented as an independent module. It can operate either independently, without the main modules of Flame in the system, or as a component controlled by Flame," Kaspersky said in a blog post.

MiniFlame was uncovered in July 2012, but has apparently been in development for several years. Kaspersky believes there are dozens of different miniFlame modifications; at this point, the firm has identified six.

While Flame and Gauss hit a large number of targets, miniFlame appears to be focused on a few systems in Western Asia. "This indicates that [miniFlame] is a tool used for highly targeted attacks, and has probably been used only against very specific targets that have the greatest significance and posing the greatest interest to the attackers," Kaspersky said.

MiniFlame also does not appear to be targeting a specific region. Flame was mostly focused in Iran and Sudan, while Gauss had a major presence in Lebanon. Different miniFlame variants, however, have clustered in regions like Lebanon and Palestine as well as Iran, Kuwait, and Qatar.

"If Flame and Gauss were massive spy operations, infecting thousands of users, miniFlame/SPE is a high precision, surgical attack tool," Kaspersky said.

MiniFlame, however, can be used in conjunction with its larger counterparts, like Gauss. "As many readers will remember, it has been assumed that Flame and Gauss were parallel projects that did not have any modules or C&C servers in common," Kaspersky said. "The discovery of miniFlame, which works with both these espionage projects, proves that we were right when we concluded that they had come out of the same 'cyber-weapon factory."

Kaspersky uncovered Flame in late May, and said at the time that it "might be the most sophisticated cyber weapon yet unleashed." Flame can sniff network traffic, take screenshots, record audio conversations, intercept a keyboard, and more. All of this data is then available via Flame's command-and-control servers.

Gauss, meanwhile, was uncovered in August and is a cyber threat targeting users in the Middle East that is intended to steal personal details, like banking information. Gauss includes a module - known as Godel - that has an encrypted payload, which Kaspersky found difficult to crack. Ultimately, it asked the security community for assistance.

Russian company Kaspersky, which has effectively become Iran's cyber-defense contractor, linked Flame and Stuxnet previously.

It is widely assumed that these suites of computer malware were designed by Israel and the US.

Memorize the Quran to get out of jail

From Al Arabiya:

A Saudi father pardoned his son’s killer if he successfully memorized the Holy Quran, a local newspaper reported on Saturday.

The killer, Faisal al-Ameri, kisses the forehead of Rabi’a al-Dousary, the father of the young man he killed.

Rabi’a al-Dousary, father of the slain young man named Abdullah, promised to pardon the convicted felon, Faisal al-Ameri, if he successfully memorized all of the Holy Quran before leaving prison, al-Yawm Saudi newspaper reported.

Ameri was sentenced to death for killing Dousary during a quarrel that erupted in their neighborhood.

The Higher Committee of Correction in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom has persuaded the father to forgive and pardon Ameri.

The father, who refused to receive any blood money, to teach the Ameri a far more valuable lesson, insisted on one condition: the killer to fully memorize the Quran before his acquittal from prison.

A number of Arab countries actually release criminals from prison if they memorize parts or all of the Quran.

Because, apparently, rote memorization of the Islamic holy book (that has been used to justify the deaths of countless innocent people) proves that you are moral enough to re-enter society.

"Egyptian police killed 34, tortured 88" in Morsi's first 100 days

From Al Ahram:

In a recent report published by the Cairo-based Nadim Centre for the Rehabilitation of Torture Victims, 34 cases of death, 88 cases of torture, and seven cases of sexual assault at the hands of Egyptian police were recorded during Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi's first 100 days in office.

In the time period cited, the report recorded a total of over 247 cases of alleged police brutality.

The report states that at least 34 people were killed by police in police stations, prisons and in public areas. According to the report, the killings were generally the result of live ammunition used to disperse protesters.

The report also cites 88 cases of torture by police. The seven people that the report alleges were sexually assaulted by police during interrogation include a young man who filed a legal complaint against a police officer and was later threatened and subject to torture.

More than eight cases of the kidnapping of political activists were also recorded, several of whom were also allegedly subject to torture and abuse.

At least ten sit-ins were also reported to have been dispersed by force during Morsi's first 100 days as president, along with several cases of arbitrary arrest as was most recently seen during the 17 September Nile University sit-in.

Approximately ten police raids on homes and private property were also recorded by the centre, the most famous of which was a police raid in early August on shack dwellers behind the Nile Towers in downtown Cairo.

Just for comparison, I estimate that in the past 100 days, the IDF killed about 18 Palestinian Arabs (including the five this past weekend), the vast majority of whom were members of terrorist groups or engaged in attacks against Israelis when they were killed.

Which means that Egypt kills far more Arabs than Israel does!

"Jew-cookies, baked in gas ovens" (updated x2)

Over the weekend a photo that seems to have been taken in a Danish supermarket made the rounds on Twitter:

Jodekager means "Jewish cookie" and is a well known Danish biscuit, especially (ironically) around Christmas.

"Bagt i gasovn" means "baked in gas ovens."

The reaction has been that perhaps the sign was in bad taste but many liked it (and favorited it on Twitter and "Liked" it on Facebook.) Others thought it might be Photoshopped, which is certainly possible. I couldn't find an original image with camera information.

Even if the sign itself is fake, the reaction is troubling, to say the least.

See "Never to Wait" blog.

(h/t Israel Muse)

UPDATE: Commenter Akusia reminds me of this story from 2005:

A group of Danish Muslims refuse to eat traditional “Jewish” cookies because they feel offended by the name.

It all equals out. Jews are offended by gratuitous Holocaust jokes, and Muslims are offended by - Jews.

UPDATE 2: Follow-up at Never to Wait:

Since I wrote the original post, denfri.dk reported that this picture originates from a Dagli’Brugsen in Thorsager, Denmark. Dagli’Brugsen is a the Danish equivalent of a Sainsbury’s Local, and the sign was reportedly put up by a young employee as a joke. As there is only one picture circulating the web, I’m assuming that this sign was taken down immediately, if it ever actually existed in the first place. For this reason, I have not denounced SuperBrugsen in any way.

Martin, a representative from SuperBrugsen, posted the following on their official Facebook page:

We are currently investigating the case, but for now it looks like a tasteless joke. The picture has nothing to do with SuperBrugsen. We would see it as entirely unacceptable for a sign like that to be used in one of our stores.