Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

45 countries have higher rates of poverty than Gaza

Population below poverty line

1	Chad	80
2	Haiti	80
3	Liberia	80
4	Congo, Democratic Republic of the	71
5	Sierra Leone	70.2
6	Nigeria	70
7	Suriname	70
8	Swaziland	69
9	Zimbabwe	68
10	Burundi	68
11	Sao Tome and Principe	66.2
12	Zambia	64
13	Niger	63
14	Comoros	60
15	Honduras	60
16	Namibia	55.8
17	Guatemala	54
18	Mozambique	54
19	Senegal	54
20	Malawi	53
21	Mexico	51.3
22	Bolivia	51.3
23	South Sudan	50.6
24	South Africa	50
25	Madagascar	50
26	Kenya	50
27	Eritrea	50
28	Lesotho	49
29	Gambia, The	48.4
30	Cameroon	48
31	Guinea	47
32	Tajikistan	46.7
33	Burkina Faso	46.7
34	Sudan	46.5
35	Nicaragua	46.2
36	Yemen	45.2
37	Rwanda	44.9
38	Belize	43
39	Djibouti	42
40	Cote d'Ivoire	42
41	East Timor	41
42	Angola	40.5
43	Mauritania	40
44	Mongolia	39.2
45	Grenada	38
46	Gaza Strip	38
47	Benin	37.4
48	Colombia	37.2
49	Papua New Guinea	37
50	El Salvador	36.5

The total number of areas ranked is 157, meaning that Gaza has a lower poverty rate than about 30% of all countries worldwide.

But you already knew that from the amount of media coverage of poor people in those other 45 countries, of course.

By the way, there are more poor Saudis than there are Gazans altogether.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

Gaza exporting beds to Tunisia - through Israel

The General Union of Palestinian Industries in Gaza announced that a shipment of 150 beds will be exported from Gaza to Tunisia tomorrow.

This will be the second furniture export from Gaza this year.

Although Hamas claims that Egypt is going to open up the Rafah crossing for exports, this shipment is being transferred through the Kerem Shalom crossing, where Israel will transport it to the nearby Nitzana/Ouja crossing to Egypt. From there the shipment will be sent to Tunisia.

Yes, Israel is cooperating with Gaza exporters and Egypt to send furniture to a hostile Islamist Arab country that doesn't recognize Israel.

I'm sure that this proves Israel's racism somehow.

West Bank university celebrates terrorism in "art exhibit"

BirZeit University, near Ramallah, has set up what they call an "art exhibit" which is really an anti-Israel hatefest and celebration of Hamas terror.

No, this isn't in Gaza.

PA refuses to pay for toddler's bone marrow transplant. Guess who did?

From COGAT:

A two-year old Palestinian boy from the West Bank underwent a bone marrow transplant three weeks ago. The procedure, which was done at the Tel Hashomer hospital, was funded by the Civil Administration after the Palestinian Authority refused the family`s request to fund the procedure.

“This procedure will save the child's life,” explained Dalia Bessa, the Health Coordinator for the Civil Administration. “When this sort of procedure is needed and the Palestinian Authority refuses to fund it, the Civil Administration steps in, in order to save lives.” The Civil Administration funds hundreds of operations and medical treatments each year, besides this transplant. The budget for medical treatment for Palestinians is 7.5 million NIS; these funds are invested in Palestinians who require transplants and other forms of medical care.

Besides undergoing the transplant, the child is under the care of a social worker who has been attending to the child and family's needs throughout the duration of the hospital stay. “My position entails taking responsibility over Palestinian patients from the minute they are admitted until they are released from the hospital, while coordinating with the Civil Administration and Dalia Bessa,” said Baloum Raid, a social worker who coordinates the hospitalization of all Palestinian patients at Tel Hashomer.

The PA apparently believes that the $130 million it pays every year to terrorists in Israeli prison, and to the families of dead terrorists, is more important than to pay to save their own children's lives.

COGAT is part of the IDF.

Which means that the Israeli army puts a higher priority on saving Palestinian Arab lives than the PA does.

Somehow I missed this story in the BBC and the New York Times.

Hamas' logo for its 25th anniversary shows its priorities

Hamas is planning a huge celebration this coming Saturday for the 25th anniversary of its founding.

Here is their official logo:

A celebration of indiscriminate attacks against civilians! Yay!

But clueless Western "experts" will continue to claim that Hamas really supports a peaceful, two-state solution.

(Last year's logo was also noteworthy - as it showed a weapon emerging from the Dome of the Rock.)

Night reading: When Kuwait expelled 400,000 Palestinian Arabs

The Middle East Forum has a nice article by Steven J. Rosen about the seldom-remembered episode when Kuwait decided to ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs in 1991.

The largest forced displacement of Palestinians from an Arab state took place in 1991 when Kuwait expelled most of its Palestinian residents in retaliation for the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) endorsement of Iraq's brutal occupation of the emirate (August 1990-February 1991). It mattered little that this population, most of which had resided in Kuwait for decades, was not supportive of the PLO's reckless move: From March to September 1991, about 200,000 Palestinians were expelled from the emirate in a systematic campaign of terror, violence, and economic pressure while another 200,000 who fled during the Iraqi occupation were denied return. By September 1991, Kuwait's Palestinian community had dwindled to some 20,000.

Yet while this expulsion was near the order of magnitude of the Palestinian 1948 flight (estimated by the Israeli government at 550,000-600,000 and by the Arab League at 700,000),[2] driving PLO chairman Yasser Arafat to declare that "what Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories,"[3] it was largely ignored by the international community with neither the U.N. Security Council nor the General Assembly doing anything to assist the newly displaced refugees and punish their ethnic cleanser.

...Many of the deportees were subjected to abuse or worse during the process of expulsion. In March 1991, the Associated Press quoted a grave digger at the Riqqa Cemetery in Kuwait, talking about mass graves: "They were all Palestinians … One man had a severed head." The agency later reported that even some members of Kuwait's ruling family were involved in the killings of Palestinians, and Kuwaiti pro-democracy activists claimed the royal family had formed private "death squads" to execute people suspected of collaborating with the Iraqis. The director of the Palestine Human Rights and Information Center reported interviews with four Palestinian men who escaped Kuwait after being imprisoned there, saying that they were beaten with metal rods, burned with cigarettes, and interrogated by Kuwaiti officials during their imprisonment in Kuwait City.[14]

Palestinian children were expelled from public schools while heavy financial burdens, such as new health fees, were placed on Palestinians who wished to remain. According to the Palestinian group Badil, "About 4,000 people were killed, and 16,000 tortured in Kuwaiti detention and interrogation centers. Most of these were Palestinians."

...Most of the world was silent in the face of this enormous expulsion, including Kuwait's fellow members of the Arab League. A Palestinian observer lamented that, "You can call it deportation ... But I call it the third catastrophe after 1948 and 1967. Imagine what would happen if Israel deported 300,000 people. The whole world would be up in arms. But when an Arab deports or kills his Arab brother, it's all right; nothing happens."

No resolutions were adopted by the U.N. Security Council or by the General Assembly. Not a word was heard from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People, or the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967. All remained silent on the situation in Kuwait.

The General Assembly-established Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People did record twenty-four statements on expulsions and deportations of Palestinians during 1990-91,[37] but not one of these statements was about the 400,000 Palestinians deported by Kuwait. Instead, all twenty-four statements were angry protestations objecting to Israel's deportation of four convicted Palestinian terrorists with blood on their hands.

It is worth reading the whole thing to get an appreciation of what hypocrites the Arabs are when they claim they care about their Palestinian brothers. Not to mention the UN.

(h/t Josh)

Why peace is impossible, reason #4821

Al Watan Voice quotes a Sheikh Hussein Qassem, an apparent religious leader among Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon.

He says that the UN vote is a step on the way for Arabs to reclaim the Negev, Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, Nazareth and Safed and all Galilee.

That's not enough of a reason to say that peace is impossible, though.

But Qassem brings up something else that is undoubtedly a widespread belief, one that does make peace literally and totally inconceivable.

The sheikh said:

We in the House of Palestine Scholars stress the legitimate principles for the liberation of all of Palestine from the sea to the river, from north to south, and we will not give up a grain of sand; all Muslims and Arabs will help us and stand by our side through jihad and resistance to liberate our land from the clutches of this usurper entity and this is their duty - because Palestine is not the property of the Palestinians only and not the property of the Arabs, but belongs to the Islamic nation, Allah bequeaths the earth and hence the Arab and Islamic support for our cause all have the power to return it to its owners...

Even if the Palestinian Arabs decided that they are willing to compromise for peace tomorrow, the larger Islamic world will never accept anything less than every inch of Israel that they believe is their God-given right. They would brand the Palestinian Arabs as traitors and start the next stage in their never ending quest to destroy Israel, by every possible means at their disposal - military, demographic, political, lawfare, public relations, using useful Leftist idiots - everything.

Can anyone say, with a straight face, that this wouldn't happen?

(h/t Lachlan)

PCHR sort-of admits Hamas uses kids as human shields

A nice find by Henrik, from PCHR last February:

At approximately 00:30 (Feb. 19), an IOF [sic] warplane fired a missile at a training site used by Izz Addin al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, in Yafa Street, east of al-Tuffah neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. The bombardment resulted in damages to the neighboring establishments, especially Gaza Martyrs Boys Basic School. The windows of the school crushed and damages were caused to the exhibit, the library and the book store in the school. Around 600 students attend this school which employs 23 teachers. The school which measures 4 donums is located 12 meters to the east of the targeted site.

PCHR admits here (without condemnation, of course) that Hamas placed a military site only 12 meters away from a school! (Or, perhaps, they placed the school meters away from their military site.)

According to YellowPages.ps, there is a hospital across the street from the school, too.

The Mohammed Al Dura Hospital.

Here is an IDF photo of that neighborhood prior to Cast Lead.