Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Hamas urges PalArabs to vacation in Gaza

From Ma'an:

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Monday urged Palestinians to spend their summer holiday in the Gaza Strip.

"I call upon our people in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the 1948 territories to visit the Gaza Strip and spend happy days with their relatives and brothers during the summer on the beach," Haniyeh told Ma'an while taking a break from jogging along the beach in Gaza City.

"Gaza is safe and stable, and it is a meeting point for national unity," Haniyeh said.

"From the bottom of my heart I say that there is no need for touristic normalization with the Israeli occupation. There is no need for our people to go to Israeli beaches in occupied Palestine. I hereby tell them to come to Gaza which will be happy with their presence."

Here are photos of Haniyeh's jog along the street adjacent to the beach.

Doesn't it look relaxing? You, with only your bodyguards, as everyone else makes themselves scarce.

No pesky women for you to look at during your beach jog.

It's a dream vacation!

By the way, this isn't the first time that Gaza tried to attract vacationers. This video, apparently not meant to be ironic, was made in 2011:

Tuesday Links Part 2

From Ian:

Silwan's Jews subjected to repeated attacks
Trial of five Palestinians exposes regular use of homemade Molotov cocktails, stones against Jews in attempt to oust them from east Jerusalem neighborhood

Judge Yoram Noam gave his verdict on the cell members. They were convicted of attempted arson, aggravated battery, aggravated assault of a police officer, weapons production, rioting and more.
Judge Noam stressed that each of the defendants was convicted for numerous counts of Molotov cocktail-throwing. He noted the severity of the danger posed to residents and drivers in Silwan, the pre-meditation and the "ideological impetus at the foundation" of these crimes.

Police Nab Weapons Cache Hidden in Arab School

For the third time in a month, security officials have confiscated a large cache of weapons hidden in an educational institution in northern Israel. The haul on Monday in the Arab village of Abu Snan in the western Galilee included handguns, rifles, and even mortar shells. Police believe that the weapons were being stored by criminal groups.

Undiplomatic EU diplomats

The Jerusalem report is but one example of the ongoing EU soft war against Israel. European diplomats helped draft the unilateral Palestinian statehood bid at the UN in November and they also helped to push it through. Now they want to isolate Israel further by recycling some of the most vicious accusations against Israel from the Arab league.
The recent report hardly positions EU as a credible peace broker in the Middle East. It only shows how European foreign policy is too important to be left in the hands of anonymous EU diplomats but will have to be managed by democratically elected parliaments and governments of the EU member states. Luckily, among these EU-member states there are still those who subscribe to the original EU values of respect for human dignity, liberty, human rights and democracy. And perhaps one should add, respect for history.

David Singer: Palestine: Suspending Disbelief Is An Unbelievable Hoax

In his recent article in the New York Times entitled – “To Achieve Mideast Peace,Suspend Disbelief” - Mr Ross concludes that neither side believes the other side is committed to the two-state solution but that cannot be an argument for doing nothing.
He further states that if the two-state solution is discredited as an outcome – something and someone will fill the void.
Ross speculates that the Islamists of Hamas, with their rejection of two-states, seem primed to fill the void – when he says the conflict will be transformed from a nationalist into a religious one and at that point it may not be possible to resolve.
One can only shake one’s head in amazement that Mr Ross actually believes this is a nationalist conflict and not a religious conflict.

Attorney asks to bar Jews from Taliban trial jury

Lawyer for Muslim-American accused of lying about trying to join Pakistani jihadists does not want client’s anti-Zionism to sway jury
A Jewish attorney representing a suspected would-be terrorist in New York Federal Court has asked the judge to bar Jews from sitting on the jury, saying his client’s anti-Israel rhetoric may sway opinion.

Schalit signs petition urging Obama to free Pollard

Former kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit became the latest well-known Israeli to sign a petition Monday calling upon US President Barack Obama to commute the life sentence of Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard.
The petition has been signed by nearly 150,000 Israelis, including Nobel prize winners, dovish authors, and politicians from across the political spectrum.

Israel Start-Up’s Anti-Obesity Pill Set to Go Big Time

An Israeli-made pill may be on its way to make the world slimmer. The “slim pill” to reduce obesity could go on the market as a medicine, with the help of a major pharmaceutical company.

Smartphone App Helps to ‘Balance’ Alzheimer’s

A new smartphone app helps caregivers manage the myriad tasks of coordinating help for their loved ones with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, a disease that affects a person's memory, ability to think, to perform everyday activities, and their behavior.

Bonus Biogroup builds first-of-its-kind bone regeneration center

Ground broken in Haifa for revolutionary facility set to produce personalized human living bone for grafts.
The 750-square meter facility at Haifa’s Matam High Tech Park will have three divisions: a production center for growing human bone grafts, to supply the company in its upcoming clinical trials; an R&D center to further expand the applications of human bone grafts for transplants, and a headquarters and administration center from which it will supervise its R&D activities in the US.

Israelis Take Home Top Cookbook Honors at the “Oscars of Art Cookbooks” in France

The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards at the Louvre in Paris–the so-called “Oscars of art cookbooks”–crowned Seafoodpedia – a design cookbook edited by Shalom Maharovsky, owner and founder of Mul-Yam (Across the Sea) restaurant in the Tel Aviv Port – as the Best in the World in the fish and seafood category.

The Great Apartheid Photo Contest

Mida magazine in Israel is running The Great Apartheid Photo Contest, to show how Arabs are being oppressed every day in Israel.

Here are some entries:

Ben Gurion University

Hebrew University

Hadassah Hospital

Tel Aviv University

Plus one from Emet M'Tsiyon:

I know - for some people, seeing these photos is a horrible experience. These pictures bring the sorry truth about Israel to light. They contradict the prevailing ideas about Israel that so many people have thought were true from reading the media.

The truth hurts some people - but only when they built their entire lives around lies.

Tuesday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Will Owen Jones apologise?

Last November, during another exchange between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza, the left-wing columnist Owen Jones appeared on BBC Question Time. Invited to comment on recent events, what he read out (or so it appears from the tape) was a catalogue of errors about Israel. Among them were big, sweeping incorrect allegations – such as the claim that Israel is enforcing ‘a siege which stops basic supplies’ getting into Gaza.
But there were also some new and more specific errors. Take his striking and emotive claim that Israel’s ‘onslaught’ included ‘targeted strikes’ which killed children.

Following UN Report, Major Jewish Groups Call for Media Outlets to be Held Accountable

For his part, the BBC’s Jon Donnison, who covers the West Bank and Gaza and attributed blame to Israel at the time of the incident, offered his version of a mea culpa, writing in an article on the BBC’s website that “‘The son of a BBC journalist and two relatives killed in last November’s war in Gaza may have been hit by a misfired Palestinian rocket,’ a UN agency says.’”
Donnison attempted to defend himself, writing that at the time “The family, and human rights groups, said that the house was hit in an Israeli attack” and that “The Israeli military made no comment at the time of the incident but never denied carrying out the strike.”
Donnison also reported that the boy’s father dismissed the UN report as “rubbish,” saying that Palestinian Arab terror groups would have apologized if they were responsible.

Hamas Working on Being Removed from EU, U.S. Terror Lists
Hamas says its removal from the U.S. and European lists of terrorism organizations is “a matter of time.”

Ahmed Youssef, one of Hamas’s leaders, told the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency, “There are contacts [being] made by the movement, with the help of Arab and Islamic countries such as Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, to convince major and European countries to take Hamas’s name out of the terrorism list.”

Hamas attacks Islamic tourism to Jerusalem
Gaza government slams Israeli, PA initiatives; calls on Arab League and clerics to bar religious pilgrimages to the city

The Hamas government in Gaza attacked an Israeli bid to encourage tourism to Jerusalem from Islamic countries, calling it a “dangerous Zionist plot.”
In a statement published by Hamas on its official website, the government of Gaza blasted the initiative, espoused by Israeli tourism companies and supported by the Tourism Ministry, to encourage religious visits by Muslim tourists from countries in Africa and East Asia.

UN says troops in Golan Heights came under Syrian fire

Following attack and kidnappings, UN launches ‘very active review’ into safety of peacekeepers on Israel-Syria border

Syria rebels vow to 'liberate Golan Heights' after Assad falls

In online video, Syrian rebels operating near Israeli border criticize Assad regime for not fighting Israel in recent decades. Israel: The ‘Somalization’ of Syria is a great concern. Red Cross told Israel: Syrian refugees refused aid from Jewish state.

Newspaper Adds New Obstacle to Tribunal Investigating Lebanese Official’s Death

The first shock came when a leading Lebanese newspaper published a confidential list of 17 witnesses who may testify in the murder trial of a former prime minister — showing their names, passport pictures, dates of birth and where they work.
A spokesman for the United Nations-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon quickly condemned the publication, in January, as a serious breach of court rules that put the lives of those named at risk.

Germany, Turkey bust Iranian nuclear smuggling ring

German and Turkish authorities detain smugglers suspected of illegally shipping nuclear materials purchased in India and Germany to an Iranian nuclear facility in city of Arak, Turkish newspaper Haberturk reports. Turkish customs forces raid home of Iranian couple, but they were not there and a search for them is now underway.

UN Reports an Increase in Iran's Human Rights Violations

Human rights violations in Iran spiralled in 2012, a United Nations monitor said Monday, spotlighting abuses including repression of freedom of speech, torture and secret executions.
"The prevailing situation of human rights in Iran continues to warrant serious concern," Ahmed Shaheed told the UN Human Rights Council, according to a report by AFP.

Iran puts five Christians on trial for their faith

The five men were among seven arrested in October when security forces raided an underground house church in the city of Shiraz during a prayer session. They will be tried at the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz’s Fars Province on charges of disturbing public order, evangelizing, threatening national security and engaging in Internet activity that threatens the government, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a religious persecution watchdog group.

France Arrests Three Islamists Suspected of Planning Attack on Toulouse Shooting Anniversary

According to French prosecutors, police found weapons and explosives in one of the suspect’s homes in a town near Marseille. Police also intercepted communications between the men suggesting they were planning on going into action.

Egyptian shows off ear of IDF officer he killed in 1973

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from a video featuring a pro-Mubarak Egyptian protestor, Ibrahim Muhammad Ibrahim, which was posted on the Internet on June 23, 2012 – March 1, 2013:

Ibrahim Muhammad Ibrahim: My name is Ibrahim Muhammad Ibrahim Abu Fida’i. I fought in the 1973 war. I fear for Egypt, the country for which I fought. I won’t allow anyone to take it away from me. Nobody will take Egypt from us. We fought for this country. This is the ear of an Israeli officer, who killed three of us. I didn’t cut off his ear. I chopped him into pieces. Whoever tries to take Egypt from me again – I will chop him to pieces. I will not stand idly by.

All of us who fought in the 1973 war fear for this country. Doesn’t the General Guide [of the Muslim Brotherhood] fear for Egypt? They want to sell Egypt out to the General Guide.

[...]

My son’s name is Fida’i [one who sacrifices himself]. His I.D. card reads: Fida’i Ibrahim Muhammad. He works for a pharmaceutical company near the Nasr Institute. Go ask for Fida’i.

Interviewer: Is this the ear of an Israeli soldier?

Ibrahim Muhammad Ibrahim: An officer, not just a soldier.

Interviewer: And you kept it since 1973?!

Ibrahim Muhammad Ibrahim: Yes, I have a bag with Hebrew writing on it.

Interviewer: How did you preserve it all these years?

Ibrahim Muhammad Ibrahim: This bag, with Hebrew on it, was filled with salt. The ear has absorbed all the salt.

Interviewer: So it didn’t decompose because you preserved it in salt.

Ibrahim Muhammad Ibrahim: Right. I cut if off when I killed him. He killed three of us. Was I supposed to let him go?!

[...]

Ma'ariv reports that when President Obama visits the residence of President Peres next week, he will be served falafel balls with hummus, tahini, parsley and paprika, along with a a selection of fish such as seared tuna. Since the White House said Obama likes to eat meat, the meal will feature fillet of lamb with herbs.

There will also be a concert by Iranian-Israeli singer Rita.

So, naturally, Palestinian Arabs are upset.

They are again claiming that Israel (and Jews) are stealing Palestinian Arab heritage by pretending that falafel and hummus are Jewish/Israeli foods.

Arabs have been upset over Israelis eating falafel for years. Lebanon even once threatened to sue Israel over making falafel!

What's fair is fair. Abbas is free to serve Obama "Bamba" when he visits the territories. Israelis would no doubt be livid.

Right?

"Honor killing" in Gaza

From PCHR:

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 02:00 on Friday, 08 March 2013, the body of the young woman was brought to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. The body was later transferred to the Forensic Medicine Department in al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

According to police sources, the Palestinian police opened an investigation into the crime and arrested the victim's father and two of her brothers on suspicion of murder. The police sources added that one of the victim's brothers had confessed to strangling his sister with the motive of protecting “family honour”.

PCHR documented the murder of 3 women in “honour killings” in 2012; 2 women were killed in the Gaza Strip and 1 woman was killed in the West Bank.

According to other sources, there were at least 12 "honor killings" in the territories in 2012, not 3.

WaPo's Max Fisher gets it wrong

The Washington Post was one of the major media outlets, along with the BBC, that gave extensive coverage to the death of Omar Mishrawi, blaming it on Israel.

Now that the evidence that the boy was killed by Hamas has come out, WaPo's Max Fisher tries to contextualize the incident.

His contextualization is the problem.

A conflict in which two armed groups exchange fire across a populated area is probably bound to kill civilians. So why the heated debate, still ongoing, over whose army inadvertently killed an 11-month-old infant who was the enemy of neither?

Both sides, of course, were arguing about more than just the fate of this one boy. They were, and are now, continuing the same argument about blame, responsibility and victimhood that has run parallel to the Israel-Palestine conflict for years. Omar Mishrawi’s death and his photo, like so many incidents before it, are treated as a microcosm of the much larger conflict that took his life. But, as I wrote in November when reports suggested that an Israeli strike had killed Mishrawi, does knowing which military’s errant round happened to have landed on this civilian home really determine the larger narrative of one of the world’s thorniest and most complicated conflicts? Does assigning blame for Mishrawi’s tragic death, awful as it may be, offer us any real insight into who holds the blame for 60 years of fighting? And is partitioning blame really going to serve either side particularly well?

It’s difficult to see how knowing whose rocket or missile killed Mishrawi would resolve the larger questions for which that debate is a proxy: responsibility for continuing the long-term conflict, for sparking the latest round of fighting in November, and for the Israeli and Palestinian civilians who suffer as a result. But these are notoriously thorny debates. As with so many protracted geopolitical conflicts, neither side comes out looking as angelic or demonic as its partisans might wish. In many ways, something as isolated as a single photo of a wounded or killed child offers a purer, cleaner, lower-risk way to talk about issues too messy to engage with directly. They’re a great way to win arguments, but not necessarily to end them.

No, Max. The importance of Omar Mishrawi's death isn't that it is a microcosm of the conflict.

The importance is that the world's major news media organizations completely and thoroughly screwed up.

Nearly all of them stated, as fact or near-fact, that an Israeli missile killed baby Omar. The BBC even returned to the scene, without any experts in military explosives, and "verified" that the son of their colleague was killed by Israel.

And they were, as we see, wrong.

Fisher says, perhaps referring to me:

[S]ome observers sympathetic to the Israeli strikes pointed out, with what may have been prescience, that Hamas rockets often miss and might have landed on Mishrawi’s house.

Forgetting the odd phrase "sympathetic to the Israeli strikes," what Fisher is glossing over is that those observers knew something that the world's media didn't and should have.

It doesn't take a prophet to know that many of the rockets from Gaza have always landed inside Gaza. In fact, right before the outset of Cast Lead, when Hamas declared its own operation Oil Stain, two Gaza girls were killed by a Qassam rocket. It was reported by Reuters.

That was hardly an isolated incident, although the world media ignored the many injuries and damaged houses that Gaza rockets inflicted on Gaza.

The problem, that Fisher is trying to deflect, is that the reporters from his newspaper and all the other media purposefully ignored this fact that bloggers like me knew very well. They assumed that any civilian killed in Gaza must have been killed by Israel. Any other thought did not even cross their minds.

That is why this story is so popular on social media. It has nothing to do with this case being being a microcosm of the conflict. It is entirely about people being sick of being lied to by an arrogant media. It is about the fact that the supposed expert reporters on Gaza didn't consider a simple fact about Qassam rockets that they should have known intimately. It is because they were too lazy to think critically - which is their job.

After years of seeing that Palestinian Arab spokespeople routinely lie, that they try to manipulate the media, that they would never admit any mistake on their side - and after years of seeing that practically every time the Israeli side of the story ends up being proven correct - the media still reflexively blames Israel, time and time again, for things that aren't Israel's fault.

It doesn't take prescience to know this. It takes simple observation.

This is why this story strikes a chord, Max - because the media dropped the ball, in a way that it has dropped it countless times beforehand. Sadly, instead of learning that lesson, you are engaging in a magician's redirection trick to take the focus away from the truth.

And that is why people are upset over this story.

Monday Links Part 2

From Ian:

Co-existence workshop ends with rock hurling
Students from Sakhnin throw stones at a Yokneam school bus, ending Arab-Jewish cooperation project on a sour note

A group of young students from a school in the Western Galilee city of Sakhnin threw stones at a bus full of students from an elementary school in Yokneam, after the two groups concluded a co-existence project in Sakhnin aimed at encouraging Arabs and Jews to live harmoniously.
No one was injured in the incident, but a number of Yokneam parents told Channel 10 News that they did not intend to allow their children to take part in the project again anytime soon.

Lesson plan for Israeli Apartheid Week won’t include the truth

It’s Israeli Apartheid Week in Canada, but perhaps the ignoramuses who waste their time protesting the non-existent apartheid in Israel could add a Gender Apartheid Week to their busy schedules, as well.
After all, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has just announced it’s cancelling the annual marathon in Gaza because Hamas refuses to let women run in the race.

Huckabee: Israelis Have Made Many Sacrifices for Peace

Former governor Mike Huckabee at the Gush Katif Museum Dinner: You don’t negotiate with those who don't believe you have the right to exist.
Huckabee said that instead of asking the Israelis to stop building bedrooms for their children in Judea and Samaria, the President should “demand that the Iranians stop building bombs” that threaten Israel.

French town honors killer of Israeli minister

A suburb of Paris made the killer of Israeli minister Rehavam Ze’evi an honorary resident.
Bezons awarded the title last month to Majdi Al-Rimawi, according to the March edition of its official newsletter, Bezons Infos. The motion to recognize Rimawi passed unanimously at a special council vote of the municipality, which is northwest of Paris and nearly eight miles from the city's center.

Historians: Former Vienna Philharmonic Chief was SS Member

A former head of Vienna's Philharmonic Orchestra was a member of Nazi Germany's SS, historians say.
Helmut Wobisch, a member of the Nazi party since 1933 when it was still illegal in Austria, was the orchestra's managing director between 1954 and 1968 even though he had been dismissed at the end of World War II because of his ties to the Nazi regime.

Greek Neo-Nazis Set Sights on Indoctrinating Preschoolers

The Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, which already has a presence in the country’s elementary and high schools, is planning to open nursery schools aimed at indoctrinating toddlers with vehemently anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant and ultra-nationalistic views.

Volunteer who Opposed Dutch Hitler Admirers in Hiding
Mehmet Sahin, a doctoral student, has had to go into hiding with his family after he received death threats.

A few weeks ago, he interviewed several Dutch-Turkish youngsters on the Nederland 2 TV station. They said that they admired Hitler and the Holocaust and regretted that Hitler had not finished exterminating the Jews. Sahin reprimanded them. Apparently, people in the neighborhood where he lives are collecting signatures to make Sahin leave the area. The municipality has announced that the prosecution is investigating the matter.

The first time Hollywood exposed the Holocaust
Exactly 70 years ago, Hollywood’s top stars got together to expose the Holocaust.

Claiming “frustration over American policy and outrage at Hollywood’s fear of offending its European markets,” Hecht spent one month scripting a Hollywood extravaganza to expose the Holocaust and urge rescue action.
Evoking the Hebrew prophet Habakkuk’s “They shall never die” prophecy, Hecht called his show We Will Never Die. Featuring hundreds of performers and a 50-piece NBC orchestra, the production’s six-city tour was Hollywood’s first political protest en masse.

Keeping your mobile virus-free
A hacker sitting just a table away could be hopping onto your device as you check your email, but Israel’s Skycure has you covered.

And then, one by one, members of the audience discovered that their smartphones and tablets were being hacked in real time – in plain sight. Their screens were suddenly swiping without their control; emails were being written without permission; apps opened and photos changed.
Amit and Sharabani were the benign perpetrators and no data was stolen or deleted. Still, the audience learned an unforgettable lesson about just how vulnerable mobile networks can be.

The Lancet publishes another error-filled hit piece on Israel

We've looked at the Lancet's coverage of Israel before.

Once it blamed Israel for Palestinian Arab men who beat their wives. Yes, really. And that study used some very biased sources as well, and was far from scientific.

Another time the Lancet stated, as fact, the Palestinian Arab claim that “We cannot take care of health and education as long as we live under occupation”. Amazing how Jews managed to build world-class hospitals and universities in Palestine when it was under Ottoman and British rule!

So why should we be surprised that the Lancet ignores Israeli findings - by independent pathologists - that Arafat Jaradat was not tortured and, instead accept the claims of Palestinian Arabs who habitually lie in matters like these?

To add some lies on top of the lies, the Lancet publishes the provably false statistic that Israel has arrested 800,000 Palestinian Arabs since 1967.

Curiously, the Lancet fully accepts the initial charge of Israeli torture of Jaradat as fact, but ignores the later - equally ludicrous - claim that Jaradat was actually beaten to death by Arab "collaborators." No, that Palestinian Arab lie is not judged to be believable by the Lancet, presumably because Israel is not directly blamed.

Finally, Jaradat is described as a "30-year old petrol attendant" in this article, but not as a member of the Al Aqsa Brigades terrorist group.

The Lancet used to be automatically prefixed with the term "prestigious." A more appropriate adjective might be "discredited" or "laughably biased."

(h/t YS)

Monday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Who Are These Moralists?

With Israel, every death is investigated, every movement protested against. Yet when it comes to the wholesale slaughter in Syria, there is just a single global shrug. People cannot be wholly surprised if some of us choose to observe that many of those who comment with fury about Israel have revealed themselves to be neither humanitarians nor journalists but pure and simple anti-Israel political activists.

Hamas on the defensive

In desperation, some Hamas men are looking to Israel to let Gaza freely export its produce, reopen its port, and allow its businessmen and labourers to cross the buffer zone, as they did before Hamas took over in 2007. The longer the ceasefire, the more Israel has eased the flow of trade. But for Hamas this is a mixed blessing. Overland traffic only partially compensates for the shortfall through the tunnels. It also makes Hamas more dependent on—and subservient to—Israel, to ensure vital supplies continue. Hamas’s security forces have begun acting on Israeli intelligence passed via Egypt about wayward militants planning attacks, say Western officials.

Love letter to Hamas - Paul McGeough's front-page profiles of Khaled Meshal

This looks far more like advocacy than journalism. In exchange for access, Mr. McGeough appears to be willing to act basically as Hamas' advocate and lobbyist in Australia. The obvious question is why his employers at Fairfax are so ready to help him do so.

Americans said to be training Syrian rebels in Jordan

Der Spiegel says 200 opposition fighters have been trained by uniformed US personnel; Washington declines to comment on report

What’s Wrong with the US Embassy in Egypt?

Here’s the kicker: Guess who seems to be a finalist under Secretary of State John Kerry for a promotion to become assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs? That’s right, Anne Patterson. If Samiragate was truly the result of incompetence, then Patterson could use her new position to bring that quality to the broader Middle East. Conversely, if it really was illustrative of the cultural and political bubble that Patterson imbued or let develop in her
staff, then get ready for several more years of self-inflicted wounds.

Afghan leader alleges US, Taliban are colluding

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday accused the Taliban and the U.S. of working in concert to convince Afghans that violence will worsen if most foreign troops leave - an allegation the top American commander in Afghanistan rejected as "categorically false."

Christian protesters decry Muslim mob's arson spree following blasphemy charge

Demonstrators denounced the burning of more than 100 homes of Christians on Saturday -- a spree spurred by allegations that a Christian man made remarks against the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

Danes use game as Syria fill-in

Head of division admits employee mistakenly thought image from Assassin’s Creed was the Damascus skyline, and used it for a backdrop
TV2 Head of News Jacob Nybroe said Sunday the picture that was used as a backdrop behind news anchor Cecilie Beck on Feb. 26 came from adventure game Assassin’s Creed.

Putin’s patriotic Israeli army rip-off
Local blogger identifies image on patriotic billboard for Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party as picture of Israeli tank from IDF’s official Flickr account

Russia’s ruling party put up patriotic billboards around the city of Orel last month showing an image of a soldier in a tank and wishing residents a Happy Defender of Fatherland Day. Rather than showing a Russian soldier and tank, however, the photo actually featured an Israeli soldier in an Israeli-made Merkava III tank.

My UN scoop makes it to AP! (UPDATE 3: BBC and WaPo reports on it)

This is what news blogging is all about.

My scoop showing that the UN exonerated Israel for the killing of baby Omar Mishrawi, son of a BBC employee in Gaza, was been picked up by various outlets.

The groundswell continued, reaching outside Israeli and Zionist media and being published by Bild and DPA (Germany) and Free Beacon - which did real reporting in following up with the UN and WaPo.

Now, at 10:31 EDT today, AP has picked it up!

A U.N. report indicates an errant Palestinian rocket, not an Israeli airstrike, likely killed the baby of a BBC reporter during fighting in the Hamas-ruled territory last November.

The death of Omar al-Masharawi, the 11-month-old son of BBC stringer Jihad al-Masharawi, became a symbol of what Palestinians see as Israeli aggression during eight days of fighting that killed more than 160 Palestinians and six Israelis. A woman was killed alongside the baby.

Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes to stop Palestinian rocket salvos.

The U.N. office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a March 6 report that the incident was caused by "what appeared to be a Palestinian rocket that fell short of Israel."

Hamas had no response Monday. BBC officials were not immediately available for comment.

It will be a bit harder for the BBC, WaPo and other outlets to ignore this if AP reporters are asking them questions.

Although it is a shame that their interest in the truth is so low that they don't re-check their facts before the point that they would be embarrassed by not addressing them.

Let's hope that the pressure continues to have news outlets (and NGOs) admit that they made false assumptions, and that they realize that those assumptions were based on nothing more than anti-Israel bias. After all, people who carefully monitor Gaza would have known ahead of time that many Gaza rockets fall short - and that Gaza authorities, and Gaza NGOs, routinely lie about it.

There are lessons to be learned for bloggers and blog-readers as well. Sometimes our efforts do break through, and for that to happen we need lots of retweets and forwards, directed at the people who are guilty of media bias to begin with, as well as to journalists who still care about the truth. When there is clearly interest in a story like this it makes it harder for the paid media to ignore it. Thanks so much to the hundreds of people who "Liked" and Tweeted this story.

Let's keep it going.

UPDATE: The BBC finally acknowledged the story, although it is doing everything it can to cast doubt on the UN version of the events:

The son of a BBC journalist and two relatives killed in last November's war in Gaza may have been hit by a misfired Palestinian rocket, a UN agency says.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said its conclusions were based on a visit to the site a month after the attack.

At the time, human rights groups blamed the deaths on an Israeli air strike.

The Israeli military says it never denied carrying out the strike because it was not clear what had happened.

UN officials visited the house four weeks after the strike.

They said they did not carry out a forensic investigation, but said their team did not think the damage was consistent with an Israeli air strike.

However, the UN said it could not "unequivocally conclude" it was a misfired Palestinian rocket.

A UN official said it was also possible the house was hit by a secondary explosion after an Israeli air strike on Palestinian weapons stores.

Jehad Mashhrawi dismissed the UN findings as "rubbish".

He said nobody from the United Nations had spoken to him, and said Palestinian militant groups would usually apologise to the family if they had been responsible.

An Israeli military spokesman said he could not comment on the accuracy of the UN's findings but said it would not be the first time a Palestinian rocket had misfired.

He said that, in the intense first hours of the conflict, it was not always clear what was happening.

It is quite plausible that the damage came from shrapnel from a secondary explosion of a terrorist weapons depot. In fact, initial interviews with Jihad himself indicated that it was "shrapnel," not a rocket - he changed his story after the photo became famous. And we do know that there were terror targets in the area.

At least the BBC is not as unequivocal that this was an Israeli missile, as it was previously.

UPDATE 2: The Washington Post, which was equally guilty, has posted a more expansive AP report:

Matthias Behnke, head of OHCHR office for the Palestinian territories, cautioned he couldn’t “unequivocally conclude” that the death was caused by an errantly fired Palestinian rocket. He said information gathered from eyewitnesses led them to report that “it appeared to be attributable to a Palestinian rocket.”

He said Palestinian militants were firing rockets at Israel not far from the al-Masharawi home. Behnke said the area was targeted by Israeli airstrikes, but the salvo that hit the al-Masharawi home was “markedly different.”

He said there was no significant damage to the house, unusual for an Israeli strike. He said witnesses reported that a fireball struck the roof of the house, suggesting it was a part of a homemade rocket. Behnke said the type of injuries sustained by al-Masharawi family members were consistent with rocket shrapnel.

All in all, with major world media reporting on the UN report, this is a major win for the truth.

UPDATE 3: The BBC lies:

The UN report concluded that at least 169 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks during the offensive.

It said more than 100 were civilians, including 33 children and 13 women.

The actual report says:

During the crisis, 174 Palestinians were killed in Gaza. At least 168 of them were killed by Israeli military action, of whom 101 are believed to be civilians, including 33 children and 13 women.

The UN is properly saying that 101 may be civilian, but it is not certain. The BBC - so eager to seize on the UN's uncertainty about the rockets - does not notice the same uncertainty about identifying the victims as being civilian.

There seems to be a pattern here.

Remember that the Meir Amit Intelligence Center identified 101 terrorists, and 68 civilians, killed in the fighting.

(h/t Elias, Gary, Silke, Omri)

Al Watan Voice reports that the Palestinian embassy in Chile celebrated International Women's Day by celebrating female terrorists.

At a ceremony in Santiago on Friday, the ambassador gave a speech extolling the role of Palestinian women in the "struggle" and specified master terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, "martyr" Shadia Abu Ghazaleh (member of the PFLP, who died while preparing a bomb that prematurely exploded in 1968,) and hijacker Leila Khaled.

Today is the 35th anniversary of the Coastal Road Massacre that Mughrabi had led, which killed 38 Israeli civilians including 13 children. She is being honored in numerous Palestinian Arab events and articles.

US Attorney General shows enthusiasm about Saudi justice system

WTF?

US Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. has shown interest in examining the Saudi Munasaha (Counseling) counter-terrorism program so as to apply it in the United States.

“Too many of our young people are disaffected and attracted to violent ideologies and so we want to work with our Saudi allies and examine the program and see how we might apply that in the United States,” he told a press conference at the US Embassy here Sunday.

“I’m more concerned about the threat from inside the US and people who turn to violent extremism,” he said, underscoring the importance of cooperation with the Saudi government to ensure the safety of both nations.

“We must work together, as equal partners, with a shared commitment to pursuing a world with more opportunity and less violence.”

Holder also expressed his enthusiasm for building programs supporting the Kingdom’s enactment of legal reforms and the continued dialogue between the two nations on the subjects of judicial and legal progress.

“I’ve also been impressed by the Justice Minister’s efforts with regard to the justice system here in this great nation. We have exchanged ideas and thoughts,” he continued, “and my hopes would be that some of the things we’ve tried in the United States may be useful here in Saudi Arabia and some of the ideas that the Justice Minister shared with me, I think, will be productive in the United States as well.”

Which ideas did the Saudis share with their US counterpart? Religious police, perhaps, to ensure that men and women don't eat together or go into cars?

Or perhaps it was Saudi Arabia's advanced criminal justice system, based on Islamic law, which includes public beheading, stoning, amputation and lashing. The death penalty can be given out for the crimes of adultery, apostasy, and sorcery. Its legal system also includes the ability, if a victim chooses, for retaliatory justice - a literal "eye for an eye."

But don't worry - they are advanced enough to considering replacing beheadings with firing squads, due to a shortage of qualified swordsmen.

I'm anxious to know which of these progressive Saudi practices interest the esteemed Mr. Holder.

(h/t Arnold. Al Gharqad)

A Hungarian blog noticed this girl wearing a T-shirt,showing the iconic entrance to Auschwitz, captioned "Auschwitz Holiday Camp."

Underneath it says "there is a pool, and ovens as well. "

(h/t BES, Al Gharqad)