Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Documentary about Egyptian Jews banned in Egypt

Last month I mentioned that an Egyptian had created what looked like a pretty good documentary about the Jews of Egypt, one that admitted that the Jews were expelled by the government. I predicted that it would stir up a lot of controversy in Egypt.

I was right.

From Egypt Independent:

The director of the film "On Egypt's Jews" film Amir Ramses has said that the National Security Agency banned the film in Egypt.

Ramses said that the NSA’s ban violated the powers of the country’s censorship authorities, and described the move as "ignorant and authoritarian."

"This is an encroachment on the powers of the censorship authority. The film had been displayed as it already gained the [censorship authority] approval without remarks. It was displayed in the [Panorama European Film] Festival, in addition to being displayed in more than one festival," Ramses wrote on his Facebook account.

Ramses also added that he and film producer Haitham Khamisy would take legal action against the Ministry of Culture and the minister of culture for postponing the renewal of their licenses, and lashed out at the National Security Agency, which he said was “as authoritarian” as the Interior Ministry and the equivalent of the former State Security Investigation Services under ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

"Banning the film after gaining the regulatory approval twice is a barefaced encroachment by the National Security Agency," Ramses said.

The Guardian adds:

The film, which had already screened at a private film festival in Egypt last year, as well as at festivals in the US, was due to open today in three local cinemas. Based on testimony from researchers, political figures and exiled Egyptian Jews, it presents a harmonious vision of early 20th century multicultural Egypt and asks – according to director Amir Ramses – "how did the Jews of Egypt turn in the eyes of Egyptians from partners in the same country to enemies?" The film was banned by local censors, according to El-Khamissy, after a security agency made a request to view it.

Notice that the apparent excuse for blatant censorship of a film that reveals anti-Jewish attitudes of Egyptian authorities is - "security." Which is pretty much what one would expect from an authoritarian state.

Here's the trailer again:

(Made slight change to emphasize that it was the government that censored the film in response to Emad el Dafrawi)

Hamas starts a charm offensive in Europe

From AllVoices:

In a statement, considered the first of its kind, Dr Ahmed Yousef, Hamas's top political official and the adviser to Gaza's Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, said that the group’s removal from the US and European countries’ lists of terrorism sponsors is no longer difficult nor impossible, but has become a matter of time.

Yousef declared to the Palestinian news agency Maan on Monday, that Hamas had made contacts 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.

He claimed that some Western countries have responded positively, without naming them.

Palestine Press Agency adds:

Leader of the Hamas Ahmed Yousef said that there are moves in a European framework for the lifting his movement from the terrorism list,saying that Hamas has completely stopped from the practice of martyrdom operations targeting civilians, in the interest of Europe opening up to Hamas.

Yousef told Radio "Raya FM" that Hamas is only using arms in the land of Palestine, and international law gives them the right to resist the occupier as a national liberation movement.

Yousef explained that if Europe wants to be a party in any future political process, it must engage with Hamas and that there is a significant European understanding of it, pointing out that the Palestinian reconciliation could speed up its completion.

Of course, Hamas itself bragged about targeting civilians during Pillar of Defense, the very definition of terrorism and noted in the UNHCR report on the fighting.

Meanwhile, Hamas honcho Mahmoud Zahar once again stated that Hamas' willingness to accept a state in the territories in no way mitigates its goal to utterly destroy Israel. It is just an interim step.

"Open Zion" publishes pure anti-Israel lies (updated)

"Open Zion," Peter Beinart's "commitment to debate and embrace of a Zionism that's both nuanced and heartfelt" at the Daily Beast, has once again descended into publishing baldfaced anti-Israel lies.

Anna Lekas Miller, someone with no credentials as far as I can tell ("a freelance writer in Brooklyn covering the Middle East, Arab America, feminism and activism"), rehashes the most absurd Arab rumors about the riots in the Temple Mount last week and Beinart doesn't deign to fact check any of them:

Last night, a march of extremist Israeli settlers took over the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, filling the streets with Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers enforcing a strictly “Jews only” policy on the streets of the Muslim Quarter that put the nearly 30,000 Palestinian residents of the Muslim Quarter under curfew until the march was over.

I can find no news stories about this incident, so I cannot say for certain that it is not true. But read on to see how much credibility Anna has...

This follows a week of attacks of this nature on Al-Aqsa Mosque—the third most holy site in Islam just a few meters away from the Dome of the Rock, the iconic golden crowning glory of Jerusalem.. Under normal circumstances, though anyone can enter the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, only practicing Muslims are allowed to enter the inside of Al-Aqsa Mosque. However, in recent years extremist Israeli settlers—protected by IDF soldiers or Israeli police—have stormed the mosque, claiming that it should be destroyed so that the Third Temple can be erected in its place.

As far as I know, no Jews ever enter the mosque, except for police during riots. The Jews peacefully walk in the outdoor areas of the Temple Mount that they are allowed to by Jewish law.

However, every time they do that, Arab media characterizes it as "settlers storming the Al Aqsa Mosque," and Miller simply believes them.

Recently, due to heightened tensions leading to violent clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers in the West Bank that many Israelis fear could lead to a Palestinian uprising, the attacks on the Al Aqsa Mosque compound have intensified.

Again, there have been no attacks on the mosque, except when the Arabs start rioting first.

The most recent string of attacks started on Sunday when an Israeli soldier threw a young Muslim Palestinian woman’s Qu’ran on the floor, trampling it until it was destroyed.

Never happened. This was a rumor that was started by Muslim women who were apparently blocking the Moroccan Gate to stop any non-Muslims from entering the Mount; when police tried to move them away they started going crazy - and this false rumor started. However, Miller has added a flourish of "trampling it until it was destroyed" - originally, the rumor was just that it was kicked.

A few days later on Wednesday, eight Israeli settlers accompanied by soldiers stormed the mosque, interrupting the worshippers during prayers and violently ripping off a woman’s hijab—a traditional head covering required for worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

As far as I can tell, this never happened either.

On Friday—International Women’s Day—dozens of Israeli policemen once again stormed the mosque as Palestinian worshippers gathered for noon prayers. According to Israeli Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, Israeli police entered the mosque when Palestinians who had seen them outside the mosque threw rocks and two firebombs at them. The police then responded with teargas and stun grenades, pushing women aside and injuring one journalist, turning what would have otherwise been peaceful Friday prayers into violent clashes.

The Muslims started the violence, as always. Here's a video taken by the Muslims themselves, showing them throwing chairs and other projectiles at the police from inside their supposedly holy spot:

The article gets even worse in its characterization of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Of course, Miller cannot be bothered to note that these were Jewish holy places two millennia before Mohammed was born.

In other words, Open Zion decided to publish a pack of lies, written by someone with no apparent expertise, parroting absurd rumors from the most extreme Islamist sites, without even a modicum of fact-checking or journalistic ethics.

(h/t JM)

UPDATE: Open Zion published a number of corrections, but kept a number of lies - for example, no one said the Quran was "destroyed" except Ms. Miller (even the Al aqsa Foundation just said it was "kicked"), and she kept the claims of "settlers storming the mosque".

Egypt, giving citizen arrest powers, turning literally into a police state

From Al Ahram:

The Sunday announcement by Egyptian Prosecutor-General Talaat Abdullah that citizens have the right to arrest "vandals" has caused a firestorm of controversy.

"Egypt's prosecutor-general urges all citizens to exercise the right afforded them by Article 37 of Egypt's criminal procedure law issued in year 1950 to arrest anyone found committing a crime and refer them to official personnel," said a statement issued by the prosecutor-general's office.

Another statement issued on Monday by the prosecutor-general's office said that "the statement of the prosecutor-general did not include granting 'judicial arrest' powers to citizens, but rather granting the judicial arrest to officers as defined officially in the law."

Nevertheless, the statements of the prosecutor-general opened an angry debate about security issues in the face of an ongoing police strike in a number of governorates.
....

A number of Islamist political groupings welcomed the initial statement of the prosecutor-general. State news agency MENA reported that Alaa Abu El-Nasr, the secretary-general of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya's Building and Development Party, praised the move.

"Political powers have the right to have their own police force, to fight crimes in the street," said Nazer Gharab, a member of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya on Monday morning during an interview broadcast on CBC channel.

Gharab added that the ultra-conservative Islamist group would found its own "Islamist" police force to restore order in the street.

Can religious police be far behind?

Partial list of Gazans killed by terrorist rockets, and why journalists can't get it right

From Human Rights Watch, 2005:

On August 2, 2005, members of the Ashqar family were in their courtyard in Beit Hanoun having dinner with some visitors when a rocket exploded in their midst. It killed 6-year-old Yasir `Adnan al-Ashqar. Adnan Mustafa al-Ashqar, his 45-year-old father, died the next day from the wounds he sustained

From YNet, December 26, 2008::

A rocket apparently fired by Palestinians on Friday struck a house in the Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinian sisters aged five and 13, Palestinian medics said.

From the Gaza NGO Safety Office, January, 2011:

Jan 22 2011 ; (1) [home-made rocket] was fired from E of Zaitoun quarter, E of Gaza, but dropped short and fell within Gaza territory. It is alleged that the HMR fell near a group of Pal. workers collecting scrap metal near Malaka area, E of Gaza, killing 1 labourer and injuring 2 others.

From OCHA, August, 2011:

Between August 19-21 2011: One Palestinian child, 13-years-old, was also killed, and six others injured, when a GRAD rocket fired by Palestinian armed groups fell short.

From PCHR, June 2012:

Tuesday, 19 June 2012, Hadeel Ahmed Sa'eed al-Haddad (1.5) was struck in the head by shrapnel while she was standing in the entrance of the house of her grandfather, Sa'eed Mohammed al-Haddad, in al-Zaytoun neighborhood, east of Gaza City, when a home-made rocket landed on their house. Hadeel was transported to al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City to receive necessary medical treatment, but later transferred to Shifa Hospital due to the seriousness of her injuries. The efforts made by her doctors failed to save her life.

From The Telegraph, November 2012:

The highly publicised death of four-year-old Mohammed Sadallah appeared to have been the result of a misfiring home-made rocket, not a bomb dropped by Israel. The child’s death on Friday figured prominently in media coverage after Hisham Kandil, the Egyptian prime minister, was filmed lifting his dead body out of an ambulance. "The boy, the martyr, whose blood is still on my hands and clothes, is something that we cannot keep silent about," he said, before promising to defend the Palestinian people. But experts from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights who visited the site on Saturday said they believed that the explosion was caused by a Palestinian rocket.

While these are only the deaths I could find, there is evidence that there are more. A report from Palestine Press Agency from 2008, for example, said

It should be noted that this incident is not the first, as previously many locally manufactured missiles aimed at Israeli communities fell on Palestinian homes and factories especially in the northern region of the sector and causing substantial material damage not to mention the human losses in many cases.

Of course, there have been literally hundreds of rockets that fell short in Gaza, causing much damage and injuries. Even a UNRWA school has been hit.

The Mishrawi case is hardly unique. Unless you read the mainstream media that couldn't quite figure out that many Gaza rockets fall short.

In many of these cases, Gaza officials blamed Israel for the deaths. Just as they did for the eight family members killed on a Gaza beach from a Hamas weapons stash. And then, as now, the media believed them.

The question is, why can the members of the media not figure out that they are often being lied to, especially when it comes to civilian casualties? Especially when it comes from officials in a territory that can hardly be described as a bastion of free speech and transparency?

The only conclusion is that journalists' ability to think critically is impaired when they have a preconceived idea of who is right and wrong. They take all evidence - even from proven liars, like Gaza's Health Ministry - as proof their ideas were right to begin with. Israeli denials, even though they have been proven to be correct time and time again, are instead treated with the skepticism that is missing when listening to Gaza officials.

The sad part is that, judging from the way that journalists have been trying to deflect or blame others for their mistakes, they cannot learn the basic lesson to be skeptical of all sides, not just one.

Hamas tweets for Allah to send dead IDF soldiers to"hellfire"

There was a tragedy earlier today:

Two Air Force pilots, Lieutenant-Colonel Noam Ron, 49, from Oranit and Major Erez Flekser, 31, from Herzliya, were killed in a helicopter crash in the Revadim area south of Gedera on Tuesday. Contact with the Cobra helicopter was lost on Monday night prompting IDF forces to launch a search.

Erez Flesker, z"l

Noam Ron z"l

The IDF tweeted its condolences:

The IDF and its soldiers join the grieving families in mourning their loss. http://www.idf.il/1283-18503-EN/Dover.aspx …

The Hamas Al Qassam Brigades had a somewhat different kind of message in reply:

@idfspokesperson إلى جهنم وبئس المصير May Allah send them to hellfire, God willing
— Alqassam Brigades (@AlqassamBrigade) March 12, 2013

The Arabic says "to hell."

Lovely people, these Hamas members.

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.