Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Is EoZ one of the "top 100 people positively influencing Jewish life"?

In honor of our forthcoming 40th Anniversary Gala, The Algemeiner set out to establish an annual list ... entitled the JEWISH 100, of the top 100 people positively influencing Jewish life.

Throughout millennia of tumultuous Jewish history, our people have been inspired and led by a select few. Icons revered by the Jewish community have included powerful military leaders, prophets, visionaries, scholars, innovators, pioneers, kings, saints, politicians and righteous gentiles. What they all share in common, is their appreciation of the unique contributions of the Jewish people in serving as a voice of moral conscience for mankind and their willingness to make sacrifices for its continuity.

Our list aims to capture a glimpse of the top 100 people alive today that embody this spirit. For some it may come through their role in a position of influence or power. For others, it is through serving as a role model embodying Jewish values or qualities. Others will be listed for serving as a source of Jewish pride, or for bringing new and innovative ideas to Jewish expression; others yet may have stuck out their necks to advocate for Jews and Israel at great personal sacrifice. Some who will be listed, though rarely heard from in public, nonetheless have a significant influence on the important Jewish or Israel related events of our time.

If that isn't over the top enough, here is their video describing the Jewish 100:

Notice the photo used when they say the word "scholars."

Does this mean that I am one of the honorees?

Well, it is possible they are referring to Rashi, not me.

Maybe. Or maybe not.

Because at the very moment this is being posted, I am attending the Jewish 100 Gala dinner - incognito - to be there when Elder of Ziyon is announced as one of the "Jewish 100" for the year.

No joke! I received this in the mail last week:

This may be one of the few times that an anonymous person has received such an honor.

To put it mildly, I was blown away when I found out I was an awardee. I mean, they have a real red carpet for the awardees to walk on (an honor which I am skipping, thank you.)

And I thought being ranked #1 in Technorati was a big deal.

This is an amazing honor, and since I can't do it at the dinner, I'd like to thank the Algemeiner Journal for giving it to me.

A report on the gala will be forthcoming!

Jordanian MP visits Israel - gets expelled from his party

From Ammon News (Jordan):

The Islamist Centrist Party (ICP) decided on Monday to expel Member of Parliament Mohammad Asha Al-Dawaymeh from both the political party and its parliamentary bloc following a probe into his reported recent visit to Israel.

An ICP source told Ammon News that the deputy was subjected to questioning by the party regarding his recent visit to Israel, and attending a reception held by Israeli President Shimon Peres celebrating Israel's so-called "Independence Day," marking 65 years of the founding of Israel, considered the Palestinian Nakba of 1948.
...
Al-Dawaymeh told Ammon News earlier this week that...the purpose of his visit was to defend the cause of Jerusalem and Al Aqsa Mosque.

ICP issued a statement on Monday stating that the party's parliamentary bloc met with ICP's political committee and decided unanimously to expel Al-Dawaymeh, citing his visit to the "Zionist entity" and his attendance of a reception and shaking hands with the "criminal" Peres, according to the statement.

"The Bloc and Political Committee voted unanimously to expel him considering that such acts violate the party's principles and foundations that reject all forms of normalization with the Zionist entity," the statement added.

Last I checked, Jordan still had a peace treaty with Israel.

This is the best kind of "peace" Israel could ever realistically hope to see with its Arab neighbors.

Tuesday Links Part 2

From Ian:

Isi Leibler: American Jewish leaders: Stop the rot now

Many consider it a wake-up call and believe that alarm bells should be ringing at major Jewish organizations.
Visiting New York this week, I sought to assess the broader implications of the recent “International Peace Award” bestowed on former president Jimmy Carter by Yeshiva University’s Cardozo Law School. This unsavory display of groveling by a major Jewish institution to a committed foe of the Jewish people is not merely a stain on the entire Jewish community but highlights a dramatic erosion of Jewish values and Jewish dignity.

Nazi hunter chides Israel over anti-Semitism confab invites

A leading Israeli Nazi hunter scolded the Foreign Ministry this week for extending invitations for an anti-Semitism conference to representatives of four European countries, which, he says, “are part of the problem and not part of the solution” when it comes to anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli bigotry.
Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, said senior government officials from Lithuania, Greece, Hungary and Ireland should not be allowed to attend — and speak at — the Foreign Ministry’s 4th International Conference of the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, which is scheduled to take place later this month in Jerusalem.

Israelly Cool: Roger Waters Backtracks On His Backtrack

Last week I posted an interview with BDShole Roger Waters, in which he seemed to state he was considering his position regarding boycotting Israel.
Now Waters is claiming he was misinterpreted.

After effects: BBC accuracy failure used to promote hate

Is the BBC responsible for the fact that the picture of a father carrying his son who was killed as a result of a terrorist missile can be misrepresented as an image depicting Israeli “murder”? Yes.
Because if BBC journalists in the Gaza Strip at the time had adhered to their own editorial guidelines on accuracy and impartiality, that story would not have been promoted as part of a preconceived narrative depicting Israelis as ‘baby killers’ and that image would not have become entrenched in the minds of the general public as a depiction of Israeli wrong-doing.

CAMERA: Ha'aretz Lost in Translation: A Shocking Holocaust Comparison

Once again, Ha'aretz translators are again engaging in creative, even shocking, translations, inserting text into the English edition which is diametrically opposed to the Hebrew original. In an article today regarding a judicial proceeding against Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi, who is refusing food, the English edition reports online

Anti-Semitic Graffiti Found On Boston-Area Church

Police in the Boston suburb of Sharon are investigating swastika graffiti that was found on the Victory Assembly of God church last week.
The graffiti may be related to a Jerusalem Day celebration at the church next month. Banners and posters advertising the event, which celebrates Israeli soldiers reuniting Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War, was vandalized as well.

How an Israeli start-up beats flash’s ‘dirty little secret’

SSDs, the new standard in hard drives, have some serious disadvantages. Israel’s Reduxio has a way to turn the tables

Israel’s top 12 video surveillance advances

Last week’s Boston terror attack highlighted the critical role of video surveillance analytics in tracing criminals and terrorists. It’s a field in which Israeli companies excel.
In light of the pivotal role these new technologies are now playing in solving terror and crime, ISRAEL21c offers an updated list of 12 of the biggest Israeli video synopsis and analysis firms now operating around the world.

Sol Chip wins Energy Harvesting Award at IDTechEx

Sol Chip, the Israeli company behind the development of an innovative solar operated battery, recently took the Technical Development Award Winner in the 2013 IDTechEx Energy Harvesting & Storage and Wireless Sensor Networks exhibition in Berlin, Germany.

Israel Daily Picture: More Treasures from the "Cigarbox Collection" -- Part 2

We continue to scan and research the treasure trove of photographs donated to Israel Daily Picture, pictures taken by the donor's father in the Land of Israel in the first decades of the 20th century.

Lingerie model now covers up as a reporter/propagandist on Iran's PressTV

A hilarious story from VexNews:

PressTV, the official news outlet of the theocratic government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has employed an Australian correspondent, Edwina Storie, who is a former “adult entertainment” model and big-boozing party girl.

Her behaviour, all perfectly lawful here in Australia, would be sufficient for her to be stoned to death in the theocratic and tyrannical regime that pays her to propagandise on their behalf.

Storie, a trained journalist and glamour model, has recently started reporting for the Iranian news outlet, with stories including one broadcast this weekend cheering on the efforts of local ultra-left and Greensparty militants to institute a “boycott” against the Jewish state of Israel of the kind once pushed in Nazi Germany. Respecting customs in Iran, Edwina Storie partly covered her hair and dressed modestly during the broadcast.

The VEXNEWS Investigations Unit can exclusively reveal the religiously fanatical Iranian regime’s reporter has had an extensive history of glamour modelling and behaviour inconsistent with the regime’s strict requirements.

Her social media accounts have quite recent declarations of enthusiastic consumption of alcohol, complete with photographs of her clutching the grog. One tweet made in December 2011 exclaimed “I wish I had blamed more on being young and dumb when I had the chance!” Indeed.

Modelling sites, and her own social media accounts, accessed by VEXNEWS investigators, and saved for the purposes of news reporting, highlight the hypocrisy of the regime and its propaganda agents, and clearly demonstrate Edwina Storie’s double life she probably didn’t mention during her job interview. Her ground-breaking work on sex with robots probably didn’t feature prominently either as the regime mulled over her appointment.

One modelling site has dozens of racy images of Ms Storie with “tags” describing her work that would have any Mullah reaching for his stones. The descriptions include “porn movie,” “sex video,” “call girl,” “girl kneeling,” “erotic,” “sensual,” “mistress,” “affair,” “laying back,” “legs in air,” “seductress,” “sucking on finger,” “married man,” “office affair,” “secret rendezvous,” “cleavage,” “buttocks in air,” “arched back,” “body in air,” “busty,” “boobs,” “heels on bed,” “afternoon delight,” and “afterwork surprise.” Certainly it would be something of a surprise for Ms Storie’s work colleagues at PressTV.

(h/t Ian)

18 more dead Hezbollah fighters in Syria as pressure mounts in Lebanon

Hezbollah might be good at shooting rockets while hiding underground, but they seem to be not nearly as good at fighting against a ragtag rebel force:

The Free Syrian Army has reportedly killed 18 Hezbollah fighters in the Western city of Qusayr, activists at the Syrian Revolution General Commission reported on Tuesday.

The fighters were allegedly killed in a battle between the Syrian rebels and the Hezbollah fighters.

Elite fighters from the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, a staunch ally of the Syrian regime, are leading the fight against rebels in the region of Qusayr in the central province of Homs, a watchdog said on Monday.

“It’s Hezbollah that is leading the battle in Qusayr, with its elite forces,” Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.

On Sunday, the main opposition National Coalition urged Hezbollah to “immediately withdraw its forces from Syrian territory”, adding its involvement in Syria’s conflict “could drag Lebanon and the region into an open-ended conflict with disastrous consequences.”

Other reports have the Syrian army making gains in the Qusayr area, however.

Also:

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri described Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria as a crime against Lebanon Tuesday while rejecting recent calls for Jihad by Salafi sheikhs against the resistance group.

"Hezbollah’s involvement in the fight in Syria is an involvement in defense of the Syrian regime, regardless of the sectarian or factional excuses that the party is putting forth to justify this crime. [This will] drag Lebanon into a fire that Bashar Assad has warned of,” Hariri said in a statement.

Both Hezbollah and its Lebanese opponents seem to be inexorably widening the conflict to Lebanon:

"What Hezbollah is doing with regard to this issue is a national and moral duty in the defense of the Lebanese in border villages," Lebanon's official news agency quoted senior Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nabil Qaouq as saying on Monday.

"To those who ask us to allow our brothers in these border villages to be victims of murders, kidnaps, massacres and expulsions, I respond to you: 'Can we leave these Lebanese hostage to this situation?" he added.

"Hezbollah's martyrs are the martyrs of the entire nation because they are defending their Lebanese compatriots," he said at a ceremony marking a week since the death of a Hezbollah fighter killed in Syria.

Meanwhile, Sunni Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir late Monday urged Muslims and the Lebanese people to fight alongside the rebels in Syria and announced the formation of the “Free Resistance Brigades.”

“Jihad in Syria is a must – especially in Al-Qusayr – for all those Lebanese who can,” Assir said during a press conference on Monday.

He also called for the creation of “secret armed groups for self-defense in case [Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan] Nasrallah decides to start killing in Lebanon as he is doing in Syria.”

Tuesday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Charles Krauthammer: The language of terror

The Boston Marathon attack, the first successful terror bombing in the US since 9/11, was designed for maximum effect.
Terrorism is speech – speech that gathers its audience by killing innocents as theatrically as possible. The 19th-century anarchist Paul Brousse called it “propaganda by deed.” Accordingly, the Boston Marathon attack, the first successful terror bombing in the US since 9/11, was designed for maximum effect. At the finish line there would be not only news cameras but also hundreds of personal videos to amplify the message.

CIF Watch: Glenn Greenwald condemns the word ‘terrorism’ as racially-loaded

According to the National Counter-Terrorism Center, over the past several years the overwhelming majority of terrorist-related fatalities world-wide were the result of attacks by Islamist (Sunni) extremists.

Friends wonder if Boston suspect was linked to 2011 murders

At least two of the murdered men — Raphael Teken and Erik Weissman — were Jewish. (Friends of both Teken, 37, and Weissman, 31, maintain Facebook memorial pages in their honor.) The third victim in the September 2011 triple-homicide, Brendan Mess, was said by Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s acquaintances to have been his closest American friend.

Daniel Pipes: Boston Bombing Lesson: Ban Niqabs and Burqas

The Tsarnaev brothers pulled off their terrorist attack with great skill but made a fatal mistake in letting their faces and bodies be seen at a heavily photographed international sporting event. This meant that multiple images of them were available for a massive law enforcement squad to comb over and, after three days, identify them by name and appearance.

Spain arrests 2 men suspected of al Qaeda group links

The statement said the two suspects have a "profile" that is similar to the two suspects in the Boston Marathon attacks.

UN Watch: UN Official Justifies Boston Bombings as ‘Retribution’, Blames America & ‘Tel Aviv’

Richard Falk warns of "worse blowbacks," says “Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return”

Does the United Nations treat all refugees equally?

There are multiple UN agencies safeguarding the rights of refugees the world over - but the funding and staffing of one agency perhaps tells us about the institutional UN bias towards one people... doesn't it?

Fatah continues to praise suicide bombers on Facebook
Murderers of 7 are Martyrs and heroes

On the anniversary of their terror attacks, Fatah honored suicide bombers Andalib Takatka and Fadi Al-Amoudi as Martyrs and heroes.
Andalib Takatka killed 6 and wounded more than 80 when she blew herself up at the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem in 2002.
Fadi Al-Amoudi killed 1 and wounded 3 when he detonated a bomb he was carrying at the Erez crossing at the Israeli-Egyptian border in 2004.

Iranian on fake Israeli passport held in Nepal for possible terror plot

An Iranian national carrying a forged Israeli passport was arrested by Israeli Embassy personnel in Kathmandu on April 13, amid fears that he was part of a plan to carry out a series of attacks against Israeli institutions and tourists in Nepal.

Ex-MI Head: Iran has Passed Red Line

Yadlin, who is the Head of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), said that in the summer, Iran will reach a distance of one or two months between a decision and a bomb." That is, it will be able to build a nuclear bomb within a month or two of deciding to do so.

Assad attacked rebels with nerve gas, top IDF analyst says

Itai Brun: Based on photo evidence, regime deployed sarin on March 19; over 1,000 tons of chemical weapons in Syria

Afghan girls' school feared hit by poison gas

As many as 74 schoolgirls in Afghanistan's far north fell sick after smelling gas and were being examined for possible poisoning, local officials said on Sunday.

Hungary OKs limit to Nazi, communist symbols

Hungary’s parliament has overwhelmingly approved a modified plan to restrict the display of Nazi and communist symbols such as the swastika and red star.

Also:

Daniel Pipes is speaking in Ottawa on May 13, on "Islam vs. Islamism: Is the problem religion or ideology?"

Qaradawi: "I will not share the stage with Jews"

Today is the start of the tenth annual Doha Conference for Interfaith Dialogue:

At the 10th Doha Conference on Interfaith Dialogue, we will celebrate the tenth anniversary of

establishing the annual conference on interfaith dialogue in Qatar by presenting to the world the work of interfaith at its best. Therefore, we are inviting organizations, institutions, universities and NGOs working in the field of interfaith dialogue to present their successful projects in this domain, and to display their best achievements during the event. The Doha International Award on Interfaith dialogue will be granted for the first time to a person or institution which will present the best practice in the field of interfaith dialogue.

We have seen before that these conferences are usually not at all about dialogue and everything about preaching Islam. Muslims and liberal non-Muslims happily play along to make Islam look more tolerant.

But this time, popular Islamic terror supporter, preacher and TV personality Sheikh Yusef Qaradawi couldn't even go along with the charade that he can stand talking to Jews as equals.

Qaradawi rejected participating in the conference when he found out that Jews would be there as well.

Qatar media quoted Sheikh Qaradawi as saying that "after the announcement of the expansion of the conference to be a dialogue between Muslims, Christians and Jews, I decided not to participate in it so as not to sit with Jews on a single platform, as long as the Jews are usurping Palestine and Al-Aqsa Mosque and destroying homes of God, and as long as the question of Palestine hung not been resolved."

He didn't say "Zionists." I don't know what rabbis actually participate in these things but it is a safe bet that they are not from Israel. Qaradawi is simply proving that he hates Jews.

So far, I have not seen any criticism of Qaradawi for his public display of antisemitism.

Look who is building illegal settlements in Jerusalem

From Ma'an:

The head of a monastery in East Jerusalem on Monday accused residents of al-Eizariyya of building illegally on church land.

Al-Eizariyya residents are constructing buildings on the private lands of the Holy

Monastery of Martha and Maria, "brushing aside all religious, social and national values," said Sister Efpraxia.

"This is a dangerous violation in broad daylight, and construction is ongoing despite our frequent appeals and calls. Such provocative acts are not acceptable by any rational human," the abbess added.

The nun appealed to President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah, custodian of holy sites in East Jerusalem, "to relieve the feeble people as soon as possible bringing these overt violations against the monastery's property."

One of the commenters assumed that the people building were Jews - but of course they aren't. The Christian land is being stolen by Muslims, as it has been throughout the West Bank for years.

Not to mention that Arabs routinely illegally build all over the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem without regard to zoning laws or safety.

Will the international community rise up against these "settlements" being built illegally in "east Jerusalem"? Do you have to ask?

Note however that the monastery isn't asking Israel to intervene. Even if you consider Israel the "occupying power" of that area, Israel is still responsible to ensure the laws are enforced - that is basic occupation law.

But the idea of asking the Israelis to help is apparently more distasteful than the theft of land itself.

Latest "human shield" lie debunked (update)

Al Ahram (Egypt) reports:

Israeli forces used a 17-year-old Palestinian as a human shield while trying to disperse a protest in Abu Dis in the West Bank this Friday, the Electronic Intifada website reported.

Independent journalist Huthifa Jamous took pictures of the incident and shared a video shot by another observer, Kate A, a journalist, on his Facebook page.

The boy, called Muhammad R. by Electronic Intifada, is marched out of an armoured vehicle by Israeli forces. With his hands tied with a single plastic cord and raised above his head, and his shirt pulled up, he is led out to face out-of-frame protestors.

Three soldiers then raise their weapons, and shoot twice in the direction of the protesters. The youth is then forced back to the vehicle. One of the soldiers then flashes the V-for-victory sign.

According to the Jerusalem Media Center and Ma'an news agency, the incident occurred when at least 500 Palestinians in Abu Dis held a protest expressing solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike. Israeli forces fired teargas and rubber bullets at them. The protestors responded by hurling stones and empty bottles.

They show this video as proof:

We have seen many times that an event might be photographed accurately, but the caption lies. This is the video equivalent.

Here is a classic case of an ambiguous event occurring where the framework is given by an anti-Israel source - and gullible journalists believe that the video supports the report, when in fact it is the opposite.

Think for a second. How effective is a "human shield" if it is used for only a couple of seconds and then put back in the police van?

Just a quick unbiased view of the video indicates that the soldiers are showing the rioter to his comrades. Before I researched this my guess was that the rioters started a rumor that the teenager (assuming he is a teen) had died and the soldiers were proving that he was not injured.

Which was what indeed happened, as the Jerusalem Post reported after the incident:

Border Police spokesman Idan Iluz said Saturday that the officers were not using the teen as a human shield, and instead had pulled him out of the jeep in order to show the protesters that the boy had not been harmed.

Iluz said that a rumor had made its way among the demonstrators that the boy had been injured, and as a result they began to react violently, throwing rocks at officers.

He said that not long after the boy was taken out of the car and shown to the protesters, the situation calmed down considerably.

A look at the fuller version of the video shows also that the "Jerusalem Media Center" - which is QudsMedia.com, a site that lies continuously, often about "Jews storming the Temple Mount" - is lying here as well as to the order of events. It is clear that the stone-throwing and rioting came first, and the tear gas later.

You can see that the IDF even temporarily withdrew from the dangerous stone rioting, as the rioters yelled "Allah Akbar". This supports the idea that the IDF only returned to show that the youth had been unharmed.

This incident also illustrates how Al Ahram believes the lies of Israel haters without the slightest critical thinking, or even a five second search through the Internet to see the Israeli statement about the incident, even though it published this two days later. Which means that this respected Egyptian paper acts exactly like Hamas in its reporting.

(h/t Israel Muse)

UPDATE: Now Electronic Intifada is walking back the "human shield" claim (even though they keep it in the headline) and restating the "crime" by saying that the IDF exposed the youth to danger by bringing him to a dangerous place. Which is funny, because I thought rock throwing was "non-violent resistance."

They also say, implausibly, that the beginning of the video happened after the part where the teen is shown. Sure, everyone edits things backwards.

I cannot answer why the IDF shot a couple of rounds in the latter part of the video, but clearly this is not a "human shield" situation and the initial lies by EI were picked up by media worldwide. Which is, of course, what they intended, truth be damned.

Gazans getting sick of Hamas

From Now Lebanon, which is becoming a better news source every day:

Ayman as-Sayyed is a 19 year-old Palestinian who lives in Gaza. He was arrested last week by the Hamas police who picked him up on the streets because they were bothered by his long hair. So they decided to cut it for him.
...
Such practices are the result of a mentality based on monopolizing power, which leads to confiscating other people’s freedoms and imposing certain values and modes of behavior on them, according to Palestinian writer Majed Kayyali, who writes “This is how totalitarian systems – especially ideological ones – work, using means of direct and symbolic violence to impose their authority.”

These renewed violations have been occurring sporadically in the Gaza Strip since 2007, the year Hamas took over the Gaza Strip as a result of internal Palestinian divisions. Palestinian writer and activist Mustapha Ibrahim says “When Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections, many Hamas officials promptly reassured people that they would not harm public and private freedoms and would commit to implementing the law. However, things were different on the field.”
...

Zeinab al-Ghoneimi, a women’s rights activist and director of the Council for Women’s Legal Research and Counseling in Gaza, comments: “Hamas wants to Islamize society, which is already Islamic and conservative in Gaza. In reality, male and female students are already separated as of Grade 3 in most schools, except for two or three of them. The prevailing culture here is for women to cover their hair. So what do these decisions mean?”

What is being imposed here, she argues, is a “political rather than ‘religious’ version of Islam.” Hamas is seeking to forcefully consecrate its presence by relying on religion, and to portray itself as the warrantor of ethics and values. “On the one hand, they want to show that their decisions are being heeded; that they set moral criteria and spread virtue as though people were all devoid of any morals. On the other hand, they are issuing these laws to hamper the work of any new government seeking to initiate change in the future. Furthermore, these practices instill fear and allow them to demonstrate their strength to people and portray themselves as absolute rulers.”

When human rights organizations protest against such unconstitutional laws, Hamas recants its decisions, “but not before having caused a stir among the people and allowing the movement to interfere with the details pertaining to people’s lives,” according to Zeinab al-Ghoneimi. This is exactly the feeling young Ayman as-Sayyed sought to convey to AP when he said that he is scared of the future and does not feel safe, as he can be insulted and arrested at any time for no reason whatsoever.

Both Ibrahim and Ghoneimi asserted that even when these decisions are officially revoked by the cabinet, some still prevent female attorneys from entering courthouses or assault people on the streets. The Hamas cabinet declines any responsibility in these cases, claiming that these are individual transgressions with which it has nothing to do.

Hamas’ monopoly over power, its use of violence, its interference in the private lives of citizens and its exclusion of all organizations – even allied ones – from the Gaza Strip have led to an outcry against the movement, which is losing support among the youth, according to Majed Kayyali. “This was manifested in the festival celebrating the launch of the Fatah Movement in Gaza in January 2013, knowing that Fatah had been banned in the Gaza Strip for the past six years. [The festival drew] a massive crowd and this was surprising not only for Hamas, which controls the Strip, but also for Fatah, which is in a state of organizational disrepair and is riddled with domestic conflicts. In this sense, an approximately one million-strong crowd on the Gaza square and surrounding streets voiced the complaints of Gaza’s Palestinians against Hamas violations. [Their participation] had more to do with opposing Hamas [practices] than with supporting Fatah.”
...
Zeinab al-Ghoneimi describes the situation in Gaza as depressing. People are expecting “a national reconciliation to occur and end the current division between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, rather than to be oppressed, intimidated, and insulted. Many university graduates are unemployed. Unemployment, self-imposed isolation, and the inability to move [freely] lead to problematic social behavior, the price of which is paid primarily by women. Hamas is not seeking to adopt policies that alleviate this situation. On the contrary, with every security tension or Israeli threat, criminals are released from prison and political detainees remain behind bars.”

Some more stuff to read

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a great looking Hebrew article in Mida about how Ha'aretz has turned from an excellent paper into a terrible one. I hoped someone could translate it - and someone did. Read it all at TheTower.

UN Watch slams Richard Falk for again blaming America for "prompting" Islamic terror.

Ian noted this in his linkdump but it is an important story, from JPost:

Bulgarian police officers last summer arrested a Canadian citizen linked to the Iranian government who engaged in surveillance of the local Chabad center in the capital of Sofia, a well-placed and reliable local source told The Jerusalem Post last week, on condition of anonymity due to security reasons.

An Iranian-sponsored female agent in her 50s, holding a Canadian passport, traveled from Istanbul to Sofia several weeks after the bombing of the Israeli tour bus in the Black Sea resort town of Burgas in July 2012. She was arrested on her first day in Sofia after the Bulgarian police, on high alert, noticed she was monitoring the Chabad center.

But that wasn't the only terror plot around. Canada caught an Iranian-based Al Qaeda plot to derail a passenger train.

In a related note, Michael Totten thinks that this might be the beginning of the end for Hezbollah. (h/t WarpedMirrorPMB)

Barry Rubin shows his usual clear-headed thinking:

Now that the two (primary, at least) terrorists from the Boston Marathon attack have been killed or captured, we enter a new phase in which the dominant politically correct, factually incorrect forces try to explain away the attack.

Can this be done? Will they really try? Well, yes. True, as one of my correspondents remarked, it is much easier to obfuscate distant Benghazi than a total shutdown and horror in the middle of a major American city. Yet the spin-masters are already at work.

Finally, Five Minutes for Israel has a four part series destroying the BBC's official description of "Palestine":

Comes with the territory http://5mfi.com/comes-with-the-territory/ Overview

Facts with the territory http://5mfi.com/facts-with-the-territory/ Facts

The One-eyed is King http://5mfi.com/the-one-eyed-is-king/ Leaders

Massaging the media http://5mfi.com/massaging-the-media/ Media

Monday Links Part 2

From Ian:

Israeli doctor treats Boston terrorist, victims; says 'I'm used to it'
Director of hospital where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is being treated says 'Situation reminded me of terror attacks in Israel, but Americans not used to it'

"Unfortunately, I have had a lot of experience with these types of injuries after years of treating people injured in terror attacks in Israel," said the professor, who is a member of the board of Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem, where he studied medicine and completed his residency.
"We have a few Israeli doctors in the emergency room, and the director of the ER is also Israeli. But most of the physicians at the hospital are not Israeli, and they functioned exceptionally well," Tabb added.

‘Most Israeli Jews would annex part of West Bank’

The overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews support Israel extending its sovereignty over some or all of the West Bank, either unilaterally or as part of an agreement, according to an Ariel University poll published Sunday.
The survey, conducted by the Geocartography Institute on behalf of the Israeli university in the West Bank, found that 35 percent of respondents said the government should annex the entire West Bank, 24% said only the settlement blocs should be annexed, 20% answered that any annexation should only take place as part of an agreement with the Palestinians, and 12% said Israel doesn’t need to impose its sovereignty over any part of the West Bank. Nine percent had no answer.

Horse meat ok... Israeli produce not?

EU ministers have backed efforts to label Jewish West Bank produce, while neglecting the realities on the ground
As if Europe didn't have its hands full with food labeling and quality, it now has the gall to lecture Israel on produce from disputed territories. This is a development as troubling in its historical connotations as it is grounded in anti-Israel fallacies.

Iran agent monitoring Chabad arrested in Bulgaria

Bulgarian police officers last summer arrested a Canadian citizen linked to the Iranian government who engaged in surveillance of the local Chabad center in the capital of Sofia, a well-placed and reliable local source told The Jerusalem Post last week, on condition of anonymity due to security reasons.

Maryland governor praises Israel's counter-terrorism

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley commended Israel’s way of dealing with terrorist attacks as he addressed 30 visiting business and academic leaders in Jerusalem on Sunday night.
O’Malley, who is mentioned as a likely future Democratic candidate for US president, noted that the United States had improved in its efforts to tackle terror, due in part to what the country had learned from Israel, making reference to last week’s terrorist attack in Boston.

'Indo-Israel FTA likely to raise trade volume to $15 billion'

Trade and business between the two countries would skyrocket once FTA is put in place, he said, adding that there are immense potential for growth in areas like healthcare, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, irrigation, energy, particularly from renewable sources, aviation, IT and water management.
Referring to Odisha, Vilan said Israel is keen on expanding business and entering into joint ventures mainly in healthcare, agriculture and agri-related sectors like irrigation and water management.

IDF Blog: Earth Day Special: 7 IDF Green Innovations You’ve Never Heard Of

In honor of Earth Day 2013, here are seven examples of how the IDF has used its ability to innovate and its technological brainpower to find solutions to some of the world’s most pressing environmental issues.

Israeli tech seeks to undo the damage of pesticides

But with technology developed at the Weizmann Institute, and commercialized by Israeli start-up Catalyst AgTech, we may be able to avoid finding out what those long-term consequences are. In what industry professionals have told him is a “game-changing technology,” Shalom Nachshon, CEO of Catalyst AgTech, is hopeful that the work his company is doing will rid the environment of chemicals and pesticides that otherwise could “hang around” in water and soil for hundreds, or even thousands, of years.

It’s Shalom, Glastonbury! Israeli bands in festival first

Three acts from Israel are due to play at Glastonbury this summer — marking the first appearances by performers from the country at the leading music festival.
Acollective, a seven-piece band performing punk, folk and electronic jazz; Saz, a Palestinian rapper who lives in Ramla and has been compared to Will Smith; and soul singer Ester Rada will all sing on the Silver Haze stage at the Somerset festival.

Samsung Korea VP Visits Yeshiva to Help Koreans Learn Talmud

Charlie Park, Vice President of Samsung Korea, visited an Israeli Yeshiva at Shalavim last week, accompanied by a South Korean camera crew, and met with the program directors and with students to document how students study Talmud at the Yeshiva.
The South Koreans have developed a fascination with the study of Talmud. The country’s ambassador to Israel, Ma Young-Sam, has told the “Culture Today” TV show that Talmud study is now a mandatory part of the country’s school curriculum.

Jordanian paper mentions that Jews control all the banks and are behind all wars

Al Madenah News, a Jordanian newspaper, has a feature article on the Rothschild family.

Here it is:

The Rothschild family is "one of the families in the invisible government" and the oldest and largest Jewish Khazar family and are the owners of the world's central banks and the US Federal Reserve bank.

The Rothschild banking group played a major role in the financing of the two world wars as well as the financing of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust during World War II.

Rothschild owns 80% of the world's wealth and is responsible for creating all economic crises, as well as political crises across the world.

The Rothschild family has taken Palestine through the Balfour Declaration where Britain was saved from the First World War in exchange for granting Palestine.

Their control of the world allows their preparation to build the Temple of Solomon.

Some experts and scientists say that the Jews of the Khazars are Gog and Magog, and Allah knows best.

Just another day in the Arab media.

(Correction: I originally wrote this was an Egyptian paper. h/t @EmadPax.)

Miftah attacks Judaism

In a highly offensive article on its website, the Western-funded Palestinian Arab NGO Miftah is not really certain that there were ever any Jewish Temples in Jerusalem and denies that Jews have any rights to pray or even visit their holiest site:

With each passing day, more and more right-wing extremist settlers and Israelis insist on entering the Aqsa Mosque Compound. They walk the grounds, try to conduct Jewish prayers and always do so under the protection of the Israeli army and police. Muslims meanwhile either bite the bullet and hope the unnatural visits end quickly or, more often than not, they protest....

The fact of the matter is that Israel’s official narrative – that this is the exact place where the second temple was built and where the third one will eventually be reconstructed, has become a given for so many. The premise is that Jews have every right to enter and pray in Al Aqsa because the temples came first and this is ostensibly the holiest site in Judaism. The thousands of years of history and religious significance for Muslims around the world are made completely irrelevant not to mention that the Israeli narrative can always trump anyone else’s, especially the Palestinians. The seemingly religious aspect of the argument is actually entirely political at its core.

I wasn't aware that a religion that is, according to its own calendar, 1,434 years old, has "thousands of years of history and religious significance." I also wasn't aware that the many Jewish sources about the religious importance of the Temple site that pre-date Islam are actually political. I guess because the rabbis really knew that some guy named Mohammed would say that he flew a winged horse to "the farthest mosque" which would be interpreted a century later as being the third holiest site in (Sunni) Islam.

Miftah dismisses thousands of years of Jewish practice, Jewish prayers, Jewish legal texts and the Torah itself - all of which predate Mohammed's birth. And it claims that the Jewish ties to the site are - get this - political!

Miftah, a supposedly progressive and liberal NGO, is saying explicitly that Jews do not have the right to pray at their unquestioned holiest spot. But Muslims, who have stolen numerous Christian and Jewish holy places, should have complete and exclusive rights to places they usurped. Muslim rights to stolen holy sites, according to Miftah, are paramount; Jewish and Christian rights to these sites are non-existent.

It would be an understatement to call this article hypocritical.

Once again, Miftah's interest in the truth is nonexistent. Now we see that they publish screeds that are highly offensive to Judaism as well.

Let's make this clear:

Questioning the Jewish right to even visit, let alone pray at, the holiest site in Judaism is unspeakably offensive.
Questioning well-established facts of Jewish history in order to push a much later claim on that spot is nothing less than an insult to Judaism and to generations of Jews who have cried over the destruction of the Temples.
To imply that Muslims playing soccer is a more appropriate use of the Temple Mount than Jews respectfully visiting is sickening.
To demand Muslim exclusivity over that site is bigotry, pure and simple.

The fact that these lies about Judaism and Jewish history are accepted as fact among many bigots does not make this any less reprehensible. Even worse is that this article explicitly supports religious discrimination.

A Western-funded NGO must be judged by the standards of the West and the standards of truth and accuracy and fairness it claims to adhere to itself, not the lowest common denominator in the Arab world.

Yet Miftah still get funded by clueless European NGOs.

Monday Links Part 1

From Ian:

PMW: Abbas honors murderer
Abbas and other senior PA officials honor prisoner Issa Abd Rabbo who murdered two students hiking near Jerusalem

Abbas' representative to murderer's mother: "The best of the Palestinian people's sons are in prison"
PA TV host to murderer's mother: "Your son is a fighter and a hero, and all prisoners are heroes"
In the past month, a number of senior Palestinian Authority officials including Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and PA TV, have all honored murderer Issa Abd Rabbo.

CIF Watch: The Guardian’s continuing obsession with Mordechai Vanunu

Naturally, Vanunu is something of a cause celeb at the Guardian, which has published no less than 75 separate pieces (reports and commentary) on the convicted Israeli felon, including an official editorial lauding him, entitled “In Praise of…Mordechai Vanunu“.

BBC’s Wyre Davies Tweeting for illegal building

The restaurant was constructed without planning permission or the appropriate building permits and hence was the subject of a demolition order issued in 2005 and carried out in May 2012. The restaurant was then rebuilt – also illegally without the necessary planning permission or building permits. The restaurant’s owner/constructor was given the opportunity to appear before the planning committee of the Civil Administration. A second demolition order was issued and that was carried out on April 18th 2013. The electricity line to which Davies refers was also illegally connected.

France set to blacklist Hezbollah, politician vows

France is willing to add Hezbollah to the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations if a Bulgarian investigation into a terror attack there confirms that the Shiite group was indeed responsible, a leading French politician said while on a visit to Israel.

US security committee: Hezbollah could be in US

There may be Hezbollah terrorists living in America, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the US House Committee on Homeland Security, said on Sunday.
He said he was worried over the freedom of movement of terrorists in the wake of the twin bombings in Boston last week.

‘Israeli drones given leave to fly over Jordan’

Jordan has allowed Israel to fly military drones over the country en route to Syria in order to monitor the situation there and, should the need arise, target chemical weapons caches in the civil war-torn country, the French daily Le Figaro reported Monday.
King Abdullah II made the decision during US President Barack Obama’s visit to the region in March, the report said.

The Siege of Egypt's St. Mark Cathedral An Insider's Account by Raymond Ibrahim

Even the Western mainstream media recently came around to affirming that Egyptian security forces were involved in the attack on the cathedral. And, true to Ramzi's prediction, the only people to be arrested in connection with this latest assault on Christianity were the Christians themselves.

Egypt claims to uncover Israeli spy ring in Sinai

A total of nine Egyptians and Palestinians reportedly arrested for gathering information on behalf of Israel in the Sinai Peninsula.
Meanwhile, a Salafi official in the Gaza Strip was quoted in the newspaper A-Sharq al-Awsat saying the purpose of last Wednesday's rocket fire from Sinai into the southern Israeli city of Eilat was to harm the Hamas government in Gaza and the Morsi government in Egypt, which he claimed conspire with Israel.

Arab League condemns loan of Balfour Declaration to Israel

The Arab League has condemned the decision of the British National Library to loan the original Balfour Declaration document to Israel so it can be put on display at Independence Hall (where David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948) in Tel Aviv.

Ikea pulls ad from Swedish anti-Semitic blog

Ikea has removed ads from a Swedish anti-Semitic blog and is investigating how its online advertisement banner came to be placed there.
“We have stopped all advertising for this package pending an investigation into what happened,” Sara Paulsson, a press officer for the Swedish home design and furniture giant told the local daily Aftonbladet on Saturday.

Record Turnout at Budapest Holocaust March Amid Rising Racism

A record 10,000 Hungarians took part Sunday in an annual march to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, amid recent reports of increasing racism and anti-Semitism in the country.
Over 10,000 people, more than double the usual turnout, participated in the "March for Life", according to an AFP count, alongside government and opposition members, and the ambassadors of Israel and the United States.