Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, May 31, 2013

US counterterrorism report is not bad, but downplays problems in PA-controlled areas

The 2012 Counterterrorism Report from the US State Department is a very good resource to see the big picture of what the state of world terrorism is. Here are some highlights from the specific country sections.

Iran is clearly recognized as a state sponsor of terror, and Hizballah's terror operations have accelerated:

In 2012, there was a clear resurgence of Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism, through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), its Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and Tehran’s ally Hizballah, who remained a significant threat to the stability of Lebanon and the broader region. Attacks in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and the Far East were linked to the IRGC-QF or Hizballah. In fact, Hizballah’s terrorist activity has reached a tempo unseen since the 1990s with attacks plotted in Southeast Asia, Europe, and Africa.

...A series of terrorist attacks and foiled plots against Israeli interests abroad that began in 2011 continued in 2012. Though most of these plots were disrupted, a July 18 suicide attack against Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria, killed five Israeli citizens and one Bulgarian and injured dozens, and a February 13 attack in New Delhi injured the wife of an Israeli Ministry of Defense employee. Terrorist plots were also uncovered against Israeli targets in Thailand, Azerbaijan, and Cyprus, and an attack was foiled in Georgia. Israeli officials publicly linked many of these plots and attacks to Hizballah and its Iranian sponsors. [On February 5, 2013, the Bulgarian government publically implicated Hizballah in the July 2012 Burgas bombing that killed five Israelis and one Bulgarian citizen, and injured 32 others. On March 21, 2013, a Cyprus court found a Hizballah operative guilty of charges stemming from his surveillance activities, carried out in 2012, of Israeli tourist targets, while Thailand was prosecuting a Hizballah member for his role in helping plan a possible terrorist attack in that country.]

...Hizballah-linked incidents [in Israel] included:

• According to the ISA, in early June, Hizballah smuggled 20 kilograms of C-4 explosive and an IED detonation system into Israel from Lebanon, using a network of narcotics dealers. Weapons were also seized as part of a joint ISA-Israel National Police operation that exposed the scheme. Twelve suspects were detained and questioned, and charges were filed against eight.

• On October 6, the IAF shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that entered Israeli airspace, and the IDF posted a video clip of the interception online. According to press, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in televised remarks on October 11, acknowledged that the group had sent the drone, and claimed its parts were manufactured in Iran and assembled by Hizballah in Lebanon.

...Hizballah, with deep roots among Lebanon’s Shia community and significant backing from the Iranian government, remained the most dangerous and prominent terrorist group in Lebanon.

Israel's efforts to combat terrorism are praised:

Israel continued to be a stalwart counterterrorism partner in 2012. It faced continued terrorist threats from Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), particularly from Gaza but also from the West Bank; and from Hizballah in Lebanon. Fourteen Israelis were killed as a result of terrorist attacks in 2012. Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist organizations continued rocket and mortar attacks into Israeli territory, and multiple terrorist attacks were launched along the Gaza security fence as well as the Israel-Egypt border. Gaza also remained a base of operations for several violent Islamist extremist splinter groups. The Government of Israel responded to these threats with operations directed at terrorist leaders, infrastructure, and activities such as rocket launching, most notably in Operation Pillar of Defense during the November 14-21 Gaza conflict.

A Hamas and PIJ-linked terrorist cell based in the West Bank also carried out a bombing on a Tel Aviv city bus, the first such attack in years, and Israel faced a wave of plots and attacks against its interests abroad that Israeli officials linked to Iran and Hizballah. Arms smuggling continued from Iran through Egypt into Gaza to Palestinian terrorist organizations. Israeli officials also continued to be concerned about the smuggling of weapons from Libya via Sudan into Gaza.

The State Department praises the PA's efforts to keep things calm, noting that there were no fatal terror attacks from the West Bank in 2012, the first time that has happened in many years. Unfortunately, it ignores the hundreds of Molotov cocktails being hurled at Jews in the West Bank, except in quoting Israeli statistics; it does not classify these as terrorist incidents on its own.

Also, very important sentences are buried:

. Limitations on PA counterterrorism efforts in the West Bank included restrictions on the movement and activities of PASF in and through areas of the West Bank for which the Israeli government retained responsibility for security under the terms of Oslo-era agreements. The limited capacity of the PA’s civilian criminal justice system also hampered PA counterterrorism efforts.

It would seem obvious that security in areas under Israeli military control is better than in Area A, but the report highlights it as if it is a problem for counterterrorism - and then barely notes that the PA's justice system remains severely underdeveloped, 20 years after Oslo.

The worst paragraph in the Israel/West Bank-Gaza section is undoubtedly this one:

According to the PA’s Palestinian Broadcasting Company’s code of conduct, no programming is allowed that encourages “violence against any person or institution on the basis of race, religion, political beliefs, or sex.” The PA continued its efforts to monitor and control the content of Friday sermons delivered in over 1,800 West Bank mosques to ensure that they do not endorse or incite violence. The PA’s ability to enforce these guidelines varies depending upon its location, and it has limited authority to control the context of sermons in Israeli-controlled Area C.

It seems unfathomable that the State Department does not challenge the PBC's assertions with the scores of examples of antisemitic and anti-Israel incitement, and praise for terror, uncovered by Palestinian Media Watch, not to mention incitement in newspapers, schools and other venues. The last sentence is ridiculous, as over 95% of Palestinian Muslims live in areas A or B, meaning that focusing on incitement in sermons in Area C - if it even exists - is nothing more than a backhanded way to criticize Israel's presence in Judaism's traditional homeland (as was the earlier sentence about the PASF.)

While this clear attempt to exaggerate the PA's counterterrorism efforts is problematic, there is a lot of very useful information in this report, and its sections on Gaza and Hamas, including weapons smuggling and terror attacks, are quite accurate.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

Nigeria catches Hizballah terrorists

From BBC:

An armoury belonging to the Lebanese group Hezbollah has been discovered in northern
Nigeria, the West African nation's army and spy agency has said.

Three Lebanese nationals have been arrested, an army spokesman, Brig Gen Ilyasu Isa Abba, said.

The cache, including rifles, anti-tank weapons and an RPG, were found in a warehouse in the city of Kano, he said.

Nigeria's State Security Service said they were intended for use against "Israeli and Western interests".

"This is the handwork of Hezbollah," Bassey Ettang, director of the State Security Service in Kano said.

"What has just been discovered is a cell of Hezbollah and what you have seen here is a Hezbollah armoury," he told journalists in Kano on Thursday.

Brig Gen Ilyasu Isa Abba said 11 anti-tank weapons, four anti-tank mines, a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) and 21 RPG missiles, 17 AK-47s, two sub-machine guns and 76 grenades had been amongst the weapons found.

The Lebanese owner of the warehouse where "the weapons of mass destruction" had been stored in sawdust was out of the country, he said.

Which makes one wonder - how much more proof does any country need to declare Hizballah a terror organization?

Thursday Links Part 2

From Ian:

Elad Daniel Pereg: Message to Iran

In 2010 Daniel walked in front of an anti-Israel mob in LA with an Israeli flag.

WSJ: Curious IRS Timing

Why the special scrutiny for pro-Israel groups? A New York Times article in July 2010 provided a clue: Tax-exempt groups were donating to West Bank settlers, and State Department officials wanted the settlers out. "As the American government seeks to end the four-decade Jewish settlement enterprise and foster a Palestinian state in the West Bank," the Times wrote, "the American Treasury helps sustain the settlements through tax breaks on donations to support them."
Did the T-men take their political cues from such stories, or did Administration officials give them orders? Either explanation would be a violation of public trust.

Did the Palestinians Ask Obama to Target Pro-Israeli 501(c)(3)s?

Let me provide another possible clue, found in the June 16, 2009 minutes of the Palestinian negotiating unit headed by Saeb Erekat–part of the Palestine Papers published by Al Jazeera in 2011.
Dr. Mohammed Shtayyed made an additional suggestion to Erekat:
“We should also focus on the government incentives to settlers: loans without interest, land for free, agricultural subsidies in the Jordan valley. We can’t stop a pregnant lady from having a baby, but look at what we can do. We should look at the 501(c)(3) organizations in the States that make donations to settlers. Let the US administration investigate this.”

.US Treasury Openly Fighting Settlements, Pro-Israel Groups (Video)

You'll get a better treatment if you're associated with Hamas than with right-wing issues in Israel.

Alice Walker, Roger Waters urge Alicia Keys to cancel TLV gig

In an open letter posted online, Walker wrote that Keys was putting herself in “soul danger” by performing in “an apartheid country that is being boycotted by many global conscious artists. You were not born when we, your elders who love you, boycotted institutions in the US South to end an American apartheid less lethal than Israel’s against the Palestinian people.”

United Church of Canada boycotts Israeli companies

Canada’s largest Protestant church targeted three Israeli companies with operations in Jewish settlements for economic sanctions and boycott.
Last week, the United Church of Canada’s governing General Council approved the start of a boycott campaign, encouraging “economic action” against Keter Plastic, SodaStream and Ahava.

Guardian Letters: Desmond Tutu and the call for a Uefa boycott of Israel

Firstly, the reason Israel plays in European football tournaments is that, long before the 1967 war and the subsequent "occupation", Arab and some Asian countries refused to play Israel at any level. Secondly, if countries were stopped from hosting tournaments because of their human rights records, we'd probably have to hold the World Cup etc in Luxembourg every four years!
Lastly, the games played in Israel will be played in front of crowds unhindered by restrictions on race or gender, unlike the United Nations-sponsored Gaza marathon, which was cancelled due to the fact women were banned from running with men. The World Cup after next is in Russia which, last weekend, saw the arrest of dozens of gay rights activists in Moscow. I don't see any "show Russia the red card" protests.

Dreyfus Prison Letter Sells for $492,000 at Paris Auction

A letter by Alfred Dreyfus in which the French Jewish army captain wrongly accused of treason over a century ago protests his sentence sold for 380,000 euros ($492,000) at an auction in Paris Wednesday, the AFP news agency reported.

Newly Discovered Prisoner Journal Donated to Auschwitz

The Auschwitz-Birkenau museum said on Wednesday it had acquired a newly discovered journal written and illustrated by Polish prisoners of the Nazi German death camp in southern Poland.
The three inmates' hand-made memoirs, which include poems and pen-and-ink and watercolour drawings of gas chambers and a hanging, were donated by the widow of a US war veteran, museum spokesman Bartosz Bartyzel told AFP.

Israeli Company Mobileye Commercializing Automatic Driving Software

Israeli company Mobileye Vision Technologies Ltd. has unveiled a car that navigates itself without human driving using camera-based software. New York Times technology reporter John Markoff tested out the self-driving car on a drive from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, Globes reported.

Florida hospital installs EarlySense to advance health care

Hospital Tampa is the latest US health center to adopt the Israeli-made technology that helps avoid adverse patient events.

Israeli firm, protector of 1.75 billion mobile devices, honoured

Established in 1999, Red Bend has become the go to provider of FOTA (Firmware Over the Air) updates for phones and devices made by manufacturers like Kyocera, LG Electronics, Motorola, Sharp, Sony Ericsson and ZTE. Currently, Red Bend’s technology is used by more than 80 mobile device manufacturers, mobile operators and semiconductor vendors, and is present on more than 1.75 billion devices.

The Indian-Israeli olive agribusiness experiment

Over the last five years, Indian farmers have joined hands with Israeli agribusiness to produce a crop that the majority on the subcontinent have only seen in books and films: fresh, green olives.

Hot fuss as Killers head to Israel

The American pop rock band The Killers is planning to stop in Israel in October as part of its up-coming world tour, Channel 2 reported on Monday.
The band, headed by vocalist and keyboard player Brandon Flowers, will be making its first visit to Israel.

Video of Ramallah kids playing with enormous snake

Or, perhaps, a snake playing with its food....

This video is going around...I see it in some Arabic sites and now was picked up in Walla:

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

Lebanon report roundup: Hizbollah ejecting Hamas from Lebanon; Hizb on Gulf terror list?,

From Ya Libnan:

Lebanese Hezbollah militant group has ordered its former ally the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas out of Lebanon effective immediately and within hours , the Middle East Online news agency reported on Thursday.

The move, the report says, is due to Hamas support for the opposition forces fighting to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. Both Hezbollah and Syria are allies of Iran, which provides the two with financial and military support.
Hamas representative in Lebanon Ali Baraka denied the report to Lebanese paper Aliwaa, saying Hezbollah officials in Lebanon were surprised by the report.

But media sources close to the Palestinian national liberation movement Fatah in Lebanon said a Hezbollah senior security official informed Baraka, that all of those related to Hamas on the Lebanese territory have become unwelcome.

Times of London reported last month that Hamas’ military unit has broken ties with Assad, and has begun training members of the opposition’s Free Syrian Army in Damascus.

Meanwhile, from MEMRI:

In other related news:

Gulf Arab states will consider placing Hizbullah, which is openly involved in the Syrian conflict, on its terror list, al-Rai daily quoted highly placed diplomats on Thursday as saying.

Bahrain will ask foreign ministers of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council to discuss "placing Hizbullah on the terror list" at a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, the newspaper said.

Bahrain currently holds the GCC's rotating presidency.

The paper did not say whether this referred to the party as a whole or just its military wing, whose men are fighting alongside government troops in a fierce battle to retake the Syrian town of Qusayr from rebels.

Thursday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Ya'alon, let IDF win

In light of his past and his principles, it is hard to believe Ya'alon will continue to favor the State of Israel's photogenic and diplomatic needs over the need for deterrence. This deterrence is eroding at a frightening pace.
The restraint policy of the past few months has not convinced the Palestinians to stop. It convinced them to carry on. Stone-throwing incidents have steadily increased, and on YouTube more and more videos are being posted showing IDF soldiers fleeing. This also increases the Palestinians' motivation to continue with their violent ways. If any member of the General Staff believes that running away will spare us a third intifada, he should think again.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Terrorist who killed 38 Israelis appointed PA adviser

Hussein Fayyad, one of the commanders of the terror group that carried out the 1978 Coastal Road massacre, revealed on Tuesday that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had appointed him as one of his advisers.
The attack, which led to the killing of 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, was planned and carried out by Abbas’s Fatah faction.

PMW: International Red Cross does not prohibit use of its money for terror glorification

However, not only did ICRC not condemn the Palestinian Red Crescent's glorification of terrorists in the ceremony, it chose to justify the use of ICRC money by the Palestinian Red Crescent. The ICRC issued a statement defending their right to use donor money any way they choose, even though the issue being raised was the use of ICRC money for terror glorification:

Libel on PA TV: Israel spreads drugs to destroy the minds of Palestinian youth

BBC’s Yolande Knell goes campaigning

Knell devotes a considerable portion of her written article to the subject of the Israeli Absentee Property Law. Significantly – especially in this case – she makes no effort to inform readers of the fact that during the 19 year Jordanian occupation of Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem (the later annexation of which was not recognized by the international community), there existed a body called the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property which was established to handle property seized from Jews during the War of Independence.

Hezbollah Turning Southern Lebanon Homes and Villages Into Military Installations

Hezbollah is attempting to move advanced weapons into civilian areas in Lebanon in preparation for another conflict with Israel. The Iran-backed terror group has an extensive, video-documented history of exploiting Lebanese civilians, and during its 2006 war with Israel successfully created incidents in which human shields were endangered and killed.

Assad: S-300 Missiles Already Here

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that despite the portrayal by the media of a deal for advanced missiles to be purchased from Russia as a future event, the fact is that Syria has already begun acquiring the S-300 missile system from Moscow.

Our Syrian Aid Recipients: Radical Wahhabis Bulldoze Historic Mausoleum of Prophet Abraham

"From May 16, 2013: A radical Wahhabi group affiliated with al-Qaeda's Jabhat al-Nusra (Nusra Front) is seen surrounding and then destroying with a bulldozer a historic mausoleum or shrine visited by pilgrims for the prophet Abraham, who supposedly spent some time with his wife Sarah in the town of Ayn al-Arous where the shrine was built. Ayn al-Arous is located south of Tal Abyad in the Raqqa province in northern Syria.

Argentinian prosecutor alleges extensive Iranian terror activity in South America

The Argentinian prosecutor in charge of investigating the bombing at the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994, has accused Iran of infiltrating several South American countries and building intelligence stations from which terrorist attacks could be planned and carried out.

U.S., Israeli Generals Paint Picture of What Strike on Iran Might Look Like

What would a strike on Iran by the U.S. and/or Israel look like? The question has been posed countless times, but perhaps few have the insight of retired US Gen. James Cartwright and Israeli Maj.Gen. Amos Yadlin, who in a recent article in The Atlantic try to imagine how an attack on Iran would play out.

Canada bans nearly all Iranian imports

Pressure on Tehran continues to mount as it was announced today that Canada is set to ban nearly all exports to, and imports from Iran.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said today that Canada has grave concerns over Iran's nuclear program and will add another 30 individuals and 82 entities to an economic blacklist.

Iran hauls off Christian pastor, shuts down church in new sweep

Government agents shut down Iran’s largest Persian-language Pentecostal church Monday, just one week after one of its pastors was arrested and hauled away midway through a worship service.

Free Saeed Abedini

What is Abedini’s crime? Did he butcher an Iranian soldier on a street corner in Tehran? Did he explode a bomb in a crowd of bystanders or on a Tehran bus? Was he arrested for conspiring to commit some atrocity against innocent civilians?
No, Abedini’s crime is his advocacy of Christianity in Iran. This is compounded by his conversion from Islam in 2000.

100,000 Christians killed each year due to faith

The Vatican has announced that around 100,000 Christians are killed each year due to their faith, in a worrying trend affected the Middle East and Africa

Troubling 'Nakba day' speech in South Africa

Hendricks (president of the Muslim Judicial Council of Cape Town) then ventures to make the outrageous statement that, “Prior to 1929, there was absolutely no evidence of the Wailing Wall.” He then proceeds to say that “The Buraq Wall is an integral part of Masjidul-Aqsa. If any Muslim believes it is an exercise of interfaith or to recognize that the Jewish people have a right to be in front of the Wailing Wall, then it is a sign of extreme arrogance and ignorance.”

Saudi self-help writer urges men to molest women in the workplace

Saudi writer Abdullah Mohammed Al Dawood has urged his 97,000 Twitter followers to molest women hired to work as cashiers in big grocery stores in an attempt to "encourage" women to stay at home.
Al Dawood, who tweeted in Arabic using a hastag that translates as "#HarassFemaleCashiers, writes "self-help books" including one called "The Joy of Talking". He comments have stoked fierce debate this week as he implied that sexually harassing women in the workplace would help protect their chastity.

Thoughts about that antisemitic Norwegian cartoon

As you are no doubt aware by now, the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet published an obscenely anti-semitic cartoon to protest circumcision. Here is my translation:

As JPost describes it:

It showed police officers looking on as a bearded man wearing a black hat and black coat sticks a three-tooth pitchfork into the head of a blood-soaked baby while holding a book.

Another unseen person cuts off the baby’s foot with a bolt cutter as a woman in a long-sleeve shirt and a hat shows the officers another blood-spattered book and tells them: “Abuse? No, this tradition is central to our belief.” The police officers apologize “for interrupting.”

The cartoonist, Tomas Drefvelin, emailed to a Jewish organization that he had no anti-Jewish intentions:

The strip is not meant as a criticism of either a specific religion or a nation.

The cartoon is intended as a general criticism of religions (all of them) the opportunity to wriggle away from what I perceive as the abuse of children (and also the oppression of women etc, if one takes the point of the strip), by referring to faith and tradition.
I gave the people in the picture hats, and the man a beard, because this gives them a more religious character. (Many religions have a penchant for hats and beard, it appears.)

This is a classic example of people reading more into a drawing than what it actually there. I have deliberately refrained from naming any holy book and the fork, perceived as a Devil Fork, is actually just a fork.

Jew-hatred is reprehensible. It would never occur to me to draw a strip to create hatred of a people, or against individuals. Let me repeat: My criticism of religion in general, not anything else.

Dagbladet echoed Drefvelin's defense, claiming that it is as liberal as possible and therefore completely against antisemitism. They also add that it is not obvious that the baby in the cartoon is a boy.

Let's see if this argument holds water.

Two major religions mandate circumcision: Judaism and Islam.

Only Jews routinely circumcise boys when they are infants. (Some Muslims will have doctors circumcise boys in the hospital soon after birth, but not in their homes.)

Only religious Jews are associated with black hats and beards.

Muslim circumcision, and female genital mutilation when practiced, is not a ceremony with prepared texts from prayer books.

There are only about 1300 Jews in Norway, while there are over 100,000 Muslims.

Despite his protestations, Drefvelin is clearly aiming this cartoon at the minuscule Jewish population of Norway, not the growing Muslim population.

Whether consciously or not, it seems far more likely that Drefvelin (and Dagbladet) know that they can attack Judaism without worrying about being the target of death threats - or any worries about actually being murdered.

Also, Muslims often complain about "defamation of religion." Here is a textbook example of exactly that. Yet I cannot find a single Muslim organization condemning this cartoon.

PA leaders rejecting coexistence, Kerry's economic boost. It's almost as if they'd rather destroy Israel.

Time reported at the World Economic Forum a few days ago:

If politicians remain in their corners, business leaders are stepping up — both to pressure elected leaders to re-engage in talks and to help invigorate a West Bank economy currently overwhelmingly dependent on foreign aid, perhaps in hopes of buying time for the political process.

A group of 300 Israeli and Palestinian business leaders announced a “Breaking the impasse” public-relations campaign intended to assure reluctant political leaders that a constituency exists for taking risks for peace. “We want to provide the politicians with the feeling that the biggest part of Israel is supporting negotiations,” said Yossi Vardi, an Israeli businessman who made a fortune in hi-tech. “The biggest risk is we begin to treat the conflict like a chronic disease, that it’s something that cannot be solved.”

Vardi was joined on the podium by Munib al-Masri, a West Bank tycoon whose published net worth is $1.6 billion. “From 1999 til now we haven’t moved,” al-Masri said. “We want to move.”

Kerry added American business leaders to the mix. Without naming names or venturing into detail, the diplomat described the broad outlines of an economic project that he said has been taking shape over the past six weeks on the West Bank, “a groundbreaking plan for the Palestinian economy” that he called “bigger, bolder and more ambitious than anything since Oslo 20 years ago.”

Kerry called the economic plan “more transformative than incremental, and different than anything we have tried before.” Kerry said the hope is “to mobilize $4 billion of investment” in the West Bank, in tourism, construction, light manufacturing, building materials and information technology, among other fields. “The preliminary results,” he said, “are stunning.” Without elaborating on the makeup of the expert “teams” he said were assembling the plans, Kerry said they estimate the GDP of the West Bank could be increased by 50% in three years and unemployment cut by two-thirds. Tourism could triple, he said, and construction could add 100,000 jobs.

Who could possibly be against such an initiative?

Oh, right - the beneficiaries.

Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad blasted the plan and the Palestinian Arab businessmen who support it, saying that it is simply a version of Netanyahu's "economic peace" plan and therefore should be rejected, as it would "have a negative impact on the Palestinian reality."

Another group of prominent Palestinian Arabs issued a statement calling for the "Palestinian people to reject this new attempt to deny our inalienable rights, first and foremost [the rights of] return and self-determination, against the billions of promised dollars. The biggest beneficiary would be the Occupying Power, which controls our economy and our trade. In the second place it will benefit a small handful of Palestinian capitalists who put profits above all that is ethical and nationalist, [instead they] accept the extension of the Zionist economy."

Of course, nowhere was this initiative linked to any other. But many Arabs believe fervently that if Israel benefits from anything, Arabs must be the losers - the zero-sum mentality that underlies so much thinking and that Westerners simply cannot understand.

However, the underlying theme that is absolutely consistent through decades of Jewish-Arab interaction is that the ultimate goal is to uproot the Jewish state from the Middle East, whether through war, through "peace agreements" where the Arab side gives up nothing concrete, through lawfare or through fake appeals to Western values like human rights that are utterly ignored in the Arab world. Any plan that results in Israel being perceived as more permanent will always be rejected by the Arabs, no matter how "moderate."

The West simply doesn't get it, because such a mindset is so alien to us. But for any real progress to be made, anyone who truly wants peace needs to acknowledge and work with how the other side really thinks, not how we all wish they think.

A number of Arab newspapers are reporting that members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan are buying large plots of land in the Jordan Valley, acting as middlemen for Hamas ownership of the land.

Is Hamas preparing for a possible fall of Jordan's government, so they could be positioned to attack Israel with rockets from the east?

Or are they trying to have another front ready in case of another Fatah-Hamas civil war?

Their map of "Palestine" in their logo doesn't include the parts of Palestine outside the British Mandate, so it doesn't appear that they are trying to try to acquire Palestinian land in Jordan.

Egyptian MP demands banning ballet

From Al Masry al Youm:

Salafi MPs made controversial statements during a Shura Council session Tuesday. The Shura Council is currently the sole legislative body in Egypt after the dissolution of the People’s Assembly in June.

An MP of the Salafi-oriented Nour Party called for banning ballet in Egypt, describing it as “the art of nudes,” while another MP from the Salafi-oriented Asala Party suggested disbanding the National Council for Women (NCW).

Nour Party member Gamal Hamed said yesterday that ballet performances at the Opera House spread immorality and obscenity to the people.

Hamed’s comments came during a meeting of the Shura Council's Culture, Information and Tourism Committee, in which the budget for the Opera House for the new fiscal year was being discussed.

Hamed clarified that he is not against the arts in general, but that he opposes "nudity" in the name of art or under the banner of cultural slogans.

I'm sure that a compromise can be reached, and Egypt will open the world's best Burqa Ballet:

The dreaded threaded open thread

It's been a while since I had an open thread, and I'm too busy today to post much more, so....here it is.

If it would be covered in batter and cut into tiny pieces, it could be a shredded threaded breaded dreaded thread.

Wednesday Links Part 2

From Ian:

Another scandalous session of the UNHRC By Anne Bayefsky

It is opening week of another session of the UN’s top human rights body, the UN Human Rights Council, and anti-Semitism will once again be promoted around the globe via an organization built on the ashes of the Jewish people and sworn to hatred’s eradication.

Fighting anti-Semitism with subtlety - and vision

Analyzing this soft anti-Semitism, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the former US ambassador to the UN and New York’s liberal Democratic Senator for 24 years, lamented decades ago that “anti-Semitism has become a unifying global ideology of the totalitarian Left. An intense propaganda campaign, begun in the Soviet Union in the 1970s... was designed to undermine the legitimacy of the State of Israel by explicitly compar[ing] Zionism to Nazism.”

PM lashes out at ‘anti-Semitic’ Israel critics

“What is fashionable today is to say: ‘Well, I don’t hate Jews – I just don’t think they should have a state’ or, effectively, that their state is an illegitimate one that doesn’t have a right to exist,” said Netanyahu, asserting that to deny the Jewish people’s right to a state was anti-Semitic.

France arrests six in connection to Toulouse shooting

French police on Tuesday arrested six men suspected of being accomplices of Islamist terrorist Mohammed Merah.
Four of the suspects were arrested in Toulouse, where last March the 23-year-old radical shot and killed a rabbi and three Jewish children outside their school, just days after killing three French soldiers

French university slammed for play featuring Goldberg, the greedy money dealer

She was reacting to a statement by Richard Prasquier, former president of the CRIF umbrella organization of French Jewish communities, who said a theater play entitled “Your Children’s Role in the Global Economic Recovery” was “grossly anti-Semitic.”
“How else would one describe a play in which a greedy money dealer called Goldberg presses a family to invest their life savings in repugnant causes,” Prasquier wrote. He added that the play included a reference to two Nazi-hunters named “Cohen 1 and Cohen 2,” who abandon their cause for cash.

Robert De Niro to visit Israel in June

Robert De Niro, considered one of the greatest American actors of all times, will arrive in Israel next month to attend the Israeli Presidential Conference and take part in President Shimon Peres' 90th birthday celebrations, Yedioth Ahronoth has learned.

Anything’s possible

Yityish “Titi” Aynaw was crowned this year as the first Ethiopian-born Miss Israel.
She was also picked by The Jerusalem Post last week as one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world. Aynaw joins a list that includes Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the US Treasury Secretary, the founder of Google, and supermodel Bar Rafaeli. The fact that Aynaw appears on this list is proof that immigrants are successfully integrating into Israeli society.

University of Haifa to mark Christian, Arab holidays

The University of Haifa will become the first Israeli university to give days off to the student body for Christian and Arab holidays.
The university senate voted Sunday to give off for Christmas; Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan; and Eid al-Adha, the Druze Feast of the Sacrifice, Haaretz reported. A special committee with student representation had recommended the action.

Righteous Gentile Honored Following Work of Kansas Teens

A walkway in Warsaw has been named in honor of a Polish woman who is credited with saving 2,5000 Jewish children during the Holocaust, after students in Kansas succeeded in bringing the story of the righteous gentile to the attention of Polish officials.

Jewish Writer Howard Jacobson Presented with a Pig at Literary Festival (VIDEO)

Jacobson, who is British, was presented with a pet pig at the Telegraph Hay Festival as part of his winnings for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction.
Speaking to a reporter, Jacobson said that as a Jew, he took no umbrage with the Festival’s choice of gift.

Top 12 new fruit and vegetables species developed in Israel

Since the first half of the 20th century, Israeli agricultural wizards have been partnering with Mother Nature to bring new fruit and vegetable varieties to the global market, from vividly colored squash to seedless peppers.
Every year, Israel exports more than $2 billion worth of produce – tomatoes are its fourth-largest commodity — and is among the world’s top developers of better-looking, better-tasting, disease-resistant and more nutritious varieties.

Qatar seeking to bolster trade ties with Israel

Coming to promote high-tech cooperation, Prince Khalifa Al-Thani’s upcoming visit will mark the first official stopover in Israel by Qatar royalty.

Controlling Emergency Relief from the Sheltered War Room

However, there is another side to air raid drills, and that is a practice session for the emergency services that would be needed in case the drills turned into reality.
Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel's national emergency rescue service, relied upon for ambulance and cardiac emergency needs, took the opportunity to practice their war routines very seriously. Arutz Sheva went to MDA's sheltered war emergency control room to see how the preparation for response to ABC - atomic, biological and chemical - attacks is organized.

IDF Blog: IDF Soldiers Assist Palestinian Farmers

Israel Daily Picture: Journal Article Abstract: The Zionist Message Hidden within Antique Pictures of the Holy Land

A 110-year-old trove of pictures taken by the Christian photographers of the American Colony in Jerusalem provides dramatic proof of thriving Jewish communities in Palestine.
Hundreds of pictures show the ancient Jewish community of Jerusalem’s Old City and the Jewish pioneers and builders of new towns and settlements in the Galilee and along the Mediterranean coastline. The American Colony photographers recorded Jewish holy sites, holiday scenes and customs, and they had a special reason for focusing their lenses on Yemenite Jews.

Iran's PressTV finds pro-Assad protesters in Tunisia

I found this report from Iran's PressTV to be amusing:

Tunisians have held a demonstration in the capital, Tunis, in protest against the presence of foreign-backed militants in Syria, Press TV reports.

Politicians, students and human rights activists as well as the family members of young men recruited by foreign-sponsored armed groups in Syria gathered in front of the foreign affairs ministry building to voice support for Damascus.

The protesters slammed foreign countries for “interfering” in Syria’s internal affairs.

“Qatar is the base for this Zionist project. It is financing terrorists while Saudi Arabia is arming them. They are killing innocent civilians in order to empower Israel and its allies,” a protester said.

The demonstrators also called for the resumption of diplomatic ties between Tunisia and Syria.

“The Zionist imperialistic project is clear. Israel and its allies want to divide the Muslim world and to occupy Syria, but this scenario will never happen. We call for the return of the Syrian ambassador to Tunisia,” the Popular Committee to Support Syria’s Khadija Belhaj said.

Another demonstrator asked the Syrian government to release his mentally-retarded son who was recruited by militants in the Arab country.

Demonstrators also expressed their support for resistance against Israel.

“Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria are the last line of resistance against the Zionist enemies. Israeli conspiracy will not break the will of freedom fighters…,” Tunisian scholar Mohamed Abdel Adhim said.

Those Qatari and Saudi Zionists strike again!

It is telling that Iran's major rhetorical weapon is still using anti-Israel feeling, clueless that most Arabs have higher priorities nowadays.

Notice also that Hamas is off Iran's list of "resistance" to Israel. It is only a matter of time before they are considered Zionist as well.

Assabeel and other Arabic media are reporting that a wealthy Saudi businessman has offered $10 million to anyone who killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Abdullah Mohammed Al Anzi, who is a supporter and financier of the Syrian rebels, has already reportedly donated some 30 million Saudi rials to the rebels. The reports say that Anzi offered the bounty for Nasrallah's head, and will even pay up if the killer is a Shiite.

I don't know if he would pay the IDF for assassinating Nasrallah. Some things are beyond the pale, after all.

Wednesday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The Problem of Muslim Leadership

I've seen this before. A Muslim terrorist slays a non-Muslim citizen in the West, and representatives of the Muslim community rush to dissociate themselves and their faith from the horror. After British soldier Lee Rigby was hacked to death last week in Woolwich in south London, Julie Siddiqi, representing the Islamic Society of Britain, quickly stepped before the microphones to attest that all good Muslims were "sickened" by the attack, "just like everyone else."
This happens every time. Muslim men wearing suits and ties, or women wearing stylish headscarves, are sent out to reassure the world that these attacks have no place in real Islam, that they are aberrations and corruptions of the true faith.

Dutch school stalls Shoah memorial to avoid vandalism

Last week, the De Telegraaf daily reported that the school dropped the plan following objections by local residents who said a Holocaust plaque might not be acceptable to some members of Schilderswijk’s sizable Muslim population, but Brasjen said he was not aware of such objections.

Barry Rubin: Can the U.S. Government Buy Moderation in the Middle East? No!

Can the Obama Administration turn radicals into moderates with money?
Way back in 1979, shortly after the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said that people in the West didn't understand revolutionary Islamism. "They think," he explained, "the revolution is all about the price of watermelons. It isn't." In other words, this is an ideological cause not a money-making attempt where people can be bribed.

Netanyahu: We Anticipate a Deterioration

Israel is gearing up for a deterioration in the regional situation, with a growing number of new threats facing the Jewish state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday, the AFP news agency reports.
Netanyahu made the comments as he watched an exercise simulating the response to a chemical attack on a residential neighborhood in Jerusalem as part of an annual civil defense drill.

92nd St. Y to Embrace Another Israel Hater: Alice Walker

In addition to lots of other anti-Israel activity, Alice Walker was front and center with Roger Waters as the two of them attempted to block Carnegie Hall from hosting the Israeli Philharmonic in October, 2012. Now Alice Walker is scheduled to appear at the 92nd Street Y on Thursday, May 30.

Guardian provides PR for failing BDS campaign against EU football championship in Israel

Whilst this campaign, like so many other abysmal attempts to isolate Israel by the anti-Zionist left, will certainly fail, it’s important to contextualize BDS in all of its manifestations as the political derivative of various Arab (and Soviet) led boycotts which have been used for many decades as weapons in the war against Israel. In its modern incarnation BDS represents the main component of the “Durban strategy” – adopted by the NGO Forum of the UN’s Durban Conference (2001) – adopted by pro-Palestinian groups to completely isolate Israel by promoting economic, academic, cultural and even (as in this case) sporting boycotts of Israel.

CAMERA: Financial Times Fantasy Air Strikes in Ramallah

You don't need to live in Ramallah, or travel weekly to Gaza, Hebron, Nablus and Jerusalem, to know that there have been no air strikes in Ramallah -- random or otherwise -- in something like 10 years. And with all due respect to Hill, his "good perspective" does not stretch back that far. According to the article, he and his wife arrived in Israel in May 2012, moved on to Ramallah sometime later. A photo caption at the top of the article (see screen capture below) repeats the false claim that there are air strikes in Ramallah.

3-Year-Old Critically Wounded in Rock Attack Released from Hospital

Three-year-old Adelle Biton of the West Bank Jewish community of Yakir, who was critically wounded in an Arab rock attack two-and-a-half months ago near the city of Ariel, was released from Schneider Children’s Hospital in Petach Tikva on Sunday, Israel International News reported. According to the report, her life is no longer in danger, though she is only partially conscious.

Abbas’ Adviser Calls Israel-PA High-Tech Meeting ‘Unacceptable’

The adviser, Sabri Saydam, told the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency that Palestinian Authority companies should reconsider their participation and “give priority to Palestinian interests.”
He added that the companies should not act independently of the PA union of high-tech firms.
What could be wrong about Israeli and PA high-tech companies talking to each other, especially since officials from 11 high-tech companies, including Microsoft and Cisco, are to attend?

Hamas to Abbas: ‘Abducting soldiers is at the heart of our culture’

The kidnapping of IDF soldiers is at the heart of Palestinian culture, a military Hamas spokesman said on Tuesday, responding to a speech by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in which Abbas called such abductions alien to Palestinian norms.

Report: Obama Asks for Plan for No-Fly Zone Over Syria

The White House has asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for a no-fly zone inside Syria that would be enforced by the U.S. and other countries such as France and Great Britain, two administration officials told The Daily Beast on Tuesday.

Report: 'Solid Proof' of Assad's Chemical Weapons Use

Reporters working with the French paper Le Monde may have solid proof that chemical weapons were used in Syria. The reporters spent several weeks with rebels on the front lines of Syria’s bloody civil war, and returned with samples of weapons used by President Bashar Assad’s army.

Syrian rebels near Israel border stole UN’s armored trucks

A Syrian rebel group that twice abducted United Nations peacekeepers near the Israeli border in the past three months stole several UN vehicles, a UN Peacekeeping spokesperson acknowledged to The Times of Israel — including at least two sophisticated armored personnel carriers.
An Israeli expert warned that the sophisticated UN-marked vehicles could be used in surprise border attacks on IDF targets.

BBC trumpets Hizballah narrative of ‘resistance’

The move by EU countries to finally designate Hizballah as a terrorist organization is, of course, both necessary and long overdue. Whilst Jonathan Marcus’ analysis of the reasons behind that shift may be useful, the fact that he is apparently unable to avoid the temptation of adopting and promoting the terrorist organisation’s own narrative with regard to the euphemism of “resistance” does not enhance BBC audience’s understanding of Hizballah or the basis for its designation.

Nasrallah's worn out rhetoric

Now, as Assad, the Iranians and Hezbollah slaughter Syrians and Palestinians, Nasrallah has become a farce whose time is over. The Sunni Arabs expect the West to eliminate Iran, Assad and Nasrallah for them. Israel must not intervene because there is a good chance that this axis will crumble on its own.