Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 10, 2013

6/10 Links Pt2: Consolidation or Disintegration in Syria, Glick at JPost Conf and Old spice Israeli men!

From Ian:

The political order artificially constructed in the Middle East by the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement is disintegrating. As the Syrian civil war rages, the borders drawn nearly a century ago are becoming blurred.
Syria is gradually splintering into three different entities: one region along the coast is loyal to the Alawite regime of President Bashar Assad; another yet-to- be-determined swath of territory might fall under the control of Sunni opposition forces; and a Kurdish enclave with ties to northern Iran and Kurdish groups in Turkey is also emerging. Perhaps this is the inevitable demise of a state populated by a Sunni majority that is ruled by an Alawite minority.

Dore Gold: The Arab World Fears the ‘Safavid’

In an interview on Al-Jazeera this past May, the commander of the Free Syrian Army, Brig. Gen. Salim Idris, explained that the diversion of Hezbollah forces from Lebanon to Syria to take part in the civil war was part of a “Safavid” plan for the Middle East region.
This past January, an article in the influential Lebanese daily As-Safir accused Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of receiving assistance from his “Safavid allies.” After the powerful Sunni Muslim leader, Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi, condemned Iran for its actions in Syria, the Muslim Scholars Association of Lebanon warned that the Sunni Arabs were facing “the spreading Safawi project.”

Caroline Glick Speaks at the 2013 Jerusalem Post Conference

Golda Meir: Israel would not withdraw to 1967 lines

Anyone who creates illusions among the Arabs that it is possible to impose an Arab- Israeli solution from the outside is pushing off peace, then-prime minister Golda Meir told German chancellor Willy Brandt 40 years ago, in words that Israeli leaders continue to say to European counterparts today.
The comment was contained in one of the 28 documents that the Israel State Archives released on Sunday to mark 40 years since Brandt’s historic visit to Israel, the first ever by a German chancellor. The visit took place from June 7-11, 1973, some five months before the Yom Kippur War.

'Occupation'? Not Necessarily

Israel has a very good case regarding its sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and should not accept its classification as “occupier,” say two participants in a conference on the subject.
Prof. Jeremy A. Rabkin of George Mason University and Prof. Avi Bell of the University of San Diego and Bar Ilan University weighed in on the matter.
Bar-Ilan University's Faculty of Law hosted the conference on “International Law and Israel,” the first in a series of annual conferences aimed at exploring the growing gap between international law as it is often applied to Israel vs. how it is understood in the rest of the world.

Gaining national sovereignty

Our achievements can largely be traced back to those six days in June. Those miraculous days, largely unprecedented in the annals of military warfare, not only gave us our ancient lands, but our long-term future.
Our victory and the liberated territories are eternally bound with our modern achievements and endurance. While the War of Independence in 1948 gave us a state, and the Suez Crisis in 1956 gave us independence, the 1967 war gave us sovereignty, and no state can consider its abjuration.
These were some of the best days of my life, and the most essential for our nation.

German cop orders rabbi to erase pics of attackers

A German police officer and security personnel ordered a rabbi to delete photographs of the suspects who engaged in an alleged violent anti-Semitic attack on him in a shopping center last week in Offenbach, a city near Frankfurt.
New details have since emerged, including that the youths shouted “Viva Palestine” during the attack on Rabbi Mendel Gurewitz.

Australia offers large reward for 1982 bombers of Israeli consulate

Police in Australia say they now have four primary suspects in the 1982 bombings of the Israeli Consulate and the Hakoah Club, and offered a $100,000 reward to help flush them out.
Detective Chief Superintendent Wayne Gordon, the commander of the terrorism investigation squad, told reporters Thursday in Sydney that he hoped the money would entice the public or the alleged perpetrators to come forward.

Dutch school to commemorate Holocaust despite vandalism concerns

A Christian school in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood has resumed a plan to unveil a plaque in memory of Holocaust victims, despite concerns of anti-Semitic vandalism.
The board of the Paul Kruger School in The Hague said last week that it would move ahead with the plan, which was shelved in recent years because of what school officials said were “concerns that youths would destroy the monument.”

Rambam Hospital: Saving Patients, Uniting People

David Ben-Yair added, "Here in our country and in the world, we need to understand the power we have to save people, all people. Donate. Help. We got another chance. Give it to others."
David Ben-Yair’s message runs true. Rambam has a history of providing medical care to diverse populations. Last fall, during Operation Cast Lead, Rambam, the second largest transplant center in Israel, took care of four seriously ill Gazan children who were awaiting kidney transplants despite Israel being subjected to continuous rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

Photo brings desperate hope for a Holocaust miracle

Picking up her mail about a year ago, 88-year-old Rose Goteiner stopped in her tracks upon seeing the photo on a newsletter cover.
Posing shortly after the Holocaust ended, 21 people were standing before a truck marked “American Joint Distribution Committee” — the relief organization later known as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. There were young children and teenagers, plus a few adults.
In the middle of the front row was a girl wearing a light-colored dress, hands at her sides and staring into the camera.
Goteiner believes it is her sister, Ruth Konigstein. And now Goteiner is hoping against hope that Ruth is still alive and that the sisters might miraculously reunite in their twilight years.

Middle East Gay Pride and LGBT Safety Exist Only in Israel

Sexual minorities are as unwelcome in the Middle East as are religious minorities. Just as the Muslim-majority countries of the Middle East are generally hostile to Christians, Jews, Bahá’ís, Zoroastrians, and other religious minorities, they are even less welcoming of non-heterosexuals. Except in Israel. And yet it is Israel — absurdly enough — that is consistently singled out for excoriation by human rights groups, college campus activists, and other ostensibly well-meaning individuals.

English, Israeli players give red card to racism

At the training grounds in Netanya, girls from a program promoting women’s soccer and empowerment in Ra’anana took the pitch alongside boys from Bnei Sakhnin’s youth department; Jewish and Arab players from neighborhood leagues played with members of Tel Sheva’s local Bedouin team; and players from both national teams ran with the kids on the field.

The woman turning wave technology into electricity

It was a twist of fate that not only introduced Inna Braverman to a passion for green energy, but reconnected her to Ukraine, where she spent the first four years of her life.
Braverman, 27, is the co-founder and marketing director of Eco Wave Power (EWP), an Israel-based company whose innovation in wave technology for the production of electricity has catapulted it to the top tier in the field worldwide.
And it is Braverman’s key role in the endeavor that led to her nomination as “Young Sustainability Executive of the Year” in the 2013 Business Green Leaders Awards, to be held in London on July 3.

CallApp is like global caller ID on speed

Mi ze? (“Who is this?”) asked Oded Volovitz, the CEO of CallApp, when ISRAEL21c cold-called him recently.
The tech tastemaker site TechCrunch touts CallApp as a disruptive technology, and if Volovitz has his way, his company will become the Wikipedia of phone calls.

Google reportedly acquiring Waze app for $1.3 billion

After dating at least three of the biggest tech companies in the world, it appeared Sunday night that Waze was finally getting the ring — one worth $1.3 billion, according to a report in the Israeli business newspaper Globes.
That’s the sum Google has reportedly agreed to pay for Waze, the Ra’anana-based crowdsourced driving and navigation app with 50 million users around the world. The figure is $300 million higher than Facebook reportedly offered to pay for the firm earlier this year.

Israeli men - Old spice

The Economist keeps making up facts to demonize Israel

Here is the beginning of a new Economist article:

BLESSED are the meek. While Israel’s 1.4m Muslim citizens vociferously champ for the right to return to the lands they fled in 1948, when Israel was created, the Christians, ten times fewer, have begun quietly tiptoeing back. In what was once the Galilee village of Maalul, Christians displaced to nearby Nazareth have carved a path through the forest of pine-trees that were planted to hide it, and have cleared the bracken to expose two churches, one Greek Orthodox, another Catholic, where they have begun celebrating festivals such as Easter.

Across the valley, in what was once the Palestinian village of Safuriya, renamed Tzipori by the Jews who moved in after the conquest of 1948, two Franciscan friars are renovating the dilapidated Crusader chapel of Qadissa Hanna, where they now say mass every Sunday. They hope to mend the roof to let a congregation regularly attend.

Is it true that 1.4 million Muslims were internally displaced in 1948 Israel?

Of course not. There weren't that many Muslims in all of Palestine. The Economist obviously means those who were displaced, plus their descendants.

Would that make the statement accurate?

Not in the least. Most Arabs who remained in Israel stayed in their own homes. In fact, out of the 160,000-170,000 Arabs in Israel after the 1948 war, less than one third - between 46,000 and 48,000 - fled their homes in the fighting.

Not all of them were Muslim, either, so the Economist is wrong by a factor of perhaps 4 in its breezy attempt to demonize Israel. Even their descendants are nowhere close to the 1.4 million The Economist claims. But 1.4 million sounds so much better than 48,000 who actually fled from their homes, doesn't it?

The Economist's biased reporting and inaccuracies don't end there, though.

Then the Economist decides that Safuriya is the real name of an Arab village, while the evil Jews renamed it Tzipori.

Tzipori was, obviously, the original name of the town. Josephus referred to it as Sepphoris from which it became Arabicized to Seffurieh many centuries later, after the Romans burned it to the ground in the wake of a Jewish revolt. (See Edward Robinson 1841 and Karl Baedeker's travel handbook 1894, plus Jewish Encyclopedia 1906.) Yet The Economist - which prides itself on its supposed accuracy - says that restoring an original name, one that never fell into disuse among Jews, is "renaming."

Remember how upset the Economist was the last time my readers asked them to uphold their own stated standards of accuracy? They referred to you as a "pro-settler group," which is in their world about the biggest insult one can hurl at another.

It would be a shame if we upset them even further by pointing out their latest errors and insisting that they correct them, wouldn't it?

(h/t Elliott)

Latest Hamas woes: Interior minister in trouble

Asharq al-Awsat (via PalPress) reports that there are increasing calls in Hamas to dismiss interior minister Fathi Hammad after a series of bungles, including a security officer killed during a drug raid last week.

Seven Gazans have been killed in the past two weeks, including the policeman, as Hamas security is seen to be acting recklessly. (Although the reports aren't clear, it seems that the policeman was killed by "frienndly fire." He is still honored as a "martyr" on the Al Qassam Brigades webpage, indicating that he was a member of that terror group as well.)

Hammad is also seen as responsible for travel restrictions in Hamas and unwillingness to take responsibility for the excesses of Hamas security. In addition, he is close with the Qassam Brigades and it is possible that he is pushing for closer ties to Hizballah, in contrast to the Haniyeh/Mashal "political wing." This indicates that the friction between the Qassam Brigades and the rest of Hamas is increasing.

Other criticisms of Hammad include his recent crackdown on Western-style clothing and hairstyles, on women smoking water pipes in public, and the escape of murderers (probably Qassam members) from prison.

6/10 Links Pt1: Incitement, Rejection, Hizbullah the Party of Satan and Gaza’s Tunnels of Terror

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Radicalization of Palestinians Kerry Has Not Heard About

Kerry, who is returning to the Middle East later this week in yet another bid to revive the "peace process," is probably unaware that Abbas, Rajoub and other Palestinian Authority leaders have radicalized Palestinians to a point where many do not want to hear about peace with Israel.

Meretz's 'Peace Partner' Rajoub: All of Israel is 'Occupied'

Palestinian Authority official Jibril Rajoub, who was touted last week as a “man of peace” by the leftist Meretz party, is continuing his incitement against Israel.
The Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) research organization exposed on Sunday yet another controversial statement by Rajoub, who this time said during an interview, which aired last week on an Arab sports television channel, that all of Israel is “occupied Palestine”.

Abbas rejected Netanyahu offer to free 50 pre-Oslo prisoners for new talks

Today, a senior Palestinian official told The Times of Israel, the Palestinians might agree to renew talks with Israel if Netanyahu releases all 107 of the pre-Oslo veterans still in jail, most of whom have blood on their hands.

State Compensates PA Arab Victims of Hamas Rocket Attack

Last week, reported Channel 10, the state transferred a sum of 1.7 million shekels to the families of the two Arabs. The money was transferred from the Ministry of Finance to the families through the Israeli lawyer who represents them. He transferred the money through a bank in New York, as direct transfers from Israel to Gaza are prohibited by law.

Arabs Cause Destruction in Hevron Fields

Arabs are the culprits behind the destruction Saturday of agricultural fields operated by the Jews of Hevron, say the local Jews. According to a resident of Hevron, Haim Bleicher, some of the Jews discovered the destruction, which included the uprooting of saplings, during their Sabbath family outings.

Gaza terror tunnel network branches out

The tunnels serve several purposes: As hiding places for terrorists, as storage locations for weapons and basic supplies, and as a place for long stays in times of emergency. They are camouflaged for deception during combat and ready for service in the scenario of an Israeli ground invasion. In recent years, some of the tunnels were converted for use as hidden rocket launchers. When necessary, a window opens and the launcher emerges, returning immediately inside its camouflaged window after shooting.

Rape Victim, Lost in Translation

Except the rape victim, a teenage girl, was not Palestinian. She was an Israeli Jew. The original Hebrew article did not make the false claim that the victim was Palestinian. The Hebrew states (CAMERA's translation):
“Yeshaya, a judge emeritus of a district court in Tel Aviv, said this week during a hearing that "some girls enjoy rape." He was the head of an appeals committee on national security which was ruling on the appeal of a female youth, now 19, who was raped six years ago by four Palestinians near the Hizma checkpoint.”

Guardian cartoonist draws upon antisemitic stereotypes in depicting Henry Kissinger

Now, here’s how Kissinger was depicted on June 8th by Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson, in a cartoon about the annual meeting of the Bilderberg Group in Watford.

Letter to a new BBC ME correspondent

This region is saturated with journalists writing nearly identical reports which conform to an unquestioned political narrative and news consumers have no use for yet more of the same. What they do need however is objective, factual, innovative reporting from people curious enough to look behind the clichés and the obvious. That is a big challenge. Whether you decide to take it on or not will depend upon the route you choose to take.

Did They Stay or Did They Go?

An article on Christian Arabs in The Economist begins with the following:
“While Israel’s 1.4m Muslim citizens vociferously champ for the right to return to the lands they fled in 1948, when Israel was created…”
Evidently someone at The Economist must be confused. For starters, 1.4 million Muslims did not flee Israel in 1948 (the number was half that) and if they had, they would not be citizens as The Economist described them.

Hezbollah losses laid bare after victory in Syrian town

Hezbollah has sent some 3,000 of its elite fighters - who were reportedly trained by ally Iran - into Syria, a Hezbollah source said. Most of them were stationed in al-Kussair.
Hezbollah has stayed silent on its casualties in Syria. But sources close to the group told dpa that more than 100 fighters had been killed and as many as 200 were wounded.

Arm rebels or risk genocide, British Jewish MP pleads

A British Jewish MP from the governing Conservative Party, who has met frequently with Bashar Assad, warned that the Syrian president is “willing to destroy Syria completely” in his bid to protect his regime and his family, and said that Syrian rebels forces must be supplied with the weaponry needed to defeat him and avert genocide.

Egypt's Qaradawi: Hizbullah 'Party of Satan'

The highly influential Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, retracted his previous defense of Hizbullah and Iran, in an interview with Al Arabiya aired on Sunday.

Cairo demonstrators join 'Global March to Jerusalem' VIDEO

Demonstrators in Cairo staged a "Global March to Jerusalem". The march coincides with the 46th anniversary of the 1967 War when Israel took the West Bank and the Gaza Strip

Iran says Arak reactor 1 step closer to completion

A heavy water reactor in Arak, Iran, came one step closer to completion after the installation of the “upper container,” according to a report by the Fars News Agency, a news site associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Iran’s apocalyptic policy makers

Two of the most lunatic and apocalyptic high-ranking figures in Iran are Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself and his now disgraced one-time protégé, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While Khamenei deeply believes his task is to prepare for Mahdi’s appearance, Ahmadinejad takes the apocalyptic narrative to an unprecedented level of lunacy and weirdness, even by the Islamic republic’s measures. He believes, for example, that the real reason behind the US invasion of Iraq was to search for the Hidden Imam and to postpone his appearance. Many observers believe Khamenei chose Ahmadinejad as president mainly because of their shared belief in this apocalyptic version of Islam.

EU chickens out, won't label Hizballah as terrorist

From Naharnet:

Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Avigdor Lieberman slammed the European Union on Monday for failing to label Hizbullah as a terrorist organization.

He labeled the move as “ultimate hypocrisy."

Israeli media quoted Lieberman as saying that Israel must convey to the EU that failure to blacklist Hizbullah in an upcoming discussion on the topic in two weeks "will make the EU irrelevant to us."

Last week, several EU governments expressed concern that a British request to add Hizbullah on the list of terrorist organizations would increase instability in the Middle East.

At a meeting in Brussels, the governments also questioned whether there was sufficient evidence to link Hizbullah to an attack that targeted Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last year.
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Britain has argued that Hizbullah should face EU sanctions over its alleged role in the bus bombing in the resort of Burgas that killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian driver.

Maariv adds that although Bulgaria's investigation in the Burgas bombing concluded that Hizballah was behind it, the new socialist Bulgarian government does not want to stand behind the report. Furthermore, it says that Bulgaria was actually the force behind the move, as it fears that accurately labeling Hizballah as terrorist would hurt Lebanese/EU relations.

This means that Gulf Arabs are more willing to label Hizballah to be a terror group than Europeans. While this is more a function of the extreme hatred that Sunnis have for Shiites, it is still astonishing that the EU is coddling a group whose ties to terror are impossible to ignore - and that Muslims who cheered 9/11 are more hawkish on Hezbollah terror than Europeans are.

Egyptian Islamist antisemitic sketch - MUST SEE

Wow - its like looking into a mirror!

The punchline of this Egyptian sketch is at the very end - after it is over:

Following are excerpts from an antisemitic sketch, which aired on Al-Hafez TV, an Egyptian Islamist channel, on June 6, 2013:

An actor portraying a stereotypical Jew delivers an address to the Zionists, with posters of Theodor Herzl and Lord Balfour in the background, as well as Jewish symbols.

Jewish character: Cry out, oh Zionism, Egypt has had a taste of freedom. Anyone who comes near the fire of the revolution will be burned by it. You know full well, oh Zionists and lackeys of the accursed regime, that if the situation in Egypt improves, Zionism will go down the drain.

What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for [the Arabs] to enter Tel Aviv or to return to Jerusalem? If the revolution succeeds, they will be able to reconcile between Fatah and Hamas. They will stop giving us natural gas, and leave us with nothing but the shirts on our backs. Oh Lord, foil this revolution.
[...]
We should make the Egyptians dance to the drumbeat of Zionism. The best ploy everywhere is to instigate strife between the crescent and the cross. If you want this to end in tears, ruin Fridays and Sundays. Are you waiting for the Egyptians to awaken? If you want to make things worse, torch mosques and churches. Instigate strife between Muslims and Christians, between Sufis and Salafis, between fans of the Al-Ahli and Zamalek soccer clubs. What are you waiting for?

He "blows" a trumpet
[...]
Are we waiting for them to turn against us? If you can't beat them, pit them one against the other. If you cannot rip the strong fabric of this flag, unravel it.

What does not rip should be unraveled: Muslims and Christians, Salafis and Wahhabis, fans of Zamalek and fans of Al-Ahli, even between men and women.

Divide and conquer, oh Zionists. We want to instigate strife, we will not sit idly by. I swear by the Talmud, by the synagogue, and my own eyes that [Mubarak's] National Democratic Party will return.
[...]
Be prepared! Divide and conquer! Divide and Conquer!
[...]
Al-Hafez TV studio

Al-Hafez TV host Atef Abd Al-Rashid: This is a good effort. It involves art, values, as well as important warnings.

This is not parody! This is an accurate video representation of hundreds of articles I've seen in Arabic, portraying how many Islamists really think. As laughable and insane as the skit is, it happens to be the worldview of tens of millions of Muslims - a very conservative estimate.

Syrian Islamists execute 15-year old for "blasphemy" for using common Syrian expression

From Al Jazeera:

Rebels fighting the Syrian regime have shot dead a 15-year-old boy in front of his parents and siblings after accusing him of blasphemy, an activist group said.

Al Jazeera was told that the boy, a street vendor selling coffee, was from the Shaar neighbourhood of the northern city of Aleppo. He has been named locally as Mohammad Kattaa.

Reports indicated that he was arguing with another boy on Saturday and used the name of Prophet Muhammad in a common phrase used by Syrians at which point he was picked up by fighters, beaten, and then shot.

"An unidentified Islamist rebel group shot dead a 15-year-old child who worked as a coffee seller in Aleppo, after they accused him of blasphemy," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Abdel Rahman said the rebel group likely comprised foreigners.

"They spoke classical Arabic, not Syrian dialect," he said.

"They shot the boy twice, once in the mouth, another in his neck, in front of his mother, his father and his siblings," he added.

It is thought Kattaa's customer was trying to get a free coffee and the boy responded "Even if Muhammad comes down, I will not give it as debt."

This was misinterpreted by the foreign fighters who took it for blasphemy.

Whose side are we on again?

(h/t Brenny)

Abbas urges everyone to vote - for "Arab Idol" TV contestant (updated)

Mahmoud Abbas, who is currently in the ninth year of his four year term, has finally embraced the idea of voting.

President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday urged Palestinian communities across the world to vote for Arab Idol contestant Mohammad Assaf, the first Palestinian to reach the final of the pan-Arab show.

Abbas instructed the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs to contact international Palestinian embassies in order to mobilize support for the Arab Idol star, and urged the Palestinian diaspora to vote for Assaf.

The president praised Assaf's creativity and powerful voice, calling him a son of Palestine who is bringing joy to his people.

Here's the contestant showing why Abbas cheers for him so enthusiastically, as PA TV has broadcast it numerous times since Assaf sang it first:

"Oh flying bird, circling round,
My eyes protect you and Allah keeps you safe
By Allah, oh traveling [bird], I burn with envy
My country Palestine is beautiful
Turn to Safed and then to Tiberias,
And send regards to the sea of Acre and Haifa
Don't forget Nazareth - the Arab fortress,
And tell Beit Shean about its people's return
By Allah, oh traveling [bird], I burn with envy
My country Palestine is beautiful."

Every single city he mentions is in Israel, not the territories.

This isn't a case of Palestinian Arab pride, but - as usual - an expression of their desire to destroy Israel.

Which is really what the entire purpose of Palestinian Arab "nationalism" is, and has been, since it started.

UPDATE: IDF Arabic spokesman Avichai Adraee on Facebook claims that Hamas is not happy with Assaf and demanded he quit the competition; also that Hamas is fining people who put his picture and posters about him in public.

Assaf denied this. I haven't verified one way or the other yet.

A convoy of medical equipment broke the Gaza "siege!"

From COGAT (Israel's Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories):

COGAT has coordinated the crossing of the Jordanian supply convoy bound for the Jordanian Hospital in the Gaza Strip.

This convoy includes 12 supply truckloads carrying medical equipment, medications and food for the hospital.

Yes, somehow 12 trucks filled with medical equipment managed to break the Israeli "siege" of Gaza, by going...through Israel, with its full cooperation.

No threats, no incidents, no one killed.

And, of course ..no media.

So the myth of the "siege" can remain the conventional wisdom.

Saudi paper blasts Hezbollah as "ruthless terrorist organization"

It is truly scary when Gulf Arabs have a better sense of how to characterize Hezbollah than Europeans do.

This op-ed from the Saudi Gazette last week is perhaps a tad overly optimistic, but at least it gets one thing right:

THERE will be those who wonder why the GCC did not declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization long ago. Hezbollah rode high in the opinion of some after it threw back the 2006 Israeli assault on southern Lebanon. However, the reality has always been that this is a group that is entirely preoccupied with its own agenda and has no interest in promoting the unity and reconstruction of Lebanon.

Indeed, in order to protect its mini-state within the country, the Hezbollah leadership has been prepared to act as an agent for Iran and its Syrian ally Bashar Al-Assad. In return for dancing to Tehran’s tune and seeking to carry out the disruptive interventions desired by the Iranian leadership, its militiamen have been armed and trained and the movement as a whole has seen many millions of Iranian dollars poured into its coffers.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah may, however, have now overreached himself. Some wonder if he has not become a victim of his own propaganda about a militant and victorious organization and really believes that his forces are actually capable of turning the tide of defeat that is engulfing the Assad regime. Not only this, but he clearly had little idea of how, by throwing in its lot with the hated Assad, Hezbollah would unmask itself in the Arab world as an Iranian cipher. Even the leadership of Hamas, with which Hezbollah once had close relations, recoiled in disgust when it threw in its lot with the Assad dictatorship.

In recognizing that Hezbollah, for all its attempts to portray itself as a responsible political movement, is in fact simply a terror group, the GCC member states have taken a bold and decisive step. No longer will Hezbollah be able to present itself convincingly as a champion of any Arab cause. No longer will it be able to pretend that its men are dying for the rest of the Arab world.

Indeed, by rushing to fight alongside Assad’s faltering army and Shabiha militiamen, this terror group has allied itself with a government that has sought and failed to terrorize its own people into obedience.

It must be wondered if some Hezbollah leaders do not already appreciate the considerable risks of rushing to the aid of a doomed regime. Once Assad is gone, there will be no easy supply line to Hezbollah-occupied areas of Lebanon. Nasrallah might have argued that it was for this very reason, plus the need to keep Iranian support, that its commanders simply had to send young Lebanese to Syria to fight and die alongside Assad’s forces. But it will prove to be a desperate move.

When Syria is free, Hezbollah will be alone and isolated in its south Lebanon territory. Its murderous and malign influence in the country will be challenged by moderate Lebanese, who are fed up with its strutting thugs and the obstruction of its leaders in the country’s delicate political process. The time is past when the Hezbollah leadership can pose as a champion of the Arab cause. Thanks to its slavish support for Iran and Syria, it has actually defined itself as an enemy of the Arab world in general and the Palestinian cause in particular.

Hezbollah needs to be seen for the ruthless terrorist organization that it really is and the GCC’s decision to call it such is surely a crucial nail in the terror group’s coffin.

(h/t Arsen)

Isaac Newton's Hebrew handwriting

In 2007, I wrote this post:

The Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem has a collection of Isaac Newton's non-scientific writings, many of them theological.

In a manuscript where Newton discussed aspects of the Temple in Jerusalem, we can see here where he actually writes in Hebrew in addition to English and Latin:

At the time I used an image host that no longer exists, so my picture of Newton's Hebrew handwriting (in this case, while discussing Maimonides) was lost. (I cannot edit posts more than 5000 posts ago, due to a strange Blogger glitch, so I am missing many old images.)

So here again is Isaac Newton's writing:

His vowelization of the Talmudic phrase which is today pronounced as "Tah Sh'ma" as "Tay Shayma" is interesting too.

6/9 Links: US denounces Falk, Egypt rejected Golda peace offer in 1973, Pals protest new PM

From Ian:

US Denounces Falk's 'Outrageous Abuse' of UN Position

“We welcome U.S. Ambassador Donahoe’s strong rejection and condemnation of Richard Falk’s latest report on the human rights situation of the Palestinians, and call on Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, U.N. High Commissioner Navi Pillay and member states of the Human Rights Council to denounce Falk and his outrageous abuse of the position he holds,” said ADL National Director Abraham Foxman.
“Mr. Falk’s attempt to paint himself as the victim of an Israeli government-sponsored defamation campaign, carried out by U.N. Watch, has echoes of classical anti-Semitic conspiracy theories,” asserted Foxman.

My prediction: Please help prove it wrong
A determined domestic thrust is under way to compress Israel back into its precarious pre-1967 frontiers, imperiling the viability of Jewish sovereignty.

It is important to note the metamorphosis that has taken place in the rationale of the two-state doctrine. For in contrast to the not too- distant past, withdrawal from the territories across the 1967 Green Line is now no longer presented – as least not, primarily – as a measure designed to attain a peace accord with the Palestinians. Rather, it is portrayed as a desired value in, and of, itself. Today, territorial retreat is being promoted as a standalone moral imperative which must be aspired to, no matter what the peace negotiations with the Palestinians achieve. Or don’t.

Golda Meir offered Egypt most of Sinai for peace before 1973 war

Several months before the 1973 Yom Kippur War, then-Israeli prime minister Golda Meir used West German diplomatic channels to offer Egypt most of the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for peace, according to documents released Sunday by the state archives.

Leftists won't Apologize over Gay Murder Smear

For four years, leftists blamed the religious sector, and especially hareidim, for the 2009 double murder in Tel Aviv's Barnoar club, which caters to homosexual youths. A gunman opened fire on youths at the club, killing a young man and a young woman, and leaving others crippled.
Now, police have arrested four people in connection with the attack. According to leaks, the police have solid evidence that the attack was carried out by a group of young men with criminal backgrounds in revenge for the alleged rape of their relative, a male youth, by the manager of the club.

BBC self-censors on gay rights in Middle East

The BBC ignored the event completely, with no reporting on the Middle East page of its website or in the ‘In Pictures’ features for that day or that week.
One brief reference to the event was, however, to be found at the bottom of a strangely headlined article concerning the arrest of suspects in the investigation into the shooting at the Bar Noar (not “Bar Noah” as stated in the BBC article) LGBT youth club in 2009 which – contrary to the headline’s implication (Four held over Israel ‘gay attack’)– appears at this stage not to have been motivated by anti-gay sentiment on the part of the perpetrators.

Alert Soldiers Thwart Stabbing in Hevron

Alert Border Police officers thwarted an attempted terrorist attack at the Tomb of the Patriarchs (Ma'arat Hamachpelah) in Hevron on Saturday night.

Palestinians protest against new PA prime minister

The first protest against Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah took place in Hebron on Saturday.
Dozens of Palestinians staged a sit-in-strike in the center of the city in protest of Hamdallah’s failure to appoint more than one minister from Hebron to his new government, which was sworn in before PA President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday.

UN Official: Syrian Army Asked IDF Not to Hit its Tanks in the Golan

"The Government of Israel Liaison Officer informed UNDOF that the IDF had provided emergency medical treatment to a total of 16 armed members of the opposition."

‘Despite Qusair victory, Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis showing cracks’

The Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis is showing cracks, but until the Syrian rebels unite and receive a steady supply of weapons, Syrian President Bashar Assad has high chances of survival, the former head of the IDF Intelligence Directorate, Amos Yadlin, said Saturday.
“This development [cracks in the axis] is beneficial for Israel, but the price is sporadic terrorist activity in the Golan Heights,” Yadlin said, during a Channel 2 interview.

German report: Berlin a hub of Hezbollah activity

Hezbollah has 950 members in Germany, including 250 in the capital, a reported released by Berlin’s domestic intelligence agency released last week showed.
A Hezbollah-controlled orphans organization in Lower Saxony state is used to raise money for the families of suicide bombers targeting Israelis, the 140-page German-language report examined by The Jerusalem Post also showed.

Erdogan rules out early elections as thousands defy call to end protest

Tens of thousands of people thronged Istanbul’s Taksim Square Saturday, and thousands more turned out in central Ankara as protests that have presented Turkey’s prime minister with the first serious challenge to his leadership entered their second week.
Hours earlier, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s governing party dismissed the protests, which have spread across the country, as an opposition attempt to topple the government, and rejected calls for early elections.

Weeklong protests crack Turkey’s international image

A violent police crackdown on a small environmental sit-in at Istanbul’s central Taksim Square has done more than spawn a week of protests across the country. It has left cracks in the shiny international image of a tolerant and deeply democratic Turkey.
It might even have rattled the nation’s grand ambitions on the world stage, which include a bid to host the 2020 Olympics and its long-standing aim to join the European Union.

Arab boycott of Lebanese movie filmed in Israel is the ‘height of obscenity’

When bestselling Algerian writer Mohammed Moulessehoul discovered the Arab League had asked its 22 member states to boycott the award-winning film based on his book, “The Attack,” he says, he wasn’t at all surprised.
To the 58-year-old, who publishes under the pen name Yasmina Khadra, the Arab League’s attitude is emblematic of “how ridiculous the Arabic political elite can be.”

Lebanese Film Director Ziad Dweiri/Doueiri (“The Attack”) Defends His Visit to Israel: Boycott Harms Us, Not Israel

Omri Casspi, ‘Jewish Jordan’ Partner on Basketball Camps to Inspire Youths On and Off the Court

Before last year, basketball camps for Jewish youths never had an instructor quite like Omri Casspi, a forward for the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Cleveland Cavaliers and the first Israeli-born player in NBA history.

Tel Aviv U. helps discover new planet

“This is the first time that this aspect of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity has been used to discover a planet,” said Mazeh. “We have been searching for this elusive effect for more than two years, and we finally found a planet… It is a dream come true.”

For Ethiopia-born Miss Israel, an emotional return

Israel’s first Ethiopian-born beauty queen Yityish Titi Aynaw made an emotional return trip this week to her native homeland, to accompany extended members of her family on their aliyah journey to Israel.
Aynaw, 21, from Netanya, was chosen Miss Israel 2013 in February. She had left Ethiopia with members of her immediate family at age 10.

Russia detains 300 Muslim worshippers. Just imagine if Israel had done this!

Ya Libnan reports:

In a new crackdown on Russian Muslims, Moscow police have detained more than 300 worshippers after rounding them up during prayer at a Muslim prayer room in the Russian capital.

“The situation in the North Caucasus should be kept under particular control,” President Vladimir Putin told a meeting of security force officers, Reuters reported on Friday, June 7.
“The policy in the fight against corruption, crime and the insurgency has to be carried out harshly and consistently.”

In a raid carried on Friday, the forces detained 300 Muslims, including 170 foreigners, without disclosing reasons behind their arrest.

The forces, led by Federal Security Service (FSB), also confiscated Islamic literature to check its content.

Friday’s raid is the third targeting Muslim places of worship in Moscow or St Petersburg this year.

I have no idea whether the detainees were planning something dangerous while pretending to pray, or if the Russian security forces are simply targeting Muslims.

But if Israel had done anything close to this, there would be multiple UN sessions announced by now, along with outraged op-eds and a firestorm on Twitter.

Umm al-Khair, a Saudi preacher, went into classic Islamic projection mode during his Friday sermon,
reported in Saudi daily Al-Madina.

Al-Khair said that Jews who are most hostile of all peoples to the Islamic nation since Allah sent the Prophet Muhammad.

According to the cleric, it is not permissible for a Muslim to hide the fact that the Jews are most hostile to them, and in second place are the Christians - who are behind the Jews, and who are paying the Jews, and are now seeking to change the map of the Muslim world with the help of the Magi idolaters and their slaves.

We are truly honored that such a high percentages of the brains of Muslim clerics are obsessed with Jews.