Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Hasby Award: Best Watchdog (Arabic media or NGOs)

The nominees for Best Watchdog - Arabic Media or NGOs are:

MEMRI
Palestinian Media Watch

NGO Monitor

UN Watch

And the winner is...

01/28 Links Pt1: Uncensored Scarlett Johansson Advert, Why the A-list shuns BDS

From Ian:

Stand With Us: Why the A-list shuns BDS

Yes, they may co-opt D-List celebs like Roger Waters to pressure others in the industry to join BDS. Thankfully, though, A-Listers and those around them are getting better acquainted with BDS, and when they see the antisemitism that surrounds the movement, including the giant pig with a Star of David on it hoisted at the concert of Roger Waters, they run a mile.
And so to Scarlett Johansson’s classy and appropriate response to BDS: boycotts won’t bring peace, but cooperation, such as in companies like Sodastream who employ Arabs and Jews, Palestinians and Israelis to work together side by side with equal pay and benefits, is the road to peace. With her proud representation of the fizzy drinks machine-maker, Scarlett Johansson becomes yet another A-Lister to shun BDS and back peaceful cooperation.
I’ll drink to that.

BANNED Superbowl Scarlett Johansson SodaStream Sorry, Coke and Pepsi.

Demonizing Israel; Demonizing ScarJo

In the meantime, Johansson deserves applause for being willing to take the heat for standing up for SodaStream. The attack on SodaStream shows the true face of the BDS movement. They don’t care how good the company is for the regional economy or even the Palestinians who work there. They don’t care that the “settlement” in which it exists would almost certainly remain within Israel if a peace treaty with the Palestinians were to be signed. All they care about is demonizing the very existence of the Jews who live there. As the abuse from Aslan and the rest of the BDS movement shows, that same demonization will apply to anyone, even an Obama-supporting politically correct liberal Democrat like Johansson. Though this may not have been a fight that she would have chosen to engage in, Johansson must now show that she and others prepared to stand with Israel won’t be intimidated.(h/t NormanF)

From Palestinian Media Watch:

Issa Abd Rabbo is one of the terrorist murderers that Israel was forced to release from prison in order for PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to agree to start negotiations with Israel. Palestinian Media Watch reported that the day Abd Rabbo was released, Mahmoud Abbas called him a "hero" and raised his hand victoriously.

Until his release, Issa Abd Rabbo was serving two life sentences for killing two Israeli university students, Ron Levi and Revital Seri, who were hiking south of Jerusalem on Oct. 22, 1984. At gun point he tied them up, put bags over their heads and then shot and murdered both.

Abbas' "hero" has now given an interview to the independent Palestinian news agency Ma'an on its weekly TV program Lovers' Tales, which interviews released prisoners.

Yes...."Lover's Tales."

Issa Abd Rabbo: "There was supposed to be a military operation shooting at a bus transporting Israeli soldiers... I was surprised when on my way to the area, I waited, waited and waited and the bus didn't come. I was forced to carry out an operation on my own, an improvisation, I took it upon myself. An Israeli car approached, with two in it. I said, here's a chance and I don't want to return empty-handed. They left the car... and walked towards the valley, and sat down under a pine tree. I went down to them. Of course I was masked and was carrying a rifle. He asked me: Are you a guard here? I told him: 'No, I'm in my home.' I told him: 'You are not allowed here. This is our land and our country. You stole it and occupied our land and I'm going to act against you.'

They were surprised by what I told them. I tied them up of course and then sentenced them to death by shooting, in the name of the revolution. I shot them, one bullet each, and went [hiding] in the mountains... I went to my aunt and told her: 'We have avenged Muhammad's blood.'"

Host: "She is the mother of Martyr Muhammad Abd Rabbo."

Issa Abd Rabbo: "I told her: 'Instead of one, we got two.' She cried out in joy."

[Independent Palestinian news agency Ma'an TV, Jan. 9, 2014]

Subhuman filth like Abd Rabbo and those who cheer him don't deserve a state. They don't even deserve to live.

Ma'an Network, which puts on a TV show meant to turn murderers into heroes, is funded by:

Perhaps people should ask the EU, UNESCO, the UNDP, the governments of Denmark and the Netherlands and the UK why they think it is useful to fund a TV program that celebrates the murder of Jews.

Kinder, gentler Iran threatens US again

From IRNA:

Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari lashed out at US Secretary of State John Kerryˈs recent war rhetoric against Iran.

Major General Jafariˈs remarks came in reaction to Kerry who said on January 23 that “the military option that is available to the United States is ready and prepared to do what it would have to do” if Iran enriches uranium beyond five percent purity.

ˈYou could never understand the extent of the invasive capacity of the Islamic Republic of Iran,ˈ Major General Jafari said on Saturday.

ˈMr. Kerry must know that direct battle with the US is the biggest dream of pious and revolutionary people across the world. Your threats offer our revolutionary people the best opportunity,” said Jafari.

He added that “wise politicians” in the United States are unlikely to let the “ridiculous military option” remain on the table.

Jafari recommended Kerry to stop repeating “bankrupt strategies like the use of military option” in order to avoid the accelerated collapse of the US civilization.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader was saying...pretty much the same thing.

Our top officials should pay attention to what [the West] is saying, because they smile and say that they are interested in negotiations, but at the same time, they say that all options are on the table.

Well, what exactly are these options? What kind of action – or mistake – could they possibly take against Iran? If they are serious, they should exercise some self-restraint. All those people who utter this kind of nonsense must be stopped.

Along comes some wealthy American statesman, who makes a mistake and says: "We should drop a nuclear bomb on some Iranian desert." He makes threats and so on. Such a man should be punched in the mouth and crushed!

(h/t Yoel)

If you put together everything that every "pro-Palestinian "activist has ever done for actual, real Palestinians....

If you tally all the specific things that Omar Barghouti and Max Blumenthal and Philip Weiss and Ali Abuminah and Greta Berlin and Ben White and every single member of Free Gaza, Mondoweiss, Electronic Intifada, the BDS Movement, Students for Justice in Palestine, the ISM and others have done to improve the daily lives of Palestinian Arabs over the past twenty years....

You would not approach what Sodastream does for Palestinian Arab families every single day.

Which of these hypocrites are trying to build a factory in Ramallah or Nablus or Jericho that employs 900 workers and pays them good wages? Who among them is working to increase Palestinian exports of goods and services to the huge Arab markets? Who among them is working to create a high-tech Palestinian hub where they could charge Arab nations for their remote services - industries that require little space and can pay well?

Who among them gives a damn about the Palestinians they claim to work on behalf of?

They don't.

To them, Palestinians are props for their anti-Israel stunts. They are nothing more than pawns. Any Arab that cannot be used as ammunition against Israel is ignored or derided as a collaborator. Any happy Arab employee who works in Mishor Adumin or Atarot Industrial Park is an enemy of their cause.

You know how many stories about BDS are in Arabic media? Practically none. Because Arabs aren't being helped one bit by the vitriolic campaign against an Israeli company that does more for Arabs than every "pro-Palestinian" activist combined.

File photo

AFP reports:

Suspected militants blew up a pipeline in Egypt's Sinai that transports gas to Jordan late Monday in the third such attack in less than a month, security officials said.

The officials said there were no immediate reports of injuries, but witnesses said thick flames rose into the sky from the spot where the pipeline was struck. Witnesses also said that ambulances had rushed to the scene.

Egyptian security officials said the pipeline was blown up in an area called Muqtadiba, south of Al-Arish.

On 17 January and 31 December, militants had blown up a section of a pipeline supplying an industrial area in the restive Sinai peninsula.

As far as I can tell, this is the first attack in years that was purely against the Jordan pipeline.

In the past, it was assumed that the attacks on the pipeline to Israel and Jordan were meant purely for Israel and hurting the Arabs in Jordan was a necessary byproduct of their hate for the Jewish state. Now that the target is Jordan itself, it could mean a few things.

Maybe the jihadists hate Jordan for its anti-Islamist policies.

Maybe the jihadists were targeting an internal pipeline to hurt the Egyptian government and made a mistake.

Or maybe, just maybe, these jihadists are addicted to violence itself. When they can direct their anger at Jews they are happy to claim that they are doing it for righteous reasons, but when they can't target Israel they have to attack anything that does not meet their standards of Islam.

Maybe their anger and desire to destroy things has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the type of Islam that they have been taught all their lives.

Which means that nothing can ever make the Islamists happy.

Which is something that Westerners simply cannot wrap their heads around.

Hasby Award: Best Pro-Israel Commentator Exclusive to Israel/ME

The nominees for the Hasby Award for Best Pro-Israel Commentator Exclusive to Israel/ME are:

Sarah Honig

And the winner is....

01/27 Links Pt2: ‘Never again’ imperatives, The myth of the Arab bystander to the Holocaust

From Ian:

JPost Ed: ‘Never again’ imperatives

On International Holocaust Day, which is being commemorated today, we are asked not just to remember. We are also asked to learn lessons from that dark period in history.
One lesson which tends to be emphasized in Israel and among world Jewry is that anti-Semitism is essentially a terminal moral disease of humanity and that Jews must never again rely solely on the kindness of others. They must instead take responsibility for their own destiny.
Much of Zionism’s moral force is derived from this “never again” imperative. Never again must the Jewish people allow itself to be in a state of powerlessness. This awareness of our potential vulnerability drives our perception of the Iranian threat and our apprehensions regarding a territorial compromise with the Palestinians.

To murder 6 million people, the Nazis showed us, you don’t even need fanatics

The Holocaust also has a clear meaning for the Jews, its paradigmatic victims: as a dismayingly vast proof that there is no safety in European pluralism, culture or “civilization,” in high-minded talk of humanism, individualism and international community, or in calming analyses that downplay future threats.
These are all important reflections on the “lessons” and “meaning” of Auschwitz, but they constitute too much of our public conversation about it, almost as though we are willing to discuss any aspect of that event except the choking, shivering bodies of the real-life gas chamber. Auschwitz too often serves as a bludgeon for our social or political agendas, an instrument to express our own fears and passions. There is a vague consensus that Auschwitz reflects something ultimate and untouchable, and so we immediately set about sullying it.

Exposing the myth of the Arab bystander to the Holocaust

Many of the current leadership in the Middle East owe their power base to the emergence of their predecessors during those dark times. The Palestinians still revere Husseini and many of terrorist groups are named after groups he founded.
The myth that the Arabs were innocent bystanders to the Nazi Holocaust is unfortunately widely accepted at face value. It is about time that this capricious fallacy was exposed, not just out of respect to those Jews who suffered at the hands of the Nazis and their allies everywhere, but also to deconstruct the simplistic notions used to explain the history of the conflict, especially that the Arabs were not responsible for the suffering that resulted from their continued incalcitrance.

Work accident!

An 18 year old man, Ashraf Zahir Faraj Allah, died Sunday night when he mishandled a bomb in the Bureij camp in Gaza.

Ma'an reports:

A Palestinian teenager died Monday from wounds sustained a day earlier in an explosion in al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Ashraf Thahir Muhammad Farajallah, 18, died after being injured late Sunday in an "internal" explosion in the camp, Gaza medical official Ashraf al-Qidra said, without providing further details.

Farajallah was taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

They are calling him a martyr.

It is unclear which, if any, terrorist group he belonged to.

So it turns out that the Jews have been puppets of the Sunnis all along?

From Iran's unintentional comedy network, PressTV:

KSA behind Israel plans to replace al-Aqsa with temple: Analyst

Saudi Arabia is supporting the Israeli regime in its plan to replace the holy al-Aqsa Mosque with a temple, an analyst tells Press TV in an interview.

Saab Shaath was talking to Press TV on Saturday...

Shaath said Saudi Arabia has always provided support for the Zionist regime’s anti-Palestinian moves and “offered under-the-table support for Israel in their alliance against Syria.”

“The only thing, which will stop the Israelis from going that far, is the Arab-Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon,” he said.

Shaath said Israel intends to “secure as much as they can from territories in the West Bank.”

“And they will go as far as the destruction of the existing al-Aqsa Mosque since now they see the Arabic masses got used to the desecration of religious sites as we notice in Syria by the Takfiri groups and the Arab masses have been shut enough to keep it quiet, that’s what they believe,” he added.

Al-Aqsa Mosque is considered the third holiest site in the Muslim world. [Not to Shiites! - EoZ]

Future headlines on PressTV:

Israel only exists because of money being paid to it directly from Gulf states!
Sunni Islam is really Judaism!
Mecca is really being leased from the Jews who lived there!
The Saudi King is an ultra-orthodox rabbi!
Kuwait's real name is "Jewait"!

(h/t Yisrael Medad)

Hasby Award: Best Mainstream Media Watchdog

The week-long online Hasby awards continue, with a popular category:

BEST MAINSTREAM MEDIA WATCHDOG

CAMERA

BBC Watch

CiF Watch

Mideast Media Sampler at Legal Insurrection

Huffington Post Monitor

And the winner is:

01/27 Links Pt1: Sharon’s Legacy Haunts Obama And Kerry, Lancet M.E. Map erases Israel

From Ian:

David Singer: Sharon’s Legacy Haunts Obama And Kerry

Any attempt by Obama and Kerry to resile from or circumvent Bush’s Congress-endorsed commitments to Sharon will torpedo any prospects for success in the current negotiations – leaving Obama and Kerry with no one but themselves to blame for bringing the current negotiations to an ignominious end.
The idea that any American President would not consider himself bound by the written commitments of a former President – as endorsed by Congress – would undermine America’s very democratic foundations.
Disavowing the Bush commitments would prejudice the integrity of American diplomacy world wide – ensuring any political decisions by the current administration would not be worth the paper they are written on.
Sharon has left behind a bitter pill – which Obama and Kerry must reluctantly swallow.

Ya'alon: Palestinians see destruction of Jews as realistic possibility

Speaking at an event to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the defense minister lashed out at the Palestinian Authority for claiming to seek peace on one hand yet encouraging "efforts to boycott Israel."
"In the Palestinian Authority, whose leadership presents itself as one that is striving to reach an agreement with us, the brutal, insufferable incitement against the State of Israel and the Jewish people continues," Ya'alon said.
"This incitement is manifest in the education system and the media, where the hatred and poison ought to be an affront to any human," he said. "It is creating another generation of Palestinian children who are taught to look at the expulsion and destruction of the Jews as a realistic possibility instead of educating them toward a culture of peace and co-existence alongside Israel."

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians' New Enemy: Tzipi Livni

This Palestinian escalation of rhetoric does not bode well for the future of the peace talks. The Palestinians were first unhappy with Kerry, whom they accused of being biased in favor of Israel. Now they are angry with Livni for daring to criticize Abbas. In the end, Israel and the U.S. will be blamed for the failure of the peace process. This is exactly what happened after the botched Camp David summit in 2000, when Arafat held Israel and the U.S. fully responsible for the failure of the peace process. A few weeks later, the Second Intifada erupted. The same scenario is likely to repeat itself unless the Palestinian Authority leadership stops putting all the blame on others.

Holocaust Memorial Day shenanigans in Europe

Here is the entire statement put out by the EU's Catherine Ashton on the occasion of Holocaust Memorial Day:

Today the international community remembers the victims of the Holocaust. We honour every one of those brutally murdered in the darkest period of European history. We also want to pay a special tribute to all those who acted with courage and sacrifice to protect their fellow citizens against persecution.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, we must keep alive the memory of this tragedy. It is an occasion to remind us all of the need to continue fighting prejudice and racism in our own time. We must remain vigilant against the dangers of hate speech and redouble our commitment to prevent any form of intolerance. The respect of human rights and diversity lies at the heart of what the European Union stands for.

Can anyone find the word that Ashton manages to avoid using?

Oh, yeah - the victims.

By generalizing the Holocaust into a vague historical example of prejudice against some unnamed groups, Ashton is trivializing it. Most cases of prejudice and racism don't end up with the victims ashes going up chimneys. There is a reason the term "genocide" was coined - to distinguish it from ordinary racism. Ashton apparently can't bring herself to think about that. It's a lesson for us, the victims will be honored, the heroes are great, hate speech is bad (except for Arab hate speech against Jews, which the EU cannot criticize), rah rah rah, let's celebrate.

This story, from Stand For Peace, is unbelievable:

Hassan Farooq is a a “senior member” of the Newham Dawah Team, an East London-based organisation which attempts to spread the message of Islam. Newham Dawah Team is part of the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA) Network, and its officials regularly liaise with iERA officials such as Abdurraheem Green. The iERA is an extremist Salafi group, some of whose officials have been banned from the UK. Abdurraheem Green talks of a Jewish “stench” and advocates the killing of homosexuals.

Hassan Farooq was chosen to speak at the 2013 Holocaust Memorial Day event in City Hall, in front of politicians and London officials, including Jennette Arnold AM, Mayor of London Boris Johnson and the former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

Was Hassan Farooq a worthy speaker?
After taking a look at Farooq’s social media postings, it would seem most definitely not:

Yes, an admirer of Hitler spoke on Holocaust Memorial Day.

And there's more.

This happened yesterday.

A protest march against French President Francois Hollande held in Paris on Sunday took an ugly anti-Semitic turn, ending with clashes between police and protesters.

According to Agence France-Presse, the "Day of Anger" march was organized by a group of some 50 small and mainly right-wing organizations, which were able to bring out several thousand people. Organizers claimed 120,000 people participated in the march, but Paris police sources pegged the number much lower, at approximately 17,000.

According to Israel Radio, demonstrators soon departed from shouting anti-Hollande slogans in favor of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli chats, such as "Jews go home," and "Jews, France is not your country."

Some used the "quenelle" anti-Semitic gesture, which was invented by controversial comic Dieudonné M'bala M'bala.

According to the report, some chanted the anthem of the Nazi collaborators during World War II, shortly before they began clashing with security forces, who used tear gas to disperse several hundred youths who lobbed police with bottles, fireworks, iron bars and dustbins.

While Europeans like Ashton mouth words of remembering the Holocaust's lessons, it appears that Europeans haven't learned a thing.

(h/t Orna, Sam, Yisrael M)

PalArab "journalists" say Israel looking for excuses to attack mosques

A few days ago, Israeli media (undoubtedly given a briefing by the IDF) reported that Hamas is hard at work on getting ready for the next war:

Hamas is increasingly using sensitive civilian facilities in Gaza to protect its military assets from being targeted by Israel, ahead of a further round of conflict. It is also digging dozens of “terror tunnels” into Israel, The Times of Israel has learned.

Gaza’s Islamist rulers have been placing rocket launching pads next to water reservoirs, and attaching reconnaissance cameras to mosque minarets and water towers, The Times of Israel was told, in a bid to avoid IAF airstrikes during an upcoming round of confrontation.

The response from the Forum of Palestinian Journalists is interesting:

The forum of Palestinian journalists (FPJ) warned against the gravity of the media campaign that was launched recently by the Israeli occupation to prepare the world's public opinion to accept its justifications to bomb civilian areas and structures in any intended war on the Gaza Strip.

In a press release on Sunday, the forum said that this campaign included alleged press remarks made by Israeli military officials and unnamed sources, amplifying the military capability of the Palestinian resistance and claiming that it uses mosque minarets to set up surveillance cameras to monitor the movement of the Israeli army in border areas.

The resistance is also propagated to cache its rockets and weapons in places beneath residential buildings and use civilian areas for its resistance activities, among other claims intended to justify Israel's intents to bomb mosques, populated areas and civilians.

Of course Israel wants to destroy mosques! That's why there are so many mosques in, um, Israel!

Hamas had of course used mosques for storing weapons and shooting at Israelis. Here's a video of weapons found in a mosque in 2009:

This video shows massive secondary explosions when the IDF hit an arms depot hidden in a mosque:

Hamas (through the FPJ) is trying to make sure that their weapons mosques are off-limits in any future war. They never explained these videos, though.

Who says there is no unity between Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad?

The three terror groups held a memorial service over the weekend for an Islamic Jihad terrorist who was killed by the IDF in the house of a Hamas member in Jenin in December.

Masked gunmen from Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades, Islamic Jihad's Al Quds Brigades and Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades all eulogized Rafie al Saadi and fired weapons in the air.

According to Palestine Today, this is the first public appearance of armed Hamas terrorists in the West Bank in years.

All three terror groups chanted slogans for "unity of the Palestinian factions in the face of the Zionist entity."

Islamic Jihad's representative said that "the blood of the martyr al-Saadi will remain fuel for resistance, and the Jenin refugee camp will remain a thorn in the throat of the occupation."

Hamas' official at the ceremony said "resistance is the only way to liberate Palestine and avenge the martyrs."

This was the first public appearance of all the major terrorist groups in the West Bank since 2007, and they fired shots in the air together.