Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Hamas complains UNRWA curriculum alienates aspiring terrorists

The Hamas Ministry of Education has issued a statement strongly criticizing UNRWA's curriculum for schools in Gaza, especially its unit on human rights, saying that it does not accurately reflect the Palestinian Arab culture of terrorism.

The statement says "We condemn the UNRWA printing and distribution of curricula in schools without the knowledge and without the approval of the ministry." and added that these approaches "do not fit with the culture of Palestinian society, and aims to brainwash Palestinian students and make them accept the Israeli occupation."

"This UNRWA curriculum intends to wipe out the culture of generations of Palestinian students from their homeland and their cause and [instead] entrench a culture of peaceful resistance as a solution to the conflict, and alienate students from the resistance."

It went on to accuse UNRWA's curriculum of "serious and dangerous irregularities affecting Palestinian culture and Islamic values and components of society in general." and it demanded that UNRWA stop teaching this curriculum and to withdraw its books from schools. Hamas also called on all teachers to reject "the destructive teaching of these books, and not to make the themselves a tool for polluting the minds of our dear students."

The Hamas ministry stressed that UNRWA is obliged to obtain approval from the Ministry of Education for its curriculum. A source told Anatolia News Agency that UNRWA's curriculum includes concepts that are "unacceptable," such as the right of men and women to marry from other religions, which contrasts with the teachings of Islamic law which prohibits women from marrying non-Muslims. Also problematic was the omission of Britain's responsibility for the plight of the loss of Palestine in 1948, and its condemnation of terrorism against Israel.

Hamas created its own curriculum this year, and UNRWA traditionally uses the curriculum of the host country.

Hamas' new curriculum includes paramilitary training for high school students.

UNRWA responded saying that it had worked with Hamas to help design the curriculum and it stressed that it was very sensitive to Palestinian Arab culture. UNRWA categorically denied that is curriculum was "against the heritage and values of our people."

UNRWA schools in Gaza were already teaching jihad, although they took down the websites that proved it after I exposed them. They have never commented on that story.

The UNRWA human rights curriculum has been targeted by Palestinian Arabs before, and there was special vitriol when there were rumors that UNRWA would mention the Holocaust. UNRWA denied that it would ever mention that Jews suffered in World War II in its schools.

"Jews invented vaccines to weaken Muslims"

From MEMRI:

An article published by Mahnama Banat-e-Aisha, an Urdu-language magazine for Pakistani women, called the polio eradication campaign a Jewish conspiracy furthered by international organizations. The article was titled "Polio: Disease, Or Dangerous Jewish Conspiracy?" It alleged that several international organizations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the WHO, Rotary International, the World Bank, and UNICEF, which were providing massive funding for international polio eradication campaigns, are serving Zionist interests.

Claiming that the eradication campaigns are a Jewish conspiracy, the article quoted reports from Urdu, Hindi, and English-language newspapers on various incidents in India of children contracting polio despite being vaccinated. It also referred to several such cases in Yemen and Indonesia, adding that Islamic scholars in Nigeria issued a fatwa against polio vaccination. The article also noted that Dr. Ibrahim Datti, a physician and president of Nigeria's Religious Law Supreme Council, accused the U.S. of including anti-fertility components in the polio vaccines.

The following are excerpts from the article:

"The Jews, who dream of ruling the world, have invented different types of vaccines, drugs, and injections in an organized way to weaken Muslims in their beliefs on spiritual, practical, and moral levels, and make their bodies contaminated. The oral polio vaccine campaign is being run under a worldwide conspiracy - except in the Zionist countries. Its total focus is now on South Asian countries - India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The U.S. has already marked this area as an extremely strategic region."

"Have we ever thought why these greedy Jews and Christians are spending millions of dollars on this campaign?

"1) The Pentagon, a U.S. defense institution, provides about $100,000 million [sic] for this campaign every year.
"2) The WHO spends $150,000 million [sic] on this campaign every year.
"3) Rotary International also provides a sizable amount for this campaign. Like thousands of NGOs, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the NGO of Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, has alone given $750 million for the vaccination of children in poor countries - more than double the amount that the U.S. government gave to the people affected by the tsunami. This will help the WHO vaccinate 90% of children around the world by 2015. All these organizations are known to work openly for the interest of Zionism.
"4) Institutions like the Center for Diseases [sic], the ICC Control [sic], and the World Bank are also investing huge amounts in such programs.
"5) UNICEF is supervising the polio vaccination campaign in India. It has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this campaign. On the other hand, the UN has continued the ban on the provision of essential drugs to Iraq since 1991. Because of this ban, half a million children have died in that country. As an alternative arrangement to save the children of that country, a pharmaceutical company was established in Sudan, but it was destroyed by a U.S. bombardment, and the UN remained a mute spectator. "

"[…] An analysis of how the polio vaccination is prepared is sufficient in order to understand how the virus is haram [forbidden in Islam], and unpious animals like monkeys, chimpanzees, dogs, mice, and pigs are being injected into our [Muslim] bodies. Experiments were carried out in different stages on 4,000 monkeys imported from India and the Philippines in 1955, at a deserted place near a river in the area of Bluffton, in southern California. After that, polio vaccines were prepared from their kidneys.

"None other than Jonas Edward Salk (1914-1995) was responsible for this achievement. Besides being a prominent bacteriologist, he was a great Jewish spiritual leader who is revered even now by Jewish religious scholars and rabbis. He established the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in the Lazola area of California in 1963. The annual budget of this [institute], one of the biggest biological laboratories of the world, is $120 million, and 400 scientists work there around the clock. For a long time, the U.S. government used the vaccine prepared in this laboratory for their sweeping polio drives."

(h/t Blazing Cat Fur)

French Jews looking to make aliyah

From Religion News Service:

By any standard, David Tibi is a French success story.

The 44-year-old dentist and father of five has a thriving practice and a house in the affluent Paris suburb of Vincennes. His wife is a doctor and he is a leading member of the Jewish community and holds a senior post in its Central Consistory of Paris.

But in early July, the Tibi family will pack their bags and join the thousands of Jews now leaving France. The house has been sold. A colleague will be handling the dental practice. The family is leaving on a one-way ticket to Israel.

“If my children are to live their full Jewish identity, their future is in Israel and not in France,” Tibi said during an interview at his office in northeastern Paris, an area packed with kosher stores and restaurants. “Many Jews feel this way. There’s a massive desire to leave.”

Worldwide, immigration to Israel has stagnated and even declined. But French Jews are bucking the trend. Last year, a record 3,270 French Jews made aliyah — or immigration to Israel — a 63 percent hike from 2012. The Jewish Agency, which promotes aliyah internationally, estimates that figure could spike to 5,000 as early as this year, dramatically changing the face of Israeli immigration as well as France’s own Jewish community, the largest in Western Europe.

...[R]ising anti-Semitism may be the strongest driver, manifest not only through rhetoric but also action. In 2012, a radical Islamist gunned down four people at a Jewish school in Toulouse.

More recently, two of Tibi’s children were taunted on a tram. Tibi filled out immigration papers three weeks ago, making good on a project he had contemplated for years.

“My son is always asking me why there are police in front of his Jewish school, why we need to be searched each time we go to the synagogue,” he said. “We are raising our children to live with this fear.”

What troubles Tibi most is the lack of response on the part of the French.

“Once we had one million French on the streets against anti-Semitism. Now we have three million on Facebook and Twitter who are supporting Dieudonne,” he said, referring to a controversial French comic who is known for his anti-Jewish discourse.

...Tibi, who is president of the Paris-area Jewish community, is watching the departures and listening to the talk. “It’s a snowball effect,” he said, predicting the exodus may reach 8,000 Jews a year.

The fallout is already evident, he added. Students are leaving Jewish schools. The community is searching for new leaders and reconsidering costly construction projects.

Tibi is feeling the loss in other ways. “I was born in France. I did my studies in France. I am extremely sad to leave a country that gave me a lot,” he said. “But sometimes even when you love, you have to leave.”

02/10 Links Pt2: Hamas endorses BDS; Hungary’s Jews to boycott state Holocaust ceremonies

From Ian:

BBC’s Yolande Knell dons her campaigning hat yet again

Let’s take a closer look at Knell’s claim of “returning to land” in Ein Hijleh – also spelt Ein Hajla. According to a paper produced by the Palestinian NGO ARIJ in 2012:
“Deir Hajla is one of the oldest monasteries in both Palestine and the world. It contains mosaic floors dating back to the Medieval Ages, which were later renovated. In the north-east side of the monastery there is located ‘Ein Hajla (Hajla Spring) which, according to popular legend, the Canaanite village of Beit Hajla (meaning the house of hopscotch) was built upon. However, in the Roman era, it was called Hajla (the translation of which refers to the partridge bird) (Al Dabbagh, 1991) which is presently frequent in the region.”
Here’s a clue to the origin of that “Roman era” name:
“The Monastery, known in Arabic as Deir Hajla, seems to preserve the Hebrew name Bet Hoglah, which is mentioned in the biblical description of the lands of the tribe of Benjamin (Joshua18:19).”

If Jews attacked Muslims in Mecca, world media would cover nothing else for a month

Imagine that this week, Jews got angry and hundreds attacked Palestinian Arabs with rocks at the holiest Muslim site in the world. Imagine that this violence came after a handful of Muslims came to pray peacefully at the site, and even though hundreds of Jews attacked police officers, only seven were arrested. Can anyone imagine the endless news stories and media reports which would emanate as a result? The New York Times would have three front-page stories; there would be countless United Nations and European Union condemnations, and CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on site. Media coverage would be non-stop.
But, in reality Arabs attacked Jews repeatedly over the last few days at the Temple Mount, the holiest site for Jews, so it is barely a news story. Palestinian Arab violence against Jews is a regular occurrence, and as the media seemingly expects the Arabs to throw rocks, they don’t afford it much media coverage.

From the archives: Oxfam and the Israeli “gas chambers”

A less well-known episode, but one that reveals much about the evolution of Oxfam’s attitudes towards Israel, occurred in October 1977. Oxfam’s then director-general Brian W. Walker had just returned from a visit to Jordan and Israel. His observations in the West Bank prompted him to write to Judith Hart, the Minister for Overseas Development in James Callaghan’s Labour Government. His letter contained a number of remarkable suggestions, not least of which was that Oxfam would be happy to assist a British minister to “travel incognito” into Israeli occupied territory via Jordan.
By far the most disturbing aspect of Walker’s letter, however, was the allegation that Israeli policies in relation to West Bank water resources amounted to a crime against the Palestinian people that could be compared to the Holocaust.
“The policy being followed by Israel,” Walker declared, “is in no real sense different from the use of the gas chambers by the Nazis – for a ‘living’ death is, in many respects, worse than death itself.”

Stuff from today's Arab media

Islamic Jihad celebrated the return of the body of a terrorist who killed 4 Israelis in a yeshiva in Otniel in 2002. They inflated the number of people he killed from 4 to 6 and claimed they were all "soldiers."

This article says that the infighting in Egypt and Yemen is a dream of the Jews, "God's wrath be upon them.."

Another article tells us that "Jewish insolence has no limits" as it says that the Holocaust is a hoax, Jews collaborated with Hitler, and all the Jews who left Arab countries all did so voluntarily except for the ones who were frightened into leaving by Jewish terror attacks.

A respected columnist in Al Hayat, Jihad el-Khazen, says that as a graduate of American and Arab universities he is an expert on science and history, and that evidence shows that the Jewish and Christian Bibles are myths. The Quran, however, is perfectly correct.

Another article is entitled "Israel is a racist and a fascist society and doomed to extinction." He goes through a list of supposed Zionist crimes (genocide, ethnic cleansing) and is upset that the UN overturned the "Zionism is Racism" resolution.

Perhaps, you think, I am cherry picking. Well, yes and no.

These are some of the most egregious antisemitic and anti-Zionist articles just from today.

However, you will never find anyone disagreeing.

The insanity never ends: Sheikh Qaradawi accused of being a Mossad agent

One of the more interesting (and relatively under-reported) aspects of Egypt's 2013 coup is the insane hate that the new Egyptian leadership has for the previous one and for Islamists in general. Being more liberal is not at all correlated with intelligence.

Of course, the way to insult fellow Arabs remains the same: just accuse them of being Zionist.

The latest example comes from Egypt's Al Bawabh News, an anti-Muslim Brotherhood newspaper. They are accusing Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi - one of the most influential clerics in Sunni Islam, whose weekly Qatar-based TV show reaches tens of millions, and who explicitly supports killing Israeli civilians - of being a Mossad agent!

Qaradawi is originally from Egypt, supports the Muslim Brotherhood and has been very critical of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries who do not support the Islamist group.

The logic behind this brilliant analysis is that Qaradawi has not specifically condemned recent reports of Jews visiting the Temple Mount.

It just so happens that Qaradawi's weekly broadcast sermon was cancelled for the past three weeks, and at the last minute this week, indicating that he may be ill. (He only admitted to having a cold.) But the Al Bawabh article goes on from there.

It claims that he has visited Israel three times, that he knows Hebrew, and that he has met with senior rabbis (a few years ago he did greet a delegation of Neturei Karta idiots, and has had to fight rumors that he is pro-Israel ever since.)

The article goes on to claim that Qaradawi was praised by the US Congress (according to some news stories, he has been banned from the US since 1999), it quotes an Egyptian professor who calls him a "prostitute" for the West, that there are photos of him with the Chief Rabbi of Israel (in reality, last year Qaradawi boycotted an interfaith conference when he discovered a liberal Jew would attend,) and that he met with Jews in Gaza.

Here is a graphic from the homepage of this same news site, indicating that the Muslim Brotherhood is in fact Zionist itself:

Liberal, religious, Islamist, reformer, secular - there is always one constant in the Arab world, and that is how much they hate Jews and Israel. In public.

02/10 Links Pt1: What “Non-Violent” Palestinian Protests Really Look Like; AQ Recruits Children

From Ian:

What “Non-Violent” Palestinian Protests Really Look Like

Even as IDF forces try to keep the peace, Palestinian “demonstrators” resort to rock throwing and other acts of violence against Israeli soldiers.
Every Friday, a similar scene repeats itself in Palestinian villages throughout Judea and Samaria. As Israeli soldiers do their best to keep the region secure, Palestinians throw rocks in unprovoked attacks against IDF forces. Israel protects the right of Palestinians to protest peacefully, but so-called “Palestinian demonstrations” often turn violent.
In this video, an IDF officer explains to Palestinian demonstrators that they have the right to protest peacefully, but asks them not to use violence against Israeli troops. Their only response is to throw rocks in an attempt to injure or kill IDF soldiers.‬

Rocks kill people

As American Secretary of State John Kerry encourages the possibility of a Third Intifada against Israel, and media worldwide continues to claim that rock-throwing is non-violent, Israelis continue to be injured from Palestinian Arab rock throwers. As this video reminds us Rocks Kill People.
It should be noted that American border patrol police “consider rock-throwing to be deadly force which sometimes demands the same in response.” Throwing rocks is violent behavior – and protection from rocks is vital.
Let us hope and pray that this little girl makes a full recovery.

Iran's snow job continues

From MEMRI (but the video is in English):

Iranian Nuclear Chief Salehi: If U.S. Violates Deal, Iran Will Get "Back on Track" within Hours

In a recent TV interview, Ali-Akbar Salehi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, discussed his country's nuclear program. When asked by the interviewer how long it would take Iran, technically speaking, to get "back on track" if the U.S. violates the terms of the Geneva deal, Saleh responded: "A few hours." "Will we do that?" the interviewer asked, and Salehi answered: "If we need to produce 20% - yes, we will do it."

Following are excerpts from the interview, which aired on Press TV (via the Internet) on February 4, 2014.

Interviewer: The United States says that it has managed to dismantle at least parts of Iran's nuclear program. What do you say to that?

Ali-Akbar Salehi: Well, you can come and see whether our nuclear sites, nuclear equipment, and nuclear facilities are dismantled or not. The only thing that we have stopped and suspended – and that was voluntarily – is the production of 20% enriched uranium. That's it.

Of course, there is another thing that we have undertaken. We have committed ourselves not to install main equipment – and it has been defined what that main equipment is – in the Arak 40 megawatt heavy water reactor.

The nuclear facilities are functioning, and our enrichment is proceeding. It is doing its work, it is producing the 5% enriched uranium, and those centrifuges that stopped producing the 20% will be producing 5% enriched uranium.

In other words, our production of 5% will increase, and the entire nuclear activity of Iran is going on.

[...]

The best part of this Joint Action Plan is the research part. It is so clear that R&D has no constraint.

[...]

We have always been at the negotiating table. It's the other side who appeared at some times, and disappeared at other times. We have never declined negotiating with the 5+1.

[...]

We have always shown our good intentions, but we hope that this time, they really come with good intentions and good faith. If they really come in good faith and with good intentions, this is an opportunity that they can utilize. Otherwise, Iran will pursue its natural course.

[...]

Interviewer: If President Barack Obama is defeated by pro-Israeli lobbies in the Congress – the likes of Bob Menendez and Mark Kirk – and the United States decides to violate the terms of the Geneva deal, how long will it take, technically speaking, for Iran to get back on track?

Ali-Akbar Salehi: A few hours.

Interviewer: Will we do that?

Ali-Akbar Salehi: Well, if we need to produce 20% - yes, we will do it.

And from Matthias Kuntzel at TOI:

Last week I attended a discussion with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javed Zarif and witnessed his ability to mesmerise his listeners. The event took place at the German Council of Foreign Affairs in Berlin.

Mr. Zarif succeeded in dazzling his audience – about 250 foreign policy experts — with commonplace sentences such as: “global security is indivisible”, “dialogue is necessary” or “war is not a good option.” He came across as an Iranian Gorbachev, a good-hearted reformer defying the powers of darkness.

Yet a few days earlier he had bowed his head before the grave of a particularly sinister figure — Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh who was not only responsible for the 1983 suicide bombing that killed 241 U.S. soldiers in their barracks building in Beirut, but is also considered the “inventor” of Islamist suicide bombing.

This was not mentioned in Berlin. Zarif presented his country instead as “a status quo power” and an island of moderation within a sea of extremist violence. “We do not support terrorists,” he claimed with a mischievous smile. “We do not fund them.” “We will never start a military operation against anyone.” The audience hung on Zarif’s lips, nobody laughed. The fact, that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards interfere in Iraq and Lebanon and recruit and instruct Shiites from all over the world to conduct military operations in support of Assad was obviously forgotten.

The Berlin audience preferred to believe what Zarif claimed. It willingly surrendered to Zarif’s smile and sonorous bass and rewarded him with applause.

“You have built up today a lot of trust,” stated Paul Freiherr von Maltzahn, the Secretary General of the German Council of Foreign Affairs in his closing words of thanks.

Read the whole thing.

Iran only has to lie. The western media and politicians are very willing to do the rest of the propaganda work for them.

(h/t Josh K)

I haven't bothered to write about "unity" between Hamas and Fatah for a while, because every single attempt for the past few years has been a joke, often meant more to head off internal Arab Spring-type protests than to actually try to unify. Hamas does not want to give up its hold on Gaza.

The latest attempt has a slightly better chance though - because Hamas has been rocked by the Egyptian coup, losing its main monetary sponsor and partner.

Hamas and Fatah will hold meetings to discuss the implementation of a national reconciliation agreement on Sunday evening and Monday morning, members of both movements told Ma'an.

Fatah official Nabil Shaath and Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya said they considered reconciliation a top priority, and that an earlier meeting between a Fatah delegation and Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was a success.

"We realize that the road to freedom and independence is still a long one and needs a lot of work, and the first step is Palestinian unity," Shaath said.

"There cannot be a state without Gaza," he said.

Shaath also praised Hamas' recent decision to allow Fatah lawmakers to return to Gaza.

Al-Hayya echoed Shaath's statements.

"We at Hamas want to be united with Fatah and not interfere in Fatah internal issues," he said.

Al-Hayya said Hamas had sent a letter to President Mahmoud Abbas, saying "that we support him in his position of protecting our principles."

Hamas is hurting for cash, and Fatah may be its best hope to stay afloat.

If the Fatah-led PA would take over the Rafah crossing, for example, then Hamas-hating Egypt would probably keep it open more. Exports from Gazs could increase if Israel could deal with the PA directly on those issues.

When the current negotiations between Israel and the PA collapse, Hamas would have one less reason to avoid unity, because one of its conditions has been to stop negotiating with Israel and continue based on jihad.

And when it comes down to it, Fatah and Hamss are not that far apart ideologically, as much as Western media and pundits like to pretend they are. They both explicitly support terrorism and both agree that terror is not in their best interests at this time. Islamic Jihad and other terror groups are convenient to use for today's attacks, and both Fatah and Hamas can claim that they are innocent.

While it is still a longshot, this time there may actually be a chance for some sort of quasi-unity between the two. It would necessarily involve the PA moving away from a peace posture, but the West would provide cover for them since so much of the media and Western governments and NGOs have been so invested in the lie of Fatah "moderation" for so long.

Egyptian fatwa: If your wife is a Muslim Brotherhood member, divorce her

From Al Arabiya:

“If a man discovers that his wife belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, he should divorce her,” said preacher Mazhar Shahin in the show he presents in one of the private Egyptian satellite channels. “It is like having a bomb sleep in your own bedroom,” he added.

In this case, Shain explained, the wife should be given the chance to sever all ties with the Brotherhood, but if she refuses, the husband has to divorce her. Shahin, who is also the imam of the Omar Makram Mosque in Tahrir Square and is known as “the imam of the revolution,” attributed his fatwa to the “jurisprudence of priorities” in Islam, through which, he argued, it becomes obvious that Egypt takes priority over individuals.

“If the interests of my country contradict those of my wife, I would definitely choose my country,” he noted. “A man can find many other women to marry, but there is only one Egypt.”

Belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, however, does not mean the wife should be stripped of her financial rights, according to Shahin, who stressed that the divorce has to “comply with God’s laws.” The fatwa, Shahin said, also gives the right to any woman who finds out that her husband belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood to seek divorce.

For Shahin, divorce is considered the lesser of two evils for the wife because otherwise the husband might report her to the police. “It is better for her to end up divorced than to end up in jail.” Shahin was referring to the case of a man who reported his wife to State Security for belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood.

In his complaint, the husband said that he only found out his wife is a Brotherhood member after Islamist President Mohammad Mursi came to power. “After the Brotherhood was toppled, the group started assigning her missions,” the complaint added. “That is why she traveled to the United Kingdom and Germany.”

Well, at least he didn't say to behead her.

Maybe next year.

News no one talks about: Egypt sends construction material to Gaza

You know how, now that the tunnels from Egypt have been mostly closed by Egypt, Israel is the only source for Gazans to get construction material? And how, when Israel stopped construction for private projects after discovering Hamas terror tunnels, human rights organizations insist that Israel has the sole responsibility for allowing those materials to resume being imported? Egypt, it is assumed, cannot adequately support sending large amounts of building materials into Gaza through Rafah.

Right?

Well, the latest weekly UN OCHA report (January 28-February 3) says something very interesting:

During the reporting period, the Crossing opened for one day to allow 56 truckloads of construction materials to enter for project funded by the Government of Qatar. The previous week, some 215 truckloads of construction materials designated for the Qatari construction projects entered over the course of three days.

...This week (26 January-1 February), nearly 1,000 truckloads of goods entered Gaza through Kerem Shalom Crossing, 13 percent more than during the previous week. The increase is mainly due to the entry of slightly greater amounts of basic construction materials for projects implemented by international organizations and approved by the Israeli authorities (142 compared to 48 truckloads the previous week).

If the truckloads are of comparable size, this means that Egypt is allowing more construction materials into Gaza than Israel is.

Moreover, given that the Rafah crossing is only open sporadically, if Egypt wants it could open the crossing for six or seven days a week, meaning that some 450-500 trucks of building material can go into Gaza for whatever purposes Egypt and Gazans agree on.

There is no rule that Egypt can only allow building material for the Qatar-funded projects. There is no reason why private Gaza builders should not be able to order construction material from Egypt and have it trucked in the next day. Rafah is clearly not only a passenger transit point but it can handle significant amounts of other goods for Gaza. There could be a healthy two-way trade of goods and materials for Gazans and exports of Gaza produce and other goods to Egypt.

Except that Egypt doesn't allow it.

Yet so-called "human rights" organizations are completely silent about demanding that Egypt allow more construction materials into Gaza. They only demand this from Israel, the one country that is the target for Hamas kidnap tunnels built with these very same materials.

Isn't that interesting?

Houthi official explains slogan "Death to America, death to Israel, damn the Jews"

I've mentioned before the Houthi logo and slogan:

From the top, it says "God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Damn the Jews, Power to Islam." In many cases I've seen the fourth line autotranslated as "F--- the Jews."

Al Tagheer (translated by Shawarma News) has an interview with a Houthi spokesperson where we learn a kinder, gentler interpretation:

- Death to America does not mean death to the American people, or the death of an American tourist, journalist, merchant or employee, but it's death to the American Zionist policy in our region and the world

- Death to Israel does not mean death to the "real" Jews who have been living in Palestine for hundreds of years, but it's death to the racist entity implanted in the body of the Islamic nation and the Arab region

- Curse the Jews, we are not referring to all of those who follow the Jewish religion, we are referring to those who were cursed by God in the Koran according to the attributes associated with the curse

It is fairly clear, both to casual readers of the Quran and to ordinary Muslims themselves, that every single Jew was cursed in the Quran.

See how moderate they are? They only want to kill about half of the Jews in the world, and the rest are only damned to become apes and pigs!

Glad he cleared that up. Whew!

(h/t Bob K)

Nourizadeh

The Director of the Center for Iranian Studies in London, Ali Nourizadeh, says that since Hamas' founding it has received more than two billion dollars of financial support from Iran, according to Raya News. At the same time Islamic Jihad receives between $100-$150 million dollars annually from Iran.

On the other hand, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority have not received a penny Since the Iranian revolution so far, but on the contrary, Iran has not paid half a million dollars from the proceeds of the "Palestine" sales pavilion at the Tehran International Fair.

Nourizadeh says that Hamas has received its aid through various sources; sometimes in cash when Hamas leaders visit Tehran and some through Hezbollah. Islamic Jihad receives it money via Hezbollah or from cash transfers from banks in Beirut or Malta.

He adds that "Iran has paid a lot to strengthen its relationship with Hamas to be used as a card but it did not succeed because [Hamas] has good relations with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Arab states and Iran is no longer the main source of funding Hamas, so Iran considers its investment in Hamas to be unsuccessful."

In terms of relationship between Iran and Islamic Jihad, Zadeh says that their fighters were trained in Iran and their weapons all come from Iran; Hezbollah played an important role in achieving this. On the other hand, no more than 500 Hamas fighters were trained by Iran.

There is now a new rapprochement between the PLO and Iran, as Fatah official Jibril Rajoub visited Iran after Abbas and Hassan Rouhani met in New York, according to Nourizadeh.

Three new "Apartheid?" posters

My "Apartheid?" poster series has gone truly viral in the past couple of weeks - over 23,000 views in the past week alone!

Since I hadn't added any new posters in a year, here is a Reality TV edition:

02/09 Links: State Dept: No Guarantee Arab League Will Recognize Israel; Historic 'Palestine'

From Ian:

Israel may pay for tolerance it shows to killers

IF most Palestinians thought like most Israelis, peace would come to their lands.
If most Israelis thought like so many Palestinians — from its leader Mahmoud Abbas down to the shiftless youths seeking to meet Allah via Semtex and Jewish blood — there would be many fewer than the 4.3 million of them.
The tolerance of Israel, as its neighbours bait it, bomb it and demand its destruction, surprises me. Three rockets were fired from Gaza in to southern Israel as I wrote this piece.

Historic Palestine

So there you have it, from the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911 edition. Rather than being an "indigenous" populations, the Arab population of "Palestine" is composed of Bosnians, Sudanese, Algerians, Armenians, Greek, Kurds and many many others. There is no mention of a group called the "Palestinians".
Colonizers. All of them
Hard to imagine how the indigenous "Palestinians" could have escaped historical scrutiny for so many years. (h/t Bob Knot)

BBC Correspondent Apologizes For Omitting Anti-Israel Bias (satire)

In a news item last week, Philips was seen narrating a segment about a crash on Route 443, part of which runs through the West Bank. A number of Palestinian men were hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at passing Israeli cars, and the driver of one such vehicle stopped his car and chased the group while wielding a handgun, scattering them and stopping the attacks. Philips devoted almost the same amount of time discussing the attack on the motorist as on his brief pursuit, thus departing from BBC policy of specifically painting Israel and Israelis as at fault in confrontations with Palestinians.
“I apologise first to the Palestinians, who depend on the BBC for unstinting propaganda support; second, to my colleagues at the BBC, for showing what could be construed as disrespect for our journalistic standards; and of course to our viewership, who might become confused if we do not paint Israel as thoroughly evil,” Philips wrote in a statement. He attributed the lack of sufficient spin to deadline pressures, but admitted he could have done better.