Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Iran freaks out over Google Maps

Google has -perhaps unknowingly- launched a new war in Gulf. The internet giant sparked a conflict with the Iranians last week when it dropped the name “Persian Gulf” from the body of water that separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula.

The waterway also touches Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain – the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that call it the “Arabian Gulf.”

Google also declined to call it “Arabian Gulf,” or even “the Gulf,” saying it would hurt their credibility and creditability.

The company instead decided, perhaps as the biggest landmark on its maps, to leave the 250,000 square kilometers (97, 000 square miles) body of water nameless .

Iran, previously known as Persia, did not approve of Google‘s decision and didn’t hesitate in launching a verbal attack.

In an interview the Islamic Republic’s official news agency Deputy Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Bahman Dorri said “Google fabricating lies... will not have any outcome but for its users to lose trust in the data the company provides.”

“The enemies cannot hide facts and evidence about the Persian Gulf,” Dorri said. “Documents in the U.N. and the UNESCO show the name of this body of water has always been ‘Persian Gulf’ since a long time ago.”

“The efforts of the (global) arrogance and its Arab allies to remove the name of the Persian Gulf will result in its name becoming more durable,” he added in a reference to the United States.

The controversy over the name of the Gulf goes back to the 1960s and has entangled everyone from the Asian Games to the Unites States Navy to National Geographic Magazine.

Today, the United Nations refers to it as the “Persian Gulf”, as does the UK and the U.S., although the U.S. Navy, which has extensive dealings with Arab Gulf states, mostly uses ‘Arabian Gulf.’

In 2004, National Geographic published a world atlas that, while acknowledging the waterway’s primary name as the “Persian Gulf” added “Arabian Gulf” in brackets. Tehran responded by banning the American-owned magazine and its reporters from Iran.

When a country is so emotionally invested in how people name an adjacent body of water to the point of creating an international incident every time someone uses a different name, it is not exactly an indication of a mature and reliable member of the family of nations.

Here's the funny part: If you do a search of "Persian Gulf" in Google Maps, you do end up inside the Gulf. If you type in "Arabian Gulf" you will not, and Google would guess that you are referring to various Arab companies with that name.

Stumbling onto an Elder (open thread)

This week I took a scenic boat ride along part of the Intercoastal Waterway and saw many very expensive houses and mansions.

(Part of) one of them looked like this:

Besides the prominent Israeli flag, the boat moored at the house is named "Mitz-Sea-Ah," in Chinese-style lettering.

Even with this person's unseemly love of bad puns, it is clear that the owner of this house is an Elder in good standing.

Don't forget that you have a chance to stumble onto not just any Elder on May 21st in New York City.

Biased Reuters article on UNRWA filled with lies

Decades of Palestinian Arab lies are all taken as fact in this incredibly biased article by Noah Browning of Reuters.

For example:

Three generations of Palestinians displaced by the founding of Israel in 1948 know only life in UN refugee camps, going to schools beneath the blue-and-white UN flag and drawing their food stocks from UN warehouses.

The exodus of Arabs pre-dates the founding of Israel by six months, and certainly the first couple of hundred thousand left on their own, as they were mostly the richer ones who left the same way they left during the 1936-9 Arab riots. In other words, they wanted to avoid a conflict started by their fellow Arabs to kill Jews.

For these Palestinians whose long-cherished goal is the right of return to the lands they lost 64 years ago, the camps must be seen as temporary no matter how permanent they might seem to others.

This article seems to be only about those in camps in Palestinian Arab territory - which are, of course, in Palestine.

It is their leaders who "insist" on forcing the people into these "temporary," horrible camps, not the residents themselves. I don't see any residents who insisted to remain in tents in the 1950s when given the chance to move to concrete housing. The residents were - and are- used as pawns, but the lies are swallowed by Reuters.

Which explains why the latest program by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, to upgrade the camps' dilapidated facilities is such a delicate operation.

The article could have - and should have - focused on the hypocrisy of the "leaders" who insist on keeping these people in camps rather than allowing them to move on and become productive citizens of territories that they already claim as their own.

Some 700,000 people fled or were driven from their homes when Israel was created after the 1948 war, but now as many as five million refugees and their descendants live in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, many of them in squalid camps.

The vast majority were not "driven" from their homes and about half left before Israel was created, all of them before or during - not after - the war. The number who live in camps is actually about one third of those in the five countries UNRWA operates in.

Founded in 1949, UNRWA is almost as old as the UN itself. Given that prospects for a resolution to Israel's disputes in the Middle East continue to be dismal, it appears to have a long future ahead.

UNRWA's existence is not at all dependent on Israel or its "disputes." It should have disappeared in the 1950s and it almost lost its funding a few times in its first couple of decades. This article implicitly blames Israel for the existence of these so-called" refugees" and doesn't say a word about how most Arab countries refuse to give citizenship to Palestinian Arabs who desire to live in their host countries - even though Arab League countries allow naturalization of every other Arab.

The fate of refugees clinging to the right of return has been one of the toughest issues facing negotiators in two decades of on-off talks aimed at creating an independent Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel says the demand for a right to return is a deal breaker in any peace accord, arguing that allowing the refugees into Israel would increase the proportion of Palestinians living within its borders and thus undermine its nature as a Jewish state.

It also disputes the legal basis of the right of return set out in a UN resolution of December 1948 and says the world has not taken into account the plight of Jews forced from their homes across the Arab world in the last 65 years.

The text here takes as a given that UNGA 194 gives the "right of return" when in fact the word "right" was deliberately and consciously taken out of the text of the resolution itself. In other words, this "right" is fictional. Reuters is saying that the "right" exists and only Israel's interpretation is wrong.

In fact, the UN itself wrote an exhaustive analysis on how to interpret UNGA 194 in 1950, proving that there is no such blanket "right to return."

"194, 242, 338," student Alaa al-Homuz rattles in staccato, naming UN Security Council resolutions dealing with Palestinian refugees which he is studying in a class on international law.

194 was not a Security Council resolution. UNSC 338 merely refers to 242, which vaguely requires a "just settlement to the refugee problem" without using the word "Palestinian;" in context it might be referring to those displaced as a result of the 1967 war.

There's lots more incredible bias and outright lies in this article, and the sad part is that the lies are so embedded in the narrative of lies pushed by the Arabs that most Westerners don't recognize the lies any more.

The Canadian madrassa that teaches hate of Jews

From The National Post:

Police are investigating a complaint about a Toronto Muslim school whose curriculum tells boys to exercise so they are “ready for jihad,” refers to “treacherous Jews” and contrasts Islam with “the Jews and the Nazis.”

“Yes, I can confirm for you that a complaint has been made and our Hate Crimes Unit is investigating,” Acting Sergeant Rebecca Boyd, a York Region Police spokeswoman, told the National Post on Monday.

“However, they are in the early stages of the investigation,” she added. The complaint was made by the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which found the material on the website of the East End Madrassah.

The Islamic school operates out of David and Mary Thomson Collegiate Institute, a public high school in Toronto. But the complaint was made to police in York because the Islamic school’s mailing address is in that region.

“We are looking into it,” said Masuma Jessa, principal of the East End Madrassah. She said the curriculum document in question had been removed from the school’s website. Later on Monday, the entire school website went offline.

...Ms. Jessa said the complaint about the material was made on Thursday. “We told them that we took the book off the website and yesterday [Sunday] we had a meeting and we looked at it and we are correcting it,” she said. “It was an error.”

Some error!

I found a copy of the same curriculum online at another Islamic site. One booklet is called "Prophet Muhammad [s] A Brief Biography." Here are some excerpts:

Scattered here and there across West Asia and North Africa were colonies of Jews, to whom several outstanding Messengers had been sent by the Almighty. But these divine favours had failed to reform the crime hardened Jews, whose very name had become synonymous for treachery. They had long deviated from the commandments of Allah, distorting the laws brought by Prophet Moses [a], tampering with divine scriptures, slaying prophets and in the end coining the chauvinist creed called Judaism. It was more a racial sedition rather than a set of beliefs and the Israelites' vehement opposition to the last great reformer, Prophet Jesus Christ [a], was still fresh in the minds of the people.

End of Jewish Plots and Treacheries

Ever since the Prophet's entry into Madina, the treacherous Jews had vehemently opposed him and his Islamic call, evoking memories of their hostility to the previous Prophet, Jesus Christ (a), half a millennium ago. The crafty Jews entered into an alliance with the polytheist Quraish in a bid to stamp out Islam. They conspired to kill Prophet Muhammad [s] despite the fact that he was lenient towards them and had treated them kindly, hoping to convince them of Islam's truth. But eventually as Jewish plots and aggressions increased, he had no choice other than to take up arms against them, in order to protect Islam and the Muslims. At the battle of Khaiber which is famous for Imam Ali's [a] heroic exploits, the Prophet defeated them ending Jewish intrigues and conspiracies in Arabia.

The Jews flaunting their sacred books used to mock the pagan Arabs, saying that soon a Prophet will emerge in Arabia and come to Yathrib and will put an end to their wicked ways.

But strangely enough when Prophet Muhammad [s] did finally proclaim his Prophethood and emigrate to Yathrib, it were the Arab tribes of Aws and Khazraj who renounced idolatry and accepted Islam, while the chauvinistic Jews, whose forefathers had come to Arabia, for this very occasion, rejected the Prophet. Their pretext was he was an Arab descended from Prophet Abraham's [a] elder son Ishmael [a], rather than Isaac [a] and therefore unacceptable to the racist Jews.

Another booklet that was on the site is

A Glance at the Life of the Holy Prophet of Islam, by Dar Rah Haqq's Board of Writers
Published by:
Mostazafan Foundation of New York
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
ISBN 0-922817-01-4

It says:

Before Islam emerged, the Jews had changed the religion of Moses into hidebound dogma and its principles into hollow, lifeless rules and precepts.

Unlike the beliefs of the ancient Romans, the Jews, and the Nazis, Islam is not restricted to a certain community or a certain race, but is for all human beings and aims at human prosperity and salvation.

The combatants of Islam do not intend to gain control of a land or overthrow an oppressive rule to replace it with a similar rule through jihad. Rather, jihad is a pure humanitarian struggle fulfilled in God's way and for human evolution and the rescue of the oppressed people. This struggle culminates in the elimination of all sedition and in the establishment of peace and prosperity.

There were probably other books from this site on the madrassa's page.

But the madrassa apologized, so everything must be just great again.

UNRWA closed by protesters in West Bank

Dozens of protesters closed off UNRWA headquarters in Ramallah because of the latest terrible thing UNRWA did.

Did it pay low salaries? Did it stop terrorists from joining? Did it say it was going to teach about the Holocaust?

No, this protest was different than previous ones.

This protest was because UNRWA did not voice public support for the terrorists and suspected terrorists who are participating in a hunger strike against Israel.

Yes, in a Palestinian Arab state, if you would not publicly support the current trends, you are considedred an enemy - and treated as such.

It is unclear what services were disrupted because of this protest, but no doubt it was well worth it.

Wednesday links (Ian)

Marx: Jews Were Majority In Jerusalem

[Jerusalem’s] sedentary population numbers about 15,500 souls, of whom 4,000 are Mussulmans [Muslims] and 8,000 Jews . . . the Mussulmans, forming about a quarter of the whole, consisting of Turks, Arabs, and Moors, are, of course, the masters in every respect

Honest Reporting - BBC Or Norman Finkelstein: Who is More Despicable?

Also, note the use of the term “Jewish lobby.” Not the “Israel lobby” as has been used, most notably by Walt and Mearsheimer in their discredited thesis. What does the BBC base its statement on? Such criticism of American presidents has come from a particular anti-Israel strain and is certainly not a universally accepted mantra.

Shatter accuses Palestine group of cyberbullying
Justice Minister hits out after 'avalanche of venom' forces band to cancel tour of Israel

Anyway J.Lo is much nicer to look at than scruffy Irishmen.
Jennifer Lopez schedules a Tel Aviv concert for late 2012!

Obama Accepts Big Money From Israel-Hater
Team Obama includes a self-identified “Muslim Palestinian-American” campaign fundraiser who has a history of blasting Israel in highly charged letters and newspaper articles about the Middle East conflict.

Hala Hijazi, a Jordanian native and current San Francisco city employee, has personally secured between $100,000 to $200,000 for Obama’s reelection effort, according to Federal Election Committee filings.

She also has gone on record accusing Israel of war crimes while castigating America for providing the Jewish state critical military aid—a long-term investment that has bolstered U.S. security interests.

The battle for America
Special: Israeli, Jewish students fighting back as hostility grows on leading campuses in America

'Lost Airmen of Buchenwald' - Honoring Pilots Who Survived Imprisonment in a Nazi Concentration Camp

By the Numbers: Jodi Rudoren's Palestinian Prisoner Article

What the Guardian won’t report: Palestinians continue to laud Itamar Massacre terrorists

Hamas urges French President-elect Hollande to visit Gaza

Also:
With Help of a ‘Bionic’ Suit, Paralyzed Woman Finishes London Marathon
Israel's ReWalk technology, of course. (h/t Elias)

How the PA fooled the West on Jenin (Toameh)

From Khaled Abu Toameh at the Gatestone Institute:

The Palestinian Authority has been boasting over the past four years of its success in restoring law and order to the West Bank city of Jenin.

Journalists from all around the world were invited to Jenin, once notorious for dispatching suicide bombers to Israel, to report on the Palestinian government's successful efforts.

Palestinian leaders and government officials told the journalists how their security forces have managed to end the state of chaos and lawlessness that used to prevail in Jenin.

They talked about how Fatah gangsters and thugs who used to roam the streets, imposing an atmosphere of intimidation and terror on the population, have vanished.

Most of the gangsters, the Palestinian government officials noted, had been recruited to various branches of the Western-funded Palestinian security forces and were indirectly receiving salaries from American and European taxpayers' money.

But while the international, and Israeli, media were breaking the "good news" about Jenin, the journalists failed to understand what was really going on in Jenin and its surrounding villages. Some journalists, in fact, chose to turn a blind eye to the grim reality on the ground.

The murder of Israeli Arab actor and film producer Julian Mar-Khamis in Jenin last year should have sounded an alarm bell among the media representatives. His killers have never been caught, sparking a wave of unconfirmed reports about the involvement of influential Fatah gangsters and Palestinian security officers in the case.

A Western journalist who wanted to do an investigative report into the case was warned by senior Palestinian security officers that she would be putting her life at risk if she insisted on carrying out this mission.

Last week, the truth about the situation in Jenin finally exploded in the faces of everyone: the local governor died of a fatal heart attack following an unsuccessful assassination attempt.

For the Palestinian Authority leadership, the assassination attempt was what lifted the veil: Palestinian leaders in Ramallah realized that they could no longer continue to hide the truth about what was really happening in Jenin.

Palestinian security forces have since arrested dozens of Fatah "outlaws" and police officers for various crimes -- including murder, extortion, abductions, sexual harassment and armed robberies.

Radi Asideh, the security commander of the Jenin area, admitted that it was the Palestinian security establishment that was responsible for the anarchy and lawlessness. "There is a defect inside the security establishment and officers were responsible for this," he revealed.

[I]n most cases it is the Palestinian Authority's security forces that are responsible for the chaos and corruption.

If the Western journalists and donors continue to ignore the reality on the ground, the West Bank could soon fall into the hands of gangsters and armed clans, as has been the case in Jenin -- among the main reasons the Palestinian Authority collapsed in the Gaza Strip in 2007, speeding the rise of Hamas to power.

The PA security forces are corrupt? The ones trained by the US? Say it ain't so!

"Israel spreads AIDS and heroin in Egypt"

Great stuff from MEMRI:

This has it all - the Protocols, Zionist heroin, and naked Israeli girls purposefully spreading AIDS among Egyptian youth (hijacking an old urban legend, no less.)

Not bad for a one-minute clip!

Erdogan on Turkey: “One nation, one state, one flag and one religion.”

From Hurriyet:

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s remarks on “one religion” for Turkey were a slip of the tongue in his apparent intention to emphasize the common Muslim faith of Turks and Kurds, a senior official of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has said. Erdoğan’s controversial comments had sparked concerns that he was targeting the secular system with his statements.

Erdoğan made the controversial remarks in two separate speeches over the weekend as part of comments on the Kurdish conflict. Addressing Kurds, he said that he had never advocated one language for Turkey but “one nation, one state, one flag and one religion.”

“Democratic and secular countries cannot have one religion. Our attitude towards [non-Muslim] minorities is evident. As someone who has known the prime minister for years, I can say that this was a slip of the tongue,” AKP deputy chairman Hüseyin Çelik told daily Radikal, stressing that the party’s statute rejected “ethnic, religious and regional nationalism.”

Sure - a slip of the tongue. Twice.

(h/t Simone)

The Palestinian Arab addiction to headlines

Whining from Salam Fayyad:

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Tuesday the Palestinians may have "lost the argument" on the international stage for an independent state but cautioned that continued Israeli occupation was unsustainable.

Arab unrest, the US presidential elections and financial crises in Europe had combined to knock the Palestinian issue off the global agenda more than 18 months after peace talks with Israel broke down in a dispute over settlement building.

"What is the biggest obstacle we face? The state of marginalization. It is unprecedented," he said. "The Israelis have managed to successfully trivialize our side of the argument," he added, alluding to the Palestinian demands for a halt to settlement building before negotiations can resume.

Palestinian Arabs are obsessed to feeling relevant, and they childishly equate world headlines with relevance.

This is why they did the UN stunt last year. That's why there are constant calls to boycott Israel. That is why they're obsessed with publicizing the current hunger strikes of prisoners - the vast majority of whom have been convicted of serious terror attacks. And that's why they are hoping that one or more of the prisoners die.

They are addicted to headlines.

It is very telling that Fayyad - the most moderate of the moderates, the only Palestinian Arab leader who is untouched by a history of terrorism - buys into this childish need for attention as a critical tactic.

Although they will still mouth support for it, the Arab world is sick of the Palestinian issue. Compared to what is going on in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Tunisia and elsewhere, the fact is that the Palestinians are literally irrelevant in the Arab world. And to the world at large, the PalArabs are even less important.

The fact is that, consciously or not, the world community knows that Israel does support a two-state solution. Politicians know that it is Palestinian Arab obstinacy and unwillingness to compromise that is holding up a real solution. They know that the 1% or 2% difference between what Israel offered and what the Palestinian Arabs insist on is not worth obsessing over - the PalArabs could have a state if they want one but instead they insist on a nebulous idea of "justice" where they are the sole judges.

That is why they lost world sympathy. That is why they lost the front pages. And that is why they are itching (or constantly "warning") of a new intifada - because rather than attacking the real issues, they would rather feel relevant and hope that their headlines will pressure Western powers to pressure Israel to make yet more concessions on top of concessions they have been making for peace for decades.

It is not Israel that trivialized their side of the argument. Their argument has been trivial from the start. It is the Palestinian Arabs who have been trying to inflate this trivial argument into a world crisis by relying on publicity stunts, year after year.

Sunrise

I am still on vacation, after all.

Two unreported stories from the territories

...Which are probably related.

IDF and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Unit (COGAT) have made an effort to facilitate Palestinian movement throughout the area by reopening six important roadways.

The terror attacks of the Second Intifada forced Israel to close roadways in Judea and Samaria during this difficult period, specifically in high-risk zones. Lately, in light of increased stability and calm in the region, the IDF and COGAT have made an effort to facilitate Palestinian movement throughout the area by reopening six important roadways.

• Shomronim Barrier.
• Shofa Izbat Shofa Barrier.
• Zvata Barrier.
• Sha'ar Gilazun Barrier.
• Ariel Salfit Barrier.
• Beit Dajan Barrier.

And:

In the last few days hundreds of violent attacks were directed against IDF patrols, Border Police and civilians by Arab terrorists with rocks, fire bombs, Molotov Cocktails, rocks put on the road to force the vehicles to stop. Security forces have responded to these murderous attacks using restraint.

May 8, 2012

Massive rock attacks on Israeli vehicles on the road between Efrat and Tekoa causing damage.

Rock attacks against Israeli vehicles on Gush Etzion-Hebron Highway near El Arub causing damage to vehicles.

Near Bet Umar on the Gush Etzion-Hebron Highway IDF soldier moderately injured by rocks in his leg. He was treated by IDF medic on the spot.

Possible shooting directed on Israeli vehicle between Ma'ale Levona and Sinjil in the Benjamin Region. Driver reported shots and when the vehicle was examined the mirror was found damaged. Security patrols check for evidence of shooting.

For hours over 50 Arab terrorists in Abu Dis north east of Bet Lechem attack IDF forces with rocks and Molotov Cocktails.

Massive rock attacks and damage to several Israeli vehicles on the Cross Judea Highway near the bridge of Chalchul and near Bene Naim village in the Kiryat Arba region.

Massive rock attacks against Israeli bus in El Fuar in the Southern Hebron Hills.

Rock attacks against Israeli vehicles near Bet Enun north of Kiryat Arba continuing the attack for hours and causing damage to Israeli vehicles. And moderate injuries to 2 Israelis.

Bet Enun, planned ambush by Arab terrorists with vehicles waiting to escape into the village following attacks on Israeli vehicles. Following the attacks the waiting vehicles escaped into the village when IDF arrived. 7 Israeli vehicles were damaged in the attack.

Arab terrorists attacked IDF force near Neguhot in the southern Hebron Hills and rock attacks against Israeli vehicles near El Fuar.

Rock attacks between Bet Umar and El Arub causing damage to Israeli vehicles.

Arab terrorists continue to attack Israeli vehicles on the Gush Etzion-Hebron Highway near Chalchul north of Hebron as a result of the attack Israeli bus damaged.

May 7, 2012

Road 446 north of Nili in the Benjamin Region Arab terrorists put blocks in road causing damage to Israeli vehicle that hit the obstruction.

Massive rock attacks on Israeli vehicles near El Arub on the Gush Etzion-Hebron Highway.

Arab terrorists threw rocks on Israeli vehicle north of Na'alim checkpost causing damage.

3 Arab terrorists started fire between Har Bracha and Kedumim in the Shomron fire fighters put out the flames.

Hundreds of Arab terrorists with Hamas flags marched inside of Hebron towards the Jewish Quarter of Hebron.

Qalandia checkpost Arab terrorist found hiding firearm on his possession. Arrested and taken in for questioning by security forces.

Rock attacks on Israeli vehicles between Tapuach and Migdalim in the Shomron causing damage.

40 years ago: Israeli commandos storm hijacked Sabena flight

From the IDF Blog:

On May 8, 1972, a flight from Belgian airline Sabena set off from Vienna towards Tel Aviv, named Flight 571. Twenty minutes after takeoff, it was hijacked by four terrorists–two men, two women–from the Black September terror group. This set off a series of events leading up to Operation Isotope–one of the most daring rescue operations in the history of Israel.

Following the terrorists’ attempt to break into the cockpit, Reginald Levy, the plane’s captain, kept his cool and attempted to relax his passengers by entertaining them through a loudspeaker conversation with the terrorists, about everything from navigation to sex.

Aboard the plane, the terrorists were demanding the release of 315 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails, claiming they would blow up the plane if their demands were not met.

Captain Levy sent in distress signals, which were received by Israeli Security Minister Moshe Dayan. Dayan immediately began negotiations with the terrorists, while simultaneously planning a covert rescue operation: Operation Isotope.

The Sabena flight reached Tel-Aviv, landing in Lod Airport (now Ben-Gurion Airport). Captain Levy was sent out to show the waiting Israelis a sample of the explosives on the plane, to convince them of the threat. Aboard the plane, passengers were crying or hysterical.

A team of 16 elite commandos (Hebrew: Sayeret Matkal) approached the grounded aircraft in white overalls, disguised as airplane technicians. They convinced the terrorists that the aircraft was in desperate need of repairs.

Within ten minutes of boarding the plane, the squad of elite commandos managed to kill the two male terrorists, arrest the two female terrorists, and neutralize the threat to the passengers. Nearly all civilians on board were unharmed, except for three, one of whom later died from her injuries. Among the commandos were Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu–both of whom eventually became Israeli prime ministers.

Netanyahu was slightly injured during the rescue, seemingly from friendly fire. Here he is being congratulated by Israel's president Zalman Shazar:

The PalArab prisoner cause jumps the shark

Guess who is now pushing the issue of Palestinian Arab prisoners in Israel?

That bastion of human rights, Syria!

From the official Syrian SANA news agency:

Al-Fadel Association for Development, Culture and Support of Resistant Creativity, in cooperation with the Palestinian Youth Movement, staged a sit-in in front of the UN Commission headquarters in Damascus in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in the jails of the Zionist occupation.

The participants chanted slogans in support of prisoners, Palestine and Jerusalem, raising the Palestinian flag and banners which call for releasing the prisoners and liberating al-Aqsa.

They condemned the stances of the Arab League and some Arab countries which conspired against the Palestinian Cause.

Arab dictatorships have used the Palestinian Arabs as pawns to distract the world from their very real human right violations, so why mess with that formula?

And if they can say that their Arab enemies are also enemies of the "Palestinian Cause," so much the better!

Arab media noticing Israel's Jewish refugees

Al Quds quotes an Israeli Foreign Ministry report from last month about Jewish immigrants from Arab countries:

Up until the present day, an injustice was done to the Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries. Their property rights and their historic justice were abandoned.

During various efforts and talks in pursuit of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, negotiators have overlooked an important element pertaining to the Arab-Israeli conflict - the uprooting of around 850,000 Jews living in Arab nations, the loss of their assets and property, and the difficulties they underwent upon migrating to Israel and their absorption.

But the part they highlighted was this part:

Close to half of Israel's Jewish citizen's today, including their descendents, came from Arab countries.

This is a remarkable statistic.

The MFA's point:

There should be a joint solution between the Arab countries and the international community in order to provide compensation for both Palestinian and Jewish refugees. In order to achieve this goal an international fund will be created that will be based on President Clinton's suggestion from 2000 and the Congress resolution 185 from 2008 in which Israel will also take part, even only in a symbolic way.

This fund will also compensate the countries that had already been working on absorbing and rehabilitating refugees; amongst others Jordan and Israel (retroactively) and perhaps Lebanon if it is willing to rehabilitate the descendants of Palestinian refugees in its territory. Here we should emphasize that the basis for compensation will be the value of assets of the refugees at the time, which according to research was much greater on the Jewish side than on the Palestinian side.

The fund will also deal with the issue of Jewish property that is still in the hands of Arab and Muslim countries, however the so-called Right of Return will not be relevant as the Jews are not interested in returning to the places from which they were deported from.

The State of Israel will not accept the principle of a Palestinian "right of return" but will prefer to provide compensation by an authorized third party. This demand has historic precedents as in the case of Cyprus.

... The Palestinian refugees will be rehabilitated in their place of residence just as the Jewish refugees were rehabilitated in theirs - Israel. There should be an immediate discontinuation of the perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee issue.

However, there is a reason that the almost throwaway sentence highlighted by Al Quds is critically important.

It completely destroys the Arab narrative that Israel is a colonialist entity.

If half of Israel's citizens are from the Middle East, then Israel is not an artificial European colonialist state as the Arab world likes to define it. Israelis are as likely as not to be descended from Jews who lived in the Middle East for centuries.

Of course, even if 100% of Israel's citizens were European Jews, it would not be colonialist either. But this statistic is a much more visceral argument against every stereotype Arabs try to ascribe to Israel, and it is important to highlight the fact that - even after the massive aliyah of Russian Jews in the 1990s - nearly half of Israeli Jews are native to the region by any definition.

Google innovations created in Israel

Forbes lists ten Google innovations created in Israel. I knew about some of them, but others were new to me.

Live Results is being developed in Israel. It allows people to find data they are looking for directly in the Google webpage, without the need to click on a link that will direct visitors to a website. For instance, you search “Weather in Rio de Janeiro” and it directly shows the forecast instead of only links to websites.

Person finder application. An app that was very useful during the Turkey Earthquake. Whenever a natural disaster takes place, the person finder application goes live, aiming to provide reliable and actual information about missing people. People basically have two buttons, “I am looking for someone” and “I have info about someone.”

Google Suggest – The Autocomplete Search Tool that let us “search faster than the speed of typing” was fully developed in Israel.

Digital Dead Sea Scrolls Project. Google has digitized one of the oldest manuscript ever discovered and allows everyone to examine it online with high resolution. For instance, if you search for “And the world shall dwell with the lamb,” you can instantly find the exact location in the digital version of the original scroll. This project was such a success that in the first day it was live more people saw the dead sea scrolls than in the entire year before.

Inna was very excited to present the work Google has done with the Yad Vashem memorial, dedicated to victims of the Holocaust. This collaborationhas created an online collaborative archive of photographs of the museum. Basically, Google uploaded thons of physical documents, such as photos. Anyone, anywhere can not only find information about each person and/or location in the pictures but also easily add information.

Google Insights for search started in Israel and now is being improved by Google engineers all over the world. It is a free tool to analyze search queries. However, only ratios and not the total number of queries are revealed. For instance, you can verify that the total amount of searches for the term “Pele” was about three times higher than ”Maradona” in the past 30 days.

In-Page Analytics was fully developed in Israel. Basically, it lets you quantify precise information about your website. For instance, you can measure the percentage of visitors who clicked on any clickable item in your website.

Receive emails through SMS in Ghana. Google Israel developed an app that allows people to receive emails in SMS format. In Ghana, just like in Guinea Conakry where I worked, broadband internet is not widespread. However, most people have cell phones. When you send an email to someone registered in this service, the person receives the email as a SMS. I hope Google has found a better way of filtering spams than in regular Gmail.

Interactive videos in youtube started in Israel and was taken to Mountain View to be fully developed.

“Got the wrong Bob” for Gmail, Priority inbox for Gmail, Hot topics and hot searches, all started in the Israel office.

Google hires some of the smartest software engineers and programmers on the planet, and even so Google Israel seems to be punching above its weight in creating interesting Google applications.

(h/t Mike)

Major archaeological finds in Israel confirm Biblical accounts from King David's time

From Israel's MFA:

Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, the Yigal Yadin Professor of Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, announced the discovery of objects that for the first time shed light on how a cult was organized in Judah at the time of King David. During recent archaeological excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, a fortified city in Judah adjacent to the Valley of Elah, Garfinkel and colleagues uncovered rich assemblages of pottery, stone and metal tools, and many art and cult objects. These include three large rooms that served as cultic shrines, which in their architecture and finds correspond to the biblical description of a cult at the time of King David.

This discovery is extraordinary as it is the first time that shrines from the time of early biblical kings were uncovered. Because these shrines pre-date the construction of Solomon's temple in Jerusalem by 30 to 40 years, they provide the first physical evidence of a cult in the time of King David, with significant implications for the fields of archaeology, history, biblical and religion studies.

Located approximately 30 km. southwest of Jerusalem in the valley of Elah, Khirbet Qeiyafa was a border city of the Kingdom of Judah opposite the Philistine city of Gath. The city, which was dated by 10 radiometric measurements (14C) done at Oxford University on burned olive pits, existed for a short period of time between ca. 1020 to 980 BCE, and was violently destroyed.

The absence of cultic images of humans or animals in the three shrines provides evidence that the inhabitants of the place practiced a different cult than that of the Canaanites or the Philistines, observing a ban on graven images.

The findings at Khirbet Qeiyafa also indicate that an elaborate architectural style had developed as early as the time of King David. Such construction is typical of royal activities, thus indicating that state formation, the establishment of an elite, social level and urbanism in the region existed in the days of the early kings of Israel. These finds strengthen the historicity of the biblical tradition and its architectural description of the Palace and Temple of Solomon.

According to Prof. Garfinkel, "This is the first time that archaeologists uncovered a fortified city in Judah from the time of King David. Even in Jerusalem we do not have a clear fortified city from his period. Thus, various suggestions that completely deny the biblical tradition regarding King David and argue that he was a mythological figure, or just a leader of a small tribe, are now shown to be wrong." Garfinkel continued, "Over the years, thousands of animal bones were found, including sheep, goats and cattle, but no pigs. Now we uncovered three cultic rooms, with various cultic paraphernalia, but not even one human or animal figurine was found. This suggests that the population of Khirbet Qeiyafa observed two biblical bans - on pork and on graven images - and thus practiced a different cult than that of the Canaanites or the Philistines."

...The stone model helps us to understand obscure technical terms in the description of Solomon's palace as described in 1 Kings 7, 1-6. The text uses the term "Slaot," which were mistakenly understood as pillars and can now be understood as triglyphs. The text also uses the term "Sequfim", which was usually understood as nine windows in the palace, and can now be understood as "triple recessed doorway."

Similar triglyphs and recessed doors can be found in the description of Solomon's temple (1 Kings 6, Verses 5, 31-33, and in the description of a temple by the prophet Ezekiel (41:6). These biblical texts are replete with obscure technical terms that have lost their original meaning over the millennia. Now, with the help of the stone model uncovered at Khirbet Qeiyafa, the biblical text is clarified. For the first time in history we have actual objects from the time of David, which can be related to monuments described in the Bible.

(h/t D)

A Gaza journalist who really does deserve an award

Over the years we have seen many awards given to Palestinian Arab journalists purely based on their anti-Israel reporting. We've even seen Helen Thomas receive a "Courage in Journalism" award purely because she publicly espoused anti-semitic opinions.

But there are some Palestinian Arab journalists who exhibit real courage. Reporting the truth about their political leadership is a hell of a lot more dangerous than writing yet another anti-Israel screed.

Here is one of the truly courageous Arab journalists:

Gaza journalist Asma al-Ghoul has won an international award for courage in journalism, the International Women’s Media Foundation said.

Al-Ghoul, 30, was awarded the 2012 IWMF prize alongside female journalists Reeyot Alemu from Ethiopia, Khadija Ismayilova from Azerbaijan and Zubeida Mustafa from Pakistan.

She has worked for Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam and her popular blog, AsmaGaza, was discontinued in February for unstated reasons.

Her reporting on the Palestinian internal division and social and political issues has earned international acclaim, receiving awards from Human Rights Watch and the Anna Lindh Mediterranean Foundation.

Al-Ghoul has been beaten by security forces at popular protests in Gaza, received death threats against her and her son, and once slept at her office out of fear for her life, the IWMF said.

The foundation added: "In 2007, she wrote an article as an open letter to her uncle -- a Hamas commander -- questioning methods of certain entities claiming to seek peace for Palestine. The article resulted in al-Ghoul’s uncle threatening to kill her."

Putting your life on the line to report the truth is brave. No matter what your political opinions are, Asma al-Ghoul is a courageous reporter.

Observations about Israel's new unity government

I don't usually blog about internal Israeli politics, mostly because understanding them requires total immersion.

One of my Israeli correspondents, who wants to be called Professor X, is a tenured professor in the social sciences who has a background in political sciences, economics and law. I asked him if I could post his thoughts:

Three observations:

Kadima as a party has not proved itself either centrist or pragmatic. It came into existence to pursue a leftist and utterly failed policy of unilateral withdrawal, and then moved to embrace the Labor-left policy of “peace in our time” through the imagined acceptance by the PLO of a generous Israeli peace offer.

As long as Israel keeps getting richer, the gap between rich and poor will continue to grow. It is a continuing matter of astonishment to me that people can look at statistics showing that all Israelis are getting wealthier and proclaim them proof of a broken economic system or a failure of social justice because the affluent are growing wealth faster. The Jewish principles of social justice do not embrace a return to Israel’s failed socialism, high taxes, wasteful spending, and obstructive regulation. It is unclear to me that the general population is generally “underpaid” — I would suspect quite the opposite. The working public is overpaid on average, thanks to the Histadrut, notwithstanding the fact that the labor agreements generally require underpaying the more skilled to subsidize overpaying the less skilled, while pricing many of the less skilled out of the working market altogether. Israel has several serious economic problems — monopolies established during Israel’s socialist heyday, underemployment of the workforce thanks not only to overly generous welfare benefits but also laws that require unemployment in order to enjoy state benefits like exemption from army service, excessive government ownership of land and other sectors of the economy, excessive regulation of land use and ordinary business decisions, and an overly powerful labor union that controls vast sectors of the economy (again a relic of Israel’s socialist heyday). Much of the agenda of the “social protests” was to exacerbate these problems, and, at best, the reforms adopted so far have been a mixed bag. There is little reason to celebrate if the unity government means an adoption of the destructive agenda of the “social protests.” Certainly, it’s not true that Israel has retained failed socialist policies and dirigisme due to the excessive influence of “wealthy donors” who will now be neutralized. And, incidentally, the protests were hardly “student-led.”

The idea that there is no peace with the Palestinians due to a violent fringe of Israelis is unfairly exculpatory to the Palestinians and defamatory to Israelis. Notwithstanding noisy fringes on the left and right (and the left fringe has done – so far as I can see – far more damage to Israel), they have not been players in the game in recent years. Both with and without Kadima, the government has the stability and motivation to reach a worthwhile agreement with the Palestinians. It is absolutely clear that whether Kadima is in or out of the government, Abbas has no interest in such a deal. It is true that Kadima endorses your suggested policy: that Israel should aim for a unilateral withdrawal after trying to use another round of failed negotiations to prove that that there is no realistic possibility of negotiated peace. But I hope and believe that Netanyahu has no such plans, and certainly the public will not demand such a self-destructive course after the Gaza fiasco. If this is the secret agenda of the new government, it is a cause for mourning, not celebration.

Other notable analyses from The Muqata, who looks at winners and losers, and Gerald Steinberg at the Times of Israel.

A number of people were trying to figure out why Netanyahu was calling for early elections, and a consensus of sorts was that it would give him more flexibility in deciding on a military option for Iran since Likud was well ahead in the polls. If that is true, this unity government is even more effective than any election results could have been in giving Israel internal political strength should it make that decision.

Work accident in the "playground of death"

From the Hamas al-Qassam website:

As Al Aqsa Intifada against the occupation assault on the Gaza Strip continues, Ezzeddeen Al-Qassam Brigades has its best men to be in the playground of death to defend their people from any attack by the enemy ... Today, Al-Qassam Brigades mourn the death of the Mujahed:

Rantisi in happier times, hanging out in his playground

Faris Mahmoud Al Rantisi,19 years old

Jabaliya refugee camp – North of Gaza Strip

The Mujahed martyred from wounds sustained during training last week. He was martyred on Monday evening May 7th, 2012. He was martyred after a long bright path of jihad, hard work, struggle and sacrifice.

Al Qassam Brigades mourn the death of the Mujahed, reaffirms the commitment and determination to continue the resistance against the belligerent occupation forces.

Finally, may Allah (swt) accept him and his blessed efforts for the path of Jihad and may Allah grant his family patience and solace for his lose.

I'm not sure if that last word is supposed to be "loss" or "for being such a loser." (Or perhaps he had a pet louse who is inconsolable.)

As usual, the Arabic version is much more flowery in language as they beseech Allah to allow him into Paradise even though he didn't manage to actually, you know, kill any Jews.