Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Different prisoner agreement lessons between Arabic and English

From Ma'an, by Ali Sawafta of Reuters:

Standing up to Israel through non-violent resistance can produce encouraging results, Palestinians said Tuesday, after a prisoner hunger strike produced some Israeli concessions.

The deal under which thousands of prisoners agreed Monday to end a month-long fast against Israel's prison policy was struck on the eve of Nakba (catastrophe) Day that marks Israel's founding in a 1948 war when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes.

To some, the hunger strike proved the value of "popular resistance" as favored by President Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah. But his rivals in Hamas said their own confrontational attitude had paid dividends.

Some Palestinians said Israel was used to meeting violence with violence, but less adept at countering non-violent tactics.

"The prime lesson here is that resistance, unity and solidarity can bear fruit for the political movement," said West Bank political analyst Hani al-Masri. "Resistance, unity and determination can bring about results."

There are a few two problems with this thesis.

One is that the hunger strikes were accompanied with threats from all parts of Palestinian Arab leadership, from Abbas through Hamas, saying that if any hunger strikers die there will be a huge breakout of violence against Israel (and the Red Cross and UN.)

Another is that this "non-violent" lesson does not seem to be what Palestinian Arab media in Arabic is writing. I could not find this Reuters story in any Palestinian Arab newspaper, only this Egyptian one.

And at the same time that this story was published, Hamas threatened to kidnap more soldiers for more prisoner swaps. I guess they didn't get the memo that "nonviolent resistance" is the way to go.

Moreover, Islamic Jihad took a much different lesson from the episode of the hunger strikers: that Israel is fragile and easily defeated.

Spokesman for al-Quds Brigades, Abu Ahmed, said in that prisoners are the fuel of the confrontation and the leaders of each stage, pointing out that the victory was a new quantum leap, and proved again that the occupying entity is fragile and defeated.

"We have proved the prisoners are able to defeat their enemy, who boasts of his power yet his army is defeated in front of the whole world," he said.

He added: "The issue of prisoners will remain at the top of the priorities of the resistance forces at the top of Al-Quds Brigades," noting that they will spare no effort in order to ensure their freedom by force and that the enemy does not understand the other language."

Here is another case where the Palestinian Arabs seem to give one message to eager Westerners anxious to pretend that the culture of non-violence is widespread throughout the territories, and a different language altogether to their own people.

What Happened to Israel's Reputation? (Oren) (updated)

Nice piece in WSJ by Michael Oren. Since it will be paywalled soon, I'm posting the entire article.

This year Israel is celebrating . . . a series of accomplishments that have surely exceeded the expectations of its most visionary founders. It is one of the most powerful small nations in history. . . . [It] has tamed an arid wilderness [and] welcomed 1.25 million immigrants. . . . The Israelis themselves did the fighting, the struggling, the sacrificing in order to perform the greatest feat of all—forging a new society . . . in which pride and confidence have replaced the despair engendered by age-long suffering and persecution.

So Life magazine described Israel on the occasion of its 25th birthday in May 1973. In a 92-page special issue, "The Spirit of Israel," the magazine extolled the Jewish state as enlightened, robustly democratic and hip, a land of "astonishing achievement" that dared "to dream the dream and make that dream come alive."

Life told the story of Israel's birth from the Bible through the Holocaust and the battle for independence. "The Arabs' bloodthirsty threats," the editors wrote, "lend a deadly seriousness to the vow: Never Again." Four pages documented "Arab terrorist attacks" and the three paragraphs on the West Bank commended Israeli administrators for respecting "Arab community leaders" and hiring "tens of thousands of Arabs." The word "Palestinian" scarcely appeared.

There was a panoramic portrayal of Jerusalem, described as "the focus of Jewish prayers for 2,000 years" and the nucleus of new Jewish neighborhoods. Life emphasized that in its pre-1967 borders, Israel was "a tiny, parched, scarcely defensible toe-hold." The edition's opening photo shows a father embracing his Israeli-born daughter on an early "settlement," a testament to Israel's birthright to the land.

Would a mainstream magazine depict the Jewish state like this today, during the week of its 64th birthday?

Unlikely. Rather, readers would learn about Israel's overwhelming military might, brutal conduct in warfare and eroding democratic values—plus the Palestinians' plight and Israeli intransigence. The photographs would show not cool students and cutting-edge artists but soldiers at checkpoints and religious radicals.

Why has Israel's image deteriorated? After all, Israel today is more democratic and—despite all the threats it faces—even more committed to peace.

Some claim that Israel today is a Middle Eastern power that threatens its neighbors, and that conservative immigrants and extremists have pushed Israel rightward. Most damaging, they contend, are Israel's policies toward the territories it captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, toward the peace process and the Palestinians, and toward the construction of settlements.

Israel may seem like Goliath vis-à-vis the Palestinians, but in a regional context it is David. Gaza is host to 10,000 rockets, many of which can hit Tel Aviv, and Hezbollah in Lebanon has 50,000 missiles that place all of Israel within range. Throughout the Middle East, countries with massive arsenals are in upheaval. And Iran, which regularly pledges to wipe Israel off the map, is developing nuclear weapons. Israel remains the world's only state that is threatened with annihilation.

Whether in Lebanon, the West Bank or Gaza, Israel has acted in self-defense after suffering thousands of rocket and suicide attacks against our civilians. Few countries have fought with clearer justification, fewer still with greater restraint, and none with a lower civilian-to-militant casualty ratio. Israel withdrew from Lebanon and Gaza to advance peace only to receive war in return.

Whereas Israelis in 1973 viewed the creation of a Palestinian state as a mortal threat, it is now the official policy of the Israeli government. Jewish men of European backgrounds once dominated Israel, but today Sephardic Jews, Arabs and women are prominent in every facet of society. This is a country where a Supreme Court panel of two women and an Arab convicted a former president of sexual offenses. It is the sole Middle Eastern country with a growing Christian population. Even in the face of immense security pressures, Israel has never known a second of nondemocratic rule.

In 1967, Israel offered to exchange newly captured territories for peace treaties with Egypt and Syria. The Arab states refused. Israel later evacuated the Sinai, an area 3.5 times its size, for peace with Egypt, and it conceded land and water resources for peace with Jordan.

In 1993, Israel recognized the Palestinian people ignored by Life magazine, along with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the perpetrator of those "Arab terrorist attacks." Israel facilitated the creation of a Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza and armed its security forces. Twice, in 2000 and 2008, Israel offered the Palestinians a state in Gaza, virtually all of the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. In both cases, the Palestinians refused. Astonishingly, in spite of the Palestinian Authority's praise for terror, a solid majority of Israelis still support the two-state solution.

Israel has built settlements (some before 1973), and it has removed some to promote peace, including 7,000 settlers to fulfill the treaty with Egypt. Palestinians have rebuffed Israel's peace offers not because of the settlements—most of which would have remained in Israel anyway, and which account for less than 2% of the West Bank—but because they reject the Jewish state. When Israel removed all settlements from Gaza, including their 9,000 residents, the result was a terrorist ministate run by Hamas, an organization dedicated to killing Jews world-wide.

Nevertheless, Israeli governments have transferred large areas to the Palestinian Authority and much security responsibility to Palestinian police. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has removed hundreds of checkpoints, eased the Gaza land blockade and joined President Obama in calling for the resumption of direct peace talks without preconditions. Addressing Congress, Mr. Netanyahu declared that the emergence of a Palestinian state would leave some settlements beyond Israel's borders and that "with creativity and with good will a solution can be found" for Jerusalem.

Given all this, why have anti-Israel libels once consigned to hate groups become media mainstays? How can we explain the assertion that an insidious "Israel Lobby" purchases votes in Congress, or that Israel oppresses Christians? Why is Israel's record on gay rights dismissed as camouflage for discrimination against others?

The answer lies in the systematic delegitimization of the Jewish state. Having failed to destroy Israel by conventional arms and terrorism, Israel's enemies alit on a subtler and more sinister tactic that hampers Israel's ability to defend itself, even to justify its existence.

It began with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat's 1974 speech to the U.N., when he received a standing ovation for equating Zionism with racism—a view the U.N. General Assembly endorsed the following year. It gained credibility on college campuses through anti-Israel courses and "Israel Apartheid Weeks." It burgeoned through the boycott of Israeli scholars, artists and athletes, and the embargo of Israeli products. It was perpetuated by journalists who published doctored photos and false Palestinian accounts of Israeli massacres.

Israel must confront the acute dangers of delegitimization as it did armies and bombers in the past. Along with celebrating our technology, pioneering science and medicine, we need to stand by the facts of our past. "The Spirit of Israel" has not diminished since 1973—on the contrary, it has flourished. The state that Life once lionized lives even more vibrantly today.

I would say that the plot to delegitimize Israel came a few years before the 1974 speech, in 1968, but otherwise this is right on.

I could not find the Life article online, alas. But here's a copy of the cover (h/t Brad):

(h/t David G)

UPDATE: I found the link the the 1968 PLO document I was referring to.

Lawrence of Judea

An interesting 2009 article by Martin Gilbert:

T.E. Lawrence—better known in Britain and throughout the Middle East as Lawrence of Arabia—was a lifelong friend of Arab national aspirations. In 1917 and 1918 he participated as a British officer in the Arab revolt against the Turks, a revolt led by Sharif Hussein, later King of the Hedjaz. He was also an adviser to Hussein’s son Feisal, whom he hoped to see on the throne of Syria. For generations of British Arabists, Lawrence was and remains a symbol of British understanding of and support for the Arab cause. Virtually unknown, however, is his understanding of and support for Jewish national aspirations in the same era....

[I]ndeed, Lawrence’s view of the potential evolution of the Jewish National Home in British Mandate Palestine was far from hostile to Jewish hopes. In an article entitled “The Changing East,” published in the influential Round Table magazine in 1920, Lawrence wrote of “the Jewish experiment” in Palestine that it was “a conscious effort, on the part of the least European people in Europe, to make head against the drift of the ages, and return once more to the Orient from which they came.”

Lawrence noted of the new Jewish immigrants: “The colonists will take back with them to the land which they occupied for some centuries before the Christian era samples of all the knowledge and technique of Europe. They propose to settle down amongst the existing Arabic-speaking population of the country, a people of kindred origin, but far different social condition. They hope to adjust their mode of life to the climate of Palestine, and by the exercise of their skill and capital to make it as highly organized as a European state.”

As Lawrence envisaged it in his Round Table article, this settlement would be done in a way that would be beneficial to the Arabs. “The success of their scheme,” he wrote of the Zionists, “will involve inevitably the raising of the present Arab population to their own material level, only a little after themselves in point of time, and the consequences might be of the highest importance for the future of the Arab world. It might well prove a source of technical supply rendering them independent of industrial Europe, and in that case the new confederation might become a formidable element of world power.”

Which is exactly how the Zionists at the time felt.

(h/t Aaron)

And now...FemTechWashing

More hasbara from the US Embassy in Israel.

Iran executes "Israeli spy"

From BBC:

Majid Jamali Fashi, 24, was convicted of killing Professor Massoud Ali Mohammadi by detonating a bomb outside his home in January 2010.

Fashi was also accused of being a spy for the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and receiving $120,000 (£72,000) for the killing.

Israel does not comment on such claims.

"Majid Jamali Fashi, the Mossad spy and the person who assassinated Masoud Ali Mohammadi, our nation's nuclear scientist was hanged on Tuesday morning," Iran's Irna news agency reported.

Professor Massoud Ali Mohammadi was a particle physics professor at Tehran University. He is one of several high-profile nuclear scientists to have been killed in Tehran in recent years.

Iran has repeatedly accused Israel and the US of trying to harm its nuclear programme.

Fashi, who was tried and convicted in August 2011, appeared on Iranian TV in January confessing to the professor's killing, and giving details of the intelligence gathering operation he said he was involved in.

Opposition sources in Iran have accused the government of killing Professor Mohammadi because he was one of their supporters.

Al Arabiya adds that he was convicted of Moharebeh (waging war against God) and notes "Western analysts said Ali-Mohammadi, a 50-year-old Tehran University professor, had little, if any, role in Iran’s sensitive nuclear program. A spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation said at the time he was not involved in its activities."

The Mossad may have been involved in the assassination, but it is far from certain that Fashi had anything to do with it.

Sounds like an Iranian hit job where they got the opportunity to kill 2 people they wanted to get rid of.

(h/t John W.)

Thousands of Jews go on pilgrimage to Morocco

From AFP:

Thousands of Jews from Morocco, Israel and other parts of the world have over the past week carried out an annual pilgrimage to the Islamic nation to honour celebrated rabbis.

Morocco may not be the likeliest of Jewish pilgrim destinations, but the north African nation has for centuries had a vibrant Jewish population and some 1,200 of the faith's pious ancestors are buried in cemeteries here. In recent days, about 5,000 pilgrims have gathered to pray for peace at sanctuaries and gravesites.

Perhaps the most famous of these burial grounds is that of Amran Ben Diwan, a venerated rabbi who was interred 250 years ago in the mountains of Ouazzane, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the capital Rabat.

Ben Diwan's tomb, nestled in a Jewish cemetery among acres of olive trees, was placed under police guard and only people who had been authorised by Morocco's Jewish community were allowed access.

The pilgrimage will finish Saturday, following five days of prayers and celebration, with pilgrims hurling candles into a large fire by Ben Diwan's tomb.

Arab media reports that no Israelis attended last week's Lag B'Omer pilgrimage to Tunisia, but this one in Morocco is attracting many Israeli Jews.

Gaza exports clothes to British retailer. Who will boycott them?

From Reuters:

Israel allowed on Monday the export of Palestinian-made clothes from the Gaza Strip for the first time in at least five years, a Palestinian official said.

Raed Fattouh, who coordinates supplies into Gaza, said a truck carrying 2,000 pieces of mainly woolen garments were exported through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing towards an Israeli seaport en route to Britain.

Gaza's Ashour knitwear company, which was rebuilt with UK aid after it closed in 2007, will export the goods to Britain's J.D. Williams clothes outlet, a UK official said.

Since Hamas is systematically repressing Palestinian Arabs - unjustly jailing them, evicting them from their homes, and so forth - and since Hamas controls Gaza and collects taxes from these exports, I'm sure that the "pro-Palestinian" crowd will want to boycott these clothes - and the entire JD Williams company - to help bring down the Hamas government.

That is the logic of the "pro-Palestinian" boycotters, isn't it?

"Nakba" protesters attack worshippers at Rachel's Tomb

YNet Hebrew reports that dozens of masked Palestinian Arab youths tried to stone about about 20 Jewish worshippers at Rachel's Tomb. The Jews were forced to go back inside the shrine to protect themselves.

Both Israeli border police and PA security forces came to break up the riot.

Palestinian Arabs also threw stones and burned tires near the Ma'arat HaMachpela in Hebron.

Turkey freaks over "Israeli spy bird"

Add another member to the Zionist Attack Zoo.

A bird found in Turkey, with markings indicating it was from Tel Aviv, has been called an Israeli spy by Turkish media.

The already dead bird was caught by beekeepers. Besides the words "Tel Aviv Israel" they saw the most nefarious tag saying "C43917," obviously a secret spy code.

The bird's left nostril was three times the size of its right nostril, leading Turkish authorities to conclude that it might be hiding spy equipment in its beak.

It took a few days before Turkish media noted that researchers tag birds all the time to note migration patterns.

One article noted that Turkey accused Moscow of using spy birds over 60 years ago.

This bird is clearly a martyr for the Zionist cause. I hope that his or her body can be returned so Israel can give it a proper burial with the full military honors it deserves.(After the secret photos are extracted from its beak electronics, of course.)

UPDATE: It looks like the bird is the European Bee-Eater. (h/t Ian)

Arabs testify about Hamas' repressive rule

I mentioned that a literature festival in Gaza was disrupted by Hamas police last week.

The festival was then moved to Cairo, where the participants talked about what a hellhole Gaza turned out to be under Hamas (after the perfunctory Israel-bashing):

The closing ceremony of the fifth Palestine Festival of Literature (aka Palfest) was overshadowed by politics as writers who returned from a trip to the Gaza Strip gave their testimony on the situation there and described Hamas’s “repressive rule.”

Most of the writers who visited Gaza had one opinion with respect to cultural activities in Gaza: “deplorable.” They say the aim appears to be to erase the Palestinian character and culture, which gave the world thinkers and poets like Mahmoud Darwish and Edward Said.

Professor of English Literature Sahar El-Mougy said that there’s a deplorable condition of cultural hunger. There aren’t even cinemas, libraries, or shops that sell books on the arts, philosophy or literature. The only available books are those on Islamic Sharia (Islamic jurisprudence) and Fiqh (thinking).

“There’s a conspiracy against the Palestinian character, to destroy its beauty. Hamas is erasing Palestinian culture, replacing it with an extremist version of Islam. They don’t even allow men and women to be in the same place!” El-Mougy objected.

“But through all this, and despite the security and intelligence, who we saw everywhere in Gaza, students we met have the spirit of resistance — not against Israel this time, but against the repressive practices of Hamas.”

“When we started writing workshops with young girls in schools, they first wrote about resistance against Israel,” said El-Mougy. “But when we showed them that writing could also express your inner feelings, the results were magnificent. Girls started to realise that writing is also about the self.”

El-Mougy says that Hamas, the resistance movement against occupation, became itself a movement of repression. “Hamas stands between Palestinians and life.”

(h/t Petra)

Not so trivial administrivia

A couple of years ago, I started a new job.

At the time, I wrote

I recently started a new job, and it will not afford me the ability to post as often as I have been.

However, it turns out that the opposite occurred: I could find lots of time during the day to throw in some posts, and in fact my output roughly doubled!

Alas, the days where I can post 9 or 10 posts a day are history. Because I just started another new job - with a much longer commute and longer working hours, as well as a huge amount of work that needs to be done.

I will continue to blog when I can, mostly in the early morning and then queuing the posts at intervals during the day, but they will be less frequent and generally less time-intensive. Tweeting and email will also go way down the priority list.

So I apologize for not being able to keep up the torrid pace of posting I maintained for the past 30 months.

Do Zionists torture puppies too?

From the ever entertaining a>Fars news agency:

"The Zionists' existence is against goodness and is a source of evil, suffering orment" for all humanity, Ahmadinejad said, addressing a large group of people in Khorassan Razavi province, Northeastern Iran, on Sunday.

Ahmadinejad is running out of things to say about us evil Zionists. What's next, that we love torturing puppies?

Shorouk News reports that Egypt's Minister of Agriculture, Mohammad Reza Ismail, is starting a program where Sinai Bedouin can purchase land for cultivating crops.

But there is a caveat: they are not allowed to sell their land to non-Egyptians.

And the reason?

"So that [the land] is not to be found in the hands of the Jews."

Just some of your run-of-the-mill Arab anti-semitism. Nothing to see here.

Listen to Grandpa, Andy Ling (video)

Cute video series from Jewlarious, starring Elliott Gould:

DoZ and her husband never heard of Elliott Gould. I had to say "the old guy with the big glasses in Ocean's Eleven." Sigh.

For "Nakba Day" - an e-book that tells the truth (updated)

This booklet, from Im Tirtzu, debunks the many "Nakba" myths that have become embedded into the standard narrative of the founding of Israel.

My only quibbles from a quick read-through:

The booklet quotes Efraim Karsh liberally but says that there were only 560,000 Arabs who left Israel in 1948. Karsh's number is between 583,000-609,000 Arab refugees.

The last chapter's title implies that all Palestinian Arabs were pro-Nazi, although it only talks (accurately) about the Mufti of Jerusalem. My research indicates that most PalArabs were ambiguous, not really supporting either side, although some clearly did. Also they happily used ex-Nazis to help them in 1948.

(UPDATE: Commenter BHCh points out that Benny Morris' "1948" book points out that in a 1941 poll commissioned by the American consulate in Jerusalem found that 88% of Arabs in Palestine supported Nazi Germany, as opposed to only 9% for Great Britain.)

But in general this is a very good reference to show people the truth about the "Nakba."

(h/t Yoel)

Evidence of Iran's nuclear weapons program mounting

From JPost:

Iran is accelerating its nuclear weapons program, according to a report Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) Iranian opposition group compiled and The Jerusalem Post obtained on Friday.

The report first appeared in the Die Welt German daily, and Brussels-based Iran expert Emanuele Ottolenghi, who provided it to the Post, was asked by the paper to verify its contents.

The report and various additional charts outline the different offices involved in Iran’s weapons program and identify some 60 directors and experts working in various parts of SPND and 11 additional institutions and companies affiliated with the program.

The SPND headquarters is based in Mojdeh, a military facility near Tehran. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, whom western intelligence agencies have identified as the man responsible for the nuclear weapons program, heads the facility. He is under United Nations sanctions.

MEK also identified a facility called the “Center for Explosives, Blast Research and Technologies” – known by its Persian acronym METFAZ – which is based in a five-story nondescript office building in Tehran’s Pars neighborhood.

Scientists there are responsible for building high-explosives for nuclear detonators and conducting tests at the Parchin site, a facility long suspected of being connected to nuclear activity which Iran has refused to open to UN inspectors.

SPND, according to the report, is comprised of seven sub-divisions: 1) a division that works on the main element for the bomb, including the enriched uranium; 2) a division that shapes and molds the material needed to build a warhead; 3) a division that produces metals required for a nuclear warhead; 4) a division that produces high-explosive material used to cause a nuclear detonation; 5) a division which conducts research on advanced chemical materials; 6) a division that conducts electronic calculations required for building a nuclear warhead; 7) and a division which is responsible for laser activities needed for a nuclear weapon.

“The information sharply contradicts the assessment by some that Iran has not yet made the decision to go forward with the weapons program, as well as the observation by others who suggest that the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has forbidden the development of a nuclear bomb, because it would be a ‘sin’ to do so,” the report said.

The report claims that the Fordow uranium enrichment facility built in a mountain near the city of Qom was built under the personal supervision of Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi. It said that experts who work at another facility involved in the weapons program are in direct contact with the Fordow site and supervise activities there.

“This makes increasingly clear the objectives with which the Fordow site was built,” the report said.

MEK, which is a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), has long been suspected of working closely with the Mossad and the CIA. In 2002, for example, the NCRI revealed the existence of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility which until then had not been known to the world.

Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the MEK report could be a “game changer” in Western perceptions of Iran’s nuclear program.

“Until now, intelligence agencies and policymakers surmised that Iran sought civil nuclear energy but kept the option open for nuclear weapons, while pending a decision from its religious leaders,” he explained.

“These documents support the opposite conclusions – namely that Iran’s program was always military and its civil nuclear component was just a façade. Iran decided long ago to make nuclear weapons – the only question is when.”

And from AP:

A drawing based on information from inside an Iranian military site shows an explosives containment chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests that U.N. inspectors suspect Tehran has conducted there. Iran denies such testing and has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such a chamber.

The computer-generated drawing was provided to The Associated Press by an official of a country tracking Iran's nuclear program who said it proves the structure exists, despite Tehran's refusal to acknowledge it.

That official said the image is based on information from a person who had seen the chamber at the Parchin military site, adding that going into detail would endanger the life of that informant. The official comes from an IAEA member country that is severely critical of Iran's assertions that its nuclear activities are peaceful and asserts they are a springboard for making atomic arms.

A former senior IAEA official said he believes the drawing is accurate. Olli Heinonen, until last year the U.N. nuclear agency's deputy director general in charge of the Iran file, said it was "very similar" to a photo he recently saw that he believes to be the pressure chamber the IAEA suspects is at Parchin.

He said even the colors of the computer-generated drawing matched that of the photo he had but declined to go into the origins of the photo to protect his source.

And from ISIS:

ISIS has acquired commercial satellite imagery of the Parchin site in Iran showing new activity that substantiates the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) stated concern regarding recent “activity” at the site. The new activity seen in the satellite image occurred outside a building suspected to contain an explosive chamber used to carry out nuclear weapons related experiments (see figure 1). The April 9, 2012 satellite image shows items lined up outside the building. It is not clear what these items are. The image also shows what appears to be a stream of water that emanates from or near the building. Based on new information that the IAEA received, the Agency asked Iran to visit this building at the Parchin site, but Iran has not allowed a visit. IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano noted recently that the IAEA has “information that some activity is ongoing” at the Parchin site 1. When asked if he was concerned that these activities could be associated with cleansing the site, Amano replied, “That possibility is not excluded…We cannot say for sure because we are not there.” The items visible outside the building could be associated with the removal of equipment from the building or with cleansing it. The stream of water that appears to emanate from the building raises concerns that Iran may have been washing inside the building, or perhaps washing the items outside the building. Satellite images of the building from recent months do not show any similar activity at the site—indicating that such activity is not a regular occurrence at this building (see figures 2 and 3).

Iran should immediately allow IAEA inspectors into the Parchin site and allow access to this specific building. It should also explain the purpose of the activities seen at the building in this recent satellite image.

But some anti-Israel idiots will keep claiming that Israel's concern over Iran is really to deflect world attention from Israel's primary purpose, which is of course to persecute poor Palestinian Arabs.

(h/t Yoel, Petra)

Lies, damned lies and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics came out with its annual "nakba" report where it tries to twist numbers to make Israel look as bad as possible.

Just a quick glance through it shows a number of lies as well as more evidence that the PA has no real interest in peace.

For example:

Nakba in literary terms means a natural catastrophe such as an earthquake, volcano, or hurricane. However, the Nakba in Palestine describes a process of ethnic cleansing in which an unarmed nation has been destroyed and its population displaced to be replaced systematically by another nation. Unlike a natural catastrophe, the Palestinian Nakba was the result of a man-made military plan with the agreement of other states, leading to a major tragedy for the Palestinian people.

Who started the war again? Oh, yeah, the "unarmed nation" of Arabs in Palestine who immediately started killing Jewish civilians after the UN partition resolution. They were then joined by their compatriots from neighboring Arab states.

If they would have accepted partition, they would have had a state 64 years ago. Instead they decided to kill the Jews. Bad decisions have consequence - unless yo are Palestinian Arab, in which case your bad decisions must be the fault of the Jews.

In 1948, 1.4 million Palestinians lived in 1,300 Palestinian towns and villages. More than 800,000 of the population were driven out of their homeland to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, neighboring Arab countries, and other countries of the world.

The number is closer to 600,000. But what's wrong with inflating it by 33%? It's not as if the PCBS really cares about accurate statistics, is it?

According to documentary evidence, the Israelis controlled 774 towns and villages and destroyed 531 Palestinian towns and villages during the Nakba. The atrocities of Israeli forces also included more than 70 massacres in which 15,000 Palestinians were killed.

This paragraph is still referring to the "nakba" - and nowhere near 15,000 Palestinian Arabs were killed then. It was probably closer to a thousand. The total number of Palestinian Arabs killed in 64 years by Israel is about 15,000.

Statistical data also show that refugees constitute 44.1% of the total Palestinian population in the Palestinian Territory.

If they are on their territory, how can they be refugees from their territory? Just one of the many anomalous definitions that apply to Palestinian Arabs only.

Population Density: Gaza Strip the most crowded place in the world
The population density in the Palestinian Territory at the end of 2011 was 703 individuals per square kilometer (km2): 462 individuals/km2 in the West Bank and 4,429 individuals/km2 in Gaza Strip. In Israel, the population density of Arabs and Jews in 2011 was 362 individuals per km2.

Except for Macau, Monaco, Singapore, Hong Kong and Gibraltar. The first two have population densities quadruple that of Gaza.

Historical Palestine: Israel controls more than 85% of its land
At the end of 2011, there were 11.7 million people living in the historical land of Palestine with a land area of 27,000 km2. Jews constitute around 52% of the total population and utilize more than 85% of the total area of land. Arabs comprise 48% of the total population and utilize less than 15% of the land. A Palestinian therefore has less than a quarter of the area of land available to an Israeli.

I don't know if these numbers are correct (how do they characterize Israeli Arabs, for example First they say "Jews" and then "Israelis.") However, "historic Palestine" is one of those Palestinian Arab myths they love to throw around. It is an artificial construct created by the British after World War One, and in reality there was something called Eastern Palestine before then - in a land now known as Jordan. And it was larger than western Palestine, what the Palestinian Arabs now call - "Palestine."

Why did they give up their claim to more than half of their historic area? Because Jews didn't control any of it!

The number of martyrs killed in the al Aqsa Intifada between September 29th, 2000 and December 31st, 2011 was 7,460, up from 7,235 at the end of 2009.

Notice that the official Palestinian Arab position is that suicide bombers are "martyrs." Notice also that they are claiming that the second intifada is still going on.

You can learn a lot from reading reports from the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics. But not al lof it was what they wanted to try to teach you.

Purpose of J-Street is not to reflect US Jewish opinion, but to change it (updated)

I received this video from ProIsrael Media showing Carinne Luck, Vice President of Field and Campaigns for J-Street, speaking at what appears to be an internal meeting.

In it, she seems to admit that most of J-Street's support comes from outside the Jewish community. Moreover, she contradicts J-Street's claims to represent the majority opinion of American Jews; and she states that J-Street's goal, following the demands of left-leaning politicians and the Obama administration, is to "move" the American Jewish community towards the left, so this is "primarily" what the organization does.

I do not have access to the entire video so I cannot verify 100% that these quotes are in context, but if accurate it looks pretty damning for the "pro-Israel, pro-peace" J-Street.

UPDATE: The video was taken down by YouTube but I got the entire video, without edits. Here it is - you can make up your own minds as to whether the statements were in context of not.

Here's a partial transcript:

Man: We have some support and interest in the Jewish community. We get much more support outside the traditional Jewish community. We know that for political reasons we have to be sensitive to the composition of the leadership. Can you address this very uncomfortable question?
Luck: Is this Jewish/non-Jewish? Is that the question you were going to ask?
Man: Yes.
Luck: Our theory of change and the one we've been told as what people on the Hill and in the administration, what they are looking to from us. It is very specific. And we are a primarily Jewish but not exclusively Jewish organization and they want us to see us primarily moving Jews. American Jews. And so that is where the bulk of our resources go...
I think for us building power is "how do we build power in our own community?"...Even in our small Jewish community they are still looking to us to give them cover....
But that is why for our leadership, you know we want our leadership to be comfortable going in and meeting with someone saying "as an American Jew I do this" and if that's inauthentic, you know, I mean look I would never tell someone to lie. If they choose to that's their business....
And I do know there is this feeling like "but there's all these people that are supportive". Certainly there is nothing wrong with getting them to be part of our numbers. Like we do not say we are an exclusively Jewish organization and if they want to sign up to our list, that's great.

(h/t Daled Amos)

Reminder: Panel discussion in NYC next week

Just a reminder that I will be part of a panel discussion next week in New York.

You ought to show up.

Not only because it is a rare opportunity to meet me (or someone who does a convincing impression of me.)

Not only because you can meet some serious heavyweights of the pro-Israel media.

You ought to come because, seriously, where in Manhattan can you get a kosher dinner for only $18?

You can RSVP here.

Leading Egyptian candidate: Israel "racist", OBL killing "state terrorism"

From Naharnet:

A leading Islamist candidate in Egypt's presidential election has branded Israel a "racist state" and said a shared 1979 peace treaty was "a national security threat" that should be revised.

Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh also denounced al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden's assassination by U.S. special forces as an act of "state terrorism," in a late Saturday Egyptian television interview.

Abul Fotouh, a front runner in the May 23-24 election according to polls, had earlier described Israel as an "enemy" in a televised debate with his main contender, former foreign minister and Arab League chief Amr Moussa.

In Saturday's interview with the private Egyptian CBC satellite station, he said he had opposed the treaty since its implementation. "I still view the peace treaty as a national security threat to Egypt, and it must be revised."

"It is a treaty that forbids Egypt from exercising full sovereignty in the Sinai and allows Israelis to enter Sinai without visas, while they need visas for Cairo," he said.

The treaty, in which Israel withdrew from the Sinai after capturing it in a 1967 war, does not allow Egypt a military presence in parts of the peninsula.

Abul Fotouh said Israel was "a racist state with 200 nuclear warheads" that continued to pose a threat to Egypt.

A moderate Islamist with support from both hardline fundamentalists and liberals, Abul Fotouh refused to describe Bin Laden as a terrorist, saying the term was used by the United States to "hit Muslim interests."

But he said the killing of the Saudi militant was an "act of state terrorism," and Bin Laden had deserved a fair trial, although he disagreed with Bin Laden's use of violence.

Fotouh has gotten endorsements from both the Salafi al-Nour party and from Wael Ghonim, the Google employee who was one of the early leaders of the revolution. In a recent poll he was slightly in the lead.

The thing is, compared to other candidates, Fotouh probably is moderate. You just have to move the goalposts a bit when talking about Arabs being "moderate" because it means something much different when applied to Arabs than to Westerners.