Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Iranian physicist sentenced to prison for spying with no evidence

Omid Kokabee, an Iranian graduate student who has been imprisoned in Tehran for the past 15 months, was sentenced to 10 years on Sunday for allegedly conspiring with foreign countries against Iran.

Judge Abolghasem Salavati of Branch 15 of Tehran's Revolution Court — who is famous for his harsh sentences — tried 10 to 15 people in the same trial, under the collective charge of collaborating with Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad.

Kokabee, a graduate student who previously worked on the physics of optics at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) in Barcelona, Spain, and more recently at the University of Texas in Austin, was arrested in Tehran in February 2011 on charges of “communicating with a hostile government” and “illegal earnings” (see 'A year in jail without trial for Iranian student accused of spying').

Close contacts of Kokabee in Iran have lamented the fact that no proof was presented at the trial to justify the sentence. Whereas other prisoners in the group declared themselves guilty in a television broadcast on the evening before the trial, the physics student has consistently denied all charges and refused to speak in court. (Faces are obscured in the broadcast, but Kokabee may be the person who appears at 24 seconds in a blue shirt.) He plans to appeal the sentence, according to his contacts.

International concern

Since Nature first highlighted Kokabee's case (see ‘Missing physicist may have been jailed in Iran’), various organizations have written to the Iranian authorities asserting his innocence and asking for a fair trial — including the Committee of Concerned Scientists, a human-rights group based in New York; the American Physical Society in College Park, Maryland; and a group of four international optics organizations. His case has been included as a cause for concern in the report of Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran.

In an open letter written while in prison, Kokabee claimed that the authorities were trying to obtain his “collaboration” through threats to him and his family; in another, he insisted that he was not a political activist, something that his friends confirm. Kokabee’s friends speculate that his frequent trips to Iran — totalling four or five in 2010 — may have aroused the suspicions of the Iranian authorities.

“This will send chills through the Iranian higher-education system, particularly scholars and students who seek to enhance and expand their horizons abroad,” says Hadi Ghaemi, a physicist previously at City University in New York and director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, an association that has recently promoted an initiative for imprisoned students.

Maybe he should try a hunger strike. I'm sure that would be effective in an enlightened government like Iran's.

(h/t L. King)

Former PA Mufti says Jerusalem not holy to Jews

From Al Arabiya via MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from an interview with former PA Mufti Sheik Ikrima Sabri, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on May 11, 2012:

Interviewer: Do you agree that in Jerusalem, there are places that are holy to the Muslims, the Jews and the Christians?

Ikrima Sabri: No, not to the Jews. I didn't say to the Jews. Omar Ibn Al-Khattab didn't find any synagogues of the Jews. There weren't any.

Interviewer: So in your opinion, today there are no places whatsoever in Jerusalem that are holy to the Jews?

Ikrima Sabri: No, none. They build new synagogues, but there are no archaeological remains [pertaining to the Jews]. For many years, they have been digging for archaeological remains, but they haven't found anything. How can we acknowledge something when they themselves admit that they have found nothing?

Except for this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this....

And that's only from the past couple of years.

Why peace is impossible, reason #6350

Two articles in the mainstream Arabic press about yesterday's "Nakba Day" prove that as long as Israel exists in any form, Arabs will not accept it. No matter what.

The first comes from the popular pan-Arab Al Quds al Arabi site. The title is all you need to know: "The 64-Year Occupation of Palestine." If the "occupation" is 64 years old, that means that even if Israel accedes to all the current PLO demands, there will still not be peace.

The second comes from Jordan's Addastour site, which is titled "Palestine Nakba is a dagger in the side of the Arab nation." It goes through a ridiculous history lesson (did you know that one reason Arabs fled Palestine is because the Jews stole their water?) but the main point is that Israel is a dagger that must be removed for the Arab people to be healed.

This is a critical point that Westerners cannot quite grasp. The conflict is not solvable. The Arab masses, brought up on generations of hate, are not going to accept Israel peacefully. The best anyone can hope for is a series of tactical truces and long term management of the conflict. And it is Israeli strength, not Israeli concessions, that is a prerequisite to having the Arab nations (including the PLO) grudgingly accept that Israel cannot be defeated and learn to deal with it.

Gaza export totals this season

From Israel's COGAT:

During the current season, more than 600 tons of strawberries, 250 tons of tomatoes, 50 tons of pepper and approximately 10,000,000 flowers, were exported thus far.

This is besides the 2000 sweaters exported yesterday to England and the furniture exports earlier this year.

If you are famous fact-challenged academic Juan Cole, this adds up to "zero."

Sorry, BDSers, but Israel's economy continues to grow

From Globes:

The Israeli economy grew by 3% on an annualized basis in the first quarter of 2012, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported today. The growth rate was above the 2.5% growth predicted in a "Bloomberg" poll of analysts, GDP growth in the first quarter was nevertheless less than in the two preceding quarters: 3.2% in the fourth quarter of 2011 and 3.3% in the third quarter.

The Central Bureau of Statistics said that GDP growth in the first quarter was due to higher exports and imports of goods and services, and higher private consumption, investment in fixed assets, and modest growth in public spending.

The GDP growth report includes some worrying data, however. Business product growth fell to 2.8% in the first quarter from 3.5% in the preceding quarter and 4.5% in the third quarter of 2011. The figure highlights the slowdown in the business sector, the economy's growth engine.

The good news is that, despite the worsening crisis in Europe, exports of goods and services rose by an annualized 14.2% in the first quarter, after falling by 0.2% in the preceding quarter. Exports of services rose by an annualized 45% in the first quarter (9.7% on a quarterly basis), and industrial exports, excluding diamonds, rose by 4.8%. Agricultural exports rose by an annualized 18.9% in the first quarter.

Sorry, haters, but it does not appear that BDS is making a dent in Israel's economy.

In fact, on a daily basis, individual Israeli companies seem to be making deals that are worth more than the entire loss to Israel's economy from BDS in a decade of loud posturing and next to zero accomplishments.

"Muslim Brotherhood sent convoy of doctors to mutilate girls"

From Bikya Masr:

A number of Egyptian human rights groups have submitted a communication to the Attorney General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud against the Muslim Brotherhood`s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) to investigate the complaints of people in the village of Abu Aziz in the Minya governorate, south of Cairo, over the existence of a large medical convoy organized by the party that wanders streets and does medical examination on people, including female circumcision, or female genital mutilation, in violation of Egyptian law, conventions and treaties signed by Egypt.

In Egypt’s legal code, Female Genital Mutilation is criminalized, as well as the inciting by doctors to convince families of the young girls of the need to agree to circumcise their daughters, “as a matter of preserving chastity.”

The communication demanded Mervat Tallawy, the head of the National Council for Women (NCW) and Major General Seraj EL Din El Rouby, the Governor of Minya, and Nasr El Sayed , Assistant Minister for primary health care, and preventive medicine, and family planning, to intervene to stop what it called “a farce propaganda for free circumcision, which was organized by one of the political parties, in Minya governorate to promote circumcision.”

The communication came after reports were circulated on news websites and social networking websites, including Facebook and Twitter about a convoy organized by the FJP to promote circumcision among girls in Minya.

It is unclear whether the story is true. The FJP denies it:

The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) Minya Secretary Dr. Diaa El-Maghazy said, "This report is completely false. The newspaper has republished it, although the FJP and Minya province health officials did refute the claims when first published by other papers and certain websites, three weeks ago".

El-Maghazy affirmed that the medical convoy in question was absolutely innocent, pointing out that it was organized and run under the supervision of Ministry of Health officials, and included the local Health Office Manager, the Vice President of the city's board of trustees and a member of the local health unit.

Al Arabiya reports on the Egyptian media claims about the convoy.

Recently, an FJP member of Parliament voiced support for female genital mutilation so it is plausible that this medical convoy was doing things that are a bit unsavory; perhaps when asked, or perhaps volunteering. As the above story illustrates there seem to be many doctors in Egypt who recommend FGM for their patients.

In the Arab world where rumors spread quickly, it is hard to know the truth and even respected newspapers are susceptible to printing unsubstantiated facts.

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.