Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Saudi clerics want adults to breastfeed - to reduce temptation

Women in Saudi Arabia should give their breast milk to male colleagues and acquaintances in order to avoid breaking strict Islamic law forbidding mixing between the sexes, two powerful Saudi clerics have said. They are at odds, however, over precisely how the milk should be conveyed.

A fatwa issued recently about adult breast-feeding to establish "maternal relations" and preclude the possibility of sexual contact has resulted in a week's worth of newspaper headlines in Saudi Arabia. Some have found the debate so bizarre that they're calling for stricter regulations about how and when fatwas should be issued.

Sheikh Al Obeikan, an adviser to the royal court and consultant to the Ministry of Justice, set off a firestorm of controversy recently when he said on TV that women who come into regular contact with men who aren't related to them ought to give them their breast milk so they will be considered relatives.

"The man should take the milk, but not directly from the breast of the woman," Al Obeikan said, according to Gulf News. "He should drink it and then becomes a relative of the family, a fact that allows him to come in contact with the women without breaking Islam's rules about mixing."

Obeikan said the fatwa applied to men who live in the same house or come into contact with women on a regular basis, except for drivers.

Al Obeikan, who made the statement after being asked on TV about a 2007 fatwa issued by an Egyptian scholar about adult breast-feeding, said that the breast milk ought to be pumped out and given to men in a glass.

But his remarks were followed by an announcement by another high-profile sheik, Abi Ishaq Al Huwaini, who said that men should suckle the breast milk directly from a woman's breast.

Shortly after the two sheiks weighed in on the matter, a bus driver in the country's Eastern Region reportedly told one of the female teachers whom he drives regularly that he wanted to suckle milk from her breast. The teacher has threaten to file a lawsuit against him.

Under Islamic law, women are encouraged to breast-feed their children until the age of 2. It is not uncommon for sisters, for example, to breast-feed their nephews so they and their daughters will not have to cover their faces in front of them later in life. The custom is called being a "breast milk sibling."

But under Islamic law, breast milk siblings have to be breastfed before the age of 2 in five "fulfilling" sessions. Islam prohibits sexual relations between a man and any woman who breastfed him in infancy. They are then allowed to be alone together when the man is an adult because he is not considered a potential mate.

"The whole issue just shows how clueless men are," blogger Eman Al Nafjan wrote on her website. "All this back and forth between sheiks and not one bothers to ask a woman if it's logical, let alone possible to breastfeed a grown man five fulfilling breast milk meals.

"Moreover, the thought of a huge hairy face at a woman's breast does not evoke motherly or even brotherly feelings. It could go from the grotesque to the erotic but definitely not maternal."

Al Nafjan said many in the country were appalled by the fatwa.

"We have many important issues that need discussing," Al Nafjan told AOL News Friday. "It's ridiculous to spend time talking about adult breast-feeding."

The original adult breast-feeding fatwa was issued three years ago by an Egyptian scholar at Egypt's al-Azhar University, considered Sunni Islam's top university. Ezzat Attiya was expelled from the university after advocating breast-feeding of men as a way to circumnavigate segregation of the sexes in Egypt.

A year ago, Attiya was reinstated to his post.

It is only a matter of time before we start hearing about Saudi lacto-porn.

Sorry about two posts in a row about sucking. (Three, if that's your opinion of the NJ terrorist/Juiceman.)

(h/t OBOZ & co)

Syria at UNHRC: "Jewish kids sing of sucking Arab blood" (UPDATED)

From the Vancouver Sun:

Syria on Tuesday accused Israel of indoctrinating its children with hatred towards Arabs, telling the United Nations Human Rights Council that Israeli youngsters sing about sucking Arab blood, and learn how to sign missiles destined for military activity against Arabs.

The tirade, delivered by Syrian diplomat Rania Al Rifaiy, was part of a Syrian appeal at the world body for countries to unite behind a campaign to "put an end to Israeli brutality."

"Hatred is widespread, taught to even small children, who are taught to use weapons, and who are taught to sign missiles that will be fired at Arabs," Al Rifaiy said

"Let me quote a song that a group of children on a school bus in Israel sing merrily as they go to school: 'With my teeth I will rip your flesh, with my mouth I will suck your blood.'"

Come on - "blood" and "flesh" don't even rhyme!

This is, of course, the same Human Rights Council that the current US administration has joined, rather than treat it with the contempt it so richly deserves.

But to me, when I hear the phrase "teeth ripping flesh" and "sucking blood" together, I am reminded not of Israeli children, but - Syrian girls!

As I mentioned a while back, Syria used to have annual celebrations of the Yom Kippur war, featuring Syrian girls ripping apart live snakes with their teeth and then eating them, as well as soldiers breaking puppies' necks and drinking their blood, while President Assad watched and smiled his approval.

I have the video of the Syrian Snake Eating Girls. (You only have to watch the first two minutes. Warning: Very gruesome.)

Can you say "projection"?

UPDATE: I had heard rumors about Syrian soldiers breaking the necks of puppies and then ripping their flesh with their teeth as well. This very poor quality video seems to show it (they start with eating scorpions, then snakes, and finally what appears to be a living puppy or other small animal.) The apparent puppy murder starts at about the 6:30 mark. Warning: Very gruesome.

The Juiceman is arrested

A while back, a lot of the blogosphere was enjoying this picture taken at a Muslim demonstration:

Well, the Jawa Report is saying that this hater is none other than Carlos Almonte - one of the would-be jihadists who were just caught trying to go to Africa to fight Americans!

Almonte had posted it on his Facebook page.

Some of his defenders have stated that he really doesn't hate all juice, just the ones with pulp. In fact, some of his best friends are said to be juice - but the righteous, clear kind, the kind that is watered down so much that it is indistinguishable from any flavored water. His pals are saying that he only hates the juice that looks and tastes like juice.

Orange and grapefruit juices are much more skeptical, saying that when he says "death to all juice" he really means all juice, and it would be foolhardy not to take him at his word. His defenders, however, say that this is merely a cultural thing, and not to take it seriously. Even some of the clear juices themselves are vociferously defending Almonte and attacking the slanders from the 100% juices. Certainly, they proclaim, clear watery juice has no reason to be worried, as they cannot possibly be mixed up with the pulpy, opaque kind - it looks more like water, or maybe Kool-Aid, and how can Almonte even consider killing all juice when he might end up killing some innocent Gatorade instead?

Kuwaiti Journalist: The Flotilla Was Violent; Israel Has a Right to Defend Itself

Kuwaiti journalist 'Abdallah Al-Hadlaq supported Israel's decision to stop the Gaza flotilla in the daily Al-Watan, saying that the outcome of the Israeli navy's operation was "in direct proportion to the violence" of the flotilla activists, and that the flotilla organizers are known to have ties with global and regional terror organizations.

The following are excerpts:[1]
"The Weapons had Clearly been Prepared in Advance... and the Soldiers had No Choice but to Respond"
"The Israeli navy gave repeated warnings to the ships [of the flotilla], which tried to break the blockade on the terroristic Hamas movement in Gaza, and also invited them to enter the Ashdod port and unload their cargo of 'aid' supplies, so it could be thoroughly examined by the security [forces] before being delivered by land to the Gaza Strip. When the flotilla failed to heed these warnings and requests, the Israeli navy had no choice but to take over the ships. [In doing so], the IDF troops encountered violent [opposition] that had been planned in advance: the flotilla participants assaulted them with firearms, metal pipes, knives and clubs, and grabbed the rifle of one of the soldiers. The weapons had clearly been prepared in advance... and the soldiers had no choice but to respond, including with live fire.
"The Israeli navy operation was conducted according to orders and instructions of the highest political echelons, [and aimed at] stopping the ships and keeping them from breaching the naval blockade and reaching Gaza. The warning message sent by the Israeli navy [to the Mavi Marmara] was as follows: 'To the captain of the [Mavi] Marmara: You are approaching an area of hostilities, which is under a naval blockade. The Gaza coastal area and Gaza Harbor are closed to maritime traffic. We invite you to enter the Ashdod port, from whence the aid supplies will be delivered through the formal land crossing [to Gaza], after which you can return to your home ports."[2] It should be noted that, according to the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel retains control of a 40-kilometer strip of water off the Gaza coast."

"The [Flotilla] Organizers are Supporters of Movements and Organizations such as [Global] Jihad, Hamas, Hizbullah and Al-Qaeda"
"The flotilla, which was supported by the terroristic Hamas movement and tried to breach the blockade on this movement in Gaza, was a preplanned provocation against Israel. The grave outcome [of the takeover] was in direct proportion to the violence [employed by the flotilla activists] as they tried [to breach the blockade]. The [flotilla] organizers are supporters of movements and organizations such as [global] Jihad, Hamas, Hizbullah and Al-Qaeda, and have a black record in terms of smuggling arms and [perpetrating] terror operations. And indeed, the Israeli forces discovered on the ships weapons and ammunition that had been prepared in advance.
"The naval blockade on the Hamas movement in Gaza is legal in light of this movement's actions in the Strip. Had Israel allowed the flotilla – which was not legal – to reach the Hamas movement, it would have opened a route for smuggling weapons and terrorists into the Gaza Strip. No sovereign country would allow its citizens or its sovereignty to be harmed. Moreover, the attempt to force a path to Gaza by sea does not [really] benefit the people of Gaza, since the land crossings are sufficient for [the purpose of] supplying their needs. International aid organizations provide Gaza with all the necessary food, clothing and medical [supplies]. Over 15,000 tons of basic aid supplies enter the Strip every week. Construction materials enter it under the supervision of international organizations, in order to prevent the terroristic Hamas movement from commandeering them and using them for building military fortifications. The land crossings are the most efficient way to deliver supplies to Gaza, and the flotilla organizers know this perfectly well. They also know that since December 2008, their ships are not allowed to approach [the Gaza coast].
"The protests and demonstrations that broke out in various capitals are without meaning or value, as are the emergency summits [convened by] the Arab League, the E.U. and the U.N. The wave of protests will not change a thing, but a full and immediate investigation of the events will reveal all the details of what really happened... and [then] everyone will know the truth about the Hamas movement..."

Endnotes:
[1] Al-Watan (Kuwait), June 3, 2010. It should be noted that, at a June 4, 2010 rally, Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah said that some papers in the Gulf had published papers supporting the IDF raid on the flotilla, but their authors were a minority that would be taken care of by people of honor. Al-Safir (Lebanon), June 5, 2010.

[2] The full message of the Israeli navy was as follows: "You are approaching an area of hostilities, which is under a naval blockade. Gaza coastal area and Gaza Harbor are closed to maritime traffic. The Israeli government supports delivery of humanitarian supplies to the civilian population in Gaza Strip and invites you to enter Ashdod port. Delivery of supplies will be in accordance with the authorities' regulations and through the formal land crossing to Gaza and under your observation, after which you can return to your home ports." The reply was: "Negative, negative. Our destination is Gaza."

Away from computer - open thread

Will be away from my desk most of the day. Posting from a phone just ain't fun.

Feel free to post anything new. Although i do admit to being a bit sick of the word "flotilla."

Even if it tripled my readership.

Did the IDF shoot people from the helicopter?

One of the more consistent stories from the interviews of people aboard the Mavi Marmara is that the IDF started shooting and killing them from the helicopters in the air. For example, from an Al Jazeera reporter on the ship:

Two helicopters at a time hovered above the vessel. Commandos on board the choppers joined the firing, using live ammunition, before any of the soldiers had descended onto the ship.

Two unarmed civilians were killed just metres away from me. Dozens of unarmed civilians were injured right before my eyes.

One Israeli soldier, armed with a large automatic gun and a side pistol, was overpowered by several passengers. They disarmed him. They did not use his weapons or fire them; instead they threw his weapons over board and into the sea.

There have been other reports that made the same accusation.

However, no one was killed from the helicopters.

First of all, if there was really shooting from the choppers, it seems highly unlikely that the IHH thugs would be hanging around on deck like sitting ducks.

Moreover, Turkish forensics reports indicate that all the people killed had 9mm gunshot wounds. I am no gun expert, but a 9mm gun has a limited range and does not seem to be a weapon that could be used with any effectiveness from a helicopter.

The idea that the IDF would send soldiers into an already-existing combat situation - shooting live ammo at the people on deck - while armed with paintball guns is beyond absurd.

Every video I've seen - of the IDF soldiers on the deck and in the boats alongside the ship - show them with paintball guns, not submachine guns or other large lethal weapons.

And one thing is very clear: the witnesses on the ship did not know the difference between paintball guns and large automatic weapons.

Paintball guns have a much wider barrel than ordinary submachine guns, and I can imagine that those guns look terrifying to people, especially since there was so much confusion and the sight of the rappelling soldiers were probably accompanied by non-lethal percussion grenades making loud noises, not to mention the noise of the choppers themselves. There is also no doubt that seeing a paintball gun being shot in such circumstances would also be disorienting - especially if the pellets were of red paint.

This could explain a lot of the discrepancies between the witnesses and the videos/IDF/soldier testimonies. Combine the confusion with the certainty that the activists have to assume that Israel is inherently bloodthirsty and you have the ingredients for highly inaccurate "eyewitness" testimonies. (Other statements, such as the Free Gaza claims that the IDF was shooting people in their sleep or that there was no resistance by the Mavi Marmara people, are absurd on the face of it and have been quietly dropped, although never corrected.)

Libya's leader calls Turkey a Muslim "Trojan Horse" into the EU

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, in a speech to a delegation of European Muslim leaders from the Balkans, discussed how he longs for the day that Turkey joins the European Union - and becomes a Trojan Horse for Islam in Europe.

Firas Press reports:

Gaddafi spoke at the meeting on Thursday evening in the Libyan capital Tripoli to the heads of delegations of leaders Islamic People's Leadership, Muammar Friendship & Inter-Communication Forum in the Balkans, and Gaddafi Youth Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who were visiting Libya.

He stated: "If Turkey joined the European Union, and the presence of both states of the Balkans are in the European Union and Albania is in the European Union, the meaning of this is that the European continent is no longer crusader or a Christian as it was, but Islam has become a strong partner in the European continent.

"We await the day when Turkey joins the European Union to serve as a Trojan horse, which tells the history."

And Qadhafi, who holds the rotating presidency of the Arab summit, spoke of the importance of demographics that determine the number of Muslims in Europe, said the official statistics were not true, because these tendentious statistics show that Muslims are a minority. However, he said, "There are more Muslims [in Europe] than the numbers declared by the official statistics."

He added, saying: "Fortunately, the Muslims started to multiply and multiply more than the rest of the other religions, maybe this is a sign of God. Thus the will of God, to made Muslims multiply times higher than other peoples. Perhaps this is proof that God wants to be more Muslims than anyone else in the end ."

Gaddafi continued, saying, "Therefore, if [trends continue] so that our numbers increase more, if the Islamic Front in Europe is to defend the Muslims, there will not be another massacre, as experienced in Bosnia and Herzegovina."

He said: "We must unite in Europe, and to be an Islamic state and one under the banner of the World Islamic People's Leadership», pointing out that God created the earth for all people."

Gaddafi concluded by saying: "No one can prevent us from living in Europe: Europe was created by God. Europeans did not create it, and you are the people of Europe, you are European, this is your land. How can you live there and be servile or persecuted?! You cannot."

Interestingly, in 2004, Gaddafi used the same terminology of Turkey being an Islamic "Trojan horse" into Europe - but he stated it as a warning for Europeans to be careful about radical Islam, and AL Qaeda, to enter Europe via Turkey.

PA worried about Hamas political gains, "No humanitarian crisis in Gaza"

The Palestinian Authority is rightly worried that the flotilla incident has strengthened Hamas' rule over Gaza.

From JPost:

The Palestinian Authority is concerned about Turkey’s increased support for Hamas, a PA official in Ramallah said on Monday.

The official said that the PA leadership was “unhappy” with Turkey’s policy toward Hamas, especially with regard to pressure to lift the blockade on the Gaza Strip unconditionally.

“Turkey’s policy is emboldening Hamas and undermining the Palestinian Authority,” the official told The Jerusalem Post.

“Of course we want to see the blockade lifted, but Hamas must also end its coup in the Gaza Strip and accept an Egyptian proposal for achieving reconciliation with Fatah.”

The PA is also concerned the reopening of the Rafah border crossing to Sinai would enable Hamas to tighten its grip on the Strip.

“We wish to remind the Turkish and Egyptian governments that the border crossing was controlled by the Palestinian Authority before Hamas launched its coup in 2007,” the official added. “If the Rafah border crossing is going to be reopened, that should be done in coordination with us and not with Hamas.”

Azzam al-Ahmed, a top Fatah official in the West Bank, was quoted over the weekend as saying that he was opposed to the lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip until Hamas agreed to end the dispute with his faction.

Ahmed stressed that there was no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip because the PA government was sending aid through Israeli border crossings.

At the very least, if Hamas does agree to a reconciliation it will be on terms far more favorable to Hamas.

As far as the goods now crossing the Rafah crossing, Egypt is still not allowing cement - but will coordinate the delivery of cement with Israel via the Kerem Shalom crossing to NGOs such as UNRWA.

NYT ignores Reuters photo manipulation story

The New York Times blog, The Lede, has a lengthy overview of the videos and photos that have been released by Israel and Turkey since the raid on the blockade-breaking ships, especially the photos of the Israeli commandos being held hostage. It goes into detail on a number of issues (some of which we covered, some not) about when and how various videos, audio recordings and photographs were released to the public.

Yet throughout that entire article, posted Monday evening, not a word was mentioned about Reuters' blatant manipulation of the Turkish photos that has been a lead story in much of the blogosphere for the previous 24 hours.

Isn't that interesting?

The usual suspects

2nd of June 2010: members of various NGOs gather around a donkey, wrapped in a U.S. flag, stands on an Israeli flag with people’s shoes placed on it during a protest in Karachi.

I wonder which NGOs, btw.

Original marriage in Iraq

Forward to 2:30

I know that this organization is serious business, otherwise I'd be sure this is a Monty Python sketch.

Pearls' Potus, part 2

Pearls Before Swine seems to again be discussing the piece process. Literally.

Zionist pigs attack yet again!

Palestine Press Agency reports on yet another attack of wild boars on the fields of the residents of Salfit - and their utter conviction that Jewish settlers are behind this evil.

Pigs from settlers from the settlement of "Ariel" continued their attacks on the rights of farms and houses in Salfit and surrounding villages.

Witnesses said that a swine herd consisting of twenty pigs attacked the farming communities, breaking down peach and apricot trees...

Witnesses said the pigs made scary sounds and also attacked a field of wheat belonging to farmers Imran Ahmed Khalil Masri and Abu Dar....

The farmers expressed their indignation at the repeated attacks of pigs and have shown that attempts to eliminate them and get rid of them have failed dismally.

Farmer Abu Amer blamed the occupation, saying that they deliberate disseminate pigs for the sabotage and destruction of land, which is then easily stolen by the occupation authorities to establish more settlements.

There's the missing link - I had always assumed from previous Zionist Pig stories that the Jews raised and trained these pigs purely out malice, but now I see it is to drive the Palestinian Arabs away from their land - a new form of ethnic cleansing, of course.

Another vital detail - the evil Jews did not only train the pigs to distinguish between Arab and Jewish farmlands, but they also train them to make scary noises!

And we know that Arabs have, in the past, left their beloved family homes en masse because of nothing more than loud, scary noises.

Is this a gun?

I just again looked at the 9 minute Al Jazeera Mavi Marmara video and saw something I never noticed before:

Doesn't that look like a gun that the IHH is firing at the helicopter? Or is it something else - a camera, a mic?

UPDATE: The LGFers pretty much all think it is a camera. I'm intrigued by the possibility that it was one of the initial kidnapped IDF officer paintball guns.

Proof that Gaza is too crowded

From PCHR:

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 6:00, on Sunday 6 June 2010, an unknown object exploded in a land that had been used for training by resistance groups in al-Mawasi area in the west of Rafah. As a result, Mohammed Fayez Dehleez, 15, was seriously wounded, due to which his legs and right hand were cut (amputated.)

The Palestinian police sources stated that they opened an investigation into the reasons of the explosion occurred in the training area, at a time when there was no training at all for any resistance group. The police added that the said site had no clear boundaries and many groups were using it.

You see, because Gaza is so small, we have a tragic situation where the large open areas used for terrorism training must be shared among multiple terror groups. Because of the Israeli siege, proper fencing cannot be built around these vast areas - each of which could comfortably house tens of thousands of people.

So until Israel cedes more of its occupied land in the Negev to Hamas, poor Gaza children will continue to be exposed to the danger of left-over munitions from militant training.The human rights of the terror groups to each have their own, separate, well -protected training areas is being seriously violated.

It is just this sort of human rights abuse that makes Westerners so upset that they must organize flotillas to aid those children in danger of being blown up. All because of Israeli intransigence.

Observation on the Reuters-cropped knives

The IDF came under some derision from skeptics who said that their publication of weapons found on the Mavi Marmara ship were of equipment that one would normally find on a ship, such as ordinary kitchen knives.

The two knives that Reuters originally cropped out do not look like any of the knives in this picture, though.

This is not a kitchen knife nor a utility pocket knife - it is a combat knife, somewhat similar in intended function (sharp point, serrated edge that only reaches to the beginning of the curved part) to this one:

Since we see evidence that combat knives were on the ship, and that they were not apparently found by the Israelis, it corroborates the testimony that the IHH thugs threw their own weapons overboard (and not just IDF weapons, as most of those on the ship have been claiming.)

A good question

Soccer Dad asks:

I was unaware of the story behind Helen Thomas's outburst against Jews.
But I wonder what was wrong about what she said.

As he points out, Thomas' comments - that the Jews should get out of "Palestine" because, presumably, they have no legitimate history there - is the exact same position held by Palestinian "moderates." They still refuse to consider Israel a Jewish state (as opposed to the old days in 1948, when they made a bit more explicit their feelings that their entire problem with Israel was that it was a Jewish state.)

Thomas' feelings are widespread in the Arab world. No one in the West expresses disgust, or even astonishment, when Palestinian Arabs say that the Temples never existed or that the Western Wall was built by the Umayyad Muslim dynasty and is a part of the Waqf. The strong reaction to Thomas' statements could not be because those who are now so offended find the statements themselves offensive. It must be something else:

Helen Thomas, then, didn't say anything offensive. The belief she espoused isn't the problem, it's that she's a Westerner who did. For some arbitrary reason, denying Jewish history is offensive for her to do; had she been a Palestinian politician there'd have been nothing wrong with her statement.

Joe Klein, (via memeorandum) who now tells Helen Thomas to go to the back of the room, regularly vilifies Israel and those defenders of Israel, who - for good reason - are skeptical about the intents of the Palestinians.

The question isn't really what was offensive about Helen Thomas's remarks, but what's innocuous about similar remarks made by Palestinian leadership? If it's wrong for an individual to say that Jews don't belong in Israel, aren't you courting disaster by creating a neighboring state founded on that very principle?

It's more than courting disaster - it is effectively legitimizing the very offensive principle, in this case, by saying that Jews have no historic ties nor religious rights to the holy places and the heartland of ancient Jewish kingdoms.

Why is denying history and historic rights offensive for Thomas and accepted for Israel's ersatz, "moderate," "peace partners?"

Egypt seizes landmines, mortars headed to Gaza

Firas Press reports that Egypt has intercepted a shipment of 100 landmines and 10 mortar shells that were being smuggled to Gaza.

This is just the latest of a long line of such seizures ever since Egypt started increased monitoring of Rafah tunnel crossings in the wake of Hamas' refusal to reconcile with Fatah.

Sheikh Tamimi sacked in corruption scandal

Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi was forced out of his job as the "Palestinian Chief Justice and Supreme Judge" yesterday.

Not because he is singlehandedly responsible for many riots. Not because of his anti-semitism or daily incitement against Jews. Not because of the lies that he habitually hurls about supposed Jewish plans to destroy the Al Aqsa mosque.

No, he is being forced out by Abbas because of an unspecified corruption investigation sparked by the whistle-blower Fahmi Shabana who went on Israeli TV to expose endemic corruption that the PA was trying to cover up.

But don't worry - Tamimi will still enjoy a full pension from the PA, with funds that come from the West to prop up the Abbas regime. And he will be free to incite and lie all he wants.

(As I wrote a few weeks ago, Tamimi has stated in the past that there is no Jewish connection to Jerusalem, that Jews are exporting AIDS to PalArabs, there were never any Temples in Jerusalem, that Jews are planning to massacre Muslims on the Temple Mount and that Jews were planning to demolish Al Aqsa last March. He's also the guy who interrupted the Pope to make a speech about Israeli genocide against Arabs.)

Hamas loves Helen Thomas!

From the Al Qassam Brigades English website (photo from their site as well):

Al Qassam website-June 6, 2010-White house correspondent Helen Thomas told Jews to get out of Palestine. In an interview with her, Jewish man named as David, asked Helen for her comment on Israel, she responded by saying: "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine."

Turning her attention to the Palestinians, she said, "Remember, these people are occupied. And it's their land," adding the Jews should "go home" to Poland and Germany.

No doubt that Thomas Helen has told the truth that everybody in the world knows, but as American in a very important position , she was attacked by Zionists who went mad from the reality she mentioned in front of all people.

A document released yesterday on You tube, shows Thomas Helen while addressing Jews as " get out of Palestine because it does not belong toyou".

Thomas Helen directly accused by Jews and pro-Israel masses as anti-Semite Nazi.

Israelis ignore the reality, that they never belong in Palestine but belong in some other countries they know better.

Thomas when she asked by David , where Jews should go ? she replied him: "They should go home, German , Poland, America and anywhere else".

She also mentioned that "remember these people are occupied and it is their land , not German and not Poland".

This statement by Thomas Helen reflects the opinion of American majority in USA and all masses who support justice and peace in Palestine an whole world.

Moreover, her statement serves peace process in -Middle East- as they like to call it, to a very great extent.

Peace process will be successful, only when Israel get out of Arab Areas ,Golan and occupied Palestine, then we can say that peace is happily achieved, other wise, and as long Israel occupies Palestine and some Arab lands, peace will never be achieved and more headache will be brought to the world by state of terror-Israel .

Hamas also proudly reproduced the video on Hamas' Almoltaqa message forums.

The last paragraph should be read by every diplomat in the world who thinks that Israeli giving up more land will somehow cause Palestinian Arab claims - and Arab terrorism - to be minimized.

In reality, it would cause such terror to escalate.

Terror did not stop because of Oslo - it increased. Only a short time after Israel withdrew from Area A, giving full day-to-day autonomy to Palestinian Arabs there (well over 95% of them in the West Bank,) the terrorism increased markedly. It took a belated, tough Israeli response to the decade of terror attacks since Oslo to prompt the Palestinian Arabs (temporarily, in the timeframes in which they think) to reduce their attacks.

Israel's withdrawal from Gaza also did not stop rockets towards Israel - rather, after a brief relative lull, they increased. Only another tough Israeli response forced Hamas to (again temporarily) work to rein in the attacks (while claiming victory.)

Israeli concessions do not help peace at all - they embolden terror. The only serious deterrent to terrorism is a tough and consistent response that makes the terrorists realize that they have something to lose by their continued attacks. Westerners who pressure Israel alone to make concessions are giving the Palestinian Arab side precious little incentive to make any compromises for peace.

As this article shows, even the terrorist group the Al Qassam Brigades has taken the language and terminology of the "peace process" to be a weapon for them to achieve their goals to destroying Israel. Just as the Fatah terror group is now tactically repeating to the West via the PA that there will be no peace until Israel leaves 100% the "occupied territories, " the Hamas terror group is saying the same thing - just their explicit definition of the "occupied territories" is all of Israel.

If Israel would give away 100% of the land gained in a defensive war against Jordan in 1967, the next step would be people demanding the Arab areas of the Galillee. Then Jaffa. Then would come demands for the land that Israel "occupied" in the 1948 war over the UN partition boundaries (not to mention the return of millions of descendants of refugees to their nonexistent homes and fields in Israel.) If Israel gave those back, then they would demand the rest of "historic Palestine" (and an apology from Britain for the Balfour Declaration.)

The pattern is clear and it can be seen in this article. It is not only Hamas - ordinary Palestinian Arabs also believe, deep down, that Israel will be defeated sooner or later.

I had mentioned in a post a few months back about visiting a friendly Arab pottery shop in Hebron, where I was invited to drink coffee and Mrs. Elder was given an opportunity to use the potters' wheel. A great deal of their business is from Jewish tourists to the Tomb of the Patriarchs across the street.

Commenter viiit wrote:

I went to the same pottery shop in January.

The same friendly Arab/Muslim has treated me to some coffee.

I asked him about the plate he hand hanging on the wall. On it there was the map of "Palestine" without Tel Aviv. (Jaffo was there.)

He explained to me that all of Palestine was Arab and that they will get it back. It was only a matter of time, maybe 2 years, maybe 10 years, maybe a little longer, but with NO DOUBT it will come back to the Arabs. He assured me with all sincerity.

I asked him what will happen to the Jews, he said that they will be asked to leave, and if they don't wish to leave voluntarily they will be made to leave.

I then told him that I was a Jew. Then suddenly he told me with equal conviction that he is a man of peace, and that he only wants peace, and that Jews and Arabs can learn to co-exist. Of course he would wish that Jews would leave on their own, but if they don't then he is prepared to live with them together.

He also told me that his grandfather had 2 wifes and 21 children and by now he has 140 grand children and more are coming.

I was astounded by his ability to express two contradictory stands , without even noticing that there was any contradiction. He was a well educated and quite wealthy man. I think that this quality of speaking out of two sides of ones moth is part of Arab and Muslim culture.

I instinctively distrust Arabs and Muslims.

This is not a lone example. Arabs have even told their leftist Israeli friends the same thing (shocking many of them.) Whether one wants to generalize from this encounter to all Arabs and Muslims aside, it does illustrate that the Arab hatred for Jews (or at the very least the conviction that Jews should be at best a tolerated minority with limited rights) is far more than just political - it is cultural. But this is not something that you will see in op-eds by Arabs in the Washington Post or even in the Al Qassam website. They will happily use the language of the "peace process" to get the West to pressure Israel to help achieve their goals.

Nothing but continued and consistent Israeli strength can push that desire into the background. (It will never disappear, any more than the Muslim desire for Andalusia will never disappear.) The tactics may differ, and some may be more pragmatic than others about the possibilities of achieving the goal of a Palestine replacing Israel, but the goal has not changed one iota.

Helen Thomas has emboldened some to attempt to achieve it sooner rather than later, with the help of the US and clueless Europeans.

Believing otherwise is nothing more than wishful thinking, and too many in the West impose that wishful thinking on Israelis' daily lives.

(h/t OG)

Reuters tries to minimize photo deceptions (updated)

Yesterday, new Eldress Suzanne noticed (Kilgore Trout at LGF posted his findings 5 minutes before Suzanne did) that Reuters has cropped a photo taken from the Turkish Hurriyet newspaper showing the likely Turkish mercenaries aboard the Mavi Marmara holding down an IDF hostage they had stabbed and snatched during their attack on Israeli soldiers.

The original photo that shows a Turkish man with a knife in the lower-right, and a stabbed Israeli:

Reuters' cropped version:

One of my commenters, Frankie, emailed Reuters about the deception. They responded (after asking who the hell he was, anyway) that they released both photos to their clients.

The problem is that they only released the uncropped, original photo hours after Suzanne and others had noticed and complained about the deception!

There is no question that someone at Reuters purposefully decided to crop out the key detail.

Reuters also did not update the caption to mention that the soldier was stabbed, implying that his blood-stained pants might have just been a pre-existing condition, I guess.

And, of course, this photo was not the only one. As LGF noticed, Reuters published this picture:

When the original picture at the peaceful humanitarian organization IHH's website looked like this:

By sheer coincidence, I'm sure, Reuters cropped out the serrated knife, the pool of blood and part of another injured IDF soldier on the top of the IHH picture!

Via the Philosémitisme blog, here's the part that Reuters felt was not newsworthy:

Nah, that would just detract from the story.

And does no one think it is odd that a supposed humanitarian organization is publishing photos celebrating the violence that its members perpetrate?

UPDATE: Again, after the complaints, Reuters re-released the photo with the incriminating parts and is pretending that there is no problem.

Tear-jerking scenes from "world's largest prison"

Palestinians enjoy the beach in Gaza City, Sunday, June 6, 2010

Palestinians enjoy a boat ride in Gaza City, Sunday, June 6, 2010

A Turkish flag flies on a mast, as Palestinians enjoy the beach in Gaza City, Sunday, June 6, 2010

A Palestinian boy stands next to food cans outside a store in Shatie refugee camp, in Gaza City, Sunday June 6,2010. (Hebrew letters on cans of tomatoes and beans. - EoZ) .

Palestinian boys, one holding a kite with the colors of the national flag, enjoy a bicycle ride in Gaza City, Sunday June 6, 2010.

Sorry if these pictures will give you nightmares about the intolerable conditions that these Gazans are forced to endure by Israel.

(h/t The Vicious Babushka)

Free Gaza rejected offer of delivering cement to Gaza via NGO

If anyone still thought that the Free Gaza movement had any interest in helping out the people of Gaza, this audio recording of a conversation between the Israeli and Free Gaza ships yesterday should dispel that:

The flotilla team repeatedly had said that the reason the refuse to go to Ashdod is because Israel would not allow some of their cargo to go to Gaza. Here. we hear that Israel not only offered to transfer the cement that would have been brought on the ship to Gaza, but also that it would allow a third party NGO to bring it into Gaza.

Although their final response is not on this audio recording, Free Gaza evidently refused, although they were quite polite about it. They even helped the IDF soldiers get onto the ship. Maybe they have been reading the articles about international law and the breaking of blockades.

(I suppose it is possible that there was an unofficial deal, where FG was allowed to publicly say they refused to go to Ashdod but privately accepted the conditions.)

The false choice

The New York Times has an article about how more and more people are talking about Israel as a strategic liability for the US. The number of problems with the article are numerous.

Among other things, it includes the false use of the term "Arab East Jerusalem" - which include neighborhoods that are wholly Jewish, neighborhoods that are not in the eastern part of Jerusalem, and implies that "East Jerusalem" is a different city than "West Jerusalem," as if the aberration of 19 years of a divided city, which ended 43 years ago, where the eastern part was Judenrein is the status quo ante that must be adhered to forever.

It invokes the tired and absurd idea of "linkage" where supposedly Israeli actions are behind the worldwide Muslim and Arab anger at the West, an idea that is equally ridiculous, easily rebutted and yet well-entrenched in the current administration.

It ends off with a quote from Daniel Levy, director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation and a member of J Street - a representative of the liberal, anti-Israel stream of Jews emboldened by Obama's policies of conciliation with those who hate us.

He says,

America has three choices. Either say, it’s politically too hot a potato to touch, and just pay the consequences in the rest of the world. Or try to force through a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, so that the Palestinian grievance issue is no longer a driving force or problem.” The third choice, he said, “is for America to say, we can’t solve it, but we can’t pay the consequences, so we will distance ourselves from Israel. That way America would no longer be seen, as it has been this week, as the enabler of excesses of Israeli misbehavior.

From his perspective, these are indeed the only choices America has. That is because the most obvious and effective choice has been all but shouted down by the left and center-leaning media.

The real option is none of the above.

America is the only superpower and as such it must be the leader, not the follower. To appease those whose philosophies are against American values is not to lead but to be held hostage to extremists. Anyone who makes enough noise now has veto power over US decisions, because the desire to be loved is outweighing the mandate to do what is right.

Levy makes a fatal assumption: that if a peace deal is forced through, the "the Palestinian grievance issue" would go away or be greatly reduced. History shows that the exact opposite is the case, and making that assumption is wishful thinking replacing real thought.

Israel withdrew from Lebanon, completely. Hezbollah was not weakened by that move - on the contrary, it has stayed at least as radical as ever, and based on its rhetoric, maybe more so.

Israel withdrew from Gaza. The vacuum was not replaced by an America-loving moderate Arab government, but by an Iranian-leaning radical terror organization. It did not reduce friction - it increased it, although it made Westerners very happy.

Today's Pearls Before Swine comic strip helps show the absurdity of the new realism that demands real compromises from only one side, in the name of "peace". (Whether Stephen Pastis' use of the name "Potus" was an intentional dig at Obama or not is open to question.)

It is too bad that so many, including so many Jews, cannot see the obvious truths and replace it with their hopes and dreams - disregarding the dangers of their wishful thinking.

Reuters crops out knife in picture of wounded soldier

Earlier today I mentioned that in the Turkish press pictures of wounded and captured Israeli soldiers were published. I added a picture on which a knife can be clearly seen:

Reuters decided to do some cropping on this one:

and also decided not to mention that the soldier is injured:

Pro-Palestinian activists hold down an Israeli commando on the Gaza-bound Turkish ship Mavi Marmara in the international waters of Mediterranean sea early May 31, 2010. Israeli marines stormed the Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza on Monday and nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed, triggering a diplomatic crisis and an emergency session of theU.N. Security Council. Picture taken May 31, 2010.

(I blurred the face on both pictures)

Arabs upset at "We Con the World"

The Palestinian Arab Firas Press angrily notes how popular the "We Con the World" video is on YouTube (over 890,000 views so far.)

But it also embeds it in the article!

Act of piracy?

The accusations that what Israel did could be defined either as piracy or as an illegal act of war are spread all over the internet.

The piracy-accusation bases itself on the pirate act of attacking civilian ships in international waters. (but pirates do not not operate under the auspices of a government)

And then there is this Craig Murray who is being quoted all over the place. He argues that it is illegal to attack a foreign flagged vessel in international waters and the event should be regarded as an act of illegal warfare. (Oddly, he seems terrified at the idea that all those damn zionists are visiting his blog)

Based on the above accusations I can only conclude that the Dutch:

The Dutch navy seized 1.32 tonnes of cocaine from a ship off the Dutch Antilles islands, the defence ministry said Saturday, a day after France announced a record bust in the region. The Dutch frigate Van Speijk discovered the cocaine wrapped in 66 individual bags on board a Panamanian-flagged commercial vessel on May 24, some 56 kilometres (35 miles) from the island of Aruba. The navy arrested the five crew Honduran crew and with Panama's permission sent them to the United States where the fight against drug trafficking in the region is being centralised, a navy spokesperson told AFP.

the Spanish and English:

In 2006, the Spanish and the British navies operating in international waters seized a record volume of cocaine departing from African ports, with a total of 9,852 kg seized on 5 ships, compared to 3,700 kg on one ship in 2005 (+ 166%). All seizures took place in international waters close to the Western African coasts, as shown on the map on the next page. [.pdf!]

and the French are pirates or war criminals as well:

A barrage of naval gunfire in the Atlantic, authorised by the French and Cambodian prime ministers, may have finally sunk one of the most controversial maritime developments of recent years - the "super flags of convenience" shipping registers run by tiny states in return for hard cash.

The Winner, a 32-year-old merchant ship flying the Cambodian flag, is due to arrive under military guard in the port of Brest tomorrow after being seized by the French navy, reportedly with two tonnes of cocaine on board.

But where is the outrage?

Must-read op-ed in Arabic blasts flotilla, Hamas

A Palestinian Arab newspaper asks about the motives of the Free Gaza flotilla.

The op-ed, by Fouad Sobhi, says

The Arab and Muslim world is very angry after the fall of some of victims when the Turks tried to sail some small boats carrying aid to break the siege imposed on Gaza and access to the Gaza Strip by sea. Demonstrations went out as usual to the streets of some Arab and Islamic slogans condemning what happened and demand an international trial of Israel and its leaders and the expulsion of ambassadors in Cairo and Jordan ... At the same time called the Muslim Brotherhood called upon the Egyptian government to open the crossings between Egypt and Gaza Strip - not to send food or fuel for the necessary needs of the Palestinians, but to send fighters to Israel to punish them for their response to vessels seeking to break the embargo on Hamas.

Many of the angry protesters don't know that it had been possible to avoid the victims and wounded at sea if the organizers of these vessels accepted the offer of Egypt and Israel to give such assistance to the Egyptian authorities to convey the aid to residents of the Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing. This offer was rejected completely, because the scenario that was written and planned carefully by Hamas and the Turks was to create a clash with the Israeli navy and to provoke the soldiers of the Israeli army and engage with them to the degree that they will not escape, only shoot to defend themselves and then [Hamas can] exploit the incident, a major world media event to show Israel as a monster predator perpetrating aggressions against the innocent unarmed civilians who were seeking to achieve a noble humanitarian goal is to help the Palestinians.

My question here is why did the the organizers of the vessels refuse to accept the Egyptian offer to transfer their aid through the Egyptian border?? Why did they insist on moving towards Gaza despite the dozens of warnings issued to them by the Israeli and Egyptian authorities?? Is there a relationship between what has happened in the Mediterranean Sea and conflicts and internal disputes in Turkey between Prime Minister on the one hand, the army and the opposition on the other?? Did the system in Turkey want to dismiss what is happening inside with their internal conflicts and divisions by playing the religious feelings of Muslims and Arabs and criticism of Israel with guns and try to become the Savior of the Palestinian cause??

There is no doubt that I sympathize with all my senses and my heart with the good Palestinian people in Gaza and I hope to lift their siege the day before tomorrow, and I hope with all my heart for an immediate end to their suffering and the inhumane conditions, but at the same time, we must say that I find an excuse and justification for Israel and Egypt to continue this ban in the presence of the current leaders of the extremist Hamas who impose - Hamas themselves - the maximum blockade and more cruelty and viciousness, hundreds of times worse than the Egyptian and Israeli blockade.

I think it is appropriate to condemn the world's first siege of the extremist Hamas leadership of the Palestinian people in Gaza, religiously, socially, intellectually, politically, morally and economically .. But must also be strong demand to dismiss the Hamas leadership, extreme power and the rule of the sector and bring it back to the rule of the legitimate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abu Abbas to unify the Palestinians again.

An Irish "friend" of the Jews calls Israel "anti-semitic"

The Irish Independent newspaper publishes an open letter from Tim Pat Coogan to the Israeli ambassador in Ireland.

It is a perfect example of how Pslestinian Arab propaganda is accepted, even by intelligent people, as facts. The sheer repetition of lies has concretized them as factual over the years - a remarkable accomplishment, and a remarkable failure on the part of Israel and its friends.

Coogan's historic complaints about Israel rests in this single, counter-factual, paragraph:

In 1948, when Israel declared the independence which the Israeli embassy celebrated recently, more than 90 per cent of the land of present day Israel was in Palestinian hands. Today Palestinians barely hold 10 per cent and illegal Jewish settlements proliferate almost hourly. Israel has, in fact, implemented an unacknowledged policy of ethnic cleansing.

That these three bolded statements are considered so self-evident by people who pride themselves as being knowledgeable about the history of the area is stunning.

The first statement is simply a lie. It is based on the clever manipulation of data by today's Palestinians of a 1946 British map showing land ownership in Palestine. They accurately say that Jews privately held less than 10% of Palestine's lands before 1948 - but they purposefully conflate public and British lands with Arab lands to imply that Arabs owned over 90% of the land. In fact, the British controlled the vast majority of Palestine's lands, and those public British lands became public lands in Israel. It is hard to know the exact numbers, but it appears that privately Arab-owned land was only about 20% of Palestine, not the 90% that Coogan wrongfully assumes. If you want to go into details about the different categories of land that existed before 1948, read this article, in which you will discover that Jews paid twice as much taxes on their private land in Palestine than Arabs did - a feat which would be difficult if Arabs owned 90% of the land!

The second statement is also an assumption of Palestinian Arab propaganda as fact. Israel has frozen the borders of the Jewish towns in the West Bank for years now; essentially all building has been done within the borders of existing towns. Not that Palestinian Arabs are happy about that, but the fact is that these buildings do not make the settlement boundaries any larger. Some settlements have appeared in recent years but these have not been part of Israeli policy, and Israel has destroyed more than a few. The legalities of those settlements is also not nearly as clear as Coogan assumes, but that's an entirely different and much lengthier discussion.

The third statement, that Israel's is a policy of ethnic cleansing, is not only a lie but a slander. The only people ethnically cleansed in the boundaries of British Mandate Palestine are Jews - from Area A, from Gaza, and (some would argue) from Jordan itself. Compare the number of Arabs in Israel with the number of Jews under Palestinian Arab rule and this libelous assertion is shown to be an exact inversion of truth. It is a lie that is repeated so often that someone like Coogan accepts it as fact without the slightest hesitation or fear of contradiction. This is, again, a failure of Israel's public relations.

Most egregious, however, is Coogan's statement that Israel's policies are "anti-semitic," an absurd calumny that the article uses for its title:

But I have to tell you, Dr Evrony, that my earlier enthusiasm has been sadly dampened by having to acknowledge that Israel has become the most actively anti-Semitic government in the world -- the Palestinians are a Semitic people.

As any educated person knows, the term "antisemitism" was specifically coined to put a scientific patina on its real meaning, "anti-Jewish." To say that Jews are anti-semites is to again accept a ridiculous and false attack on etymology. It is akin to saying that "terrific" and "terrible" are synonyms because of their shared Latin roots. It is nothing more than an attempt at placing irony where there is none, as well as to minimize the horrendous history of Jew-hatred in the Arab world.

In short, Coogan is demonstrating the ability of lies to infect the minds even otherwise sympathetic and intelligent people. It is a shame that this disease of lies is so contagious as to make him a carrier to infect another set of victims who read his article and accept his statements as truth.

(h/t Callie)

"Flotilla Facts" website

A very good resource called Flotilla Facts has become a one-stop shop for the latest on the events. It is also a good reference site, something that blogs cannot do as well as more generalized websites.

English: "IDF ruthless!" Turkish/Arabic: "IDF crybabies!"

There are three narratives of the first minutes of the raid on the Mavi Marmara: one by Israel, one by the leaders of the flotilla when speaking in English, and a third one - by the people who support the flotilla when speaking in non-Western languages.

The Turkish newspaper that published the pictures of the IDF soldiers today does not use the meme of ruthless IDF soldiers shooting from the helicopter and murdering civilians within seconds of landing on deck - nor do the pictures support that narrative in the least. Rather, they prove Israel's version of events completely. Yet the Turkish press, as we had seen Friday from some of the Arabic press, instead say how weak and ineffectual the IDF soldiers were, all but mocking them for not using lethal force initially.

The newspaper notes, with glee, the fear in the soldiers' faces captured in the photos. It discusses how the brave "humanitarians" fought the mighty IDF with sacks of onions. The article calls the soldiers "amateurish" and "incompetent."

To the supporters of the IHH and its partners, the IDF's reticence in using lethal force is a clear sign of weakness, not a sign of caring about human life.

This also indicates that the version of events that much of the world believes, in which the Free Gaza folks make outlandish claims like

Under darkness of night, Israeli commandoes dropped from a helicopter onto the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began to shoot the moment their feet hit the deck. They fired directly into the crowd of civilians asleep.

are complete fabrications.

Interestingly, the Turkish article claims that the IDF erased these photos from the camera memory cards before returning them to their owners, and that the Turks recovered them with simple unerase software, in an attempt to hide the facts of the IDF failure. It seems equally possible that the photographers quickly deleted the photos before the IDF confiscated the cameras. In fact, as YNet notes, the IDF "expressed its satisfaction with the Turkish newspapers' decision to publish the photos. 'This is clear proof of Israel's repeated claims, that the boat was carrying mercenaries, whose sole purpose was to kill the soldiers.'" Their only problem was with showing the soldiers' faces.

The Turkish newspaper Hürriyet released photographs of the wounded or captured Israeli soldiers on the Mavi Marmara.

h/t Jed

UPDATE: I changed the picture. As Jed pointed out a knife can be seen on the first picture. I encircled it (and blurred the face of the soldier.)