Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

75 years ago: The Jew who could have slit Hitler's throat

From the Palestine Post, November 10, 1935:

Time magazine mentions, in 1938:

Several years ago Adolf Hitler asked the world's greatest otolaryngologist, Professor Heinrich von Neumann of Vienna, to examine his larynx. Dr. von Neumann had as patients and friends England's George VI and Duke of Windsor, Spain's Alfonso, Rumania's Carol, Greece's George, Austria's late Emperor Charles. But he is an orthodox Jew and he turned Hitler down. Last spring, when Hitler entered Austria, Dr. von Neumann was imprisoned and released upon the plea of the Duke of Windsor.

Neumann also attended the Evian conference where he tried, unsuccessfully, to effect the rescue of Austiran Jews from the Nazis.

He died in 1939.

Hamas arrests people with keffiyehs!

Firas Press reports that Hamas arrested a number of male and female students at Al Quds University today.

They searched them and arrested those who were found with two types of contraband items:

Photos of Yasir Arafat, and keffiyehs.

Hamas is working to stop any commemorations of the sixth anniversary of Arafat's timely death this week. Arafat of course used the keffiyeh as his symbol of terrorist "resistance."

The Best Defense of Hamas Prisons in History

The Sydney Morning Herald has an interesting article about a five-star prison in Gaza where the prisoners are accused of the most heinous crimes (murderers, rapists, and people trying to save Jewish lives.) But they have relative freedom to watch TV, cook meals, and even go on weekend leave.

The best part of the story is when the director is asked about torture in the prison:

"We do not practice any torture here," he says. "That takes place at the interrogation centre, before people are convicted."

The article goes on to describe those interrogation centers:

One inmate with experience of Hamas's interrogation techniques is Atta Najar, a 40-year-old father of four.

''When they questioned me I had my toenails pulled out with pliers and [they] … hung me up overnight by my hands,'' Najar tells the Herald, with prison director's approval.

Charged with the almost unpardonable crime of spying for Israel, Najar spent six months in an interrogation centre before he was transferred to Suleiman's prison when it opened nearly four months ago.

Gaza: if you survive the arrest and trial, your prison stay will be wonderful!

That is, until you visit the gallows in the basement.

Feminist PA public service ad devalues women

From Palestinian Media Watch:

Transcript:

Wife (in pain): "Ahmad, Ahmad! Come, take me to the hospital, I'm about to have the baby. Ahmad!"
Husband watching TV: "Yes."
Wife: "Ahmad, I can't, I feel like I'm really about to give birth."
Husband (walks in to wife): "Hold on until the morning. How can I take you now, in the middle of the night?"
Wife (grimacing): "Take me now!"
Husband: "Allah will help you. Hold on a bit more. What are we hurrying for, for a fifth girl?"
The wife collapses and falls over on bed.
In the hospital:
Husband: "Doctor, what's happening?"
Doctor: "Allah willing, it'll be fine. Your delay in getting to the hospital affected the health of the mother and baby. Thanks to Allah, we were able to save the mother, but we weren't able to save the baby. May Allah compensate you with another child."
Husband: "Bless you, doctor. It's not so bad, she has four more sisters."
Doctor: "She has four sisters? But the baby was a boy!"
Husband (with shocked expression): "A boy?"
Doctor: "Yes, a boy."
Husband: "What are you saying, doctor? Are you really saying it was a boy?"
The husband collapses on the floor, holding his head in sorrow.

At the end the following text appears:
"The Prophet said: Whoever has three daughters and he remains patient with them, provides for them and clothes them they shall be a shield for him from the Hellfire." [Hadith 3669]

Palestinian TV is highlighting the problem of devaluing girls and women in Palestinian society by broadcasting a daily public service ad since the end of October that negatively portrays a man who is not concerned with the pain his wife is suffering in labor, or with the birth of his new daughter.

The ad is produced by a Palestinian NGO -- The Palestinian Association for Family Planning and Protection -- and funded by MDG Achievement Fund, a UN program funded by a grant from the Spanish government.

The stated aim of MDG Achievement Fund's "Gender Equality" program is to "promote Palestinian women's social, economic and political empowerment. It will aim to reduce all forms of gender-based violence by enhancing and increasing women's political voice; increasing their opportunities to obtain decent and productive work and improving their access to protection and justice."

Sadly, the video in the ad does not give a clear message regarding women's value. The lesson the man learns is that he should have taken his wife to the hospital when she went into labor - not because of her value and right to medical care and the daughter's right to life - but because the baby may turn out to be a boy.

The loneliness of an Israeli UN representative

The UN Fourth Committee met on November 8th to discuss, naturally, Israeli "crimes." Just as they did on November 1st, 2nd and 5th.

Here is a list of the countries whose representatives spoke: Egypt, Qatar, Tunisia, Malaysia, Morocco, Sudan, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Iran, Jordan, Libya, UAE, Algeria, Lebanon, Yemen, Nigeria, Tanzania, the PA - and Israel.

You have to admire any Israeli diplomat who can stand up to this uniform cast of hypocrites, day in and day out, whose own real human rights violations dwarf the worst lies that Israel has ever been accused of.

In this case, it was Amir Weissbrod, who is the Minister Counselor at the Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN, who had the task of defending Israel against the dictators and despots.

Here is the UN's synopsis of Amir Weissbrod's statement:

AMIR WEISSBROD (Israel), reaffirming the importance Israel placed on the preservation of human rights, said his country was a vibrant and open democracy that enjoyed an independent and highly professional judiciary, active civil society, and free press. Despite constant threats from terrorists, who sought to deny Israel’s citizens their most fundamental rights, Israel upheld and pursued human rights as a sacrosanct ideal that was at the core of the values on which his State was built. It was unfortunate that the report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories did not seek to advance the values of human rights, but rather a cynical political agenda with the goal of vilifying Israel and the right of its citizens to live in peace and security and denying them the very right it purported to cherish for others.

He said that the report offered another one-sided narrative, submitting a wide-ranging and harsh criticism of Israel, while failing to mention the simple fact that more than 8,800 rockets had been launched from the Gaza Strip against Israeli towns and villages since 2001. The report also completely ignored the current military build-up by the Hamas terrorist organization, which cynically placed its military installations near and inside civilian buildings, including in close proximity to United Nations facilities, endangering both civilians and international organizations in the region. The report also did not mention that, for more than four years, Hamas had held the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, depriving him of his basic human rights, including any visit from the Red Cross.

Explanations that such discussion about Hamas or human rights violations committed by other Palestinian groups did not fall within the mandate of the report were convenient and excluded the Committee from its basic obligation to pursue impartial and objective fact-finding, he said. The Special Committee in its work predetermined its conclusion and findings. Israel refused — and would continue to refuse — to cooperate with a body that prejudged its culpability.

He went on to say that there had been many positive developments in the West Bank and in Gaza over the past year, as had been acknowledged by the diplomatic Quartet and other relevant bodies that sought to promote peace, instead of the predictable narrative of the Special Committee. Israel was engaged with several United Nations agencies, international organizations, and partner countries, to move forward and substantially improve the West Bank economy, including the removal of hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints. Those significant steps should not be taken lightly.

It was absurd, he said, to hear condemnation and criticism of Israel’s judiciary system and human rights record from several countries in the region and beyond — countries where the majority of human rights activists were in prison, where there was no freedom of press, and where there was no independent judiciary. For those countries to lecture Israel about the way to conduct itself in regards to human rights was cynical and reflected the nature of the Special Committee’s work. He asked which of those countries had ever conducted, even once, a true investigation into its State’s human rights practices as Israel did. He called on Israel’s Arab neighbours to join in taking concrete steps to pursue peace instead of engaging in futile rhetoric. He hoped that the Palestinians would join Israel in direct negotiations without delay.

Paris art museum promoting Israel-bashing propaganda

The Philosemitism blog reports on an "art exhibition" at the Museum of Modern Art, Paris, showing an "award winning" collection of photos from the Gaza Strip.

It is bad enough that the winner photos are devoid of balance. But what makes this entire enterprise a sham is that the award itself was set up for the purpose of propaganda.

It is called the "Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Prize." It was set up in 2009 by the head of the Carmignac fund, Edouard Carmignac. He chose the topic of the very first award given to be "The Gaza Strip."

Why? Because of the Israelis acting like Nazis, a theme that resonates so deeply with him! In his words,

Seen from Europe, it is not because the frightening reality of the Nazi concentration camps began on the soil of our continent, that we can now accept the reality of what has become in 60 years, with the radicalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a genuine Palestinian internment camp at the gates of Israel.

It is unacceptable for the victims of one of the most terrible tragedies of the century to remain virtually forgotten and abandoned by all.

Can you believe it? Gaza is "virtually forgotten and abandoned by all!"

So it must have been very hard for him to find applicants for this award. There must have been a paucity of photographers allowed in Gaza to document Israeli inhumanity and Nazi-like behavior, because, after all, it is a prison camp.

Luckily, they managed to scrape up 76 entries for this award. Must have been tough.

The winner of the award was Kai Wiedenhöfer, who is well known for the bias in his photos and photo descriptions from Gaza and the West Bank. For example, he photographed this scene in Qalqilya showing a fence over drainage pipes, as he laments how the town turned into a "ghetto":

But the reason for that fence is because Palestinian Arab terrorists crawled through that same pipe in order to infiltrate Israel and killed a 7-year old girl.

Wiedenhöfer's award-winning Gaza photographs concentrate on pictures of amputees staring into the camera. The poster of the exhibition features this photo:

Now, do Gazans use spent rockets as decorations in their homes? Or did the "photojournalist" decide that it would make a more aesthetically pleasing picture to ironically balance the flowers with a "Palestinians love life, Israelis love death" theme? How much reflects reality and how much hate?

It is truly insane that when any rich person can create an award to bash Israel, prominent judges (including a Time magazine reporter) will happily sign on, and a prestigious museum willingly uses its space as a vehicle for propaganda.

Read more at Philosemitism.

UPDATE: Elder of Lobby found this video of the "art": http://videos.arte.tv/en/videos/photographie_gaza_sous_l_oeil_de_kai_wiedenhoefer-3521142.html

Ma'an's bias, and my response

Ma'an writes:

Confrontations erupted in a town in East Jerusalem which has been under siege for three days and is facing a campaign of repeated Israeli police raids.

A 50-strong Israeli force raided the northern entrance of the village and another entered through the south, onlookers said.

Luba As-Samry, the spokeswoman of the Israeli police, said an Israeli police officer was lightly injured during confrontations on the northern entrance of the village. She added that four young men were detained for throwing stones at the police.

As-Samry said the police would continue the campaign to impose “security and order” in Al-Isawiya.

The villagers expressed their displeasure with the campaign and the siege imposed on the village saying that the actions of the Israeli police amount to collective retaliation and harassment that targets mass protests.

Three days of car safety checks in the neighborhood, which residents called "provocative," have increased tensions in the area as Israeli municipal officials stopped cars at road blocks, performing maintenance checks and writing tickets for vehicles deemed unfit for the road, creating long delays.

Residents questioned the use of the spot checks, citing mandatory maintenance tests every year for licenses to drive in Israel. Despite having passed the tests, locals said, most cars were said to have failed the spot check and were mandated to have service performed on them.

Commenters were outraged at the "petty" Israeli harassment of innocent Jerusalem Arabs.

I wrote:

Ma'an conveniently forgets to mention that residents of that neighborhood almost lynched four Israelis and an Australian student who accidentally entered the neighborhood last week, as they tried to trap them and shattered their car windshield with large rocks. And that an Israeli ambulance was likewise stoned nearby when trying to save a Palestinian Arab's life a day later.

But since when does Ma'an practice responsible journalism?

In a more general sense, it is important for people to notice these stories being written in English and to respond with the facts as quickly as possible, so casual readers of the site can know that there is another side to the story that the media is ignoring.

I don't know if Ma'an will publish my response but they haven't been too bad in that respect.

WWN: "The kindest cut"

From the Weekly World News, "The World's Only Reliable News," February 5, 2007, in an article that predicts the future (click to enlarge):

Red Cross founder was a Zionist (WSJ)

From Tomas Sandell in the Wall Street Journal:

Last week marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Henri Dunant—the Red Cross founder who brought humanitarian laws to the battlefield. It is doubtful, though, whether the world's first Nobel Peace prize recipient would today still feel at home in his organization, or in similar human-rights bodies for that matter.

It's not just Dunant's Christian faith, which played an instrumental part in his humanitarian work, that would be at odds with today's post-Christian Red Cross officials. In the same small reformed church that commemorated his death last week, Dunant first learned about social responsibility as well as spiritual discipline.

But what would make Dunant really suspect in the eyes of modern human-rights activists is the fact that he was a Zionist. Already in 1867, almost 30 years before Theodor Herzl published "Der Judenstaat," his vision of a Jewish state, Dunant backed Jewish immigration to their ancestral homeland in Palestine. Dunant was one of only a few gentiles to attend the first Zionist congress in Basel in 1897. As was the case with other past Christian social reformers, like William Wilberforce 100 years before him and Martin Luther King 100 years after him, Dunant's support for the revival of the Jewish state went hand in hand with his work for other social causes.

What a paradox that Dunant's Red Cross would later develop cozy relationships with Israel's enemies. The Red Cross has hosted Hamas activists at their base in Jerusalem instead of clearly distancing itself from their murderous policies. Not until 2006 did Israel's Magen David Adom (Red Star of David) enjoy full membership, and that was only after the U.S. threatened to pull out of the world organization. Even now, Israeli rescue teams abroad would still need the host country's permission to wear the Red Star of David.

I think the author goes a little too far as he goes on the compare the Red Cross with the anti-Israel activities of the UN and HRW - it has problems but is not in the same league.

(To read the entire article you need to Google something like "Tomas Sandell Obsessed Red Cross" and then click on the WSJ link; it cannot be read in full outside of Google links.)

Traffic at the blog has been very high, as I have been getting lots of links to the Gabriel Latner speech at Cambridge as well as to the story about "The Virginity Capsule."

The comment widget on the sidebar seems broken, and I cannot get it fixed the way that my Echo commenting system was set up giving them more money. I'll wait and see if it gets fixed. (UPDATE: Seems to be working again.)

I added some ads on the bottom of the sidebars and the page, where they should not bother any reader but where they seem to still pay a small amount. Not sure if they are affecting page load times, though.

Anyway...here's an open thread.

Rachel's Tomb was never a mosque (Nadav Shragai)

JCPA published a nice paper by Nadav Shragai in reaction to the UNESCO debacle where that august organization declared Rachel's Tomb to be a "historic mosque."

For hundreds of years, the shape of Rachel's Tomb resembled the grave of a vali (a Muslim saint). The building received its distinctive shape in 1622 when the Turkish governor of Jerusalem, Mohammad Pasha, permitted the Jews to wall off the four pillars that supported the dome and for the first time Rachel's Tomb became a closed building.9 This was allowed by the Turkish governor to prevent Arab shepherds from grazing their flocks at the site.10 Yet according to one report, an English traveler claims this was done "to make access to it more difficult for the Jews."11

For centuries, Rachel's Tomb was considered only a Jewish holy place. The sixteenth-century Arab historian Mujir al-Din regarded Rachel's Tomb as a Jewish holy place.12 Beginning in 1841, the keys to the place were deposited exclusively with Jewish caretakers who managed the site until it fell into Jordanian hands in 1948.13 In contravention of the armistice agreement, Jordan prevented Jews from accessing the site during all the years of its rule (1948-1967).14 Following the Six-Day War, Jews returned to Rachel's Tomb, with millions of Jews from around the world having visited the site. According to Jewish tradition, Rachel died on the 11th day of the Hebrew month of Heshvan (October 19); in 2010, some 100,000 Jews visited Rachel's Tomb on that day.15

For many centuries, Jews were compelled to pay protection money and ransom to the Arabs who lived in the area so they wouldn't harm Rachel's Tomb and the Jews who visited it. In 1796, Rabbi Moshe Yerushalmi, an Ashkenazi Jew from central Europe who immigrated to Israel, related that a non-Jew sits at Rachel's Tomb and collects money from Jews seeking to visit the site.16 Other sources attest to Jews who paid taxes, levies, and presented gifts to the Arab residents of the region.

Dr. Ludwig August Frankl of Vienna, a poet and author, related that the Sephardi community in Jerusalem was compelled to pay 5,000 piastres to an Arab from Bethlehem at the start of the nineteenth century for the right to visit Rachel's Tomb.17 Other testimonies relate that in order to prevent damage to Rachel's Tomb, payment was transferred to Bedouin members of the Taamra tribe who lived in the region, who had also begun to bury their dead near the tomb during that era.18 There is a Muslim cemetery on three sides of the compound that mainly belongs to the Taamra tribe and the entire attitude of the Muslims to Rachel's Tomb derives to a large extent from this tribe, which began burying its dead at the site during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries due to its proximity to Rachel's Tomb. The origins of the practice, as the Land of Israel researcher Eli Schiller writes, is the popular Muslim belief that "the closer that the deceased is buried to the tomb of a sainted personality, the greater will be his rewards in the world to come."19

Taxes were also collected from the Sephardi Jewish community in Jerusalem to pay the authorities for various "rights," such as passage to the Western Wall, passage of funerals to the Mount of Olives, and for the protection of gravestones there, as well as payment to the Arabs of Bethlehem for safeguarding Rachel's Tomb.20

One of the scribes who managed the accounts of the Sephardi Kolel during the eighteenth century reported on the protection money that the Jewish community at that time had to transfer to the "non-Jews and lords of the lands who are called toeffendis...(15,000) Turkish grush...and these are the people who patrol the ways of Jaffa Road, Kiryat Yearim, the people of the Rama, the site of Samuel the Prophet, the people of Nablus Road, the people of the Efrat Road, the tomb of our matriarch Rachel...so they would not come to grave-robbing, heaven forbid. And sometimes they complain to us that we have fallen behind on their routine payments and they come scrabbling on the gravestones in the dead of night, and they did their things in stealth because their home is there. Therefore, we are compelled against our will to propitiate them."21

Rabbi David d'Beth Hillel, a resident of Vilna who visited Syria and the Land of Israel in 1824, testified about a Muslim cemetery in the region of Rachel's Tomb. "No person is living there, but there was a cemetery. On the opposite hill there is a village whose residents are Arabs and they are most evil. A stranger who comes to visit Rachel's Tomb is robbed by them."22

In 1856, fifteen years after Montefiore had built another room to Rachel's Tomb, James Finn, the British consul who served in Palestine during the days of Turkish rule, spoke about the payments that the Jews were forced to pay to Muslim extortionists at some holy places including Rachel's Tomb: "300 lira per annum to the effendi whose house is adjacent to the site of crying" (the Western Wall) for the right to pray there and "100 lira a year to the Taamra Arabs for not wrecking Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem."23

In 1841 Moses Montefiore obtained a license from the Turkish authorities to refurbish Rachel's Tomb and add another room to it, which changed its appearance and improved its formerly neglected status. A door to the domed room was installed and keys were given to two Jewish caretakers, one Sephardi and the other Ashkenazi. Fourteen years previously, an official of the Sephardi Kolelim (religious study centers) in Jerusalem, Avraham Behar Avraham, laid the groundwork for Montefiore's activity at Rachel's Tomb when he obtained recognition from the Turkish authorities for the status and rights of Jews at the site. This was, in practice, the original firman (royal decree)24 issued by the Ottoman authorities in Turkey recognizing Jewish rights at Rachel's Tomb.

The firman was necessary since the Muslims disputed ownership by the Jews of Rachel's Tomb and even tried by brute force to prevent Jewish visits to the site. From time to time Jews were robbed or beaten by Arab residents of the vicinity, and even the protection money that was paid did not always prevail. Avraham Behar Avraham approached the authorities in Istanbul on this matter and in 1830 the Turks issued the firman that gave legal force to Rachel's Tomb being recognized as a Jewish holy site.25 Additionally, the governor of Damascus sent a written order to the Mufti of Jerusalem to fulfill the Sultan's order.

This is our order to you: (the following matter) was submitted to us by the subject of our order, the sage representative of honored Jerusalem's Jewry and his translator that the tomb of esteemed Rachel, the mother of our Lord Joseph...they (the Jews) are accustomed to visit it from ancient days; and no one is permitted to prevent them or oppose them (from doing) this....It turned out that at this holy site, they have been visiting since ancient times, without any person preventing them or trespassing on their property and they (have it) as was their custom. In accordance with the respected judgment, I order that our commandment be issued to you so you will treat them accordingly without addition or without subtraction, without hindrance and without opposition to them by anyone in any way whatsoever - written August 10, 1830.26

An additional firman from April 1831, eight months later, determined inter alia:27

To inform and demonstrate to all interested parties and the appointed officials, the right of the Jews who are residents of holy Jerusalem to visit the grave of Rachel, the mother of the Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, without hindrance....The deputy translator and other public functionaries, members of the Jewish community of Jerusalem, approached me with many requests regarding the tomb of Rachel, may peace be upon her, the mother of the Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, and it is known that this grave is located outside the city of Jerusalem opposite the town of Bethlehem, on the highway...and that since ancient times the Jews have tended to visit this holy grave without anybody preventing them from doing so, as an inviolable law. And now people have emerged who have begun to hinder them, although as aforesaid and as proven the Jews have a right to visit the grave according to the Sultan's order. Hence I approach his honor the governor, may he be exalted, reminding him of the contents of the existing order. I also order him to attempt to remove the obstacles from the Jews, residents of Holy Jerusalem and others, so they can visit the aforementioned holy grave unhindered. Rendered in Istanbul at the end of the month of Shawwal in the year 1246 to the Hejira. Signed: The Sublime Porte.

Ironically, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, whose government has been described as "neo-Ottoman" in outlook, told the Saudi paper al-Watan (March 7, 2010) that the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb "were not and never will be Jewish sites, but Islamic sites

There's lots more, read the whole thing.

From reading accounts written by Christian pilgrims visiting the site, I thought that there was a mosque there. For example, from 1796:

A league further on we entered the plain of Rama, where y»u meet with Rachel's tomb. It is a square edifice, surmounted with a small dome: it enjoys the privileges of a mosque, for the Turks, as well as the Arabs, honor the families of the patriarchs.

Also:

About half-way between Jerusalem and Bethlehem is Rachel's tomb, one of the few places regarding the identity of which all antiquarians seem disposed to agree. A small Turkish mosque covers the cave, and here the wife of Israel has slept for nearly four thousand years.

But from reading these and other accounts, I get the impression that the pilgrims assumed that a Turkish-style building on the tomb would be a mosque. Even so, Muslims did pray there.

Wikipedia adds:

In 1841 Montefiore purchased the site and obtained for the Jews the key of the tomb. To conciliate Muslem susceptibility, he added a square vestibule with a mihrab to be used as a place of prayer for Muslims

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1915, says:

The present tomb, which, apparently, is not older than the 15th century, is built in the style of the small-domed buildings raised by Moslems in honor of their saints. It is a rough structure of four square walls, each about 23 ft. long and 20 ft. high; the dome rising 10 ft. higher is used by Mohammedans for prayer, while on Fridays the Jews make supplication before the empty tomb within.

So it appears that while Muslims prayed there on occasion, it was not a mosque. If it was it is doubtful that they would have allowed Jews to have the privileges they had on the site.

I emailed Nadav Shragai to clarify.

German FM Westerwelle - and the Crazy Water Park

From JPost:

Germany's foreign minister said during a rare visit to Hamas-ruled Gaza that the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians living there is unacceptable and must end.

Guido Westerwelle also said after Monday's tour of a UN school and a German-funded sewage treatment plant that the border closure is strengthening extremists at the expense of moderates.

Let's hold that thought while we read this article from Der Speigel:

All is quiet on this autumn morning at the Crazy Water Park, a couple of kilometers south of Gaza City. There are no children splashing around in the shallow kiddie pools, no men cheering as they shoot off the slides into the deep end of the pool. Wives and mothers are also missing from their usual spots under the umbrellas, where they normally sit, fully dressed, chatting and watching their children and husbands play in the water.

The Gaza Strip's only water park opened last spring but -- thanks to around 30 members of Hamas -- it was shut down in late September. One night at 3 a.m., these men appeared out of nowhere, tied up the park's 10 security guards and got to work with gas canisters and lighters.
The ensuing fire consumed the café and the building housing pool-related equipment. The stand where pool-goers could rent water pipes was a particular target. After a few incidents of modern-minded women openly smoking water pipes on the park's grounds, Hamas had issued the Crazy Water Park two warnings. When it happened a third time, an angered official from Hamas, the radical Islamist organization which controls the Gaza Strip, ordered more drastic measures to be taken. Not long later, the flames engulfing the water park's buildings could be seen from as far away as Gaza City.

The Crazy Water Park was expensive, exclusive and only meant for the elite -- which makes it all the more surprising that Hamas has now decided to target it as part of its modesty campaign. Until now, the Islamists had tended to suffer the harmless escapades of the upper class in silence.

Now, Araj says, those days are over. "The riding club next door had to close for three days," he explains, "because men and women sat together." Gaza Sky, a seafood restaurant right on the beach, and the aptly named Beach Hotel were also forced to close their doors for three days, he adds, for allowing female patrons to smoke water pipes.

He says that targeting of his water park comes due to the increased influence hard-liners have been able to gain for themselves within the government. "Unfortunately, it's the same as in any revolution," Araj says. "The extremists are pushing their way into leadership positions."

"Incidents like the fire at the water park have a big effect," says one Palestinian observer who asked not to have his name published. "They keep people anxious and scared, and they silence any criticism of Hamas."

As he sees it, the fact that the hard-liners are now targeting the previously untouchable upper class only strengthens its message of intimidation.

Now, let's return to Westerwelle's theory: "the border closure is strengthening extremists at the expense of moderates."

Who, exactly, are the moderates of Gaza, and how could they possibly gain strength?

Right now, Hamas is so comfortable with its iron grip on Gaza that there is literally no competition. Any group that shows the slightest political threat to Hamas, from both the left and the right, gets violently put down. Even today, pro-Fatah politicians are still getting arrested and threatened in Gaza.

Westerwelle is a fool. He still subscribes to the idea that treating fanatic Islamists nicely will somehow make them overflow with the milk of human kindness and cause them to offer all sorts of concessions.

If you want to argue that ordinary Gazans are being hurt by the closure, fine. If you want to argue that Gaza businessmen should not be punished because of the actions of their leaders, that is defensible. But to say that opening up more trade between Gaza and the world will somehow strengthen moderates in Gaza is the height of stupidity.

Westerwelle, and those clueless Westerners who subscribe to the same ideas, need to answer a simple question: have Gaza moderates been strengthened since Israel loosened the closure and since Egypt opened the Rafah border over the summer?

If the answer is "no" - and it clearly is - then maybe it is time to revisit this little bit of conventional wisdom.

(h/t Silke)

How did two Gazans get injured this morning?

Ma'an (Arabic) says that several men were gathering debris near the Sufa crossing in southern Gaza, and they came across some old Israeli ordnance which exploded, causing two of them to be injured.

But Felesteen, a Hamas newspaper in Gaza, says

Eyewitnesses reported that members of the resistance fired a mortar towards a number of Israeli military vehicles at the Sufa crossing east of the town of Rafah, but it fell in near a group of workers collecting [concrete] aggregate resulting in their injury.

It then quotes a Hamas medical official - who obviously wasn't there - claiming that it was an Israeli tank shell, not "resistance" fire, that injured the men.

Democracy, Jordanian style

From AP:

Jordanians lined up to cast ballots for a new parliament Tuesday in a vote that was dominated by anger at Israel over stalled peace talks and widespread frustration over an economic crisis in the U.S.-allied kingdom.

A boycott by the largest opposition group, the fundamentalist Islamic Action Front, made it likely that pro-government politicians and tribesmen with strong ties to the king - who has the final say on all matters - would sweep the vote.

That means that any criticism from the new parliament over King Abdullah's pro-Western policies or pressure from lawmakers for a tougher stance with Israel would likely only be cosmetic.

There is already one death:

Jordan's police spokesman says a shootout between supporters of two rival candidates contesting the country's parliamentary election has killed a 25-year-old man.

The spokesman says six others were wounded before police arrived at the scene in Imrea, a small town on the edge of the southwestern city of Kerak.

Ammon News mentions a number of incidents during the elections. In the place that the person was killed, there were shots fired in the air, fights between supporters of rival candidates, and cars smashed. Shots were fired in Mazar, as well as Madaba. Some people tried to vote multiple times. There was another skirmish with gunshots in Kufranja as one group tried to prevent another from voting. In Amman, a group attacked a polling station at a school and a brawl erupted outside another school. Tear gas was shot to disperse rioters. More riots in Qadisiyah as voters were preented from casting ballots by their opponents; rioters stoned police. A candidate's motorcade was attacked with sticks and rocks, and he suffered head injuries. There are also complaints that people who are now on Hajj could not vote as there are no absentee ballots.

And, in general, Jordanian officials are calling the polling "peaceful."

Video describes Silwan incident in detail

I don't know who made this video, but it is the best treatment I've seen on the stoning incident in Silwan a month ago.

Canadian PM Stephen Harper gets it

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks simple truths. It is a sad commentary that one cannot hear words like these more often.

YNet reports:

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday delivered a pro-Israel speech at a parliamentary conference which dealt with ways to fight anti-Semitism. Harper implied that his country did not secure a seat at the United Nations Security Council due to its failure to cooperate with an anti-Israel policy.

The Canadian prime minister stressed that while there is room for fair criticism against the Israeli government, Canada is obligated to come to the Jewish state's defense when it is attacked by others.

"And like any free country Israel subjects itself to such criticism, healthy, necessary, democratic debate," he said. "But when Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand."

Harper said Canada must oppose demonization, double standards and de-legitimization.

"Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because history shows us, and the ideology of the anti-Israel mob tell us all too well, that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are in the longer term a threat to all of us," he said.

"Whether it is at the United Nations or any other international forum, the easiest thing to do is simply to just get along and go along with this anti-Israel rhetoric, to pretend it is just about being even-handed, and to excuse oneself with the label of honest broker," Harper added.

The Canadian prime minister suggested that this was the reason his country lost the recent vote for a temporary Security Council seat, saying "I have the bruises to show for it."

Harper stated in his speech that "as long as I am prime minister… Canada will take that stand, whatever the cost."

In his speech, the Canadian prime minister warned that anti-Semitism was on the rise worldwide, including in universities in his own country.

He said the "evolving phenomenon" of anti-Semitism targets Jews by portraying Israel as "the source of injustice and conflict in the world, and uses perversely the language of human rights to do so."

"We must be relentless in exposing this new anti-Semitism for what it is," Harper concluded.

A large excerpt from his speech can be read here.

And here are his pro-Israel comments:

(h/t Israel Matzav)

Amnesty blocks Zionist from anti-Israel kangaroo court meeting

From TheJC's Jonathan Hoffman:

Last night was the introductory meeting for the Hate Israel Kangaroo Court that is laughingly called the "Russell Tribunal". It took place at Amnesty International, London. Speakers included Dr Ghada Karmi; Ken Loach; Paul Troop; Ewa Jasiewicz; and Frank Barat.

The "Russell Tribunal" is composed of known Israel haters and has effectively found Israel guilty before it has even started. No witness has been summoned to defend Israel.

How very telling that on turning up, I was barred from entry. The welcoming party included Krystian Benedict (Amnesty's Campaigns Director) and a security guard. When I protested that I was being censored, Benedict summoned four policemen in from outside.

Rather than try to deal with my on-point objections to the speakers’ comments, I was censored. Bertrand Russell would surely be turning in his grave.

Fortunately Richard Millett was admitted and will blog the Israel lynchmob event.

Totalitarian societies begin with curbing free speech. It seems that Amnesty's espousal of 'human rights' does not extend to the right of Jews to protest at antisemitism during Amnesty meetings.

Some morning quickies

NYT's Lede blog talks about the controversy over Alfred Grosser, anti-Israel Holocaust survivor, speaking at a Kristallnacht commemoration - where he plans to condemn Israel. (CORRECTION: He is German born but not a Holocaust survivor.)

If you want to see the first episode of Israel's Dancing With the Stars, with Pamela Anderson, you can easily waste 72 minutes of your life here. I skipped around until I heard her review someone's dancing, and she only spoke about the contestants' great hair. (Ynet slammed the program.) (h/t Joel)

The al-Isawiyya neighborhood in Jerusalem is quickly turning into a cesspool, where any non-Arab who dares enter gets stoned. We mentioned the Israelis who were lured there and almost lynched, and later an ambulance trying to save an Arab's life was stoned nearby as well. Today some Israeli car inspectors were stoned by hundreds of Arab schoolchildren.

Ha'aretz says that low-level Shin Bet officials met with Hamas and Islamic Jihad political leaders in the West Bank over coffee, and the PA is not amused. (The Islamic Jihad member present denies the story, saying that they only threatened to arrest him but he stood firm and the Shin Bet left with their tails between their legs.)

Israel Matzav goes into detail on who exactly was behind the hecklers who disrupted PM Netanyahu's speech in New Orleans.

Soccer Dad does what he has been doing for many years now - showing yet again that Thomas Friedman is a blowhard.

Masters thesis: Jews use Holocaust to justify their inherent racism!

An anti-Zionist Jew named Jennifer Peto, who is heavily involved in the "Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid" in Toronto, has written her masters thesis on the topic "The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education."

As one might be able to guess from the title, it is 112 pages of pure rubbish.

Here's her abstract:

This paper focuses on issues of Jewish identity, whiteness and victimhood within hegemonic Holocaust education. I argue that today, Jewish people of European descent enjoy white privilege and are among the most socio-economically advantaged groups in the West. Despite this privilege, the organized Jewish community makes claims about Jewish victimhood that are widely accepted within that community and within popular discourse in the West. I propose that these claims to victimhood are no longer based in a reality of oppression, but continue to be propagated because a victimized Jewish identity can produce certain effects that are beneficial to the organized Jewish community and the Israeli nation-state. I focus on two related Holocaust education projects – the March of the Living and the March of Remembrance and Hope – to show how Jewish victimhood is instrumentalized in ways that obscure Jewish privilege, deny Jewish racism and promote the interests of the Israeli nation-state.

She starts off this pseudo-scholarly paper with about six pages describing her own journey from proud Jewish Zionist to proud Jew-hating anti-Zionist.

The paper uses the term "Jewish racism" 21 times, using the phrase as a fact that is so obvious that it needs not be proven. Yes, she briefly touches on allegations of Jews involved in slavery, but for the most part she just assumes that her readers will accept the formulation as self-evident.

Peto specifically narrows the scope of the Jews she targets to be the ones who are most like her: Ashkenazic and North American. Her footnote 5 illuminates her bizarre way of thinking:

I have chosen to focus on North America partly because it is my context, but also because it can be argued that anti-Semitism is more systemic in Europe, particularly in France where there are more frequent violent attacks against Jewish people and institutions. That said, the level of discrimination faced by Jews in Europe is far less than the racism experienced by other minorities including Arabs, Muslims and Roma people.

In other words, her entire thesis - that Jews are using the Holocaust to pretend to be victims to justify their oppression of others - falls apart when she would have to acknowledge that there really is anti-semitism out there in the world, and the specter of the Holocaust is very real to a significant segment of the Jewish world. (Her viewpoint that Jews in Europe suffer from less discrimination than Muslims is just another example of sloppy wishful thinking substituting for real analysis.)

Peto finds no shortage of authors to rely on to support her thesis of Jewish racism, and she obviously doesn't bother to find anyone that argues - with the exception of uber-leftist Michael Lerner, who wrote a 1993 paper called "Jews Are Not White."

The idiocy continues, page after page. Guess why Israel is tolerant towards gays?

The Israeli nation-state, as part of its mission to present itself as a Western, liberal nation, has taken up gay rights as an issue.

See? Jews pretend to support equal rights in order to cover up Jewish racist crimes! It's all an act! In other words, Jews are racist. When they are not racist they are just play-acting liberalism in order to whitewash their racism. You can't argue with such logic, because every counterexample is dismissed as just part of the Great Jewish Cover-Up of Inbred Kike Racism.

She also helpfully explains to the readers why she decided to use pejorative terms like "Israeli apartheid" throughout the paper, not bothering to notice that the term itself is meant to anger and not to illuminate and has no place in any sort of real scholarship.

Which is, of course, the entire point: the paper is not even a distant afterimage of real scholarship. It is an exercise on the author justifying her own emotional hatred for Jews and Israel. Psychologists wouldn't have a field day with Peto, because her motivations are so blindlingly transparent.

The question remains, though: why would such a paper -one that has no intellectual rigor, suffused with self-hatred and naked bigotry - be accepted as a masters' thesis at the University of Toronto?

Hamas invites Ahmadinejad to Gaza

Firas Press quotes the Iranian FARS news agency as saying that Hamas minister Ahmed Yousef invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Gaza.

Yousef said, "We call on President Ahmadinejad to visit the Gaza Strip, and we are sure that such a visit would be of extreme importance."

Oh, to dream....

Available at the Elder of Ziyon store, for both kids and adults, in many colors and styles.

World's smallest marriage proposal

From YNet:

Many men spend weeks coming up with the most original way to propose marriage to their loved ones in order to ensure a positive response. For the most part, grand gestures are considered the safest bet, but Elad Dekel, 25, proved otherwise – the smallest wedding proposal in the world convinced his girlfriend to say "yes."

Last August, Dekel, a physics student at the Israel Institute of Technology, was sent to Dresden, Germany as part of an exchange program where he worked at a Nanotechnology research center developing miniature silicone chips.

Before leaving Israel, Dekel and his girlfriend, Chen Mendelowitz, agreed she would come visit him in Germany. He planned on using the opportunity to propose to her after seven years together.

During his time at the research center, Dekel came up with the idea of "printing" his proposal on a 1 sq. centimeter titanium and gold coated silicone chip. He spent days working out a way to carry out his vision.

Dekel eventually came up with the winning formula and printed a marriage proposal over 0.0001 centimeters in Hebrew and German. He also added a photo of himself and Chen, the first ever printed in the German lab.

The big moment arrived when Dekel invited Chen for a tour of the lab during her visit to Germany and showed her his work on the chips. "Elad put the chip under the microscope lens and I started looking to see what was there," Chen related. "I looked for quite a while, zooming in and out, magnifying the image and finally detected a weird shape. I magnified it and slowly began to realize it was a photo of the both of us. I magnified it more and saw there was something written, and then I realized it said 'Chen, will you marry me? Elad'.

"Even before I said anything I got a sudden hot flash all over my body, and when I could finally speak I just said 'sure'."

How does that compare with the world's smallest Koran?

Hamas upset over new Israeli towns - in Israel

Hamas' London-based newspaper, Palestine Info, has an Arabic article about an Israeli plan to build eleven new towns between Arad and Beer-sheva in the Negev. One of them would be an Arab community.

The language it uses is identical to articles about Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria - the Israelis are referred to as "usurpers" (Google translates as "rapists.") The Arab town is regarded as just a means to "steal" more "Arab land. " And, of course, it calls the towns "settlements."

Just in case you had the slightest thought that Palestinian Arabs were only against construction in the territories...

Invisible convoy arrives in Gaza

35 trucks of food and medicine arrived in Egypt's El Arish port today to be sent to Gaza.

They include some 500 tons of food and refrigerated trucks with medicine.

It was coordinated between the UAE's Red Crescent, Egypt, UNRWA and Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza.

No one is reporting this story.

The reason? Because the purpose of this aid convoy is - surprise! - aid. It is not meant to be a political statement, it is not meant to demonize Israel, it is not meant to support Hamas. The entire purpose is to provide aid to those who need it.

The contrast with George Galloway's Viva Palestina could not be starker. In that case, the aid was a mere prop to the real purpose of the trip. Both of them carried some 500 tons of aid - but one of them only cared about making noise.

While Viva Palestina said that they had "broken the blockade," they had done no such thing. Aid from Arab nations has been routinely coming to Gaza through Egypt. Israel has no problems with giving legitimate humanitarian aid for Gazans, except in the fevered imagination of Israel-haters more interested in photo-ops with terrorists than with the actual people of Gaza.

This was a real humanitarian aid convoy. The ships and trucks from the terror-supporters are gimmicks.

The absence of any Western media reporting this story shows that journalists are more than happy to play their part in the charade of "aid boats" and "aid convoys."

Iran tested advanced nuclear warhead design (updated x3)

UPDATE: Sorry, this article is from last year. Even so, as Zach points out in the comments...things are no better now.

Additional updates at the end.

From The Guardian:

The UN's nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian has learned.

The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as "breathtaking" and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.

The sophisticated technology, once mastered, allows for the production of smaller and simpler warheads than older models. It reduces the diameter of a warhead and makes it easier to put a nuclear warhead on a missile.

Documentation referring to experiments testing a two-point detonation design are part of the evidence of nuclear weaponisation gathered by the IAEA and presented to Iran for its response.

The dossier, titled "Possible Military Dimensions of Iran's Nuclear Program", is drawn in part from reports submitted to it by western intelligence agencies.

The agency has in the past treated such reports with scepticism, particularly after the Iraq war. But its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, has said the evidence of Iranian weaponisation "appears to have been derived from multiple sources over different periods of time, appears to be generally consistent, and is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed that it needs to be addressed by Iran".

Extracts from the dossier have been published previously, but it was not previously known that it included documentation on such an advanced warhead. "It is breathtaking that Iran could be working on this sort of material," said a European government adviser on nuclear issues.

James Acton, a British nuclear weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "It's remarkable that, before perfecting step one, they are going straight to step four or five ... To start with more sophisticated designs speaks of level of technical ambition that is surprising."

Iran has rejected most of the IAEA material on weaponisation as forgeries, but has admitted carrying out tests on multiple high-explosive detonations synchronised to within a microsecond. Tehran has told the agency that there is a civilian application for such tests, but has so far not provided any evidence for them.

Western weapons experts say there are no such civilian applications, but the use of co-ordinated detonations in nuclear warheads is well known. They compress the fissile core, or pit, of the warhead until it reaches critical mass.

Do you hear that silence?

That is the sound of Western governments leaping into action to stop what is very obviously Iran's relentless drive to build not only nuclear weapons but also their delivery systems. Which could, by the way, reach most of Europe.

But taking military action to stop the inevitable deployment of weapons that can kill millions would be immoral and wrong. Much better to use diplomacy. It's worked so well so far, after all.

(h/t Ari)

UPDATE: Raymond in DC, in the comments, adds:

"Two point implosion" implies a plutonium core, not one based on enriched uranium. This confirms a long-held suspicion of a two-track development project in Iran. While attention has focused on Natanz and those spinning centrifuges, work on the heavy water facility in Arak and the effort to extract plutonium from spent reactor fuel has not gotten the attention it deserved.

We should recall that the Syrian nuclear plant destroyed by Israel in 2007 was based on a North Korean design intended to produce plutonium. (It was reportedly funded by Iran.)

UPDATE 3: Grazi in the comments brings us three important links:

An interview with former IAEA inspector,

That same inspector's article about how Syria needs to be checked out more carefully, and

Joshua Pollack on Iranian/North Korean cooperation.

AP is just a joke. Plus, Pam Anderson at the Kotel.

AP doesn't even try to find out the facts anymore...

Former "Baywatch" star Pamela Anderson said Sunday she will try her powers of seduction while in Israel on an unlikely audience — ultra-Orthodox Jewish lawmakers.

An anti-fur bill has been put on hold in Israel over concerns by ultra-Orthodox leaders that it could impact production of the characteristic fur hats worn by some men from Hassidic sects on holidays and other festive occasions.

To combat growing secularization of Jews to European society in the 18th century, Hassidic Jews decided that their way of dress should remain intact and not be influenced by fashion. Descendants of these communities to this day wear the black hats and coats of that period, including, at times, fur hats.

The bill in Knesset explicitly excluded shtreimels - the fur hats that AP says is the problem.

The real issue is that the religious groups are uneasy about supporting the anti-fur organizations who are also against kosher slaughter.

Again, we see pure sloppiness from a major wire service. It cannot be trusted to even give basic facts accurately.

But - it includes photos of Pamela Anderson at the kotel, in a weird burqa-type outfit:

B'tselem's hypocrisy

From Israel Today, translated by NGO Monitor:

Here is a quote from the “Bubbes and Zaydes for Peace” (BZP) website: "First launched in Toronto in 2005, ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ has grown to become one of the most important global events in the Palestine solidarity calendar... This year, IAW occurs in the wake of Israel's barbaric assault against the people of Gaza. Lectures, films, and actions will make the point that these latest massacres further confirm the true nature of Israeli Apartheid. IAW 2009 will continue to build and strengthen the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement at a global level."

Based on their declaration, Bubbes and Zaydes supports and seeks to strengthen the BDS movement. ...The strategy is not just one of international activity to delegitimize Israel, but also undermining of the basic consensus of Israeli society. [The BDS movement] also grants indirect support and legitimacy to the armed struggle against Israel, that is to say, indirect support for terrorism.

Two weeks ago [BZP] donated money to B’Tselem, and the organization’s executive director, Jessica Montell, was quick to boast on Twitter: “I don't know the group but it brought a big smile to my face.” NGO Monitor, headed by Prof. Gerald Steinberg, contacted B’Tselem and warned them that the donation was from an anti-Israel organization that promotes Israel’s delegitimization, and supports the anti-Israel, and essentially anti-Semitic, policy of BDS. This contradicts the stated principles of B’Tselem – and the recent declarations of the New Israel Fund which supports B’Tselem – not to cooperate with organizations that deny Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

Will you reject the contributions, asked NGO Monitor, now that the donors have been revealed to be anti-Israel? The organization’s response was that it was honored to accept donations that aim to ensure the highest ethical standards for life in Israel.

So ‘grandmas and grandpas’ in Yiddish (Bubbes and Zaydes) sounds harmless, and what could be wrong with accepting donations from them? A simple search, however, exposes the harsh face of this organization.

Organizations such as B’Tselem, that hold Israel to exceptional moral standards, should themselves be held to the same standards, especially when it comes to Israel’s existence.

B'Tselem had written to NGO Monitor [entire email exchange here] saying that "B'Tselem's board has explicitly rejected BDS tactics against the State of Israel. We have in the past and will continue to refuse donations from organizations whose aims and activities contradict universal human rights principles."

I couldn't find any official mention of the anti-BDS policy on B'Tselem's site, and they ignored my email asking for clarification. But from what they are saying, they seem to believe that the BDS movement that aims to destroy Israel and denies Jewish national self-determination - which they personally disagree with - is still in accordance with "universal human rights principles."

On paper, B'Tselem's mission of human rights is admirable, and there is nothing wrong with holding Israel to high standards in that area. But this email seems to indicate that B'Tselem is more interested in money and politics than in its own supposed idealistic goals.

The fanatically anti-Israel Al Aqsa Foundation has, on its website, an article about the restoration of a minaret in Safed.

According to the article, the minaret dates back a few hundred years and was in danger of collapse. Repairs cost some $25,000.

Even though this same organization will accuse Israel of doing everything possible to erase Muslim heritage in "Palestine," here we have a story where the Jewish state had no problem with the restoration of an Islamic symbol in a town that has deep Jewish roots going back to Biblical times, and is considered a holy city to Jews.

When synagogues are restored in Egypt or Lebanon, the Arab governments use those occasions to spout propaganda about how they value diversity and how they value their Jewish communities. This even though the synagogues are nothing more than museums for communities that are all but gone because of explicit and implicit anti-Jew policies.

Here, though, we see what is an everyday occurrence. The supposedly racist Jewish state routinely allows its Muslim citizens to maintain their religious sites without blinking an eye. And even more so, they allow it when the organization behind the repairs is more political than religious, and will vilify the very state that allows them the freedom to act. (The website has a similar feature about the the restoration of a major mosque in Jaffa a few months ago, funded by Turkey.)

In fact, while the Muslims will accuse the Jews of politicizing religion by calling Israel "the Jewish state," on top of that very minaret a PLO flag was hung a couple of weeks ago:

Don't expect the Al Aqsa Foundation to acknowledge the truth about how they are free to worship and build religious structures in Israel which they then use against the very state that gives them that freedom. Instead, they blame every tree that dies on the Temple Mount on "Israeli excavations" that they still claim are going on underneath.

Hamas refuses any Gaza ceremony to memorialize Arafat

There have been a number of stories lately indicating that Hamas and Fatah are getting closer to a re-unification. These stories are cyclical - they pop up every few months and Palestinian Arabs get excited, then something goes wrong and they then start accusing the other side of collaborating with Israel, the worst insult they can muster.

That is the reason I stopped covering those stories in my regular round-ups of the PalArabic media - because even when they do meet, nothing ever happens.

Here is another indication that reconciliation is not in the cards anytime soon.

November 11th is the sixth anniversary of the death of Yasir Arafat. While Arafat was the head of Fatah, every Palestinian Arab terror group professes respect for the last (and second) real leader that the PalArabs ever had. You will not find Hamas or Islamic Jihad insulting Arafat.

But when Fatah in Gaza wanted to organize a pan-Arab rally in commemoration of the anniversary, Hamas shut them down. Fatah says that "the leadership of the Fatah movement has a program to commemorate the anniversary in Gaza by everyone, because of the fact that Abu Ammar [Arafat] was a national leader, the leader of the Palestinian people, and does not represent any individual movement."

Keep in mind that only a couple of weeks ago, Hamas participated in a huge rally commemorating the anniversary of the death of the co-founder of the Islamic Jihad movement, Fathi Shiqaqi. So the issue isn't that Hamas doesn't recognize the leaders of other terror movements - but it does not want to even give the impression of supporting Fatah in Gaza.

Links to start off the day

Gaza's Surfer Girls (The Atlantic) (h/t t34zakat)

IsraeliGirl/Giyus interview with Professor Eyal Zisser, an Israeli expert on Syria

From Berlin gang to IDF spokesman (Ha'aretz, h/t Silke)

From anti-Zionism to anti-semitism at University of Texas at Austin, see also this video (h/t Joel) and here.

UNRWA and the code of silence (JPost)

The Muqata on Rachel Corrie's propaganda trial

Israel Matzav on Saeb Erekat's praise of a murderer

Palestinians, leftists caught burning a forest in the West Bank

From YNet:
Six foreign nationals and Palestinians set fires alight near the West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin in the Gush Etzion bloc. Police said the suspects were taken in for questioning on suspicion of arson and illegal congregation.

Settlers said that at about 11 am they saw fires on lands they said belonged to Bat Ayin. Security sources said it was apparently land whose ownership is not regulated.

Dov Mark, land supervisor for the Gush Etzion Council, said such acts have taken place a number of times. "This is a known Palestinian method to take over state land," he said. "With the support of anarchists, who usually come from abroad, they come to an area of natural woodland which has never been cultivated, burn it on purpose and at the same time plant trees. It's all supposed to alter the reality on the ground."

Mark warned that "in this way, it's hard for the Israel Land Administration to work from the moment they plant trees on the land or cultivate it for agricultural crops. In today's case, some 80 dunams (20 acres) of natural woodland were burned by a group of 25 Palestinians and anarchists."

I grabbed the YNet video and put it on YouTube:

(h/t Jed)

This rose bush is in front of Chez Elder, and I can assure you that the leaves are just as painful as they look. However, the bush seems to thrive as the temperature goes down. (This photo was also taken by my phone, and heavily cropped.)

Google started keeping statistics for Blogger sites. The stats go back to July 2010. According to Google, the number of pageviews that I get is about 50% higher than what Statcounter tells me.

If that is true, then I have already passed a million pageviews this year! Statcounter says I am at 750,000 hits for 2010.

Maybe Google also includes RSS feed views, because otherwise I cannot account for the discrepancy.

Anyway, here's an open thread because I am having a busy Sunday.

The Virginity Capsule - now for sale

We have discussed the phenomenon of hymen restoration surgery for Muslim women to appear more like virgins for their wedding night, and how it is illegal in many Arab countries. But since it can save the lives of many women who might be murdered by their new husbands, the procedure is even covered by British national health insurance.

But now, there is a cheaper method.

According to Elaph.com, a capsule is being sold in Arab communities in the Middle East - including in Israel - that is inserted vaginally before the wedding night. It then explodes, giving off a red dye that resembles blood, thus potentially saving the woman's life, as well as her reputation.

Not bad for a few bucks.

The capsule is not legal in any country.

Elaph also says that there are many Israeli clinics that perform hymenoplasty, often in a half-hour procedure.

This capsule is similar to a Chinese device I mentioned last year that performed the same function, when an Egyptian cleric demanded that any bride found to be using it should get the death penalty.

PA arrests atheist for his online activities

Palestine Press Agency reports that PA police arrested a man for his postings on Facebook and his blog.

The man, who was not identified, was caught as he was at an Internet cafe in Qalqilya.

In his Facebook postings, he supposedly claims to be God and he attacks other monotheistic religions, including Islam. He reproduced the Danish Mohammed cartoons and, according to the article, angered hundreds of thousands of people with his atheistic arguments. People who complained managed to get him removed from Facebook but he simply kept writing on his blog, which seems to have been named "Code of The Light of Reason."

I believe that his name is Waleed Al-Husseini and this is the blog. The Facebook page it links to is indeed gone (here's the cached version.) This would be his English-language blog.

I don't see him claiming to be God, except perhaps in a sarcastic way; he is advocating atheism and describes why he doesn't believe in Islam.

So, of course, the enlightened Palestinian Authority - who staked him out for two months - regard him as a deep threat to their nascent, democratic, secular, enlightened nation they are planning.

Weekend Christian conference in DC hosts a would-be ethnic cleanser

The mission of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation is to ensure "the continued presence and well-being of Arab Christians in the Holy Land and to developing the bonds of solidarity between them and Christians elsewhere."

This is admirable. Christians are disappearing from the Middle East at an alarming rate (everywhere, in fact, except for Israel.)

Unfortunately, the HCEF seems to be a bit fixated on supposed Israeli actions that are forcing Christians out, and they downplay any oppression that come from the Palestinian Muslims. I couldn't find anything on their website about threats, or attacks, or stealing land.

This group held a conference in Washington this weekend. One of the speakers is "Ambassador" Maen Areikat, who represents the PLO in Washington.

And who says, very explicitly, that he envisions a Palestinian state that would have no Jews in it.

In other words, he advocates the forcible transfer of some half-million Jews out of the free, democratic country he pretends to support.

It seems a little odd that an organization that is against Christians being forced out of the Holy Land has no problem honoring a man who wants to do exactly that to hundreds of thousands of Jews.

Gaza businessmen must be really stupid

From Ma'an:

Nablus businessman Munib Al-Masri on Sunday toured industrial projects being carried out by the Palestine Development and Investment Company in the Gaza Strip.

The West Bank multimillionaire told journalists Friday that after three years of waiting, his company decided to inaugurate a five-star hotel in the northern Gaza Strip. The hotel was completed in 2007, but its opening was delayed due to the dire conditions in the Strip.

I guess this is another successful businessman who doesn't read the papers enough to realize that Gaza is filled with poor, starving people to whom a luxury hotel would be a cruel joke, how no one in Gaza can afford even the basics that are for sale there, and how such a project is doomed to failure.

This comes on the heels of the announcement of another Gaza mall that is equally doomed.

It's almost like these people expect to make money in a place that is universally regarded as one of the worst places on Earth. How arrogant they are to think they know more about Gaza than the New York Times and the UN!

Video of Israel's "Dancing with the Stars" same-sex couple

I mentioned it last week, so how can I not show it? Especially since it is a magnet for blog hits....

This is the first time that any incarnation of "Dancing with the Stars" has shown a same-sex dance team.

And, come on - who is going to object?

Did you ever received a parcel saying "fragile" but the sticker "this side up" was missing so you never knew how to handle the package carefully? This is how I feel towards Lebanon. How to approach Lebanons fragile state at this moment?

Hezbollah is threatening, because of the Hariri Tribunal, which it wants to boycott amid unconfirmed reports that an impending indictment would implicate its members. This worries of course the Lebanese army. A general said ahead of the UN indictment:

"I am worried but I am not afraid," General Jean Kahwaji, who rarely makes public statements, told the daily An Nahar. "We have deployed sufficient troops in Beirut and have studied all other areas at risk," he said. "The army will be firm... in all areas and particularly Christian areas," he said without elaborating.

This is how Hezbollah threatens in the meanwhile:

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has openly warned Lebanese against further cooperation with the tribunal.

His second-in-command, Sheikh Naim Qassem, has said charges against Hezbollah would be "equivalent to lighting the fuse, to igniting the wick for an explosion."

(...)

Last week a report in the daily Al Akhbar, which is close to Hezbollah, said the Shia party had quietly sent its partisans throughout the country in a dry run for a possible takeover of the capital and other areas in the aftermath of the STL indictment.

The fact that people die as a result of clashes between the Lebanese army and "gunmen" might be a warning for worse to come.

A package usually will not crash itself when you just stand there and watch it. We can wait and see, but I just hope the package was not a ticking bomb.

Maybe it's not such a stupid move by Netanyahu to withdraw from the northern part of the village Ghajar after all.

Hamas? Anti-semitic? No way!

You know how Hamas always says that they have nothing against Jews, just Zionists?

Apparently, they are also referring to the Zionists of the Middle Ages:

The Jews will soon be expelled from Palestine that same way they were kicked out by France, Britain, Belgium, Russia and Germany, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said over the weekend.

“The only nation that received the Jews after they were expelled was the Islamic nation, which protected them and looked after them,” Zahar said in a speech in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip over the weekend.

“But they have no place here amongst us because of their crimes. They will soon be expelled from here and we will pray at the Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem].”

Zahar claimed that Jews were expelled in the past “because they betrayed, stole and corrupted these countries.”

I seem to recall Jews being expelled from or fearfully fleeing state-sponsored persecution in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran and Jordan, but perhaps Zahar's is more a scholar of medieval history than modern.

Notice that he doesn't mention Spain and Portugal, two other countries that famously expelled Jews. Why not? Because in those countries Muslims were persecuted and/or expelled along with the Jews! That little fact might make his fellow Muslims question his theory that people who are kicked out of countries, or forcibly converted, deserve it. Better to avoid that topic, then.

Oh, by the way - Zahar is one of those "pragmatic" Hamas leaders that so many people pin their hopes on for an ultimate peace treaty.

Hospitals in Gaza have no medicine - but not because of Israel

Palestine Press Agency has an article Gaza hospitals that do not have basic medical supplies, like pain relief medicines and even gauze.

Families of patients have to go to pharmacies to buy the medicines - of which the pharmacies have where there are plenty - and then give them to the nurses at the hospitals to administer.

What is interesting is how the medicines in the pharmacies are labeled. They say things like "In support of the Palestinian people" or "in support of charity X." In other words, medicines that are meant to be given to the hospitals for free are being diverted and being sold to pharmacies instead, for what is presumably a tidy profit for the thieves.

Israel does not limit the shipment of medicine and medical supplies at all.

The PA is responsible for coordinating shipments of medicine to Gaza, and they have only been sending roughky half of what was needed, thus creating a black market for the supplies.

Although this article did not explicitly blame Hamas, we have seen in the past that Hamas has confiscated aid meant to be distributed for free and diverted it to Hamas-run hospitals and clinics, or to the black market.