UN "threatened" CBC reporter; Hezbollah uses hospital for comm HQ

Two articles in Naharnet follow up on the sensational CBC report implicating Hezbollah in the Hariri assassination.

One has an interview with the reporter, Neil MacDonald:

[T]he Canadian journalist said he tried to contact Abdul Majid Ghamloush, an alleged Hizbullah operative who Macdonald described in his report as a "minor electronics specialist who worked for Hizbullah."

Quoting "one former U.N. investigator," Macdonald said in his CBC report that Ghamloush had been tasked with "collecting and disposing" the mobile phones allegedly used by the hit squad that murdered Hariri.

"We knew that he had fled to Syria after the death of Major General Wissam Eid, maybe he was killed after that," Macdonald told Sada al-Balad.

The CBC reporter also noted that he tried to interview Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Druze leader Walid Jumblat, who allegedly refused to appear in the report.

Moreover, Macdonald said that he tried more than once to contact Col. Wissam al-Hasan, head of the police Intelligence Bureau, noting that he obtained his phone number from one of the U.N. investigation commission's employees.

Col. Hasan, however, refused to cooperate with the Canadian journalist.

The CBC report claims that Hasan's alibi in the Hariri assassination case was weak and that he had told another story entirely.

It said Hasan was "on the U.N. radar from the beginning, for two reasons: He quickly became one of the inquiry's main liaisons with the Internal Security Forces; plus he was in charge of Hariri's security at the time of the assassination."

The report depicts Hasan as a possible suspect in the case.

On the other hand, Macdonald reiterated that the United Nations had "threatened" him not to publish the report and to handover all U.N. documents in his possession.

Naharnet also reproduced one of the more damning pieces of the CBC piece, on Hezbollah's communications network:

An investigative report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) has revealed that Capt. Wissam Eid's discovery showed that "everything" in the assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri was connected to landlines inside Hizbullah's Great Prophet Hospital south of Beirut.

Eid's work would also lead to another discovery: Everything connected, however elliptically, to land lines inside Hizbullah's Great Prophet Hospital in South Beirut, a sector of the city entirely controlled by Hizbullah, CBC added.

It has long been said that the fundamentalist fighters operate a command centre in the hospital.

Eventually, telecom sleuths would identify another network of four so-called "pink phones" that had been communicating both with the hospital and, indirectly, with the other networks.

These phones turned out to be tremendously important. It turned out they had been issued by the Lebanese government itself and when the ministry of communications was queried about who they had been issued to, the answer came back in the form of a bland government record.

CBC has obtained a copy of this record provided to the commission. On it, someone has highlighted four entries in a long column of six-digit numbers. Beside the highlighted numbers, in Arabic, was the word "Hizbullah."

Finally, Eid was handed a clue from the best source possible: He was contacted by Hizbullah itself and told that some of the phones he was chasing were being used by Hizbullah agents conducting a counter-espionage operation against Israel's Mossad spy agency and that he needed to back off.

The warning could not have been more clear, CBC said.

Read More

Gabriel Latner running for Cambridge Union President (UPDATE)

Gabriel Latner, the Cambridge debater who is subject of my most popular post this year (over 9000 views so far,) is still in the news.

For one thing, he will be interning at UN Watch next year.

Beyond that, he is running for the presidency of the very union that had banned him.

Here are the details from Standpoint:

Gabriel Latner, a second year law student at Cambridge University now famous for his audacious speech at the Union last month, is running for Union President this week. Hustings take place on Thursday and the vote is on Friday.

Here's the back story.

The Union hosted the following debate last month: "this house believes Israel is a rogue state".

Latner spoke for the motion, arguing that Israel is a rogue state. He was joined by the hysterical Lauren Booth (famous only for being Tony Blair's sister-in-law), and the more impressive Mark McDonald, a barrister, and founder of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East.

His speech has become one of the most controversial to have been delivered in the chamber for some time. In a nutshell: Latner argued that Israel is a rogue state because it does not conform to regional standards.

By upholding human rights, maintaining an independent judiciary, and ensuring both legal and constitutional equality, Israel is a rogue by comparison to its neighbours.

...
The speech epitomised everything the Cambridge Union should stand for - a counter-intuitive, original, and clever argument. Latner deserves applause and recognition for that.

Instead, he was escorted off the premises minutes after the debate ended.

Earlier, before Latner started his speech he leaned over to Booth and whispered, "I am going to nail you to the f****** wall up there". For a clever guy, it's not the smartest thing he's ever done - but you have to admit it's funny as f***.

Booth complained vigorously about this and Latner was subsequently escorted off the premises by security, banned for life by the current President and then, on appeal, readmitted.

During that time, the issue has refused to go away. Latner's speech has gone just about everywhere, the debate itself was reported in the press, Laruen Booth howled about the injustice of it all to anyone who would listen, and several student societies wrote to the Union complaining about Latner.

Now he's running for the Union's Presidency.

His hilarious press release says:

GABRIEL LATNER @ The UNION, Round 2:

After the success of his Union debut, which critics are calling "brilliantly audacious", "pretentious", "zionist dog lies", and "so titillating it made Lauren Booth see God", Gabriel Latner is returning to he Union.

The appearance is part of an international press tour for the launch of his new book 'My Life in Mossad - The Confessions of a Petunia Arranger'.

No one knows for sure what Latner intends to say at the Union, but sources close to the reclusive author have indicated that the address is "so riveting it will have the audience glued, nay, nailed to their seats". (See for yourself, Thursday @ 7:00)

Fans may recall that Latner was escorted out of the Union by security personnel after his last address, out of concern for his safety. A deranged debater was so moved by his speech, that she proceeded to re-enact Glenn Close's "rabbit scene" from Fatal Attraction. Commenting on the experience Latner said "It was all a little much. I mean, it was just a speech. Yes it was brilliant. Yes it made Dr King's 'I have a Dream' look like a speech by Sarah Palin. And yes, I am incredibly dashing in a tuxedo. But for a 50 year old woman to throw herself at me like that was just wildly inappropriate. That kind of thing just shouldn't be permitted in polite society. Frankly, I'm a little concerned about the general state of the Union's morals. Did you know that they have an entire wall devoted to sexual intercourse?"

His manifesto:

Why Vote for me? (BESIDES A CHEAPER BAR)

1. After certain recent events I've probably read the Union Constitution/Rules more times than any living member. Might come in handy to have a President who knows the rules.

2. I will actively seek members' input and suggestions, specifically with regards to motions. We need to get rid of VAGUE and REPETITIVE debate topics and start having debates on RELEVANT ISSUES. Ms Hill wants to let you help decide the emergency debate motions. I want to have your help choosing MAIN DEBATE TOPICS.

3. CHANGE IS GOOD, BUT IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE THE ESTABLISHMENT, YOU CAN'T BE PART OF IT. I WON'T INVITE D-LIST CELEBRITIES TO THE UNION. They add nothing, and make us look bad. And they're usually horrible debaters.

4. IT WILL BE REALLY, REALLY FUNNY. Think about it. What could be more annoying to the cadre of self-important, arrogant toffs who feel that they're some how entitled to run the Union, than electing someone who won't listen to a word they say? Plus, irony is funny.

5. I'M OFFERING CHANGE. The other candidates are long-time Union personnel. I'm not. I'll be honest, they have more experience than me, but that shouldn't be what decides your vote for two reasons:

a. Any NECESSARY experience I can pick in my term as President-Elect.

b. They have experience- running the Union the wrong way. Whichever of the other candidates you vote for, you can be fairly sure you'll get another term of the SAME MEDIOCRE DEBATES. I'm offering you a legitimate alternative.

Latner has also done an interview with The Tab - one of the student rags in Cambridge - where he tells them, "I'm a fan of irony". He goes on:

The Union is like Cripps Court. People on the inside think everything's fine. But everyone on the outside can tell those buildings are ugly as sin.

Meanwhile, Lauren Booth is still huffing and puffing about Latner, saying his decision to stand for election is

an insult to the members of the debating union whose own rules he mocked and clearly has no respect for.

I would also like to ask [the President] James Counsell why he has re-instated this creature when his ban was supposed to stand unless I received an apology for his rude, drunken behaviour.

Latner has apologised - but Booth refused to accept it. That attitude has characterised Booth's conduct throughout this whole affair. She has tried to slam Latner at every possible opportunity since he obliterated her shrieking pleadings in the Union. Whipping up sentiments against Latner in Cambridge was bad enough - but I also suspect she was also behind some of the stories which appeared in the press about it too.

The irony - of which Latner is no doubt all too aware - is that all this publicity might help him win on Friday. I hope it does.

Vote Gabriel Latner!

UPDATE:

For speaking to the press, a violation of the Union’s election rules, Latner has been fined 20% of his vote!

(h/t Stan)

UPDATE: The appeals panel at the Cambridge Union Society has penalized Latner 40% of his votes for the double infraction of talking to the press and then posting the interviews on his Facebook page. (via email from Latner)

We find that the communications made by Mr Latner to The Cambridge Tab did make explicit reference to the election in question, and attempted to persuade others to act in a way conducive to the acquisition of more votes for himself. Mr Latner was therefore engaging in campaigning making use of the world-wide-web.

The Returning Officers imposed a penalty under Chapter T, 14(a)(ii), docking of a percentage of a candidate‟s votes. Commission of a Category 3 Electoral Malpractice requires a minimum penalty of the docking of 5% of the candidate‟s votes. Given the severity and foreseeability of the consequences of Mr Latner‟s malpractice, but after mitigating factors were taken into account, the penalty was fixed at 20% of Mr Latner‟s first preference votes.

The Appeal Panel determine that Mr Latner‟s malpractice has caused a gross distortion to the fairness in the election; Mr Latner ought reasonably to have foreseen the results of his malpractice, and the severity of the offence is therefore very significant, despite any mitigating circumstances such as Mr Latner‟s admission of his offence.

Although Mr Latner made an admission of his malpractice to the Returning Officers, he has reproduced the interview on his facebook campaigning page under the heading “Tab Interview”; he has therefore not attempted to reduce publicity resulting from The Cambridge Tab article despite the decision of the Returning Officers. Considering the severity of Mr Latner‟s offence, the reasonable foreseeability of its impact, and the damage that it has caused to the fairness of this election, the Appeal Panel hereby alter the decision of the Returning Officers as follows:
Mr Latner is found to have committed a Category 3 electoral malpractice, under Chapter T (6) (g) and (i), and the penalty imposed is the docking of 40% of Mr Latner’s first preference votes.

Read More

BBC notices the PA jailing an atheist

From the BBC:

One of Mr Hasayin's postings was called Why I left Islam. He goes on to strongly criticise the religion for not allowing free-thinking and also mocks and insults the Prophet.

Some of his essays posted on a website called The Light of the Mind are detailed and clearly written by someone with a strong academic background. He also identified himself as a Proud Atheist.

As to exactly why Mr Hasayin has been arrested, the Palestinian Authority is not saying.

A spokesman for the Palestinian security services, Gen Adnan Damiri, said he could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

"Insulting religion is a crime under Palestinian law," says Naser al-Rais, a lawyer with the Al Haq human rights organisation based in Ramallah.

Asked to comment on the case, Mr Rais said: "I respect Mr Hasayin's right to have these beliefs but he also has to respect the law, there are limits to freedom speech."

Mr Rais says Mr Hasayin could face a prison term of between three months and three years.

Nice to see that the BBC is catching up to things I wrote about two and a half weeks ago, that the AP noticed a few days later, and the LA Times mentioned a few days after that.

Read More

In case you get turned on by the alluring eyes of a Burqa'd woman...

From the French version of Slate, a photo of a woman at the Hajj.

Maybe she is taking this recent fatwa seriously....

(h/t Silke)

Read More

The IDF's Bedouin Desert Reconnaissance Battalion

From the IDF website:

The moonless desert night is cool and the stars are twinkling above. A grayish cigarette ash falls on the golden sand next to a soldier’s red boots. In a few moments, the quiet will cease and the true nature of the surroundings will appear. The vapor of sweet tea spreading in the tents will give way to clouds of dust as the soldiers' march towards the target destination will begin. Among the briefings delivered in Hebrew, a few words in Arabic are thrown in here and there; but this does not represent the enemy because Arabic is the mother tongue of most of the men dressed in uniform.

Soldiers from the Bedouin Desert Reconnaissance Battalion raid the abandoned communication facility simulating a weaponry warehouse in Gaza. If any infantry battalion knows how to do this, it is this battalion: its soldiers know the area to perfection, every fold and stone on its ground. “The battalion knows the line, its fighters understand the field and know how to survive in it. They are excellent fieldsmen,” notes the Battalion Commander, Meir Almalam. In fact, they are trackers without being trackers.

The battalion, which took an active part in all major conflicts in the Gaza Strip, was founded in 1987 and is entirely composed of volunteers, mostly Bedouins and some non-Bedouin Arab-Israelis. In recent years, a considerable increase in the enlistment to the Battalion has been recorded, and for good reason: the battalion explains that for the Bedouin community’s members, it represents a ticket to the very heart of the Israeli society, and also a solution to economic distress.

The battalion provides its soldiers with a warm home, a livelihood, a possibility for extended academic opportunities and the camaraderie of fellow company soldiers. “They are doing something altruistic. They are volunteers and do a great job, and invest themselves”, Almalam, the Battalion Commander says. “They show tremendous motivation to succeed and cope through their actions. At the end of the day, it is a great battalion”. Company Commander Capt. Yussef Suwad adds that “We know our job, we know ourselves.”

...Near the tent encampment sits Corporal Mamdouh Dahir. He is smoking a cigarette and the moment he opens his mouth I am surprised by his accent. Mamdouh is a Bedouin Arab-Muslim, but unlike the rest of the battalion’s soldiers, he grew up among Jews his whole life and at one time did not even know Arabic fluently. He did not join the Desert Reconnaissance Battalion in order to be integrated into the Israeli society, but rather the opposite: “I wanted to join the Givati or Golani Brigade like the rest of my classmates; I was dying to get in just like them. Because of my ethnic origin, I passed by the offices of the Bedouin Desert Reconnaissance Battalion during recruitment where they briefed me and I was very impressed. I decided it was an opportunity for me to learn a bit about my religion and learn how to speak Arabic. At first, people here thought I was showing off with my accent in Hebrew and then they realized that this is what I know.”

Today, Mamdouh talks about his unit to his friends at home: “I explain to them that we are infantry in everything we do and also that we deal with the most challenging missions. I tell them about the experience and growth soldiers gain in the Battalion and the way in which the Battalion improves the abilities of the Bedouin community within society”. He surprisingly declares: “I am a Zionist” and clarifies that, “All my life, I felt part of the Jewish society, except for the religious part. Therefore the definition of Israel and its army doesn’t bother me as long as I am granted my freedom of religion. I believe that the Jews deserve a state and that they went through very difficult events. When I am in the army I don’t fight against Muslims, I fight against bad people who do not care about Muslims, innocent children or civilians. The Palestinians are suffering from extremists no less than we are.”

Read More

Deputy admits possibility Hezbollah murdered Hariri

YNet reports:

A Hezbollah parliament member, Walid Sukkarieh, made an unusual statement Wednesday and said that "even if Hezbollah murdered Rafik Hariri, we have no interest in destroying Lebanon," the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat reported.

Here's the original Asharq al-Awsat story - which is its top headline at the moment. He gave the statement after the release of the sensational CBC documentary on Hariri's assassination, which has been covered extensively in the Arabic press.

(h/t Joel)

Read More

PA has literally wiped Israel off the map

Palestinian Media Watch has put together a large list of maps used in PA schoolbooks, by PA institutions, and by the PA government itself that consistently erase Israel.

Just in case you had any doubts as to their peaceful intentions.

(h/t Joel)

Read More

A Muslim response to BBC Panorama

One response to the BBC Panorama program called "British Schools, Islamic Rules" came from the Islamic Education and Research Academy, which is "a global dawah organisation committed to presenting Islam to wider society."

They were not happy with the BBC's portrayal of the schools as teaching anti-semitism and homophobia.

But their response does not contradict the program at all. They just said that it needs to be put in proper context:

Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, iERA’s media representative said, “The attack on mainstream Islamic speakers because they hold established theological views is making the job of community cohesion difficult, as is the constant misconstruing or lack of context with regards to their statements. The programme-makers would have been better served to look deeply into the Islamic scholarly tradition and its historical impact, and they would have found a beautiful model of community cohesion. For example it is a well known historical fact that Islam and Muslims for centuries have been offering protection to the Jewish community.

That "beautiful model of cohesion" is that the despised Jews can be "protected" as long as they meekly accept their inferior status and pay the jizya tax to their Muslim overlords. But that is apparently in no way incompatible with schoolbooks that ask Muslim children to detail all the "reprehensible" characteristics of Jews, which seems to be an established theological view.

At least iERA didn't deny it.

Actual equal rights of Jews and Muslims living in the same society? That's crazy talk!

And don't even get the Muslims started on Hindus...

(h./t Orna)

Read More

New Abbas poster

In the same speech that Mahmoud Abbas waxed nostalgically over the PLO in 1964 today, he added, "We must also recall the outstanding [early] leadership of the Palestinian people, the Grand Mufti of Palestine-Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, who sponsored the struggle from the beginning, and sponsored the struggle and displacement for the cause and died away from his home."

The Mufti was a rabid Jew-hater who was the driving force behind not only the 1929 massacres in Jerusalem and Hebron but also the 1936-39 riots that resulted in the deaths of hundreds. He moved to Germany during World War II, hoping that Hitler would win and allow to him murder every Jewish man, woman and child in Palestine, and proposing plans to do exactly that.

This is Mahmoud Abbas' hero.

For some reason, that part of his speech wasn't translated in the English version of the Ma'an article.

If any Western politician would publicly praise a Nazi sympathizer who supported genocide, their careers would be over. When the so-called "moderate" PA leaders do exactly that, no one says a word.

This idea that it is acceptable for Arabs to make outlandish and unacceptable statements because they are Arab is nothing less than bigotry. If they are to be treated as respectable world leaders, they should be held to the same standards as anyone else. It is way past time of granting them a free pass.

Read More

Abbas remembers the good old days of the PLO in 1964

Ma'an (Arabic) reports that Mahmoud Abbas spoke at the opening of a new PLO headquarters in Ramallah today. He described it as a "temporary" headquarters, saying that he expects it will be moved to Jerusalem "in the near future."

If he believes that, then he just announced that he wasted millions of dollars of donor money to build a useless building.

He recalled visiting the PLO headquarters in Jerusalem in 1964, saying that  just as it was the headquarters of the PLO then, so it will return.

For some reason, he didn't mention that the PLO in 1964 had explicitly rejected the idea of a Palestinian Arab state on the West Bank, saying that they have no ambitions to take away Jordanian territory. From its original charter:

Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.

Also in 1964, the PLO's goal was not to build a state - it was only to destroy Israel. Nowhere in its charter does it use the word "state" or "nation" in terms of its goals; it only talks about a "homeland" and the "liberation of Palestine" that is strongly implied - along with the concept of a Palestinian Arab people - to be a tactical move on the way to pan-Arab unity:

Article 11: The Palestinian people firmly believe in Arab unity, and in order to play its role in realizing this goal, it must, at this stage of its struggle, preserve its Palestinian personality and all its constituents. It must strengthen the consciousness of its existence and stance and stand against any attempt or plan that may weaken or disintegrate its personality.

Article 12: Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine are two complementary goals; each prepares for the attainment of the other. Arab unity leads to the liberation of Palestine, and the liberation of Palestine leads to Arab unity. Working for both must go side by side.

The only nation it speaks about is the negation of a Jewish nation, anywhere:

Article 18: The Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate System, and all that has been based on them are considered null and void. The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the true basis of sound statehood. Judaism, because it is a divine religion, is not a nationality with independent existence. Furthermore, the Jews are not one people with an independent personality because they are citizens to their states.

Within the same document we see the attempt to artificially create a people who nobody had heard of a few decades earlier, and to deny the nationhood of a people who had been identified as such for millennia.

This was the PLO of 1964 that Abbas nostalgically recalls. And this document is still available on the PLO's UN website.

And while its stated goals might have changed, its actions are still remarkably consistent with the actions of today's "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas.

Read More

Nice takedown of a takedown of UNRWA

Not all criticism of UNRWA comes from the perspective of the damage it does to Palestinian Arabs. Sometimes, as in a recent Comment is Free piece in the Guardian, the criticism comes because it helps stop Palestinian Arab terror.

The Kieron Monks piece starts off okay:

"Peace Starts Here" is the slogan adopted by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to promote its work in the Palestinian territories. But why does peace "start here"? Why not 60 years ago when UNRWA began its work with Palestinian refugees? Or 60 years in the future, when we will still be debating the same problems if the aid models do not change.

The timing of Chris Gunness's recent article about the UN agency's work was unfortunate, coinciding with strikes by UNRWA employees, which have paralysed essential services in the West Bank's 18 refugee camps. The laudable initiatives Gunness mentioned – health centres, schools, food for hardship cases – ground to a halt without his agency's patronage.

That's not sustainable development; it's a permanent life-support system. Neither is it sustainable for UNRWA, which had been forced to slash its services because of budget deficits even before the strikes began.

Palestine is one of the world's largest beneficiaries of foreign aid, receiving over $3bn (£1.9bn) annually (not including the budget of UNRWA itself). Yet a quarter of the West Bank population remains food-insecure and half of all Palestinians live below the poverty line.

If relief work is failing, economic development is even more worrying. Prime minister Salam Fayyad told the Annual Capital Forum that Palestine's GDP grew 9% in the past year, but as a former IMF representative he should know that the gains are hollow. In 2009, over 60% of Palestine's gross national income, and almost 100% of government expenditure, came from aid.

But then we start to see his real agenda:

The Palestinian Authority, which receives over $2bn annually, is answerable not to Palestinians, but to its donors. The aid-management structure in Palestine is innately political. At the top level, the ad hoc liaison committee, members include the United States and Israel. The impact of foreign interests can be clearly seen in PA budgets that allocate 10 times more money to security – suppressing resistance to the occupation – than to agriculture, which could be the backbone of the Palestinian economy.

Whoa! He is saying that the PA shouldn't be stopping terrorism; in fact he is implying that terrorism is a good thing!

The rest of the piece makes this clear - Monks' problem with UNRWA (and the PA) is not that they are hurting those they pretend to help, but that they are helping Israel! And so is the rest of the world when they fund these NGOs! It's a conspiracy meant to keep the Palestinian Arabs enslaved forever! Bwahahaha!

Adam Levick at CiFWatch does a very nice job at finding out that Monk's motivations are a bit suspect. Very much worth reading.

Read More

Israel building new "racist wall"

From Egypt's Al Masry al-Youm:

Egypt neither approves nor rejects the construction of a fence that Israel has begun constructing along the Egyptian-Israeli border, so long as it is built on Israeli territory, spokesperson for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Hossam Zaki, said on Monday.

Zaki said Egypt has reiterated this position several times before, adding that the wall is an internal Israeli affair that does not harm Egypt's interests nor violate its sovereignty.

Israel says the fence should stop infiltrators and smugglers who cross into Israel from the Egyptian side of the border.

Bulldozers were dispatched to three points along the 250km boundary and Israeli TV showed them clearing patches of land and digging trenches near Egyptian border posts.

The project is estimated to cost US$370 million and will take up to two years to complete.

The fence is expected to cover at least 140km of the border and will be backed up by an electronic barrier.

But Jordan's press is reporting it a bit differently in Arabic.

Jordan's Al Ghad newspaper writes:

Israeli occupation authorities began yesterday in building the racist wall along the borders of a new entity with Egypt and the Golan up to the Gaza Strip, threatening "to seal the blockade against the occupied Palestinian territories and isolated from its surroundings."

...But there are other goals of the racist wall that brings serious implications for the occupied Palestinian territories, where it will cause "a negative impact on life in the Gaza Strip, indirectly, and prevent any relationship [between Gaza and] neighboring Egypt except through checkpoints and borders," according to a political adviser to Palestinian Prime Minister in Gaza Youssef Rizqa.

Rizqa said "the occupation through this wall is trying to obstruct the efforts of the resistance factions and any activity practiced in the occupied territories."

Yes, this mainstream liberal Jordanian newspaper is saying that anything Israel does to stop terrorists and infiltrators, that might however indirectly hinder the "resistance" is, by definition, "racist."

Apparently, Jews objecting to being blown up is just one example of their inherent racism.

Read More

Full video: BBC Panorama on hate taught in Islamic schools

Here is the BBC Panorama story I mentioned yesterday on how British Islamic schools teach Jew-hatred and homophobia:







(h/t Suzanne)

Read More

Saudi scientists: Camel urine fights cancer, heart attacks, strokes

Jordan's Al Ghad reports that Saudi scientists have proven that camel urine has similar properties as aspirin in fighting blood clots that could cause strokes and heart attacks.

The study compared urine from camels in various parts of the kingdom with that from cows and humans, and discovered that only the camels had these miraculous medicinal properties.

They said that the same blood thinning qualities can also help inhibit the growth of cancerous tumors.

The article says that the scientists are working with American pharmaceutical companies to figure out how to convert the camel urine - and perhaps this story - into a form that people can swallow.

Read More

Full video: CBC implicates Hezbollah for Hariri murder

The video of the CBC story I mentioned yesterday:




(h/t Islamo-nazism blog)

Read More

Paris museum suspends Israel-bashing exhibit

I mentioned on November 10th that the Museum of Modern Art in Paris was showing an "award winning" collection of photos from the Gaza Strip meant to bash Israel. Not only were the photos biased, but the very rules of the award were created for a single purpose - to compare Israel to Nazis.

Last Sunday, a group of Zionists mobilized on Facebook to create a unique counter-protest.

In the words of the leader of the group, Jean-Patrick Grumberg:

With the active support of members of the Europe-Israel group, volunteers recruited on Facebook, and members of the JDL, leaflets was distributed on Sunday 21 November, before the exhibition opened.

The flyer was a perfectly neutral, and could not be construed as an attack. Photos, taken from Palestinian sites, with this title: "Disturbing Gaza photos." Thus, we followed the logic of the show: the audience was invited to see for themselves that there is another truth, in Gaza.

My goal was to restore some balance. To inform the public, and show this side of Gaza hidden by the media. The result was well above our expectations.

The administration of the museum became trapped by its ignorance - or complicity, we will probably never know - revealed by this leaflet. The photos revealed that they became the purveyors of propaganda disguised as art exhibition, as was revealed by our photos.

Consequence: the museum's management has decided, on Sunday 21 November, to close the exhibition for a period of one week.

The team of volunteers distributing the flyers suffered - how strange - Judeophobic and Israélophobic insults: the truth revealed in the leaflets, I must admit, is a rare attack, because nothing and nobody can challenge the images - the pro-Palestinians know only too well.

The expo is not definitively closed, and we already expect the usual reactions of propaganda specialists.

This is a brilliant example of how pro-Israel activism should work.

(h/t EoL)

Read More

Israel cooperating with India on vegetable and fruit farming

Indian Express reports:

The Indo-Israel Centre for Excellence in Vegetables at Gharaunda, near Karnal, the first of its kind in the country, will be inaugurated on December 6.

The centre demonstrates advanced farm technologies of Israel to maximise cultivation and achieve quality production of vegetables. The state’s other Indo-Israel centre, which focuses on excellence in cultivation of fruits, is likely to be inaugurated in the first quarter of 2011.

Impressed by the highly advanced agricultural techniques demonstrated in Haryana, Punjab, and also Karnataka and Gujarat, have asked Israeli experts to develop a similar project in their states. The experts, however, already have their hands full with the ongoing work in the five states mentioned above.

The Gharaunda centre focuses on the use of polyhouses, insect net-houses, walk-in tunnels and other plastic cover techniques to increase the yield of vegetables.

Talking to The Indian Express, Haryana Joint Director, Horticulture, Dr Arjun Singh Saini said: “By using such protected structures, a farmer can get multiple cycles of high productivity in tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicum and cauliflowers in one year, as compared to only one or two cycles in open production. Farmers can also make good profit from off-season demand,” he said.

(h/t Zvi)

Read More

UNIFIL has plan to send injured to Israel during a war

From Naharnet:

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon has devised a plan to evacuate its wounded to Israel in case of the eruption of a war, reported Al-Akhbar on Monday.

The plan, which was set ten days ago, will be implemented in a joint maneuver with the Israeli army.

The paper said that the army contacted UNIFIL command after it received news of the maneuver to confirm it, after which the army command said that the step would be a negative development that demonstrates UNIFIL's ties with Israel.

Again with the Jewish doctors! 

Read More

Time to buy Ahava products

As I wrote in August, I plan to give free advertising to any Israeli company that is vandalized by the Israel-hater movement.

On Monday, Ahava in London was shut down for a few hours because two of the bigots broke in and caused damage.

So it is time to buy more beauty-care products.

Click on the ad to be redirected to the Ahava online store. Free shipping (at least in the US)!

Read More

Stuxnet? Iran's centrifuges temporarily shut down

From AP:

Iran's nuclear program has suffered a recent setback, with major technical problems forcing the temporary shutdown of thousands of centrifuges enriching uranium, diplomats told The Associated Press on Monday.

The diplomats said they had no specifics on the nature of the problem that in recent months led Iranian experts to briefly power down the machines they use for enrichment — a nuclear technology that has both civilian and military uses.

But suspicions focused on the Stuxnet worm, the computer virus thought to be aimed at Iran's nuclear program, which experts last week identified as being calibrated to destroy centrifuges by sending them spinning out of control.

There have been hints that the program is beset by technical problems. Even a brief shutdown of the thousands of enriching machines would be the strongest documentation to date that the program — Iran's nuclear cornerstone and a source of national pride — is in trouble.

Iran's enrichment program has come under renewed focus with the conclusion of cyber experts and analysts that the Stuxnet worm that infected Iran's nuclear program was designed to abruptly change the rotational speeds of motors such as ones used in centrifuges. Such sudden changes can crash centrifuges and damage them beyond repair.

WaPo adds:

Iran's nuclear program has experienced serious problems, including unexplained fluctuations in the performance of the thousands of centrifuges enriching uranium, leading to a rare but temporary shutdown, international inspectors are expected to reveal Tuesday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. unit that monitors nuclear programs, will provide no explanation of the problems. But speculation immediately centered on the Stuxnet worm, a computer virus that some researchers say appears to have been designed specifically to target Iran's centrifuge machines so that they spin out of control.

Even before the Stuxnet attack, the Natanz facility that houses the centrifuges had not been operating at full capacity, according to experts and U.S. officials.

Olli Heinonen, a former top IAEA official, said Monday at a meeting sponsored by the Arms Control Association that 3,772 centrifuges at the facility were being fed uranium gas and 5,084 machines were idle. "This indicates that there is a problem," he said.

Heinonen also said that Iran appears to have suffered a setback in its efforts to develop a second-generation centrifuge capable of enriching uranium more quickly. Iran's centrifuges are based on a Pakistani copy of a decades-old Dutch design, and Heinonen said Iran may have trouble obtaining the raw materials - such as high-strength carbon - for an upgrade because of international sanctions.

The Wired article I quoted recently seemed to indicate that Stuxnet was being more subtle than AP's and WaPo's characterization of the code making the centrifuges spin out of control. Wired made it sound like Stuxnet was only trying to reduce the quality of the uranium, but the fact that so many centrifuges are out of commission could mean that this was either an intended or unintended consequence of Stuxnet's code.

(h/t Jacob)

Read More

This year's FBI report confirms: no Islamophobia in America

The latest FBI hate crimes report was just released, and it shows once again that hate crimes against Muslims are tiny compared with hate crimes against Jews.

There were 107 hate crimes recorded against Muslims in 2009, compared to 931 anti-semitic hate crimes.

As I mentioned last August when I dug into the previous statistics a bit deeper, if you assume that America is Islamophobic then you must insist that the USA is much more anti-semitic.

Obviously it is neither, unless one has an agenda.

Read More

Latest Al Qaeda magazine at a glance

Here's a Wordle of the latest Al Qaeda magazine, called Inspire:

Pretty much the entire magazine is dedicated to the UPS package bombs. Al Qaeda claims that a UPS plane that crashed in September was taken down by a similar bomb.

Some choice bits:

Allah says: {O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them.

Here's the justification that is already accepted as reasonable by the Thaddeus Russells of the world:

The operation of the explosive packages which was performed by the mujahidin of the Arabian Peninsula against the companies of air freight belonging to the disbelieving nations is our right. It is our right because we are defending the Muslim lands. This operation has struck fear in the hearts of the Americans and their allies. This operation is a response to the Crusaders aggression against the Muslims of Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, the Maghreb, Chechnya and the Arabian Peninsula. It is a response to the continuous support to the usurping Jews who are invading Jerusalem and are blockading Gaza.

And this:

Today we are facing a coalition of Crusaders and Zionists and we in al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula will never forget Palestine. How can we forget it when our motto is: "Here we start and in al-Aqsa we meet"? So we listed the address of the "Congregation Or Chadash", a Gay and Lesbian synagogue on our one of our packages. The second package was sent to "Congregation B'nai Zion". Both synagogues are in Chicago,  Obama's city.

(h/t Zach for the PDF, sorry, no URL)

Read More

PA Ministry of Information: Kotel not Jewish

From the Jerusalem Post:

The Western Wall belongs to Muslims and is an integral part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Haram al-Sharif [the Noble Sanctuary], according to an official paper published on Monday by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information in Ramallah.

The paper, which has been presented as a “study,” was prepared by Al-Mutawakel Taha, a senior official with the PA Ministry of Information to “refute” Jews’ claim to the Western Wall.

“The Zionist occupation falsely and unjustly claims that it owns this wall which it calls the Western Wall or Kotel,” Taha, who is also a renowned Palestinian poet and writer, wrote in his project. “The Al-Buraq Wall is in fact the western wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

He added that the Jews had never used the site for worship until the Balfour Declaration of 1917. “This wall was never part of the so-called Temple Mount, but Muslim tolerance allowed the Jews to stand in front of it and weep over its destruction,” he wrote.

“During the British mandate in Palestine, the number of Jews who visited the wall increased to a point where the Muslims felt threatened and then there was the Al-Buraq Revolution on August 23, 1929, where dozens of Muslims were martyred and a large number of Jews were killed.”

The author, who is affiliated with PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, emphasizes that over the past few decades Jews had failed to prove that the wall had any connection to their religion.

Just in case you think that there is the slightest possibility that the author of this "study" actually believes what he is writing, rather than knowingly and willfully lying, here is the proof.

The "study" is on the PA Ministry of Information website (only the Arabic version.) One of its claims is:

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, published in 1917, the Western Wall became part of the Jewish religious tradition around the year 1520 AD, as a result of Jewish immigration from Spain, after the Ottoman conquest the year 1517

It just so happens that the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1917 says no such thing. Its entry on Jerusalem says:

Certain customs peculiar to Jerusalem are mentioned in the rabbinical writings....In writing deeds in Jerusalem it was customary to state not only the day but also the hour of execution (Ket. 94b). A man approaching the city recited, "Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation" (Isa. lxiv. 10), and made a rent in his garment (M. Ḳ. 26 and parallels)—a custom observed to this day. As a congregation, the Jews of Jerusalem are called specifically (Ber. 9b) and (Yer. Ma'as. Sh. ii. 10).

The Rabbis further held that the western wall, the Gate of the Priests, and the Huldah Gate were not and never will be destroyed (Cant. R. § 2), and that whether the Temple was standing or not the Shekinah was not removed from it; it still dwelt near the western wall (Tan., Shemot, x.; Cant. R. ii. 9). God will bring back all the former joy to Jerusalem; and every one that on earth bewails its destruction will in the future world rejoice at its restoration (Pes. 28 and parallels).

The very source that Taha uses to "prove" that Jews had no interest in the Kotel shows that this interest pre-dates Islam and Mohammed's night journey on his magical flying horse.

Now that we have proven that an official Palestinian Authority ministry is willing to knowingly publish lies, why exactly should anyone trust any agreement made with that same entity?

Read More

Tribute to Helen Thomas by a Hezbollah/Hamas supporter and 9/11 "truther" (update)

I mentioned that Helen Thomas was honored in a Washington ceremony last week as the recipient of the "Courage in Journalism" award last week by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. My conjecture was that she received her award not in spite of her anti-semitism, but because of it.

It appears I am right.

The person who presented the award to her was James Abourezk, former senator - and terrorist supporter.

When Abourezk gave a glowing review to the Walt/Mearsheimer book on the Jewish Lobby, I noted that he had been on Hezbollah TV praising Hamas and Hezbollah, and saying that Zionists were involved with the 9/11 attacks. This gave rise to a comment thread on the review site where he and I argued a bit. I'm fairly sure I won that argument, decisively.

Here's part of what Abourezk said at the Helen Thomas tribute:

from People's Cube

Even Barack Obama, who has been advertised as a tolerant man, had to join in the denunciations of Helen. He, along with the others in the press corps, acted very much like children in a school yard. When one of the children falls down, the rest start kicking.

Helen was not necessarily done in by her statement about Israel. What she said is what I’ve been saying for years - the Zionists should get the hell out of Palestine.

Where they go when they leave there is not my concern, just as it is not the Zionists' concern where the Palestinians went when they were driven out of Palestine.

...As the Zionists and the Israelis are working very hard to get our country into a war with Iran, there remains almost no voice in the press or in the Congress to call a halt to this madness.

That is why we are all paying tribute to Helen tonight, and I hope, for a long time after this night. We pay tribute to all soldiers who act with bravery, and tonight, we add Helen Thomas to that company. She deserves our thanks, and she deserves the thanks of our nation.

So indeed Thomas was not honored by the ADC for her decades of journalistic work but for her anti-semitic and genocidal comments about Jews in Israel.

And James Abourezk is proud to agree with her.

(The rest of his speech shows that his regard for the truth has not gone up at all since my little exposure of his lies.)

By the way, i see that previous award recipient Ray Hanania finds my earlier mention of Thomas to be reprehensible:

On the one hand, the writer argues that Helen Thomas did not say that Jews should get out of the occupied territory, making the precision of the words their strongest case. And then they hypocritically violate principle, morality and even truth, arguing that Helen Thomas said that Jews should get out of Israel. The fact is Helen Thomas NEVER used the word "Jews." She was asked by a racist rabbi what Israelis should do and she said "Get the hell out of Palestine."

And then that "racist rabbi" said to her "So you are saying the Jews should go back to Poland and Germany" and she added "And to America, and everywhere else."
Hanania knows this, of course, as he attacks EoZ as "an often racistly anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate site."

Sorry, Ray, but you are a liar. Helen made very clear what she meant, and the video shows that. Your defense of her is indefensible.

UPDATE: Not that this is the first time that I caught Ray Hanania lying....

Read More

Iran's involvement in a Nazi website

Last week, Barry Rubin had a scoop:

Is Iran’s government sponsoring an Internet site that extols the German Nazis, their history and achievements, including the antisemitism that the current Iranian regime also supports? Or is it merely permitting one to operate in its highly censored communications' system?

Here are the facts. There is a discussion group site entitled IranNazi that has an Iranian internet URL. It is written in Persian and seems to have begun on August 24. All the material on the site is pro-Nazi and features pictures of Adolph Hitler, the swastika, and goose-stepping German soldiers. There is an English-language part as well.

This site pretends to be an association for the research of Nazism and to be "completely historical and scientific."

کاملا پژوهشی و علمی تاریخی است

It includes such topics as claims that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the well-known antisemitic forgery is true; insistence that the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis never happened and is in fact a lie; makes the prediction that Israel will collapse in five years; and highlights cartoons and satire ridiculing the Holocaust. All four of these positions are also taken by the Iranian government and official media.

The main page includes the following message:

این تارنما طبق قوانین جمهوری اسلامی ایران و تحت نظارت کارگروه رسانه های دیجیتال وزارت فرهنگ و ارشاد جمهوری اسلامی فعالیت می کند .

In English it means: "This website is under Islamic Republic of Iran laws and it is under the supervision of the working committee on Digital Media of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance."

Iran does not have freedom of speech and certainly not freedom of the Internet. Given the tight censorship in Iran and the fact that all sites are closely monitored, permission to publish--especially to claim government sponsorship--is evidence of state backing.

So is this, then, a state-backed site, showing just how far the regime has gone in boosting Nazism historically and antisemitism or a private initiative by some Iranian immigrants in the United States who are supporters of the Iranian regime? Is the statement on the site, which has not been suppressed by the government, accurate? It isn't completely clear.

A very well-informed and highly credible Iranian notes that the fact that it isn't blocked "is a significant indication that the government at least does not have problem with it." The deputy minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance is Muhammad Ali Ramin, who was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's advisor on Holocaust issue and founder of Holocaust Institute in Tehran and the president of the conference of Holocaust; A Global Perspective, which denied that the mass murder of Jews never took place.

I was skeptical. I did a little digging; the server of the group is physically in Arizona and the other websites on the same Iranian host were the usual assortment of random Internet sites: one selling videos, one apparently selling perfume. The IranNazi.ir site seemed to be just another site set up by some Jew-hater.

Al-Arabiya, however, seems to be taking it as seriously as Rubin did, as the site was specifically allowed by Iran:

Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic guidance lifted the block it had imposed on a pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish website, amid concerns by both conservatives and reformists.

While it blocks around five million political, cultural, religious, and “indecent” websites, the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance permitted the operation of a website called irannazi.ir, also called the Center for Historical Studies on World War I and Nazism.” The website is run by a group called the Center for Nazi Iranian Studies.

The re-opening of the website was met with objections in Iranian political circles, which was shown in the reactions of both the pro-government website Tabnak and the pro-reformist Rooz Online.

Tabnak demanded that the Iranian government provides an explanation for allowing the website to operate while Rooz Online accused deputy minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance is Muhammad Ali Ramin of being behind lifting the ban on the website.

Rooz reported that Ramin had connections with neo-Nazis when he lived in Europe and that he is known for his support for Nazi ideas.

Ramin is also the founder of the Holocaust Institute in Tehran and was the president of a conference called Holocaust: A Global Perspective, which denied the extermination of Jews by the German Third Reich.

The website published a statement about the previous ban imposed on it after its administrators were accused of insulting religious minorities. After the re-launch, they called on visitors to use the word “Zionist” instead of “Jew.”

The website has several chat rooms that are categorized according to the topics users want to discuss like Third Reich, Second World War, principles of Nazism, and the ideas of Adolf Hitler.

It is indeed significant that the Iranian regime specifically unbanned this site while it continues to censore millions of others.

Read More

The If/Then Fallacy

Diplomats, pundits and politicians, whether Israeli or European or American, have consistently made the same mistake when deciding what Israel must do to gain peace. I call it the "If/Then Fallacy."

The logic goes that if Israel makes a unilateral move towards peace, then it will inevitably gain some sort of reward.

And it is false - consistently and provably so.

I recently stumbled onto and quoted a 1988 version of this formulation in Time magazine, where columnist Michael Kramer wrote:

If [Israel puts forth a detailed plan for peace and] the Palestinians reject an offer reasonable people can identify as forthcoming and courageous -- as they have rejected every attempt at compromise for almost a century -- [then] no one could fault Israel for then saying, "Shalom. Come to talk to us again when you've grown up."

Of course, Israel has done exactly that - at Camp David as well as at other times. But the "else" clause didn't follow as the script demanded - on the contrary, Israel's offer was met with a pre-planned war against Israeli civilians that ended up killing thousands.

Zaki Shalom, in Strategic Assessment's October issue, goes through the goals of Israel's disengagement from Gaza. He writes many implicit and explicit reasons that the Israeli government wanted to make such a drastic move, and notes:

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, withdrawing IDF troops from the Gaza Strip, destroying the Jewish settlement there, and evacuating Israeli residents were supposed to bring about Israel’s complete divestment of responsibility for the Gaza Strip and its residents. From this point onwards, so the plan’s authors contended, the local residents would be their own lords and masters, choose the leadership they would desire, and bear responsibility for their actions, for better or for worse. Gaza, so it was explained, is a bottomless hole, an expanse of quicksand. Israel freed of responsibility for the Strip was a highly important strategic asset for the future development and prosperity of the State of Israel.

If Israel would go through that exercise, then Gaza will no longer be Israel's problem. How did that work out?

In practice, these expectations were not realized. On paper, it seemed that removing IDF forces from the Strip, dismantling all Jewish settlements there, and moving the residents into the areas within the Green Line would allow a complete disengagement from the Gaza Strip and a divestment of all responsibility for it. As coined by Yitzhak Rabin and long echoed by Ehud Barak, the idea was, “We’re here and they’re there.” The disengagement plan of April 18, 2004, stated: “The process of disengagement will serve to dispel claims regarding Israel’s responsibility for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”11

Five years later, it is clear that this expectation did not materialize. Rather, “We left Gaza, but Gaza didn’t leave us” is the reality. The international community sees Israel and its government as bearing full responsibility for the Gaza Strip.

The same fallacious logic was used in 2000 when Israel withdrew from Lebanon in conformity with UN resolutions. The UN certified that Israel's withdrawal was complete. Certainly there was a drastic reduction in tension in the immediate aftermath of the withdrawal, but Hezbollah did not accept the UN-drawn Blue Line and made a number of additional territorial claims against Israel, of which the Shebaa Farms is the most famous.

Then, of course, in 2006 Hezbollah kidnapped Israeli soldiers to spark the Second Lebanon war. Somehow, Israel's move towards peace did not result in peace, against what everyone assumed. And in the years since the war, Israel - having no territorial claims against Lebanon and reacting to Hezbollah's increased provocations - is today perceived as the aggressor.

Now there is a new instantiation of the If/Then Fallacy, with Israel prepared to withdraw from Ghajar. The logic, as always, is that it gives one less thing for Hezbollah to complain about and therefore would contribute to peace.

And, as always, that logic is wrong.

From Ma'an:

Hezbollah on Sunday dismissed an Israeli decision to pull troops out of a disputed village on the border with Lebanon as nothing more than a "trick" and accused the UN of complicity with Israel.

"The Israeli enemy wants to show that it has fully pulled out from Lebanese territory," Hezbollah MP Mohammed Raad said in a speech in south Lebanon, excerpts of which were distributed to the media in Beirut.

"This is maneuvering in complicity with the United Nations," Raad said in the first reaction by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah since Israel announced its decision.

So the residents of Ghajar will be sacrificed for no real political or tactical benefit by Israel, except perhaps for a very limited amount of goodwill from the UN that will disappear on the next border incident initiated by Hezbollah that Israel dares respond to.

While there may be some short-term diplomatic gains for Israel when it announces these unilateral moves, there is an elemental flaw with the "If Israel does X, then Arabs will respond positively" formulation. The flaw is that it assumes good faith on the part of people who are determined to eliminate Israel.

The world, and even Israeli leaders, keep forgetting that the entire raison d'etre of Palestinian Arab nationalism (and Hezbollah's very existence) is not to build a state but to destroy one.

The "historic Palestine" desired never had anything to do with history and always was congruent with what Israel controlled. The major political and military entity controlling Lebanon has, in its charter, the phrase "Our struggle will end only when this entity [Israel] is obliterated." Neither Hamas nor the PA has shown the least interest in building a state, and every single PA action that seems to point towards state-building has been done because of US pressure, not because of an innate desire for independence. The fate of millions of stateless Palestinian Arabs is being purposefully delayed by their and other Arab leaders for no other reason than to use them as a demographic and political weapon against Israel. Poll after poll has shown that the Palestinian Arabs desire to wipe Israel out.

It is not possible to make peace with those who are determined to destroy you. This simple fact, which should be axiomatic, is set aside and ignored time and time again because of the deep desire for Westerners and Israelis to find a formula for peace despite all evidence to the contrary. Wishful thinking and false assumptions have replaced cold, hard and admittedly uncomfortable facts.

Just because everyone in the West wants a solution doesn't mean there is one.

Read More

Hating Israel doesn't stop Gulf royal from seeking care there (updated x2)

From JPost:

A member of the royal family of a Persian Gulf state is undergoing advanced medical treatment in Israel, sources close to Deputy Minister for Negev and Galilee Development Ayoub Kara (Likud) revealed Sunday.

Kara’s office confirmed that the foreign visitor had completed a series of tests Sunday, in preparation for heart surgery on Tuesday, but would not detail the medical tourist’s country of origin, or the name of the hospital in which he is being treated.

Kara’s office became involved in the visit when Kara aided the patient in securing the necessary paperwork in order to allow him to enter Israel. Israel does not have official diplomatic relations with any of the Persian Gulf states.

Reminds me of an old All in the Family episode, where the bigoted Archie Bunker, pretending to have whiplash, insists on a Jewish lawyer:


It is amazing how tolerant people become when they need help.

And how easily they revert back once they are finished.

(h/t Zvi)

UPDATE: Apparently, the patient is a princess, arriving with her husband.

UPDATE 2: Arutz-7 adds an intriguing piece:

The woman's husband, a prince of the unnamed Gulf kingdom himself, is considered a key figure in his country. He told MK Kara that if – and hopefully, when – his wife recovers, he plans to lobby for construction of a large medical center that will take in patients from around the Arab world – with Israeli doctors helping to set up the project. In a statement, MK Kara's sees medicine as an important bridge to bring Israel and the Arab world closer, “especially given the fact that in recent years more and more Arabs have been exposed to Israeli medicine, and are well aware of the high quality of Israeli medicine.”

(h/t Joel)

Read More

Saudi-funded schools in Britain teaching Jew-hatred, homophobia

BBC's Panorama will be broadcasting this story later today:

BBC Panorama found that more than 40 Saudi Students' Schools and Clubs are teaching the official Saudi national curriculum to about 5,000 pupils.

One text book shows how the hands and feet of thieves are chopped off.

The Saudi government said it had no official ties to the part-time schools and clubs and did not endorse them.

However, a building in west London where Panorama obtained one of the text books is owned by the Saudi government.

The director of education for the Saudi Students' Schools and Clubs said the Saudi Cultural Bureau, which is part of the embassy, had authority over the network.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said there was no place for the Saudi teachings with regard to Jews or homosexuals in Britain: "To my mind it doesn't seem to me that this is the sort of material that should be used in English schools."

He said in light of the BBC's findings, the school inspectorate Ofsted was looking into the possible regulation and inspection of out-of-hours schools and clubs. At present, part-time schools do not fall within Ofsted's mandate.

"Ofsted are doing some work in this area, they'll be reporting to me shortly about how we can ensure that part-time provision is better registered and better inspected in the future," Mr Gove said.

One of the text books asks children to list the "reprehensible" qualities of Jewish people. A text for younger children asks what happens to someone who dies who is not a believer in Islam - the answer given in the text book is "hellfire".

Another text describes the punishment for gay sex as death and states a difference of opinion about whether it should be carried out by stoning, burning with fire or throwing the person over a cliff.

In a book for 14-year-olds, Sharia law and its punishment for theft are explained, including detailed diagrams about how hands and feet of thieves are amputated.

The use of these materials in Britain comes three years after a BBC investigation found a Saudi-funded school in west London was using texts that referred to Jewish people and Christians in derogatory terms. That prompted assurances at the highest diplomatic levels that the materials would be removed.

Panorama has also found evidence of extreme views on some private, full-time Muslim school websites, including messages that state: "Our children are exposed to a culture that is in opposition to almost everything Islam stands for" and "We need to defend our children from the forces of evil".

(h/t Nadav)

Read More

Must-read CBC report shows Hezbollah murdered Hariri

CBC's Neil MacDonald has produced a great piece of investigative journalism that describes the Hariri murder investigation as well as the stonewalling being done by some of the leaders of that very investigation.

In short, the evidence is overwhelming that Hezbollah was behind the murder, but the commission has shown timidity and worse in investigating it.

Excerpts:

It wasn't until late 2007 that the awkwardly titled UN International Independent Investigation Commission actually got around to some serious investigating.

By then, nearly three years had passed since the spectacular public murder of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

A months-long CBC investigation, relying on interviews with multiple sources from inside the UN inquiry and some of the commission's own records, found examples of timidity, bureaucratic inertia and incompetence bordering on gross negligence.

Among other things, CBC News has learned that:

Evidence gathered by Lebanese police and, much later, the UN, points overwhelmingly to the fact that the assassins were from Hezbollah, the militant Party of God that is largely sponsored by Syria and Iran. CBC News has obtained cellphone and other telecommunications evidence that is at the core of the case.

UN investigators came to believe their inquiry was penetrated early by Hezbollah and that that the commission's lax security likely led to the murder of a young, dedicated Lebanese policeman who had largely cracked the case on his own and was co-operating with the international inquiry.

UN commission insiders also suspected Hariri's own chief of protocol at the time, a man who now heads Lebanon's intelligence service, of colluding with Hezbollah. But those suspicions, laid out in an extensive internal memo, were not pursued, basically for diplomatic reasons.

Read the whole thing.

(h/t t34zakat)

Read More

Because when you think Mike Tyson, you think "quality kosher cuisine"

From the New York Post:

Mike Tyson is in talks with businessman Moshe Malamud to launch a high-end restaurant chain, a source said. The two talked shop at Malamud's favorite kosher eatery, Solo, on Madison Avenue, where Tyson dined with his pregnant wife, Lakiha Spicer, on mushroom soup and mixed vegetables. Tyson, who announced his decision to follow a strict vegan diet last spring, is said to have interest in breaking into the kosher-food business. "They discussed the concept as well as the name, but nothing was finalized," a rep for Solo said. Tyson's rep had no comment.

Which reminds me, what is the blessing one makes before taking a bite of a human ear?

Tyson converted to Islam when he was in prison for raping Miss Black Rhode Island in 1991 and he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca earlier this year. So he already has the a built in clientele from the large the Islamic wife-beating rapist cannibal glatt-kosher population.

Read More

Muslims claim they invented etiquette

Felesteen, a Hamas newspaper, has an article that starts off with an anecdote of a British girl who converted to Islam and then noticed, six months later, that all the rules of etiquette that she grew up with were first found in the Koran!

The article goes on to show how the West "stole" the rules of etiquette from Islam.

Examples:

Honoring parents? In the Koran! (Also in the Torah, which predates the Koran by a couple thousand years.)

Don't enter a house before knocking? In the Koran! (Also in the Talmud, quoting Ben Sira from hundreds of years earlier, Nidah 10b - including not entering one's own house suddenly.)


I admit I didn't understand most of the other examples, so, who knows, maybe Islam invented proper place-settings for a formal meal.

Read More

Israel: Doing airport security right (Michael Totten)

From Michael Totten in the New York Post (h/t Daled Amos, who has more):

Terrorists have yet to use the same weapon twice, and the TSA isn't even looking for whatever they'll try to use next. I can think of all sorts of things a person could use to wreak havoc on a plane that aren't banned. Security officials should pay less attention to objects, and more attention to people.

The Israelis do. They are, out of dreadful necessity, the world's foremost experts in counterterrorism. And they couldn't care less about what your grandmother brings on a plane. Instead, officials at Ben Gurion International Airport interview everyone in line before they're even allowed to check in.

And Israeli officials profile. They don't profile racially, but they profile. Israeli Arabs breeze through rather quickly, but thanks to the dozens of dubious-looking stamps in my passport -- almost half are from Lebanon and Iraq -- I get pulled off to the side for more questioning every time. And I'm a white, nominally Christian American.

If they pull you aside, you had better tell them the truth. They'll ask you so many wildly unpredictable questions so quickly, you couldn't possibly invent a fake story and keep it all straight. Don't even try. They're highly trained and experienced, and they catch everyone who tries to pull something over on them.

Because I fit one of their profiles, it takes me 15 or 20 minutes longer to get through the first wave of security than it does for most people. The agents make up for it, though, by escorting me to the front of the line at the metal detector. They don't put anyone into a "porn machine." There's no point. Terrorists can't penetrate that deeply into the airport.

The Israeli experience isn't pleasant, exactly, and there's a lot not to like about it. It can be exasperating for those of us who are interrogated more thoroughly.

The system has its advantages, though, aside from the fact that no one looks or reaches into anyone's pants. Israelis don't use security theater to make passengers feel like they're safe. They use real security measures to ensure that travelers actually are safe. Even when suicide bombers exploded themselves almost daily in Israeli cities, not a single one managed to get through that airport.

Read More

Bloggers in the Arab world methodically harassed

An important article from Qantara:

Over the past ten years, the Egyptian government and Arab states in general have invested a great deal in Internet infrastructure. However, it was probably not clear to most regimes that this would open a door to democratic development.

"One Social Network – With a Rebellious Message", the most recent publication by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, quotes from a study by the American RAND Institute: "The basis for an information revolution is free expression of opinion with exchange of and general access to information."

ANHRI then writes: "Not even the greatest hypocrite would maintain that Arab governments respect, let alone support, free expression of opinion, or that they uphold the right to access to and circulation of information." It is thus self-evident that the rift between governments and Internet activists grows daily with the latter struggling for democracy by way of the Internet.

According to ANHRI, there are around 58 million Internet users in the Arab world, 15 million of them in Egypt alone. The total number of blogs is estimated at 600,000, but only around 150,000 are actively used.

Most Arab blogs (around one-third) come from Egypt, followed by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Morocco. The bloggers are usually aged between 25 and 35 and write about political and religious topics as well as personal matters.

"Egyptian bloggers try to use their blogs to break through political constraints and are known for their bitter criticism of the government despite its attempts to suppress them." (ANHRI)

Internet activists in all Arab countries must expect repression. There is scarcely any other part of the world where the Internet is subject to such tight surveillance as here, where bloggers are so intimidated and persecuted, or anywhere where they are so frequently arrested and even tortured. Every year, Reporters without Frontiers publishes a list of "Enemies of the Internet"; in 2009, there were four Arab countries on the list of twelve: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Syria.

Read the whole thing, and also visit the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information for news of the latest assaults on freedom in the Arab world - assaults that are all but ignored by the world at large.

(via email)

Read More

Great Jerusalem anecdote

From the Treppenwitz blog:

My optometrist, Dr. Robert Lederman, shared an 'only in Jerusalem' anecdote with me that I couldn't resist posting here in his own words:

"I was recently examining an 8 year old boy. He looked like a regular kid wearing a T-shirt and shorts. I was in the middle of doing a retinoscopy when in the distance I heard the siren of an ambulance, as happens in any city from time to time.

The 8 yr old boy asked me if I could stop the exam.

I thought that he wanted to go to the bathroom. But what he did instead was to recite Psalm 121 by heart in Hebrew to pray for the well-being of whoever it was in that ambulance.

When he'd finished, he let me carry on."

A wonderful reminder that, despite what many think, there is far more in the clear, cool Jerusalem air than the sound of sirens.

Read More

Al Aqsa Sheikh (and PA): Israel "Judaizing" the Kotel

Sheikh Yusuf Juma Salama, a preacher at Al Aqsa mosque and First Deputy of the Chairman of the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem, is complaining about a new plan to expand the Western Wall plaza to accommodate more visitors.

He said that there is nothing Jewish about the Kotel, that it is an integral part of the Al Aqsa Mosque, and the objective of this plan is to Judaize the "Wailing Wall."

He also complained about the rebuilding of the Hurva synagogue and about plans to another major synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, possibly referring to this rumor.

In case you think that only radical Islamist nutjobs refer to Israeli renovation of the Kotel Plaza as "Judaizing," the exact same word is used by the official Palestinian Arab WAFA news agency.

Read More

BDS: Epic FAIL

The worldwide Boycott, Divestiture and Sanctions movement somehow manages to get a lot of headlines about its efforts in making Israel look like a pariah state, convincing people to avoid using her products. Most of those efforts are fictional - for example, last week they claimed that the Netherlands' top pension fund had divested from Israeli companies in its portfolio, a claim that was found to be false, and this is a pattern of lies from the BDS leaders to try to give the appearance of gaining traction.

The best proof comes from the Country Brand Index of 2010, sponsored by FutureBrand and the BBC World News. From their report (not directly online; you can request it here:)

The Country Brand Index is an annual study that examines and ranks country brands, based on FutureBrand’s proprietary research methodology.

The sixth edition of CBI incorporates a global quantitative research study with 3,400 international business and leisure travellers from 13 countries on all five continents, qualified by in-depth expert focus groups that took place in 14 major metropolitan areas around the world. The overall country brand score is calculated using FutureBrand’s Hierarchical Decision Model (HDM), which measures overall country brand performance in the following areas:

AWARENESS:
Do key audiences know that the country exists? How top of mind is it?

FAMILIARITY:
How well do people know the country and what it offers?

ASSOCIATIONS:
What qualities come to mind when people think of the country?
We look at the measured perceptions of five key association dimensions:

• TOURISM
• HERITAGE AND CULTURE
• GOOD FOR BUSINESS
• QUALITY OF LIFE
• VALUE SYSTEM

PREFERENCE:
How highly do audiences esteem the country? Does it resonate?

CONSIDERATION:
Is this one of the countries being thought about for a visit?

DECISION / VISITATION:
To what extent do people follow through and visit the country?

ADVOCACY:
Do visitors recommend the country to family, friends and colleagues?

Israel ranking this year shot up from #41 to #30.

Not only does it rank far higher than every Arab and Muslim country save one (the UAE fell from #23 to #28), but it rose more positions in 2010 than any nation except for Chile, which gained a lot of visibility for the miners' rescue and jumped 19 places on the list.

The BDS movement has nt only been ineffective - it has backfired.

Egypt went down 13 spots (45 to 58), Jordan down eight (67 to 75),  Syria down five (82 to 87), and Iran plummeted from 98 to 109, the second worst ranking in the list next to Zimbabwe.

In their words:

Israel (#30 +11) received significant marketing investment for tourist destinations. Israel moves in the right direction in 2010 – particularly in Tourism metrics like Authenticity and History, which align very well with campaigns promoting heritage and culture.

I guess that this means that most people realize that historic Jerusalem is in Israel despite the efforts of one advertising board to pretend otherwise.

(h/t VC Cafe)

Read More

A tool of the trade

Palestine Today has another article warning that Israel will kick thousands of Jerusalem Arabs out of their homes. Nothing new there.

But the picture illustrating it is sort of nice. The sort of picture that one can put on a poster to bring to an anti-Israel rally, just to tick the protesters off.

A little research shows that it was taken by AP last December.

Now, how can I know that?

One of the items in my toolbox is this website. It can read the EXIF information from photos, which can reveal lots of interesting information. In this case, it seems that AP puts its captions into the photo itself. I Google the caption and find somewhere that the original photo can be found (and, incidentally, prove that Palestine Today rips off AP without giving it attribution.)

Usually, the viewer is good for finding the original date of a photo. Often the Arabic papers I read will illustrate a story with an older photo and make it appear that it refers to the actual even (like an explosion.) In this case AP modified the photo caption so the date says October, not last December, but the caption says the original date.

Read More

More results from the poll of Palestinian Arabs

Here are some more highlights from  The Israel Project poll of Palestinian Arabs that should make anyone pause before wanting to grant them a state of their won.

A Palestinian state should be run by Sharia Law. 55%
A Palestinian state should be run by civil law. 35%

The best goal is for a two state solution that keeps two states living side by side. 30%
The real goal should be to start with two states but then move to it all being one Palestinian state. 60%

Israel has a permanent right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people. 23%
Over time Palestinians must work to get back all the land for a Palestinian state. 66%

In 2000, President Bill Clinton proposed a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement in which the Palestinians would receive an independent state, which included Gaza and nearly all of the West Bank, using the 1967 green line, exchanging Israeli land for larger settlements. It made East Jerusalem the capital of the Palestinian state, with control over Palestinian quarters of the Old City. Yasir Arafat rejected this offer. In retrospect, do you wish Arafat had accepted this peace agreement - yes or no?
Yes: 24%
No: 71%

Some of the answers, to be sure, seemed to contradict these, as in the abstract they seem to support a two-state solution. But when specific compromises are mentioned, they reject every one.

And they make it crystal clear that a two-state solution is not a final agreement, and that they will try to take over Israel as well, signed agreement or not.

Read More