Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 04, 2011

Far left freaking over Goldstone's change of heart

Mondoweiss has, by my count, no fewer than 13 posts about Goldstone in just the past two days. It is almost as if the anti-Israel crowd is going the first three of the five stages of the Kübler-Ross model of grief:

Denial: Goldstone didn't really retract, and Israel still targets civilians in what must be the most ineffective attempt at ethnic cleansing in history.

Anger: Goldstone's U-turn is hurting the progressive, hate Israel movement

Bargaining: “The judge only comments on one small part of the report, which I take as an implication that the rest of the report stays intact and he is still in support of that.”

All we have left is depression and acceptance. Depression will come, but it won't be blogged, as anger is their driving emotion. Acceptance cannot come, because as long as Israel exists in any form, these hateful lunatics - who happily publish the most ridiculous rumors of Israel arming Gaddafi - will never accept any possible defense for its existence.

Instead, Goldstone will be recast as a turncoat, as Ilan Pappe does in this hilarious article at Electronic Intifada, where he compares Goldstone to his nemesis Benny Morris:

Goldstone has not entered as yet the lunatic fringe of ultra-Zionism as Morris did. But if he is not careful the future promises to be a pleasant journey with the likes of Morris, Alan Dershowitz (who already said that Goldstone is a "repentant Jew") between annual meetings of the AIPAC rottweilers and the wacky conventions of the Christian Zionists. He would soon find out that once you cower in the face of Zionism -- you are expected to go all the way or be at the very same spot you thought you had successfully left behind you.

Of course, Pappe is a principled hater of Israel, and nothing ticks him off more than to see someone he thought was on his side turn out not to be a similarly rabid, drooling pile of malevolence.

Abducted Gaza engineer indicted for developing rockets, helping Hamas

From JPost:

Dirar Abu Sisi was Hamas's leading missile developer according to an indictment filed Monday at the Beersheba District Court. Abu Sisi was reportedly abducted by Israel over a month ago as he was traveling on a train in Ukraine and brought to Israel for interrogation.

According to the indictment, Abu Sisi received his doctorate in engineering in Ukraine in the 1990s and studied with some of the leading Ukrainian military engineers. After returning to the Gaza Strip, he was recruited into Hamas by the military commander of the terrorist organization at the time, Salah Shehada, and began working as one of their leading engineers for short- and long-range missiles.

Abu Sisi not only developed missiles in Gaza but was also responsible for upgrading thousands of older rockets and increasing their range and penetration capabilities. According to the indictment that was filed Monday in the Beersheba District Court, Abu Sisi was charged with membership in a terrorist organization, conspiracy to commit a crime, and the production of illegal weaponry, assistance to an illegal organization and other various crimes.

Abu Sisi was the commander of the Izzadin Kassam military college and worked closely with Ahmed al-Jabari, the head of Hamas's military wing. He is the main developer of the Kassam rocket, as well as anti-tank missiles in the Gaza Strip.

Known as the "Rocket Godfather of Hamas," Abu Sisi provided valuable intelligence information during his hearing on Hamas's military wing, its different branches and the decision making process within Hamas.

In 2002, Abu Sisi was recruited into Hamas by Sheikh Nizar Rayan, a spiritual leader of Hamas's military wing who was later assassinated during Operation Cast Lead in 2009. Rayan introduced Abu Sisi to various senior Hamas operatives including Saleh Shehada. Due to his education as an engineer, Abu Sisi was asked by Shehada to assist him in developing weaponry for Hamas.

He later joined a committee that was responsible for the research and development for weaponry headed by Mohammed Def. In the committee Abu Sisi was responsible for electrical engineering and dealt mostly with developing boosters and fins that stabilized and enhanced rocket propulsion. These are two factors that are key for increasing a rocket's range and subsequent penetration of a target.

In 2005, Abu Sisi was asked by the committee to begin working on increasing the range of rockets that were manufactured domestically in the Gaza Strip. Due to his involvement Hamas, he was able to increase the range of the rockets from six to nine kilometers, and subsequently to 15 kilometers.

In 2007, Abu Sisi assisted Hamas in increasing range of rockets to 22 kilometers. He was then asked by Hamas to increase the range to between 37 and 45 kilometers, and participated in several experiments during which rockets were tested and fired into the Mediterranean.

In the end his attempts did not succeed.

One of the tank missiles that Abu Sisi helped develop is "Yassin," which has the ability to penetrate between 16 and 26 centimeters of reinforced steal. He attempted to increase the penetration capabilities to 37 centimeters.

Abu Sisi also developed an anti-tank mortar shell called "Abu Rassin" with a special range of 100 meters and can penetrate 87 centimeters of steel. He later made efforts to increase penetration to 100 cm, and worked on another anti-tank missile called "Al Batar," which has a 100-meter range.

The earlier reports that Abu Sisi was abducted because he knew the whereabouts of Gilad Shalit made no sense to me because by the time his disappearance was known, Shalit would have been moved to another location. This detailed indictment, where Abu Sisi is apparently Hamas' main rocket engineer, makes much more sense.

Hamas is denying any connection to him:

Hamas on Monday denied that Dirar Abu Sisi is connected to the organization following his indictment in Beersheba District Court in which he was accused of being the group's leading missile developer, Israel Radio reported.

Abu Sisi's wife Veronika also denied the charges against him, maintaining that the Palestinian engineer reportedly abducted in Ukraine by Israel was innocent.

Jenin is no longer a massacre, but a historic defeat of the Zionist enemy

Remember Jenin? When Palestinian Arab officials, and reporters, claimed that Israel had massacred hundreds or even thousands of innocent Arab civilians and buried them in mass graves? Where a Palestinian Arab filmmaker corroborated the massacre stories in a movie?

And how it was all a huge lie?

Well, guess who has changed their narrative about Jenin: Islamic Jihad!

Now, Jenin is no longer the scene of a massive slaughter of innocent women and children, but a scene of an epic battle where Palestinian Arabs defeated the hated Zionist enemy.

On the ninth anniversary of event, the PIJ-oriented Palestine Today has no less than four articles about the heroism of the martyrs of Jenin. One describes the pride and joy of a mother of one of the fighters who is now in prison, one has an Islamic Jihad sheikh bragging about how Jenin was a "great victory for the Palestinian people," one shows photos of the heroic fighters during the battle, and a fourth interviews another PIJ leader about how wonderful the battle was.

Amazing how the poor victims have turned into the admired victors.

Syrian protesters forced to prostrate themselves to Assad photos?

Don't know if this is real or not, but Arabic media is reporting that Syrian security forces are forcing protesters to kneel and prostrate themselves towards photos of Syrian president Bashir Assad. This photo has been going around Facebook:

Since many of the protesters are Islamic fundamentalists, this would be especially insulting, if true.

Jordan claims historic metal plates stolen. Just one problem....

From Ma'an:

The director of Jordan's antiquities department said Sunday that "treasure of vital historic importance" has turned up in Israel after being smuggled out of his country.

"It's about 70 pounds (32 kilograms) of metal containing between five and 15 pages bound by lead rings, as well as copper manuscripts dating from the first century AD," Ziad al-Saad told reporters.

"These books and manuscripts would have been used by the first Christians to come to Jordan, fleeing persecution by the Romans," he said.

"These pieces are a treasure of vital historical importance as they offer new information about the origins of Christianity, and especially because manuscripts from this period are very rare."

Saad said the pieces had been discovered "in the north of Jordan several years ago during illegal excavations in caves, and were smuggled into Israel, where they found their way into the hands of an Israeli merchant who had them appraised in Britain."

"Experts at Cambridge University informed Jordan" of the items' reappearance, Saad said.

"They are of equal, if not greater importance than the Dead Sea Scrolls."

The director of Jordan's antiquities department said, just yesterday and without qualification, that these metal codices are as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls?

This is very interesting, because those same codices have almost certainly already been exposed as fakes.

Already a month ago experts had grave doubts about their authenticity:

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), however, has dismissed the idea that the books are of any value. Experts who examined some of them, it said, "absolutely doubted their authenticity". According to the IAA, the books are a "mixture of incompatible periods and stylesâ€¦without any connection or logic. Such forged motifs can be found in their thousands in the antiquities markets of Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East."

Professor Andre Lemaire, an expert in ancient inscriptions from the Sorbonne, was also dubious, saying the writing on some of the codices he had seen made no sense and it was "a question apparently of sophisticated fakes".

The Paleojudaica blog quotes one expert who looked at the text, replying to an inquiry about these tablets:

The text on your bronze tablet, therefore, makes no sense in its own right, but has been extracted unintelligently from another longer text (as if it were inscribed with the words: 't to be that is the question wheth'). The longer text from which it derives is a perfectly ordinary tombstone from Madaba in Jordan which happens to have been on display in the Amman museum for the past fifty years or so. The text on your bronze tablet is repeated, in part, in three different places, meaningless in each case.

The only possible explanation is that the text on the bronze tablet was copied directly from the inscription in the museum at Amman by someone who did not understand the meaning of the text of the inscription, but was simply looking for a plausible-looking sequence of Greek letters to copy. He copied that sequence three times, in each case mixing up the letters alpha and lambda.

This particular bronze tablet is, therefore, a modern forgery, produced in Jordan within the last fifty years. I would stake my career on it.

Wikipedia has much more, as the story develops.

So while I cannot say whether Jordan's charges that the pages were stolen are true or not, it is astounding that the head of Jordan's antiquities department is ignoring all the evidence that casts serious doubt on the authenticity of these plates.

ZAKA-Israel works with Iranians in Japan. When will Tehran condemn it?

From YNet:

An unusual cooperation amidst Japanese catastrophe: An Israeli team of 12 ZAKA (Disaster Victim Identification) volunteers sent to Japan to help out with rescue efforts worked alongside an unlikely team on Sunday – the official Iranian delegation.

In Kamaishi, ZAKA volunteers were able to rescue seven bodies belonging to one family that was buried under the rubble. They also assisted in the identification of the dead. The Israeli team taught the locals to spot crows and explained that, from their experience, dead bodies can be found where crows hover.

The Teheran rescue team also arrived in the city. "We shook hands and became friends. At one point they set up a stand and wanted to hand out food and medicine to the locals. We joined in and there we stood, side by side, handing out food and medicine. They removed the Iranian flag and removed our Israeli flag and we just stood there together. It was very odd," he added.

However, when the Iranians offered the Israeli crew some hot tea, the ZAKA team declined politely due to kashrut reasons. Meshi-Zahav joked and said, "It could have been beautiful if the Iranians tried to poison us in Japan."

In order to avoid a scene the Israelis agreed to drink orange juice from a closed can and later the two delegations took their picture together.

The Iranians told the ZAKA volunteers: "You know we are cousins. The wars and conflicts are between the leaders, but between the people there should be peace. We can't forget we were close once."

Odds are very good that within 48 hours, probably sooner, an Iranian official will denounce this photo.

NYT refused to publish Goldstone retraction?

From YNet:

Not only did Judge Richard Goldstone's words of regret fail to match the global resonance of his original report, it now comes to light that one of the most important newspapers in the world refused to publish his retraction.

Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday that a source close to Goldstone stated that in the past few days the judge had approached the editor of the New York Times opinion pages requesting to post the article he wrote in the paper – and was told his article was rejected.

The editor gave no explanation as to why the article was rejected, but the source believes this was due to the newspaper's political agenda.

The letter was ultimately published in the more conservative Washington Post over the weekend.

This makes sense, as David G has noted via email.

Goldstone had written 3 op-eds in the New York Times in 2008 and 2009, and none in the Washington Post. It strains credulity to think that he did not first go to the NYT for this op-ed as well.

Which tells you what you need to know about the New York Times and Israel.

UPDATE: Politico says that the NYT version was different than the one submitted to the WaPo. (h/t Zach)

Two good Passover videos

From Aish.com, a social media Exodus:

And from The Fountainheads in Israel:

(h/t Menachem, Yerushalimey)

Muslim student defends Israel at UN!

Amran Hussain spoke at the UN on behalf of the European Union of Jewish Students. It is very impressive!

(h/t אורי פלג)

Elder posters hit the front page of Canada's largest Jewish weekly!

From The Jewish Tribune of Canada, the largest Jewish weekly in Canada, March 31 edition (not yet online):

A full page!

And they nicely gave me credit:

I'm kvelling!

(h/t Wigg for the heads up and photos)

Egyptian foreign minister warns that peace with Israel will get colder

Al Arabiya reports that Nabil el-Arabi, Egypt's foreign minister, said said that his country would not be a "strategic treasure to Israel, as they said it was at the time of President Mubarak," and Egypt will only abide by treaties and no more.

He said that Egypt has the right to force the Israeli side to adhere to some of the issues that they claim Israel has not strictly kept from Camp David, "such as the part that said that Israel is committed to peace with the countries that wish it, and it did not happen with Palestine."

The commenters were of the "hell yeah!" type, although one of them definitely gets into the Great Moments of Autotranslation Hall of Fame. Google translates his comment like this:

I am an Iraqi, me proud to be an Arab.... We are tired of waiting for the vagina to defeat the Jews who planted the differences and hatred between us .. When the disease became ill Egypt Sadat and Mubarak sick all the Arabs and Hovoa Wayne got .. Today, Egypt is recovering ..Recover all of the Arabs and, God willing, the vagina soon.

A few links

J-Street Defends the Indefensible

Honest Reporting on Goldstone's about-face

Eichmann wasn't just "following orders"

Why do Arabs want to be citizens of that hated Zionist entity? (Where we learn an interesting fact - a Hamas leader's nephew serves in the IDF!)

FresnoZionism looks at American rabbis who love Palestinian Arabs. (He also has some great, original cartoons.)

A reform rabbi's response to Peter Beinart's thesis about young liberal American Jews.

Getty Images catches an idyllic scene from Gaza.

Hamas terrorists were in "The Playground of Death"

Here is the English-language press release from Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades after the IDF killed three Hamas terrorists on Saturday:

As Al Aqsa Intifada against the occupation assault on the Gaza Strip continues, Ezzeddeen Al-Qassam Brigades has its best men to be in the playground of death to defend their people from any attack by the enemy ... Today, Al-Qassam Brigades mourn the death of the Mujahedeen:

Ismael Ali Lubbad [35 years]

Beach refugee camp – Gaza city

Abdullah Ali Lubbad [24 years]

Beach refugee camp – Gaza city

Mohammed Mahdi Ad-Daya [31 years]

As-Sabra neighborhood – Gaza city

The Zionist fighters assassinated the mujahedeen while they were driving their car in Khanyounis city. They were martyred after a long bright path of jihad, hard work, struggle and sacrifice.

Al Qassam Brigades mourn the death of the Mujahedeen, reaffirms the commitment and determination to continue the resistance against the belligerent occupation forces.

Finally, may Allah (swt) accept him and his blessed efforts for the path of Jihad and may Allah grant his family patience and solace for his lose.

"To God we belong and to him we shall return."

Predictable: Anti-semites now attack Goldstone

From the nutty-far-left Salem News:

Many of us knew something wasn't right with Richard Goldstone from the beginning. His seeming honesty was too good to be true.

He is the experienced former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, who investigated the extended attack on Gaza's civilian population in the winter of 2008 and 2009 that left more than 1400 dead, most of whom were civilian, known as 'Operation Cast Lead'.

Considering the bond that ultimately exists between Zionist Jews, the selection of Goldstone as the man to head an investigation of Israel's Gaza War Crimes was a little like having Newt Gingrich investigate Republican wrongdoing.

...And this leads to the ultimate point about Goldstone and that is that no Zionist Jew from a country that practices apartheid so recently, should have been allowed to head the investigation.

Palestinian Arabs call to boycott Facebook. On Facebook!

Al Jazeera reports that a group of Palestinian Arabs, angry over Facebook taking down the "third intifada" page, are calling for everyone to boycott Facebook on April 15th.

And where are they organizing this campaign? Why, on Facebook, of course!

Western darling ElBaradei says he'd go to war if Israel attacks Gaza

Egypt's Masrawy and other Arabic media outlets are quoting Egyptian presidential hopeful Mohammed ElBaradei as saying that Egypt may go to war if Israel attacks Gaza.

He is quoted as saying that if he becomes President, in the event of any future attack on Gaza he would discuss ways to implement the joint Arab defense agreement, for all Arab atates to respond "in the face of Israeli aggression."

ElBaradei is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

He also is revealed in a new Wikileaks document as saying that if he becomes president he would restore Egyptian relations with Tehran that were severed after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Ma'an again quotes bogus "activists" in Hebron

On Friday, Ma'an wrote:

Israeli settlers burned a store in the center of the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday, activists said.

Protesters assembling ahead of a demonstration said settler tossed flammable materials that burned a storefront on Shalala Street.

Palestinian firefighters put out the blaze that caused damage to the stores and prevented it from spreading, onlookers said.

This sounded fishy to me, as Israelis are simply not allowed in most of Hebron. So I asked someone who lives in the area whether this was possible, and he responded:

It's an area behind Beit Hadassah where we have no access at all. I gave David Wilder a call to double check since it's up by him. He said no chance.

How many times must we document that anti-Israel "activists" lie before the media starts to show some skepticism on their wild and unfounded claims?

And when will Ma'an actually do some real reporting and verify facts instead of mindlessly repeating any anti-Israel drivel anyone claims? It is not hard to reach out to Jews living in Hebron.

March rocket calendar

G=Grad
Q=Qassam
M=Mortar
P=Unidentified projectile
S=Fell short in Gaza
F=Fatality (Green-Gaza, Red-Israel)

March 2011

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
		1	2	3 1P	4 2Q	5 1Q
6	7	8	9 1Q	10 1Q	11 1Q	12
13	14	15	16	17	18 10M	19 50M
20 3Q (1G) 1M	21 1Q	22 4Q 4M	23 3G 7M	24 6Q 2G 6M	25	26 3Q
27	28	29 2QS	30	31 1Q

Elder poster sighting: North Miami Beach

At the JCC in North Miami Beach:

(h/t to the globetrotting Junior Elder)

UC Davis newspaper says it will allow EoZ ad - under certain conditions

On Friday, I reported that the California Aggie newspaper by the students of the University of California-Davis had rejected my "Apartheid?" ad because it was too "controversial" - even though it says nothing controversial at all.

The sponsor of the ad received a clarification from the newspaper:

Hi XXXXX,

First of all, I'd like to apologize for any inconvenience The California Aggie has caused you. I've talked to a few of my staff members and I've decided that we will run your ad on two conditions:

1) We put the words "Paid Advertisement" at the top of the ad.
2) The Aggie will run a box next to the ad giving readers their response options (Where to buy an ad of their own, where to send a guest opinion, etc...)

If you think these sound reasonable, let Kevin [the advertising manager] and I know as soon as possible and he'll help you finish the ad-placement process.

Again, I apologize if my decision to not run your ad caused any problems.

My preference is that The Aggie takes no sides in issues like this, but there is no harm in running your ad if we make sure to point out that anybody can write a guest opinion or run an ad.

Thank you for your time,
--
Mark Ling
Editor in Chief
The California Aggie

I personally have no problem with the first condition, although from looking at back issues it seems the only time they included the words "Paid Advertisement" was for full-page ads. They have plenty of smaller ads without that disclaimer.

But the second condition again presupposes that somehow a pro-Israel ad is "controversial" and the newspaper must go out of its way to allow those that hate Israel to have ample opportunity to respond. Would a similar pro-Canada ad have the same conditions attached? Or an ad made by a pro-choice group?

The sponsor of the ad replied:

Thank you for writing to me.

You said that The Aggie would run my ad on two conditions, and you asked me to tell you and
Kevin whether I thought those conditions were reasonable.

Before answering that question, I have several questions of my own:

(1) What other ads have met those conditions in the past?

(2) For what other ads have those conditions been required in the past?

(3) For what other ads will those conditions be required in the future?

(4) Who has approved requiring that my ad meet those conditions?

I hope that you will let Kevin and me know the answers as soon as convenient.

I'll keep you posted.

Half a cheer for Goldstone

Richard Goldstone backtracks somewhat concerning his already infamous report in a Washington Post op-ed:

We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.

...Our report found evidence of potential war crimes and “possibly crimes against humanity” by both Israel and Hamas. That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.

The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.

For example, the most serious attack the Goldstone Report focused on was the killing of some 29 members of the al-Simouni family in their home. The shelling of the home was apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack. While the length of this investigation is frustrating, it appears that an appropriate process is underway, and I am confident that if the officer is found to have been negligent, Israel will respond accordingly. The purpose of these investigations, as I have always said, is to ensure accountability for improper actions, not to second-guess, with the benefit of hindsight, commanders making difficult battlefield decisions.

Israel’s lack of cooperation with our investigation meant that we were not able to corroborate how many Gazans killed were civilians and how many were combatants. The Israeli military’s numbers have turned out to be similar to those recently furnished by Hamas (although Hamas may have reason to inflate the number of its combatants).

Goldstone's admission, welcome as it is, is disingenuous.

Certainly the worst part of the report was in the many parts that he is now retracting, that the IDF purposefully targeted civilians. He now says that the "fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion" when the report was written. But in reality, if he had looked at both the history of how the IDF acts in war in general, the specifics that were known about how the IDF acted in Gaza, and how wars in urban combat zones are generally waged (i.e., in Iraq), of he was fair he would have easily concluded that the IDF was not purposefully targeting civilians and that they went out of their way, indeed even above and beyond, to avoid targeting real civilians (while Hamas was dressing up its fighters in civilian clothing.)

It appears that now, two years later, he is impressed that Israel is conducting investigations into acts of individual soldiers. Yet this is how the IDF always acted.

His belated retraction also doesn't note that much of what his report said was known to be false at the time the Goldstone Report was released, as I and others have documented quite exhaustively. His report had a clear and consistent bias where Israeli claims were treated skeptically but Hamas claims were believed without reservation. To come back 18 months later and lamely admit that Israeli claims were indeed found to be accurate just shows how biased he was in accepting problematic testimony then.

For example, he writes now:

Israel’s lack of cooperation with our investigation meant that we were not able to corroborate how many Gazans killed were civilians and how many were combatants. The Israeli military’s numbers have turned out to be similar to those recently furnished by Hamas (although Hamas may have reason to inflate the number of its combatants).

But this blog as well as others had, already at that time, documented that hundreds of so-called "civilians" were in fact Hamas combatants, based purely on Hamas' own admissions in Arabic.

So while it is nice to see that Goldstone realizes his report was mistaken in its key accusation against Israel, his admission is way too little - and comes way too late.

His Washington Post op-ed is not going to get nearly the same publicity that the report did, and the damage cannot be undone.

University of California-Davis student paper rejects pro-Israel ad as "controversial"

I've mentioned that a loyal reader was, at his own expense, placing ads featuring my "Apartheid?" posters in various California newspapers.

Here is the ad:

This ad does not insult anyone. It has no offensive content. Every single photo and caption shows how Israel is a tolerant, liberal state.

Yet when this ad was submitted to The California Aggie, the newspaper written by students at the University of California-Davis, it was rejected.

Here's the rejection letter:

Hi XXXXXX,

So due to the fact that we'd be taking money to publish an ad
portraying a controversial opinion, we will not be able to publish the
attached advertisement. Ultimately, such decisions are made by Mark
Ling, our Editor in Chief, who can be reached by email at
editor@theaggie.org.

Thanks,
Kevin Kankel
Advertising Manager
The California Aggie
25 Lower Freeborn
One Shields Ave
Davis, CA 95616

Apparently, at UC Davis, saying that Israel is anything other than an apartheid regime is considered "controversial."

UPDATE: The California Aggie is an independent newspaper written by UCD students; it is not an official UCD paper. I corrected the post.

Weekend links, and videos too

NRO has a nice take on Nick Kristof that links back to a post of mine.

Just Journalism notes that thousands of Islamists are ready to go to Egypt to help set up that new, democratic, liberal government we've been hearing so much about.

Zionism Is Humanitarianism:

In a related story, a girl from Russia with a very rare disease - where her bones are as fragile as crystal - needs to travel to Israel for a potentially life-saving operation, and her parents are raising money.

Asaf Romirowsky and Alexander Joffe, in the WSJ, say that UNRWA must be defunded.

A judge in New York has allowed a lawsuit against the PLO to proceed. More details on the case here.

Aish has a video that looks at the "Third Intifada" Facebook page.

Germany together with an Iranian bank are bypassing sanctions on Iran.

Mordechai Kedar says that the only solution for the Arab world is the exact opposite of a large Islamic 'ummah.

A very interesting two-part video showing how Israeli Jews react when confronted with explicit anti-Arab bigotry. Most of them (although not all) actively protest.

And one more video: CAMERA takes a very critical look at a BBC program that violates all of BBC's own guidelines for fairness. ( I originally mistakenly gave credit to another organization, my apologies to CAMERA.)

(h/t Zach, David G, Shraga, Menachem L, Brian from Snapped Shot)

Hamas member Hasan Abu Jaser was killed in a tunnel collapse Thursday.

The Al Qassam website said he was in a "resistance tunnel."

I don't think this is the same as a wind tunnel.

They said that he was a jihadi and died as a martyr. They need to announce that publicly or else he misses out on the virgins in the afterlife, so it is important to declare dead Hamasniks to be "shahids" as soon as possible after death.

BBC admits they dropped the ball on the Fogel massacre

From TheJC:

The BBC has admitted that the horrific murders of the Fogel family last month should have been covered on their 24 hour news channel.

The massacre, in which a three-month-old baby was decapitated and her siblings' throats were slashed, did not appear anywhere across the BBC's television channels, and was mentioned only briefly on the broadcaster's news website.

The BBC gave no mention of Hamas' statement praising the attack, or of celebrations about the killings in the West Bank, yet did cover the Israeli government's announcement about settlement construction the following day.

I believe this is in error. I heard one unverified report of celebrations in the West Bank and one verified report of a single person handing out pastries in Gaza. Also, Hamas never praised the attack, although Islamic Jihad did.

The broadcaster's poor coverage was highlighted by Louise Bagshawe, Conservative MP for Corby, who registered her disgust at what she called the BBC's "inexcusable" failure, in the JC as well as on Twitter and in a comment piece for the Daily Telegraph.

Ms Bagshawe, a member of the Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport, called on the BBC to admit their "lack of evenhandedness". She also demanded a list of the other stories which were featured on BBC News 24 on March 11, in preference. Her complaint was passed to the BBC's director of news, Helen Boaden, but it was five days before Ms Boaden replied. During that time Ms Bagshawe received thousands of messages of support.

In her response Ms Boaden said: "I agree with you that the significant nature of this murder of an entire family meant it should have been included on our television news output."

A drop in the ocean, but at least it is a drop.

(h/t O)

What's beneath the Temple Mount? (Smithsonian)

A fascinating article in The Smithsonian that exposes how the Waqf has been destroying priceless Jewish artifacts underneath the Temple Mount:

...The Waqf, with the approval of the Israeli government, announced plans to create an emergency exit for the El-Marwani Mosque. But Israeli officials later accused the Waqf of exceeding its self-stated mandate. Instead of a small emergency exit, the Waqf excavated two arches, creating a massive vaulted entranceway. In doing so, bulldozers dug a pit more than 131 feet long and nearly 40 feet deep. Trucks carted away hundreds of tons of soil and debris.

Israeli archaeologists and scholars raised an outcry. Some said the Waqf was deliberately trying to obliterate evidence of Jewish history. Others laid the act to negligence on a monstrous scale.

“That earth was saturated with the history of Jerusalem,” says Eyal Meiron, a historian at the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Eretz Israel. “A toothbrush would be too large for brushing that soil, and they did it with bulldozers.”

Yusuf Natsheh, the Waqf’s chief archaeologist, was not present during the operation. But he told the Jerusalem Post that archaeological colleagues had examined the excavated material and had found nothing of significance. The Israelis, he told me, were “exaggerating” the value of the found artifacts. And he bristled at the suggestion the Waqf sought to destroy Jewish history. “Every stone is a Muslim development,” he says. “If anything was destroyed, it was Muslim heritage.”

Zachi Zweig was a third-year archaeology student at Bar- Ilan University, near Tel Aviv, when he heard news reports about dump trucks transporting Temple Mount soil to the Kidron Valley. With the help of a fellow student he rounded up 15 volunteers to visit the dump site, where they began surveying and collecting samples. A week later, Zweig presented his findings—including pottery fragments and ceramic tiles—to archaeologists attending a conference at the university. Zweig’s presentation angered officials at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). “This is nothing but a show disguised as research,” Jon Seligman, the IAA’s Jerusalem Region Archaeologist, told the Jerusalem Post. “It was a criminal deed to take these items without approval or permission.” Soon afterward, Israeli police questioned Zweig and released him. By that point though, Zweig says, his cause had attracted the attention of the media and of his favorite lecturer at Bar-Ilan—the archaeologist Gaby Barkay.

Zweig urged Barkay to do something about the artifacts. In 2004, Barkay got permission to search the soil dumped in the Kidron Valley. He and Zweig hired trucks to cart it from there to Emek Tzurim National Park at the foot of Mount Scopus, collected donations to support the project and recruited people to undertake the sifting. The Temple Mount Sifting Project, as it is sometimes called, marks the first time archaeologists have systematically studied material removed from beneath the sacred compound.

Barkay, ten full-time staffers and a corps of part-time volunteers have uncovered a wealth of artifacts, ranging from three scarabs (either Egyptian or inspired by Egyptian design), from the second millennium B.C., to the uniform badge of a member of the Australian Medical Corps, who was billeted with the army of British Gen. Edmund Allenby after defeating the Ottoman Empire in Jerusalem during World War I. A bronze coin dating to the Great Revolt against the Romans (A.D. 66-70) bears the Hebrew phrase, “Freedom of Zion.” A silver coin minted during the era when the Crusaders ruled Jerusalem is stamped with the image of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Barkay says some discoveries provide tangible evidence of biblical accounts. Fragments of terra-cotta figurines, from between the eighth and sixth centuries B.C., may support the passage in which King Josiah, who ruled during the seventh century, initiated reforms that included a campaign against idolatry. Other finds challenge long-held beliefs. For example, it is widely accepted that early Christians used the Mount as a garbage dump on the ruins of the Jewish temples. But the abundance of coins, ornamental crucifixes and fragments of columns found from Jerusalem’s Byzantine era (A.D. 380–638) suggest that some public buildings were constructed there. Barkay and his colleagues have published their main findings in two academic journals in Hebrew, and they plan to eventually publish a book-length account in English.

More about a coin found there:

The project has uncovered more than 4,000 Judean, Greek, Roman and Byzantine coins (plus countless other artifacts such as potsherds, flint tools, weapons, glass, jewelry, talismans, seals and inscribed stones). While most of the coinage has not yet been catalogued, one coin in particular was hailed as the group’s most sensational discovery. A rare half shekel from the beginning of the Judean uprising against Rome (66 CE) was discovered in December 2008 by 14-year-old volunteer Omri Ya’ari. The news reverberated around the world. The Wakf’s malicious attempts to destroy any Jewish link to Jerusalem had obviously backfired.

The obverse side of the coin depicts a branch with three blossoming pomegranates. Encircling the design, in ancient Paleo-Hebrew script, was the stirring legend Yerushalayim Hakedosha (“Jerusalem the Holy”). A chalice is pictured on the reverse with the letter Aleph (representing “Year One” of the revolt). Inside the rim, the words Chatzi Shekel Yisrael – “Half Shekel of Israel” – describe the coin’s denomination. Considered to be among the world’s most beautiful ancient coins, each half shekel contains approximately seven grams of pure silver, in compliance with biblical law.

Immediately after the discovery, Barkay explained that “This is the first time a coin minted at the Temple Mount itself has been found, and therein lies its immense importance because similar coins have been found in the past in the Jerusalem area... as well as at Masada... but they are extremely rare in Jerusalem.” Equally fascinating was that only a few months earlier, archeologist Zweig reported that a Greek-Syrian coin directly related to the Hanukka story had been found through the sifting process. It was a bronze piece bearing the portrait of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. It was his tyrannical rule over the Jewish people that prompted the fight for religious freedom in 167 , led by Mattathias the priest and his sons Judah, Simon and Jonathan – the Maccabees. “The Antiochus coin found by our volunteers,” said Zweig, “is not actually a rare coin (we now have seven of them). But the significance... is that they are the first found in the Temple Mount itself.”

(h/t Martin Kramer tweet via David G)

"Miral" director hints that all critics are part of a conspiracy

From The Daily Caller:

Artist-director Julian Schnabel today blasted critics of his controversial new film, “Miral,” hinting at a conspiracy underlying some of the movie’s poor reviews.

“I actually think that there’s a plan to undermine this thing because people wish that it would go away,” Mr. Schnabel said after being asked whether some of the harsh reviews of “Miral” were politically motivated. A politically charged film about three generations of Palestinian women, the story is adapted from a semiautobiographical novel by Rula Jebreal, who wrote the film’s screenplay.

“And people don’t want to get fired from their jobs,” said Mr. Schnabel, one-time enfant terrible of the New York art world and director of critically acclaimed films such as “Before Night Falls” (2000) and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (2007), which earned four Oscar nominations (including best director).

“There’s a woman that was fired from her place, Nina Rothe. She wrote a beautiful review of this movie,” explained Ms. Jebreal, the stunning Palestinian journalist with whom the divorced Mr. Schnabel now lives in New York.

Nina Rothe reviewed the movie, very favorably, at the Huffington Post. Her review was less about the merits of the movie than about its politics. I could not find anything about her being fired; she is certainly still at HuffPo, not even at her Twitter page which is filled with raves about Miral. So I have no idea what Jebreal is talking about.

On the other hand, Rotten Tomatoes - which collects movie reviews from both critics and moviegoers - says only 18% of the movie critics like the film. Their reviews are sometimes about the politics but often about the fact that is it simply not good filmmaking. Even very left-wing outlets like NPR panned the film.

To imply that film reviewers - perhaps the most liberal group of people in the media - are adhering to an anti-Palestinian Arab agenda borders on paranoia. (The idea that a movie reviewer can lose his or her job over a review in any major media outlet is simply insane.)

If you want to see politically motivated reviews, though, go to Yahoo Movies and look at all the A+s Miral received from viewers - across the board for acting, direction, story and visuals - in what sure looks like a small but coordinated campaign to raise its rankings. Many of the reviews simply like the movie because it makes Israel look bad, not because they have anything good to say about the actual movie.

This is the only possible conspiracy I can find.

(h/t Ian)

UPDATE: Check out this description of the film, and of Schnabel's words after a showing.

MSM FAIL: NYT finally reports on Gaza rockets that fall short

I have been reporting for years about the fact that Qassam rockets often cause more damage to Gazans than to Israel. My rocket calendars note, when I can, rockets that fall short in Gaza and sometimes they even result in fatalities.

But only now does the New York Times notice this phenomenon - and it is because PCHR released a report about it.

A Palestinian human rights group in Gaza took the unusual step this week of condemning the building and storage of anti-Israel rockets in densely populated areas, a practice that has led to injuries and deaths of civilians.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said that it had investigated recent rocket explosions and found that locally produced projectiles had fallen on homes in Gaza or exploded in factories where they were made or stored. Shrapnel severely wounded several people, including a 22-year-old woman and her 7-month-old baby.

It called on the Hamas government, which controls Gaza, to investigate “and take measures to protect Palestinians and their property.” It added that “members of the Palestinian resistance continue to store explosives or to treat such explosives in locations close to populated areas.”

“This poses a major threat to the lives of the Palestinian civilians,” it said.

Israel has long accused Hamas and other groups of endangering Palestinian civilians by carrying out militant activities in densely populated areas.

But only now does the New York Times bother to report about it - when Palestinian Arabs admit it is true.

Well, I have a tip for the New York Times.

There is a Gaza consortium of NGOs called GANSO (Gaza NGO Safety Office) that is tasked with keeping internationals in Gaza safe. So they actually keep track of Gaza rocket fire. And according to them, some 30% of all Qassams and mortars fall short in Gaza!

In one two week period late last year, 42% of rockets and 57% of mortars exploded prematurely or fell short in Gaza.

While that was an especially bad week for Gazans, this phenomenon happens all the time. Too bad that the media that has reporters on the ground in Gaza couldn't figure out what I have been able to document for so long.

The NYT is one of the very few media outlets that even noticed the PCHR report to begin with. The blame goes to the media altogether. If one out of every three rockets explodes in Gaza, and if Gazans are injured and killed by those rockets, shouldn't that fact be mentioned occasionally from the thousands of reports that come out of the area?

Yet even the PCHR and the NYT didn't mention the Gazan that was killed by a Qassam on January 21.

Oh, one other thing: The Palestinian Center for Human Rights may have condemned the rocket launches from populated areas, but they didn't have a word to say about the morality of shooting the rockets at Israeli civilians.

I guess they don't consider Israeli civilians to be human.

(h/t Mike and T34)

Kalandia checkpoint post on NewsRealBlog

A somewhat expanded version of the post I did yesterday about the New York Times' op-ed claiming that heartless Isrselis build checkpoints just to humiliate Arabs is now up at NewsRealBlog.

Hamas: Peacemaker for terrorists

Palestine Press Agency reports that "well-informed sources" say that Khaled Meshaal, the Damascus-based leader of the political wing of Hamas, traveled to Qatar to pressure Al-Jazeera to tone down its criticism of Syria during the demonstrations there Syria, as well as to pressure the Muslim Brotherhood to take a neutral stance after a sermon by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi last Friday whee he criticized Syria's President Assad.

According to the sources, the mediation came at the request of the Syrian intelligence service, who assured Meshaal that his mission had succeeded with al-Qaradawi, as well as with Al-Jazeera. Waddah Khanfar, director of Al Jazeera, told Meshaal that he could not ignore the events in Syria but he said he would not interview opponents of the regime on Al Jazeera.

I'm not sure why Qaradawi would tone down his rhetoric against Assad, unless Meshaal brought some serious Syrian threats along with his nice requests.

See? Hamas can be a peacemaker - between brutal Arab regimes, terror supporting Islamists, and vicious media outlets.

Victoria's Secret, BDS, Israel, Union Square: How can you not click this?

From NY Blueprint, yesterday:

"Do you like sexy panties? Then don't boycott Israel." So say the T-shirts worn by activists canvassing Union Square Park and handing out care packages of Israeli manufactured products including Victoria Secret panties today between 1-4pm in Union Square Park near NYU. It is a humorous way of drawing attention to the serious problems caused by the movement to boycott Israel, says the Birthright Israel Alumni Community who is organizing the "Kiss my BDS" event, problems for both innocent Israelis and American consumers most of whom have no idea of the many links between the two economies. These kind of unreasoning attacks on Israel only hurt America - American companies, American super markets, even in American lingerie drawers.

Today (March 30th) to counter the international anti-Israel "BDS Day" (Boycott, Divest, Sanction), sexy Israel supporters will be handing out Victoria's Secret panties in Union Square Park. (Victoria's Secret is on the boycott list.)

As much as I tried,I could not find photos of this important event. Sorry.

However, a blog called Jewish FAIL claims:

After receiving fabric from Israel, the undergarments are actually made by Palestinian women and foreign workers in Jordan who toil under brutal, intolerable conditions and then sew “Made in Israel” tags onto their work. The underwear is then returned to Israel, which exports it to the U.S. Yay, exploited labor masquerading as economic cooperation!

Damn, she's exploiting poor Jordanians!

The NYT article they point to to prove that the panties are made in Jordan is dated...1996. It seems possible, but not certain, that the lingerie is still being made in Jordan for Israeli companies. Ha'aretz reported more recently about "sweatshops" in Jordanian factories owned and used by Israeli companies.

So BDSers are boycotting Victoria's Secret, but others are complaining that Israel doesn't really make the products. I guess it is a second-level boycott.

Jordan, the nation that actually allows the sweatshops, somehow isn't blamed for any of this by anyone. Because, of course, the enlightened leftists who are so keen to complain about Israel and Victoria's Secret don't have very high moral expectations from mere Arabs.

Big afternoon linkdump

The Muqata finds at least one Korean Talmud story that is based on a specific legal issue in the Gemara. (The same Korean site has dozens of English-translated cartoons that claim to be from the Talmud; I don't recognize all the stories. If you are bored, just point your browser to http://www.kidstimes.net/2008/cartoon/324_cartoon.gif and go backwards, changing the 324 to 323 and so on, to read more of these cartoons.)

David Benjamin in JPost finds that the latest UNHRC report on Israel is not as bad as people think. I can't find the report myself, but it is an interesting article.

Forbes' Daniel Freedman talks with Israelis who are hoping to send a robot to the moon.

A New York Post op-ed on the latest Israel hatefest coming to New York: Durban III.

An anti-Israel, but Jewish, Labour MP is caught muttering about those "Jews, again" at the BBC site.

Joseph Puder decries Israel's lack of a satellite channel, a theme we've touched on before.

Jewish Ideas Daily discusses the Arab politicization of archaeology, using it to demonize Israel.

An Irish town decides to be twinned with Gaza City.

Yossi Klein Halevi in the WSJ.

Viktor Shikhman notes that Netanyahu acted exactly the opposite that every critic of him takes for granted. Not that Andrew Sullivan notices.

Yaacov Lozowick goes further into the difference between J-Street and real "pro-Israel" groups.

Is Israel planning to build an island off of Gaza?

That should do for now!

(h/t...YM, Dan, Jack, and others. Sorry, I wasn't keeping track.)

Why can't Israel do hasbara? Because Jews are too honest!

From Stars and Stripes:

The woman and her daughter had been attacked, that much was certain.

They lay on beds in Patrol Base Jaker’s medical tent, calling for “Allah” as a U.S. Navy doctor and corpsman examined them.

Both had been shot. The girl, 12, had a bullet wound to her shoulder. Her mother, in her 20s, about seven months pregnant and with three other children, had been shot in the abdomen.

It had happened overnight, many hours before, while the husband and father, an Afghan policeman, had been at his post. That also seemed pretty straightforward.

But who had done it?

“The Taliban,” the Americans were told. And within hours, that’s what the local Afghans were told, too. A squad of Marines and two Army psy-ops soldiers, one wearing a loudspeaker strapped to his back, headed out to the bazaar to tell the people of Nawa that the Taliban had attacked the woman and her daughter.

The only problem with that announcement was that it turned out not to be true.

In the intensive information war that U.S. forces are waging against the Taliban in Helmand province, getting the message out first — before insurgents provide their own version — can trump getting the message out accurately.

Studies done in Afghanistan and the United States have shown that people believe and remember the first reports they hear, not corrected versions, even when clear evidence shows initial reports to be wrong.

“It’s best to be quick and accurate,” said Lt. Col. Dave Hudspeth, commander of 3rd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, headquartered in Marjah. “The enemy — they do info ops, too.”
...
The attackers were not, in fact, Taliban. Two colleagues of the husband, both also police officers, had attacked the women, according to local Afghan authorities. The motive was sexual assault, they said.

This was not good news for the Marines under orders to help connect the people with their government and the Afghan security forces, although the legal officer in civil affairs hoped to persuade the local Afghan prosecutor to press charges against the two Afghans, to show the government working for the people.

But there were no plans to correct the record, no plans to send out another patrol.

“Any chance to exploit the Taliban ...,” McNamara said.

But wouldn’t the Marines lose credibility when people in Nawa learned the Taliban were no longer suspected?

“Not in this environment,” said Gunnery Sgt. Brian Withrow.

I can only imagine the outrage that would accompany an article like this if it was published by an IDF magazine.

I cannot advocate that Israel start to lie when events happen and the details are not yet clear. But this article shows how critical it is to get information out quickly, as well as accurately. It also points out how important the information war is altogether.

If Israel isn't going to start lying, then she has to start doing serious investment in getting the truth out first. Things have improved a little in recent years but countering the massive amount of lies needs a much larger effort than what we have been seeing.

(h/t Silke)

Videodump

I am very behind on posting links, but here are three videos sitting in my queue.

Aish Video shows a selection of the anti-Israel hate pages on Facebook, pointing out that they violate FB policy:

They also have a link to a petition to Facebook.

Here is Bibi Netanyahu's YouTube interview:

And here is a video from CNN showing Syrian TV going dark after a woman protester gets close to Bashir Assad:

(h/t Ian, Israeligirl)

Palestine Press Agency reports that a prisoner's three-week hunger strike has ended after "a majority" of his demands were met.

Abbas Al-Sayyed was allegedly placed in solitary confinement after he spoke to Al Jazeera during a courtroom appeal.

His hunger strike gained him some publicity in the Palestinian Arabic media, A PA minister even visited his family and presented them with an honorary plaque, showing solidarity with his steadfastness and principles.

How admirable Al Sayyed is, standing up to his oppressors!

....

So, why is he in prison to begin with?

Oh, not much. Just for planning the Netanya Passover massacre that killed 30 innocent people. 21 of the victims were over 70 years old.

What a hero.

Ahava store chased out of London location

From TheJC:

The UK branch of Israeli cosmetics store, Ahava, is moving from its central London shop after years of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Protesters claim that the products sold in the store are manufactured in a factory in Israeli settlement, Mitzpe Shalom in the West Bank but are "misleadingly" labelled as produced in Israel.

The owner of the shop, currently in Monmouth Street, Covent Garden, is looking for other sites after owners of neighbouring stores complained to the landlord following protests.

Supporters claim it has been "chased out" of its location by regular "noisy and intimidating" demonstrations.

A spokeswoman for Shaftesbury PLC, which owns the property as well as several others in the Seven Dials area, said: "When Ahava's lease expires in September, we will not offer them a new one."

Pro-Palestinian protesters have been demonstrating fortnightly outside the shop, which opened in April 2007, for more than two years. A counter group of pro-Israeli supporters also demonstrate outside.

The owner of the store next door shows the spinelessness we can expect from much of the UK:

Colin George, manager of clothes shop The Loft, next door to Ahava, said: "I'm pleased Ahava is leaving. It's brought the street down. I've complained to the landlords, as has everyone here. Everyone would like them to leave. I wish they had left two years ago.

"Protesters are just going to follow them around, wherever they go. Maybe they should be an online business instead."

Perhaps it is time to stage noisy protests outside The Loft? Then Mr. George can follow his own advice!

After all, he believes that any group can shut down any shop they want to, just by acting obnoxious.

WaPo buries the lede in Hezbollah bunker story

Yesterday, the Jerusalem Post reported:

The IDF has released an aerial map of Lebanon revealing the location of some 1,000 different military sites and facilities. The map was published on Wednesday in the Washington Post.

According to the map, which the newspaper said it obtained from the Israeli military, Hezbollah has around 550 underground bunkers throughout Lebanon, around 300 surveillance sites and another 100 or so additional installations.

But the actual report in the Washington Post only mentioned this important story peripherally, buried in a story about how Israel supposedly might prefer Assad stay on as leader of Syria.

Today, after other news outlets picked up on the story, the Washington Post ironically has the story as a headline - but based on an AP report, that was based on the JPost report, that was based on the WaPo report that was buried!

So why is this important? As the AP report states:

Many of the sites on the map are located south of the Litani River in Lebanon, the zone where Hezbollah is banned from keeping weapons under the U.N.-sponsored truce that ended Israel’s summer 2006 war with the guerrilla group.

The map itself:

And to show how Hezbollah has turned virtually the entire population of southern Lebanon into human shields, here are details from the El Khiam village:

This seems like something that the UN, especially UNIFIL, should address, right?

Hey...stop laughing!

NYT checkpoint op-ed: "We're Jewish, so we can insult Israel" (updated)

The New York Times has an op-ed about the experience of two pro-Palestinian activists, Katia and Alain Salomon, as they decided to go through the Israeli checkpoint at Kalandia.

We had no trouble reaching Ramallah from Jerusalem by public transportation. But we had problems on our return trip. We reached the Kalandia checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem on Friday, March 11, at 9:30 in the morning. We chose to get off the bus with everyone else, even though as foreigners we could have stayed on.

We were stunned by what we saw: dwarfing cement structures, barbed wire, cameras. As we lined up we could see an Israeli woman soldier inside a multifaceted concrete blockhouse, peering out at us. Ahead of us there was a tunnel of bars just wide enough for one person. At its end a turnstile was blocked electronically from somewhere.

...After that narrow corridor we stepped into a small area, again in front of a metal turnstile. Many of us were wet, as it had rained in the morning, and it was cold. There were not that many people waiting but only one or two people were let through every 10 minutes or so.

At 12:10 it was finally our turn. We could see the people controlling the turnstile. There were several young Israeli soldiers inside. They seemed to be having a very good time, laughing, horsing around, like all youths. We want to believe that they had no clue as to the moral and physical suffering they were inflicting with their very slow control process.

I have never been to Kalandia so I cannot comment on why there are no benches, or why the process is slow. But the authors of the article - who inform us twice that they are Jewish - know one thing:

We are Jewish, and began to weep. How was it possible that our own people, who have gone through such suffering, can inflict this ordeal, intended to humiliate and intimidate another people?

Here is all you need to know about the Salomons. Yes, they tell us, they are Jewish - but they do not for a second believe that the checkpoints, which have saved countless lives, serve any purpose besides humiliation and intimidation. Nay - their very intent is to humiliate Arabs! Some Israeli architect decided when he designed the building that it must humiliate and degrade people. Because that's how Israelis are.

Later on, they again explain more of what they "know:"

One can easily imagine the feelings of resentment that are born from this experience. This treatment is unwarranted from the perspective of legitimate security imperatives; it is degrading and inhumane and not understandable coming from a nation that wants to be perceived as democratic, a nation among nations.

Here's what this awful, humiliating checkpoint at Kalandia looks like:

What fair minded person can believe that this was designed to humiliate people? All I see is "security." Narrow passageways assures that only one person - potential terrorists included - can go through at a time, limiting damage he or she can do. The bars are no more intimidating than those that are adjacent to New York City subway turnstiles. The cameras are necessary so that individual Israeli soldiers aren't attacked with knives, as they have been. The area is clean.

The Salomons emphasize that they are Jewish in order to find reasons to insult the Jewish state. Instead of researching the reasons why Kalandia was designed as it was, they ascribe evil intent to Israel and insist - without any background in physical security as far as I can tell - that these measures are unnecessary.

It is a shame that so many Jews like the Salomons don't give their co-religionists the benefit of the doubt as to why they might possibly want to build such a checkpoint. Checkpoints are specifically designed to stop suicide bombers, shooters, people smuggling in pipe bombs, and people with knives who want to attack the first Israeli they see including the guards. Unlike what these Israel-bashers who love to say they are Jewish claim, there are legitimate reasons for every decision made when designing Kalandia - all one has to do is pend a little time researching it.

It is almost sickening that people can write an article like this without once mentioning the challenges that Israel faces and the years of terrorism Israel that forced Israel to build structures like these. If they are as committed to Judaism as they claim, perhaps they can give a little benefit of the doubt Israelis who are trying to avoid being blown up.

Because giving the benefit of the doubt is also a Jewish concept.

UPDATE: I received an email from JB:

I served in the area for months, been to the checkpoint itself a few times and the article is BS. Sure, at certain days there are holdups, but usually the traffic is going just fine - both pedestrian and vehicular. Cases where one person goes through every few minutes are very rare and are usually a result of some kind of brawl the Palestinians started with soldiers. When I served there, our batcom received reports of a fight breaking out with the locals at least one or twice a week. The MPs got it particularly hard, as they were the ones in direct contact with the populations. The guys - and the girls - often got hit, spat on and abused in various ways. That is not to say this is an every day occurence, but it happens. The gals there got to use their pepper sprays quite often.

(h/t YM)

Palestinian "Land Day" protesters attacked, beaten - by Hamas

...which is why nobody cares.

Palestine Press Agency reports that a group of protesters walking from Al Azhar University to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier were beaten and arrested by Hamas police.

Not only that, but Hamas called and warned journalists ahead of time not to cover the Land Day protests, and instructed them to instead cover a Hamas march at the same time.

Hamas also arrested some of the leaders of the March 15th "unity" rallies last night.

Package with white powder closes US consulate in Jerusalem

From AFP:

The United States consulate in Jerusalem said Wednesday that its consular annex would be closed the next day because of a mystery package that was discovered at the building.

Israel police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said a package containing an unidentified powder had been discovered by consular staff around midday local time.

"Police and officials of the environmental protection ministry examined the components, a white powder," he said, adding that the material had been taken away for specialist examination.

He did not know if the package was delivered by post or other means. "That's part of the investigation," he said.

The consular department, which handles passport and other matters for US citizens and visa applications for others, is housed in a new, purpose-built building in a quiet residential neighborhood of west Jerusalem.

New ElderOfZiyon.com landing page

As I mentioned recently, one of my extraordinarily generous readers liked my posters so much, he offered to pay for them to be placed in ads in a few newspapers this weekend - along with my blog URL.

After I put together the ad, I realized that anyone who goes to my ElderOfZiyon.com URL after reading the ad will be very confused - because it would redirect to the Blogger page, and this is just a blog, not an organized Israel advocacy page that people might expect.

Since the ads are running this weekend, I just created a very basic webpage that ElderOfZiyon.com points to, with links to a few of my "greatest hits" as well as the blog. This way, I hope that people typing in the URL won't get too confused when they come to my page.

I did not spend too much time on the new landing page, and I created it using a free webpage design service, but hopefully it will do its job. For those who have bookmarked by Blogger page, this is not an issue at all.

Hopefully, when I get the time, I'll make the ElderOfZiyon.com page more useful.