Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, May 09, 2011

This Is Zionism

StandWithUs has the posters here.

Also, special thanks to Israel21C from where I found most of these photos and which has far more such stories.

Islamists vow to take over the world. In London.

From Daylife, in a photo taken Friday in London:

What, you mean you didn't read about this in your local newspaper?

Even the New York Times mentioned this... deeply buried in the very last paragraph of a 13 paragraph article where the other 12 paragraphs were about pro-Bin Laden rallies in Cairo. And even in the 13th talks as much about the English Defense League counter-rally as about this one.

Call me crazy, but I think a pro-Bin Laden rally in London is a bit more newsworthy than one in Cairo.

The only other news outlets to mention these signs and the mock funeral for Bin Laden in London are the Daily Mail and London Metro, with a Fox News blog quoting the Daily Mail.

(h/t Alex)

"Go, America, Go!"

Somehow, I don't think that the members of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, rallying against the US after the assassination of Bin Laden, quite understood how their slogan might come across:

Activists of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan gather for march against the US President Barack Obama in Karachi on May 6, 2011. Hundreds of Pakistanis took to the streets on May 6, cheering Osama bin Laden and shouting 'death to America' to condemn a unilateral US raid on their soil that killed the Al-Qaeda chief.

link

Hell, yeah!

(h/t Alex)

Jordan upset at Hamas/Fatah deal

Palestine Today reports that the Kingdom of Jordan is not happy about the Fatah/Hamas unity deal.

Jordan is mostly upset that they were not consulted beforehand .The kingdom has been harsh with Hamas elements in Jordan and the sudden about-face embarrassed the country.

As a result, Jordan refused to send any high-ranking officials to the Cairo ceremony and sent a note pf protest to Mahmoud Abbas.

Jordan is also upset at Egypt, both on not giving the kingdom a heads-up about the agreement as well as the interrupted supplies of natural gas due to saboteurs blowing up the gas lines towards Jordan and Israel in Egypt.

The newspaper describes the rift as a "crisis."

Peaceful PalArab weekend

Discovery of an honor killing, where the woman's uncle didn't like her choice in marriage partners.

The execution-style murder of an alleged "collaborator" with Israel.

Another execution-style murder in Al-Eizariya.

A man in Jericho was stabbed to death as well.

Sounds like Hamas is influencing things in the West Bank already!

The NYT continues to push nonsense

An editorial in the New York Times about the Hamas/Fatah unity agreement uses a couple of the usual NYT memes.

We have many concerns about the accord, starting with the fact that Hamas has neither renounced its legacy of violence nor agreed to recognize Israel. The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, has said he remains in charge of peace efforts and the unity government will be responsible for rebuilding Gaza and organizing elections. Whether that is Hamas’s vision is unclear.

Also disconcerting are suggestions that Mr. Abbas may have privately agreed to replace his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, who has done so much to build up the West Bank economy and institutions. There are big questions about the future of the two sides’ security forces.

The United States has spent millions of dollars helping the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority create a security force that Israel has come to rely on to keep the peace in the West Bank. Whether Hamas, which has terrorized Israel with rockets from Gaza, can ever be integrated into that force, or even work side by side, is a huge question.

Israel certainly has many reasons to mistrust this deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suspended tax remittances and is pressing Washington hard to cut off aid to the Abbas government. The Obama administration has reacted warily to the new pact but said its assistance will continue for now. Congress is talking tough.

It’s too early for a cut-off. The money is Washington’s main leverage on the new government. A cut-off would shift the political balance dangerously toward Hamas.

If the US would have clearly warned the PA ahead of time that a government that does not meet the long-standing preconditions of the Quartet will lose all its foreign funding, all of the above problems would never have come up to begin with. Why should the world embrace Hamas now when we saw what happened last time they had "unity" - leading to Gaza turning into Hamastan?

Other reconciliation attempts between Fatah and Hamas have imploded, but Mr. Abbas seems to believe this will advance his push to get the United Nations General Assembly to recognize a Palestinian state. Above all, his sudden willingness to deal with his enemies in Hamas is a sign of his desperation with the stalled peace process.

No it isn't. It is proof that Abbas refuses to compromise with Israel and therefore is cunningly using the international community to accomplish by fiat the same goal without his being forced to tell his people that they will need to make concessions. There is no desperation here: just a very smart end-run around his making hard decisions.

Hamas’s goals are far harder to game, although there are reports of new frictions with Syria and a desire for better ties with Egypt’s new government.

The NYT covers world events, but cannot draw a line between the popular revolutions against authoritarianism in the Arab world and Gaza? Apparently, to the Times, the PA is an island of Western-style democracy in an ocean of Arab dictatorships.

In an interview with The Times last week, Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, declared himself fully committed to working for a two-state solution. Just a few days earlier Hamas’s (supposedly more moderate) prime minister, Ismail Haniya, was out there celebrating Osama bin Laden as a “Muslim and Arab warrior.”

Hmmm. How can the New York Times resolve this seeming contradiction? Maybe it should go back and read Ethan Bronner's actual interview with Meshal, without Bronner's unprofessional and frankly dangerous assumptions, and discover that Meshal said no such thing!

Here's a rule to live by: When Hamas seems inconsistent between its words and actions, look for a loophole in their words. This is what a serious journalist must do, and it is something that the New York Times cannot seem to grasp vis a vis Palestinian Arab promises.

Huge skepticism and vigilance are essential. But more months with no progress on peace talks will only further play into extremists’ hands....

After Israel withdrew from Gaza, rocket attacks increased. After Israel killed some 750 Hamas terrorists in Cast Lead, rocket fire went down dramatically and Hamas started stopping other Gaza groups from firing rockets.

There were more suicide attacks in the immediate aftermath of Oslo - even before the second intifada - then there are today, after Israel went on the offensive to destroy the terror infrastructure in the West Bank.

Amazing how peace can result from war - another concept that the New York Times cannot grasp.

Washington needs to press Mr. Netanyahu back to the peace table. A negotiated settlement is the only way to guarantee Israel’s lasting security.

In the funhouse mirror image universe that the NYT resides in, it is Netanyahu who has refused to talk with Abbas, not the other way around. Their meme of an intransigent Likud leader is so ingrained that they cannot even get basic facts right.

The answer, to us, is clear. It is time for Mr. Obama, alone or with the quartet, to put a map and deal on the table. If Bin Laden’s death has given the president capital to spend, all the better. The Israelis and Palestinians are not going to break the stalemate on their own. And more drift will only lead to more desperation and more extremism.

The map and deal have been on the table before. The Palestinian Arabs rejected it, consistently. The Times' editors fantasies that Israel just needs to give a little more to obtain peace reflects nothing close to resembling reality.

But it does reflect that they believe Mahmoud Abbas' lies completely and uncritically. They believe he is a moderate, that he is willing to compromise, that his hands are tied, that he desperately wants peace with Israel. All of those assumptions - each demonstrably and provably false, as has been documented over the years - are what informs ridiculous NYT op-eds like these.

It certainly isn't based on fact.

(h/t David G)

Administrivia

Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed that a few weeks ago, I placed a badge for StandWithUs on the sidebar of my blog, captioning it "EoZ Partner." Here is why.

StandWithUs is, in my opinion, the most effective hasbara organization on the planet. They are innovative, pro-active and creative. They are particularly effective on college campuses, standing up for Israel in the most hostile environments and teaching students what needs to be done to combat the lies.

When I came out with my "Apartheid?" series of posters, StandWithUs liked what they saw and proposed a partnership where I provide them with materials, mostly things I was doing for the blog anyway. The materials they like get co-branded between StandWithUs and EoZ.

I am of course honored to work with SWU.

Tomorrow, for Yom Ha'Atzmaut, I am unveliling a new series of posters. They will have the StandWithUs logo as well as the EoZ web address.

The posters' purpose is to instill pride for those who love Israel and to help make people proud to be called Zionist.

I hope you like them.

CAIR scholarship recipient now whitewashing CAIR for LA Times

Great reporting from CAMERA:

Two weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, University of Florida student Raja Abdulrahim published a letter in her campus newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, denying that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. The Sept. 26, 2001 letter stated: “I decided to respond to Guy Golan's letter (‘Jews must help all Arab people’) from Monday's Alligator because he erroneously refers to Hamas and Hizbollah as ‘fundamentalist' and ‘terror organizations' that have ‘murdered innocent Israeli civilians.’”

Her views were in line with those of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which in 2004 awarded her with a $2500 academic scholarship. (See CAIR's 2004 tax returns here, thanks to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report.) Also, a July 28, 2003 CAIR document (posted on the the Investigative Project on Terrorism Web site) announces that Raja Abdulrahim was one of several students to receive a one-time $5000 Journalism and Communications Scholarship Award. The announcement noted: "CAIR established the award to encourage Muslim students to pursue careers in journalism that will help bring about fairness and accuracy in the coverage of Muslims and Islam in the media."

...[S]he is now a reporter at the Los Angeles Times where she covers, from time to time, issues concerning terrorism and the American Muslim community. Most recently, on May 3, she reported on Muslim American community officials’ reactions to the demise of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (“Experts hope it’s ‘a new era’ for Muslim Americans”).

Given her apologist history for Islamist terror (more examples can be seen here), it’s no surprise that Abdulrahim now covers up support for terrorism among certain American Muslim leaders. She casts Muslim American leaders, including her one-time CAIR benefactors, as hapless victims of unfounded bigotry.

Looks like CAIR got its money's worth from that scholarship!

Read the whole thing.

Egyptian Copts forced to form militias for self-defense

Egyptian security isn't protecting its Coptic Christian minority, so they have to do it themselves.

Members of the Coptic community in the working-class neighborhood of Imbaba in northwest Cairo are forming militias for self-defense after recent sectarian clashes left 12 dead and hundreds injured.

Copts in Imbaba, who expect more clashes in coming months, say they have organized small groups to protect churches as well as homes and businesses owned by Copts.

The clashes broke out Saturday night after a group of Muslims attempted to storm a church under the pretext of rescuing a Muslim woman who converted to Christianity. A second church was set on fire.

A small group of Copts who gathered near the US Embassy in Cairo on Sunday called for international protection of Egypt's Christian community and criticized the government for not doing more to protect them.

Sunday night, thousands of protesters staged a sit-in front of the state TV building calling for immediate investigation into the clashes and church burning.

Tens of Copts gathered inside the church at the center of the clashes while the army blocked nearby streets.

Christian protesters are accusing the army of collaborating with crowds of ultraconservative Islamists during the earlier attack on a church overnight. A residential building home to Christians was also burned in the overnight violence.

Rides of Hope (video)

I just stumbled onto this video as I was researching a new poster series.

It is inspiring.

Is Nasrallah afraid of being killed like Bin Laden?

Al Masry al Youm quotes a Kuwaiti newspaper as saying that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has moved away from his Beirut home in fear of a commando-style operation that would kill him the way Bin Laden was killed.

Quoting "high level Lebanese sources," the article says that Nasrallah moved from his home and changed his security personnel in fear of leaks about his whereabouts.

In my experience, Kuwaiti newspapers are not the most reliable in reporting from other areas of the Middle East, but it is worth following this story. A Nasrallah hit could have very positive results, as his charisma is instrumental in holding Hezbollah together.

US to forgive $1 billion in Egyptian debt

From the Washington Post:

The Obama administration has decided to provide about $1 billion in debt relief for Egypt, a senior official said Saturday, in the boldest U.S. effort yet to shore up a key Middle East ally as it attempts a democratic transition.

The aid would be part of a major economic aid package that also includes trade and investment incentives, officials said. It is intended to help stabilize Egypt after demonstrations forced out longtime President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11.

While the Obama administration has been preoccupied of late with the war in Libya and protests in Syria, it sees Egypt as even more critical for U.S. interests. Washington has long regarded Egypt as a moderating influence in the Middle East. With one-quarter of the world’s Arabs, Egypt could emerge as a democratic model in the region — or, if its revolution fails, a locus of instability or extremism.

Economic assistance for Egypt and Tunisia is “fundamental to our capacity to support their democratic transitions,” a senior State Department official said on the condition of anonymity. He said that officials were in the midst of “intense policy formulation” but that the economic package wasn’t finished. Parts of it will need congressional approval.

“We are at a crossroads here,” said an Egyptian official who has been involved in talks with Washington, and who spoke recently on the condition of anonymity. “If we go wrong, it will be too late [for the United States] to come later and say, ‘We’ll start helping now.’ ”

The Egyptian finance and planning ministers visited Washington last month to seek forgiveness of the country’s $3.6 billion debt. Egypt pays about $350 million a year to service the debt, which it incurred buying American farm products.

In recent weeks, Egyptian officials have been frustrated by the lengthy U.S. interagency process to consider economic aid, and a cool reaction from a Congress ensnared in a budget-cutting battle. On Saturday, Ambassador Sameh Shoukry said through an aide that Egypt appreciated the U.S. efforts but would not react to news of the debt relief until his government was formally notified.

There is only one problem.

As I exclusively reported last week, in a story that still has not been picked up by mainstream English language media, Egypt has rejected $150 million is aid from the US - because it was tied to democratic reforms.(The Public Record picked up on the story three days later, as did Iran's PressTV.)

If Egypt is rejecting aid meant to help democracy, then why does the US think that its influence on Egypt's future will be helped by forgiving a debt when it has no strings attached?

Egypt will gladly take the money - but it is rejecting any semblance of US influence.

So how exactly will this extra burden to US taxpayers help the US?

Will the PA release Hamas murderers in the name of "unity?"

Hamas' Palestine Times reports that the Hamas murderers of four Jews last August will have a court hearing tomorrow in Jericho.

Hamas is insisting that they be released under terms of the reconciliation agreement.

Families of the murderers will be protesting outside the court demanding their release.

The four victims were Yitzhak and Tali Ames, Kochava Even Haim and Avishai Schindler. They were killed in an ambush on the road near Hebron.

Abbas trying to convince Hamas to keep Fayyad as PM

According to reports out of the PA, president Mahmoud Abbas is trying to convince Hamas to allow Salam Fayyad to remain as the prime minister of the "transitional" PA government before elections.

Palestine Today quotes London-based Asharq al-Awsat as saying that even though Fayyad was excluded from consideration in talks between Hamas and Fatah, Abbas is still pushing his PM - to placate the Quartet.

In the words of the article:

Sources pointed out that the reassignment of Fayyad to form a transitional government could reduce the insistence of the Europeans and Americans on the government's commitment to the Quartet's conditions, which provides recognition of the occupation [Israel] and a commitment to signed agreements and to renounce the so-called terrorism.

In other words, Abbas understands that Fayyad is what is giving the PA what legitimacy it has from the US, UN and EU, and also that a government that includes Hamas does not meet the minimal requirements of the Quartet. So keeping Fayyad on until September will give the PA enough political cover to claim to the Quartet that Hamas is really not part of the government despite the much heralded unification agreement that makes it very much part of the decision making process.

Abbas is trying to have his cake and eat it, too. Unfortunately, the West (especially the UN) is so heavily invested in the idea of the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state that he may be right - the Quartet might very well look the other way at the distasteful Hamas involvement until it is too late.

Tom Friedman's latest stupidity

From Saturday's Thomas Friedman NYT op-ed:

If you look into the different “shop” windows across the Middle East, it is increasingly apparent that the Arab uprisings are bringing to a close the era of “Middle East Wholesale” and ushering in the era of “Middle East Retail.” Everyone is going to have to pay more for their stability.

Let’s start with Israel. For the last 30 years, Israel enjoyed peace with Egypt wholesale — by having peace with just one man, Hosni Mubarak. That sale is over. Today, post-Mubarak, to sustain the peace treaty with Egypt in any kind of stable manner, Israel is going to have to pay retail. It is going to have to make peace with 85 million Egyptians. The days in which one phone call by Israel to Mubarak could shut down any crisis in relations are over.

Friedman has got to seriously stop thinking that he is God's gift to journalism and wake up from his self-congratulatory coma. Only then can we start to hope that he will clear his brain from years of accumulated flotsam and jetsam and start to see what's really going on.

Mubarak did not do Israel's bidding as Egyptian leader, and neither did Sadat. They did America's bidding. They wanted to continue the scam of being considered "moderate" Arab allies of the US and they wanted to continue to receive billions in aid. But they did nothing that Israel wanted them to do.

The proof, as Friedman well knows but purposefully ignores, is the nature of the peace treaty. For three decades, Israel always tried to normalize relations with Egypt, and Egypt always did everything it could to maintain the coldest peace possible. Israeli tourists went to Egypt, Israel tried to do cultural exchanges, Israel pushed for closer economic and scientific ties. Only when the US pressured Egypt did the Egyptian leadership agree, and that didn't happen often.

Now Friedman says that it is Israel that has to try harder?

It gets worse:

Amr Moussa, the outgoing head of the Arab League and the front-runner in polls to succeed Mubarak as president when Egypt holds elections in November, just made that clear in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. Regarding Israel, Moussa said: “Mubarak had a certain policy. It was his own policy, and I don’t think we have to follow this. We want to be a friend of Israel, but it has to have two parties. It is not on Egypt to be a friend. Israel has to be a friend, too.”

Moussa owes a great deal of his popularity in Egypt to his tough approach to Israel. I hope he has a broader vision. It is noteworthy that in the decade he led the Arab League, he spent a great deal of time jousting with Israel and did virtually nothing to either highlight or deal with the conclusions of the 2002 U.N. Arab Human Development Report — produced by a group of Arab scholars led by an Egyptian — that said the Arab people are suffering from three huge deficits: a deficit of freedom, a deficit of knowledge and deficit of women’s empowerment.

The current Israeli government, however, shows little sign of being prepared for peace retail.

After Friedman points out that Amr Moussa is an anti-Israel deologue, Friedman again says that this means that Israel has to try harder! Even though, he himself acknowledges, that Moussa built his career on demonizing Israel.

Friedman later writes:

Alas, though, the main strategy of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas will be to drag Israel into the Arab story — as a way of deflecting attention away from how these anti-democratic regimes are repressing their own people and to further delegitimize Israel...

Yet only two paragraphs earlier, Friedman admitted that Amr Moussa does the exact same thing!

So the likely new Egyptian leadership is no more likely to avoid using Israel as a scapegoat to deflect its own problems than the old one, and it is already showing signs of acting the way that Friedman notes that Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran act.

All these facts are in this very column, yet Friedman cannot connect the dots which add up to:

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

To Friedman, this doesn't mean that the US must redouble its efforts to turn the so-called Arab Spring into a real chance for true freedom and democracy, of governments that are mature enough to face their real problems transparently and tackle them. Not at all. To him, Arab governments acting like teenage bullies must be met with more Israeli concessions, more pandering to the dictators, more effort to please those who cannot ever be pleased.

Three days in a row of inane, idiotic New York Times articles - and I don't even read the paper.

Thanks, David G, for sending me this trash, knowing I cannot resist responding :)

Reports: Assad's wife, kids fled to London

Palestine Press Agency reports:

According to Arab diplomatic sources in Britain, the wife of the Syrian President, Asma Assad, fled from Damascus to London together with her three children about two weeks ago in the face of the expansion of the protests against her husband's regime.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Syria has now topped 800.

Maybe she'll get another Vogue interview there.

Muslims attack church in Egypt, 6 killed

From CNN:

Six people were killed and 120 injured in sectarian clashes outside a church in Cairo on Saturday, officials said.

An angry group of Muslim Salafists attacked the Saint Mena Coptic Orthodox Church. They were upset over reports of a woman being held against her will after allegedly converting to Islam.

"With my own eyes I saw three people killed and dozens injured," said Mina Adel, a Christian resident. "There's no security here. There's a big problem. People attacked us, and we have to protect ourselves."

Egyptian Interior Ministry spokesman Alla Mahmoud said in a statement that six people were killed and 120 injured in the violence.

Every news story is headlined with phrases like "six killed in sectarian clashes," but from what I can tell all the six killed were Coptic Christians. More details from Al Jazeera:

Hermina, a parish priest, told AFP news agency that the dead were Copts who died when "thugs and Salafists fired at them" in the late afternoon attack.

The church floor was bloodstained as wounded Christians were brought in for treatment.

Shahira Abu Leil, a blogger and activist, told Al Jazeera that Salafists were not involved in the clashes, and that attempts were being made to bring security to the area.

"A building was also set on fire, and people are trying to prevent a possible explosion from gas leakages," she said.

Is this the wonderful whiff of Arab Spring we smell in the air?

Weekend links

OK, time to post all the stuff that's been accumulating...

Melanie Philips' open letter to David Cameron

CiFWatch: Cowardly in Qatar (I had hoped to blog about this from the perspective of how the Guardian lied about the Palestine Papers, but didn't have time)

Ahmadinejad allies charged with - sorcery!

Just Journalism on media responses to praise for OBL

Mallorca condemns the killing of Marranos - in 1691.

Washington Institute on the Muslim Brotherhood

Did Mosab Youssef, the Hamas "defector" who converted to Christianity, dupe all of us?

Corrupting sports in Gaza

The Tony Kushner saga here and here.

Hypocrisy in Norway on Yassin and OBL

Intel Israel will manufacture the latest high-speed microprocessor that BDS opponents will not boycott

Daphne Anson on Norway's attempt to ban Brit Milah (if I translate it, all the anti-brit Googlers will descend here and take over the comment section.) Suffice it to say that they still aren't interested in banning child ear mutilation - because making a baby look cute with earrings is more important than a major religious obligation.

(h/t O., Joel, Silke, Zvi, and others I missed, sorry)

Kuwaiti woman fantasizes about being Mrs. Bin Laden

Islamist soft-core porn, translated by MEMRI.

In her May 4, 2011 column in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas, Khuloud 'Abdallah Al-Khamis described how she had always dreamed of being the wife of Osama bin Laden.

Following are excerpts from her column:

"What would life be like at his side? How frequently I ask that question of [my reflection] in the mirror, as I imagine him and imagine that my smile is for him alone.

"When a woman claims that she beautifies herself for herself alone, she is lying, because behind every mirror is the shadow of the man to whom she dreams of giving all the beauty in the world when she appears in front of him. Osama [bin Laden] was that shadow behind my mirror; [in my mind] he would arrive at dawn, secretly, from Tora Bora, covering great distances to be with a woman who dreamed of him as her husband."

"So many times, my heart has tempted me to go towards his cave and to take the empty seat among the wives of the Caliph [i.e. bin Laden] – and when my night would arrive, I would get to wash his awe-inspiring beard, dirtied by the dust through which he crawled all night long. Is it conceivable that a jihad fighter's bed would be a bed of down and brocade velvet?

"I dreamed of being Osama's companion there, where the utmost danger lurks, so I could clasp his galabiya, stained with the blood of martyrdom, to my bosom, so I could be his companion as he [counted] the burdensome seconds, waiting to join the convoy of [his martyred] comrades and friends...

"Osama, the knight who dismounted from the horse of worldly pleasure, donned a [cleric's] turban, gripped a Kalashnikov, and entered the tunnel from which there is no return. From there I saw his stature reach to the heavens, as he recruited the knights in response to the voices of the women of Islam, whose honor has been violated and whose strength is gone, and who cry out [to him], 'Osama!'...

"How would life be with a husband who does not weaken at the sight of a woman's tears? What would a day be like in the life of an ordinary woman married to a man who never strays from the straight path and always receives God's grace, a man with no [fixed] schedule of coming and going, sitting and standing, eating lunch or dinner, when his wife never knows how long he will stay?

"What is morning like with a man who never sleeps? How could she threaten to leave him when he does not fear this? How could she seek pleasure in his arms him when pleasure is not in his vocabulary?

"How can a woman wish on herself a husband who never knows fear, never grows bored, never tires, and loves none but Allah? What weak spot would she [exploit], since he cannot be tempted? How could I be Osama's wife and pluck the strings of his desire for me.... when he desires only the virgins [of Paradise] – to whom mortal women can never measure up? Why does he stay with any woman when he has already divorced this world?

"Can we understand Osama like we understand [other] men? Or perhaps he has overturned the meaning of masculinity, so that after him, [all] men are but hollow bodies, and our definition of 'men' is changed so that it is no longer what it was before him?"

"[Here] in the dust of males who leave no impression, I had forgotten how a woman's soul yearns only for a man of steady loyalty [and] belief, a victor, a knight who dismounts only for something loftier. [I had forgotten] how a woman's soul, with all its guile and seductiveness, dreams of a man who will never be affected by her character, who will take her under the [shelter] of his rib, whence she was first created... of his mercies.

"Thank you [Osama], for making me dream of you as a husband. I tell you that we shall follow your will and testament, but seated as a strong base [Arabic pun on Al Qaeda] – because where we find the will to stand after you have gone?

"Oh, Osama... even if I did not have the honor of belonging to your family in this world, I promise I that will see you there [in the next world]...

"Farewell, dream husband for whom I wait."

Can the Arabic romance novels be far behind?

Apologies for the truly crappy Photoshop

UK "Palestine" Embassy website wipes Israel off the map

From the Palestine Embassy UK website:

This is an interactive map where you can zoom in on different districts in "Palestine" - which as in Israel.

But I thought that the PLO recognized Israel! I guess it was just another semantic game.

Hilariously, here is the link to get to this page:

The photo shown is from the city of Palestine, Illinois!

I suppose that one cannot blame the Palestinian Arabs for not knowing the history of their country. It is tough to keep track of the history of something that never existed.

(h/t JSS)

Outrageous: UK Methodist Church document to delegitimize Israel

A background document released by the Methodist Church of the UK is meant to instruct its readers on "Jewish and Muslim Perspectives on the Land of Israel-Palestine" - and, inter alia, to show how to argue with the Jewish claims for a homeland.

First, it looks at covenantal, Biblical claims:

In the Jewish tradition, robust debate is possible about texts and their meaning. In the rabbinical tradition, every word of a text can be challenged. Multiple meanings are sometimes accepted. In connection with attitudes to the 'land' of Israel, some Jews are also aware that holy texts can be abused. ‘We have a battle for our holy texts' declared Rabbi David Rosen, of Rabbis for Human Rights in Jerusalem, at a session on theologies of the ‘Land' at the Parliament of World's Religions in Barcelona in 2004.

For example, Jews who seek justice for all - Jews and Palestinians - will draw strength from the Covenant with Noah in Genesis (Genesis 9: 8 - 17). It is a Covenant which makes no distinction between nations or races. Other Jewish groups look to ‘later' Covenants, which can be interpreted more exclusively. This intrareligious dialogue within Judaism must not be overlooked.

Anyone with a modicum of understanding about Judaism knows about rabbinic arguments on interpretation of verses.

They also know that such arguments have specific rules and boundaries, as would be the source texts of any legal system. To facilely declare that God's promise to all of mankind not to destroy the world with a flood is somehow more relevant to Israel than specific Biblical promises to the Patriarchs and the children of Israel is more than absurd - especially coming from an organization that should be somewhat familiar with the Bible.

But this is far from the most offensive part of the document.

Anti-Semitism in Europe, culminating in the Holocaust, is another factor that cannot
be overlooked if Christians are to understand Jewish perspectives on the land of Israel. ‘Israel is the only real answer to the Holocaust' is the message given at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Centre in west Jerusalem. Its location (on Mount Herzl, a hill which is home both to the tomb of the founding father of the Zionist Movement and the central military cemetery for members of the Israeli Defence Force) and its symbolic layout undergirds this message. A pilgrimage through the exhibition rooms of the Centre, which bring home both the horror of the Holocaust and the vigour of Jewish resistance, brings you out in the open air, overlooking the beauty of Jerusalem. This perspective is transmitted to young Israelis through visits to Yad Vashem organised by schools and other groups. When I visited the Centre with a group from Britain, I noticed that many visitors were not of European Jewish descent. As Michael Ipgrave, then Secretary of the Churches' Commission for Inter Faith Relations, wrote in his report of the visit: ‘The Holocaust has come to serve as a national story embracing also Oriental Jews for whom this was not part of their family history.' Peace groups in Israel have to work against this backdrop.

...It is salutary and necessary for Europeans, and particularly Christians, to realise that they are implicated in this narrative.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center slammed this in the Huffington Post:

One of its authors chastises Yad Vashem, Jerusalem's Holocaust museum: "'Israel is the only real answer to the Holocaust' is the message ... This perspective is transmitted to young Israelis through visits to Yad Vashem organised by schools and other groups. When I visited the Centre ... I noticed that many visitors were not of European Jewish descent. As Michael Ipgrave, then Secretary of the Churches' Commission for Inter Faith Relations, wrote in his report of the visit: 'The Holocaust has come to serve as a national story embracing also Oriental Jews for whom this was not part of their family history.' Peace groups in Israel have to work against this backdrop."

Want peace? Decouple Israel from the Holocaust. Curiously, the Methodists' narrative goes beyond Palestinian chutzpah, whose historic revisionism ignores three millennia of continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land, and insists that the Allies manufactured the State of Israel to provide a home for survivors of the WWII Holocaust that these Methodists now want Jews to forget.

Want peace? Forget the collective memory of losing a third of your people, including 1.5 million children. For it's the "collective memory of the Holocaust [that] also feeds into an ethos of victimhood." Israelis should also turn the other cheek when rockets rain down on their children's school buses; turn a deaf ear when Palestinian imams promise the faithful a day when the rocks will call out to kill the Jews hiding behind them; turn a blind eye when the "moderate" Palestine Authority names streets for martyrs who murdered Israeli civilians; when one third of that same "moderate" population supports the savage butchering of a sleeping Israeli family in Itamar, including the all-but beheading of a 3-month-old baby.

Forget collective memory. For these religious leaders, only selective memory will set you free:

Take their reference to "Oriental" -- meaning Sephardic -- Jews. These experts must have forgotten the Sephardic Jews of Greece, 87 percent of whom were murdered by the Nazis. Never mind the Jews of the Maghreb were on Hitler's hit-list. These leaders also remembered to forget that it was Christian countries who slammed their gates shut before desperate European Jews, and that millions could have been saved had there been a State of Israel in the 1930s and 40s.

A couple of points beyond what Cooper said specifically about the Sephardim.

One is that there was a massacre of Jews in Iraq - the Farhud - during the Holocaust that was inspired by the infamous, Nazi sympathizing Mufti of Jerusalem. Here is a direct link between Arab anti-semitism and the Holocaust for Sephardic Jews.

But in a broader sense, the outrage that the Methodists feel about how Sephardic Jews are being taught about the Holocaust betrays their own anti-semitism. By mentioning it, the authors indicate that they do not believe that the Jewish people are a nation - the Sephardim, to them, have nothing in common with Jews who lived in some European countries. It is beyond their comprehension that Sephardim might actually care about their fellow Jews on their own, without being indoctrinated by the Zionists!

Even more so, they warn that Israel's Holocaust "narrative" is a direct challenge to them, as it implicates European Christians for standing by and letting millions of Jews get slaughtered. Which just happens to be true.

The point, of course, was to give the Methodists ammunition to argue against both Biblical and Holocaust arguments to justify a Jewish state.

Moreover, their recounting of Muslim narratives shows no skepticism. For example, it quotes the Koran as saying that Mohammed's night journey was to Jerusalem - even though the location of that journey is in a hadith, not the Koran.

This is a sickening document, and one that needs to be exposed.

UPDATE: The document was taken down...so you can find it here.

Why American Jews should not be embarrassed by Israel (Hazony)

From The Forward, by David Hazony:

Whenever I visit the United States, I spend a lot of time with people who strongly support Israel. But I’m always stunned by how poorly they understand the country. They talk about terrorism, Bibi and Tzipi, or the latest ex-general they met at a fundraising dinner. But when it comes to culture and daily life, they draw a blank. For all their cosmopolitanism, they know little or no Hebrew — cutting themselves off from the most vibrant Jewish experiences happening today.

Israel is not a football team that you can follow when you have time, ignore when you don’t and always root for. It’s a whole country, a whole world. It has its own literature, music, sports, films, reality shows and TV dramas and documentaries, many of which would make American Jews fill with pride, angst, laughter or criticism if they only knew about them. And yes, Israel has war and politics and existential threats. But to focus exclusively on these is never to understand what it’s like to be Israeli.

Israel has been through hell, and this experience informs its wisdom. Like any other country, it has its successes and failures. But its imperfections should not be a “source of embarrassment” for American Jews, who, after all, have their own grievous failings, as well.

Read the whole thing.

"Moderate" Hamas leader: Muslims are human, Jews aren't

Ma'an reports that Khaled Meshal, the "political" leader of Hamas based in Damascus who many are now arguing must be embraced by Israel, has condemned how the US killed Osama Bin Laden:

Khalid Mash'al, head of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, on Thursday criticized the method used by US special forces to kill Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his "burial at sea."

Mash'al called on the West to "recognize the atrocity of the American raid and the burial of (bin Laden's body) at sea," in remarks to AFP in the Egyptian capital.

"Arabs and Muslims are human beings and the West should treat them as such, regardless of whether they are partisans or opponents of Osama bin Laden."

According to Meshal, Bin Laden - despite any faults he might have had - was, above all, a human being and must be treated as such.

Compare this with how he characterized a the terror ambush last September that murdered four Jewish civilians, including a pregnant woman:

On the first day these negotiations were announced, Hamas fighters killed four people in Hebron. Were you trying to send a message?

No. This was not based on giving a message against the negotiations. It was expressing a reality. There is an illegal occupation and there are illegal settlements. And the Israeli soldiers and the Israeli settlers who are armed are attacking Palestinians. [They are] attacking Palestinian people, the olive trees, the children, the women. Therefore the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves. Not every resistance action is connected to the negotiations. This is connected to reality. It’s very clear, not every resistance is sending a message.

Apparently, Osama Bin Laden deserves to be treated with respect because he was a Muslim and Muslims are human beings. Killing him was an "atrocity."

Jews who want to live in the land of their ancestors, however, deserve to be brutally murdered. That's just reality.

I guess he doesn't consider them human beings.

Poor Madonna: Kabbalah Center under tax probe

From the LA Times:

The Kabbalah Centre, the Los Angeles-based spiritual organization that mingles ancient Jewish mysticism with the glamour of its celebrity devotees, is the focus of a federal tax evasion investigation probing, among other things, the finances of two charities connected to Madonna, the center's most famous adherent.

Sources familiar with the investigation said the criminal division of the IRS is looking into whether nonprofit funds were used for the personal enrichment of the Berg family, which has controlled the Kabbalah Centre for more than four decades, a period in which it expanded from one school of a little-known strain of Judaism to a global brand with A-list followers like Ashton Kutcher and Gwyneth Paltrow and assets that may top $260 million.

Among the items that investigators have reviewed, according to one source, is an August 2010 email in which a former chief financial officer of the center complained that he had been fired for pointing out financial improprieties and warned that the center was in danger of "committing suicide."

"I recently uncovered instances of income tax fraud at the Kabbalah Centre — instances which could bankrupt several of the directors involved … this is very serious business," the former CFO, Nicholas Vakkur, wrote in an email that circulated among high-level officials at the center. "I have little choice but to cooperate with the IRS and bring down the entire Kabbalah Centre," Vakkur wrote, adding a plea that "someone in authority" try to "reason" with center Chief Executive Karen Berg.

The EoZ archives has a 2005 article from the BBC about the Kabbalah Center that was even more damning.

A bit of nonsense in a NYT op-ed

The New York Times' jihad to mainstream Hamas continues today, with an op-ed by Nathan Thrall called "Hurting Moderates, Helping Militants." Guess who the "moderates" are?

In Gaza, the number of Salafi jihadis — austere militants willing to kill those they don’t consider true Muslims — has grown significantly since 2006. Many of them are former Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters who see Hamas as caving to Israel while getting only blockades, closed border crossings and military incursions in return.

Five years of isolation have not dislodged Hamas, revived the peace process, strengthened Fatah or ensured Israel’s security. Most of the Gaza Strip’s imports now pass largely unimpeded through tunnels that are wide enough to carry cattle, cars, anti-tank missiles and foreign radicals.

Nor has isolating Hamas persuaded most Palestinians to embrace the alternative model in the West Bank, where undemocratic practices remain common, local leaders lack popular legitimacy, and tight security coordination with Israel is routinely denounced.

Instead, blockading Gaza and isolating Hamas have given rhetorical strength to militants who argue that the Islamist movement has erred by holding its fire against Israel and failing to impose Islamic law. As a result, Hamas is slowly losing members to more radical groups.

On Monday, Hamas self-defeatingly sought to bolster its flagging Islamist credentials by mourning the death of Osama bin Laden and praising him as an Arab holy warrior ...

Here's Thrall's bizarre train of thought: Hamas is losing members to more-extreme Salafist groups because it is viewed as not being radical enough by some.

So, according to Thrall, Israel must embrace Hamas, which would moderate its views to accommodate Israel's new friendship.

But according to his own words, this would make more radicals leave the group and strengthen the Salafists because they would look at Hamas as selling out!

On the one hand he is claiming that extreme radical Islamists are pushed there by the relative moderation of slightly less extreme radical Islamists. On the other hand he claims that by Israel embracing the slightly less extreme radical Islamists they will moderate and make peace with - which will again push their members towards extremism!

Thrall also fails to explain why (as he admits) even Islamic Jihad is losing members to the Salafist groups - when Islamic Jihad has not moderated one bit.

Not to mention his equally nonsensical assertion that the entire reason Hamas condemned Bin Laden's death was not because of its clear ideological affinity to Al Qaeda, but as a way to restore street cred among the Salafists.

This is, again, a willful blindness on the part of people who are so wed to the idea that peace with Hamas must be possible that logic and facts go out the window just to prove the unprovable. People to whom the "peace process" is a religion cannot lose their faith, so they must spin more and more crazy theories just to shore up their "flat Earth"-style beliefs.

Sorry. The earth is round, Obama was born in Hawaii, 9/11 wasn't an inside job and real peace between Israel and Islamic movements like Hamas is impossible. Hamas and other Islamist movements must be defeated, not embraced. While victory is difficult, as in any war, it is imperative.

Anyone who claims otherwise is simply ignoring reality and discarding facts for half-baked beliefs.

(h/t David G)

Wave your Flag - Israel Independence Day video

Great video (single tracking shot) by Aish.com:

Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day, is on May 10th this year.

(h/t Joel)

NYT's Ethan Bronner: When wishful thinking trumps facts

Ethan Bronner in the New York Times has a scoop!

One day after celebrating a landmark reconciliation accord for Palestinian unity, Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, said on Thursday that he was fully committed to working for a two-state solution but declined to swear off violence or agree that a Palestinian state would produce an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So what were Meshal's exact words?

Here is everything he is quoted as having said on the topic:

"The whole world knows what Hamas thinks and what our principles are. But we are talking now about a common national agenda. The world should deal with what we are working toward now, the national political program.

"[This is] a Palestinian state in the 1967 lines with Jerusalem as its capital, without any settlements or settlers, not an inch of land swaps and respecting the right of return [of millions of Palestinian Arab "refugees" to Israel itself.]"

Asked if a deal honoring those principles would produce an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mr. Meshal said, “I don’t want to talk about that.”

He added: “When Israel made agreements with Egypt and Jordan, no one conditioned it on how Israel should think. The Arabs and the West didn’t ask Israel what it was thinking deep inside. All Palestinians know that 60 years ago they were living on historic Palestine from the river to the sea. It is no secret.”

Did the words "two-state solution" escape his lips? Did he say he was prepared to recognize Israel under any circumstances? Did he even imply that? No - he actually said that he would continue to encourage violence against Israelis:

“Where there is occupation and settlement, there is a right to resistance. Israel is the aggressor. But resistance is a means, not an end.”

He added that over the coming months, as Hamas and Fatah work out their differences, “we are ready to reach an agreement on how to manage resistance.” He noted that Hamas had entered into cease-fires with Israel in the past and that it was ready to do so in the future. There is one in effect right now. But his broad principle, he said, was this: “If occupation ends, resistance ends. If Israel stops firing, we stop firing.”

Asked if he thought nonviolent resistance was a useful approach for the Palestinians, he replied, “Unfortunately, nonviolence doesn’t work against the Israelis.”

So perhaps Bronner, who has been covering the area for a few years now, assumes that Meshal's statement that Hamas would end violence if the "occupation" ends as somehow accepting a two-state solution?

Only one problem. Hamas considers all of Israel "occupied." And you don't even have to look hard to realize this - just Google for the word "Occupied" in the English-language Qassam.ps website, run by Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades.

Here you see that Israel's "occupation" includes Ashkelon, Lod, Ashdod, Netivot - and all of the land "occupied in 1948."

Is Bronner this ignorant, after reporting about Hamas for years, not to know what their keywords are? Is it really possible that he doesn't know how Hamas has been playing this same semantic game for years, including in the pages of the NYT op-ed section? Has he not ever heard these same Hamas leaders saying, explicitly in Arabic, that their goal is to destroy Israel - and they have never abandoned that goal in any language?

It is a scary thought that an evidently bright guy is this clueless about the subject that is supposed to be his area of expertise by now.

But even worse is that nothing Meshal said can be remotely construed even in English as implying that he would accept Israel's right to exist, the very definition of a two-state solution.

The only possibility is that Bronner, like so many other Westerners, is infected with "wishthinkitis," a disease where what you want to hear overrides what people actually say. Those with wishthinkitis have the aural equivalent of rose-colored glasses, where every word uttered - no matter how vile and bigoted - is turned into sunshine and flowers.

Those suffering from this condition lose all ability to think critically, to look at things objectively, and to report things accurately. It apparently never entered Bronner's mind to ask some simple questions of Meshal:

If you get all of your demands for every inch of the territories, would you then support a peace treaty with Israel?
Do you agree, today, with every word in the Hamas Charter? If not, what specifically do you disagree with?
If you do not agree with it, is there any other document that you can point to that describes Hamas' goals and objectives precisely? (Shouldn't be hard because Meshal told Bronner that "the whole world knows what Hamas thinks and what our principles are." Will they be only temporarily subsumed under the PA, or permanently?
Do you still support a single Islamic state stretching from North Africa through the Gulf?
Do you consider Spain to be occupied Muslim land?

These are only some of the real questions that should be asked from someone like Meshal. No matter what he answers, it would be newsworthy - either to Westerners or to his fellow Arabs, or both.

Unfortunately, those with wishthinkitis cannot ask the hard questions, and they cannot follow up double-talk answers with decent followup questions. Because they are so thrilled with what they heard, even if it has no relationship with what was actually said.

Palestinian Arabs become more Islamist

In a new Near East Consulting survey of Palestinian Arabs (from Wafa):

57% identified themselves as Muslims first, 21% identified themselves as Palestinians first, 19% as human beings first and 5% as Arabs first.

This surprised me, as I would have swapped the "Arab" and "Muslim" categories. Certainly these numbers would have been much different before 1967. It indicates the increased Islamism of the Palestinian Arabs.

Indeed:

The increase in adherence to religious identity is also reflected in the system preferred by the Palestinian people.

About 40% of the respondents said that they believe that the Islamic caliphate is the best system for Palestinians, 24% chose a system like one of the Arab countries, and 12 % prefer a system like one of the European countries.

Again, this is in contradiction to previous polls that indicated that Palestinian Arabs admire Israel's democracy to any other system, but those polls probably didn't mention the caliphate as an option.

Put together, it looks like pan-Islamism has nearly replaced pan-Arabism in the minds of Palestinian Arabs, which does not bode well if their restless neighbors are also heading in that direction.

(h/t Challah Hu Akbar)

The sham "unity" agreement (NewsRealBlog)

My latest post at NewsRealBlog puts together the fake signing ceremony in Cairo with other things I've been blogging about over the past day.

On Wednesday, Khaled Meshal of Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah came together in Cairo and publicly signed a historic reconciliation agreement, in front of a room filed with supporters from the Arab world and the international community.
Didn’t they?
Actually, they didn’t.
Al Quds al-Arabi mentions, almost in passing:
Notably, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not sign the agreement, as expected, and neither did Mr. Khaled Meshaal of the Islamic Resistance Movement ‘Hamas.’
The New York Times noticed this as well:

In what appeared a sign of lingering friction, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal did not share the podium with Abbas and the ceremony was delayed briefly over where he would sit. Against expectations, neither signed the unity document.

That wasn’t the only weird thing that happened at the ceremony that was meant to signify a new chapter in harmonious intra-Palestinian Arab relations. There were actual public disagreements on stage, concerning who was to speak, where people were to sit, and how Mahmoud Abbas should be described (as the “president of Palestine” or as the leader of Fatah.) In fact, from all appearances, Hamas is not recognizing Abbas as the real president of the “unified” leadership!
Put all of this together and the real picture begins to emerge: the entire “unity” agreement is a facade meant to placate Westerners (as well as restive Palestinian Arabs who are eying the revolutions and demonstrations happening around them.) In reality, Hamas and Fatah hate each other as much as ever.
There are no indications that Hamas is giving up any of its security or political power in Gaza. Quite the opposite: Hamas yesterday brazenly executed an alleged “spy,” which according to Palestinian Arab law must not happen without presidential approval.
Also in Gaza yesterday, Palestinian Arabs celebrated this wonderful “unity” by showing posters depicting one of their other heroes:

Why is the Western world believing–and supporting!–this sham that is meant to ultimately create a terror state, one that will not compromise in the least on its major goal of destroying Israel?

Gazans celebrate "unity" - with posters of Osama

From Getty Images via Daylife:

Palestinians hold pictures depicting Osama bin Laden, as they march to celebrate the signing of a reconciliation deal between bitter rivals Hamas and Fatah, on May 4, 2011 in Gaza City.

The yellow flags are for Fatah.

Don't they look like they deserve a state?

Turkish foreign minister meets with Islamic Jihad

Palestine Today reports that Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu met with the leader of the Islamic Jihad terror organization yesterday.

PIJ leader Dr. Ramadan Shallah along with other top Ilamic Jihad officials were in Cairo to attend the Hamas/Fatah unity celebration, as was Davutoglu. They met at the residence that the Turkish minister was staying.

Unlike Hamas, Islamic Jihad does not even pretend to be anything other than an Islamist terrorist group.

Jerusalem Arabs again prefer to live in Israel than "Palestine"

From YNet:

A recent survey conducted by Pechter Middle East Polls, in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations, ahead of the possible Palestinian bid for statehood in September, revealed that given a choice, the majority of east Jerusalem residents would prefer to remain Israelis.

The survey sampled 1,039 Palestinians living in all 19 neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, and was supervised by Dr. David Pollock.

Perhaps the most striking finding regarded the residents' citizenship preference, after a two-state solution is reached: When asked if they preferred to become citizens of Palestine or remain citizens of Israel, only 30% chose Palestinian citizenship. Thirty five percent chose Israeli citizenship and 35% declined to answer or said they didn’t know.

When asked if they would move to a different home inside Israel if their neighborhood became part of Palestine,40% said they were "likely to move to Israel" and 27% said they were "likely to move to Palestine" if their neighborhood became part of Israel.

What makes these numbers more amazing is that they reflect attitudes shaped by decades of media incitement against Israel and of generations being inculcated with an ethos of a fake historic Palestinian Arab nationalism.

The idea that 40% would actually pick up and move their families to live in Israel is in itself astonishing, and proves more than anything else that Israel treats its Arab citizens better than they expect to be treated in "Palestine."

(h/t Joel)

Did Abbas and Meshal sign the unity agreement? (UPDATE)

From Al-Quds al Arabi (Arabic), discussing the Hamas/Fatah unification ceremony in Cairo:

Notably, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not sign the agreement, as expected, and neither did Mr. Khaled Meshaal of the Islamic Resistance Movement 'Hamas'...

It may be possible that I am interpreting the autotranslation incorrectly, but I don't think so. The writer goes on to mention the other disagreements Abbas and Meshal had as far as protocol, seating, speaking and so forth.

I know that representatives from Hamas and Fatah signed the agreement a few days ago.

I cannot find any photos or videos showing Abbas or Hamas leaders actually signing anything, at a ceremony that was specifically meant to celebrate exactly that!

There's a story here.

UPDATE: ChallahHuAkbar tweeted George Hale from Ma'an this question after my blog entry (so did NGO Monitor), and he answered:

According to this report, no. It says assistants signed on behalf of both officials.

So why didn't Abbas sign....and why is no one asking him about this?

Iran says the Syrian uprising is "different"

Yesterday I noted, half-jokingly, that Iran supports and encourages all popular revolutions - except in Iran and Syria because those protesters are Zionist stooges.

Once again, one cannot satirize people who are already off the deep end.

From Now Lebanon:

Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Ghandafar Roken Abadi said Thursday that Tehran “understand the basis of all the legitimate demands of all people of any region in the world, whether in Palestine, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya or Bahrain,” but added that “everyone knows the situation is different in Syria.”

“What is currently occurring in Syria is a political vendetta conducted by the US and Israel, and this is [a] clear and explicit [project] to separate Syria from the Resistance plan,” the National News Agency quoted him as saying.

In other news, Israel's Channel 10 uncovered a secret document showing that Syria's president is bringing in Hezbollah to quash the protests.

(h/t Joel)

Iran says revolutions will reach Europe

From Tehran Times:

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has stated that the European nations will certainly rise up against their governments, which are blindly following the policies of the United States and the Zionist regime.

The Leader made the remarks during a meeting with thousands of teachers on Wednesday on the occasion of the National Teachers’ Day....

“People’s awakening in the Middle East and North Africa is the continuation of the Iranian nation’s great movement, and this awakening will certainly spread to the heart of Europe,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.

He went on to say, “The European nations will certainly rise up against their politicians and leaders who made them submit to the cultural and economic policies of the U.S. and the Zionists.”

On the important role the teachers can play to push ahead the Islamic awakening, the Leader said the teachers should raise public awareness and strengthen unity and solidarity through developing talents and training strong-willed, faithful, insightful, committed, and knowledgeable students.

He also said that the most important obligation of the education system is training the people who are capable of safeguarding the principles of the Islamic system and promoting the Iranian nation’s great movement.

But when people rise up against Iran or Syria, they are just proving they are Zionist stooges.

Reagan wasn't the last actor in the White House

A fascinating look behind the scenes of Obama's speech to the nation Sunday night, from Reuters photographer Jason Reed:

This photo was not taken during the speech!

As President Obama continued his nine-minute address in front of just one main network camera, the photographers were held outside the room by staff and asked to remain completely silent. Once Obama was off the air, we were escorted in front of that teleprompter and the President then re-enacted the walk-out and first 30 seconds of the statement for us.

Obama's re-enactment

Poynter.org researched the history:

Doug Mills, New York Times photojournalist and former Associated Press staffer, says it has been done this way “always, always … well, as long as I have covered the White House, going back to the Reagan administration. We [still photographers] have never, never, never, ever been allowed to cover a live presidential address to the nation!”

Poynter’s Senior Faculty for Visual Journalism, Kenny Irby, explains, “The most obvious concern is noise. The 35mm cameras emit shutter noise, that would be multiplied by several photographers and increased by the echo which resonates off of the marble floors. The other visual distraction is the placement of the teleprompter that impedes the photographers’ line of sight to the president.”

That article concludes:

It is time for this kind of re-enactment to end. The White House should value truth and authenticity. The technology clearly exists to document important moments without interrupting them. Photojournalists and their employers should insist on and press for access to document these historic moments.

In the meantime, anyone who uses these recreations should clearly disclose to the reader the circumstances under which they were captured.

Apparently, wire service photographers will happily descend that slippery slope between news and acting.

This is of course not nearly as bad as the fauxtography and staged photos we are so used to seeing coming out of the Middle East. Even so, one would hope that the White House would not be acting like Hezbollah in even this small way.

(h/t PB)