Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, January 16, 2012

Palestinian Authority issues fake statistics, no one questions them

Ma'an reported in 2006:

The Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs has revealed that 700,000 Palestinians have been arrested and imprisoned in Israeli prisons since 1967. This means that 25% of the total population of the occupied Palestinian territory has been held in Israeli jails over the last 29 years.

In a report, the ministry pointed out that 50,000 of them were arrested during the current, Al Aqsa Intifada (which began in September 2000) and 10,300 of them are still in Israeli prisons.

Today, the Ministry has updated the figures, saying that about 800,000 Palestinian Arabs have been arrested since 1967.

We have already looked at how Addameer inflates their statistics on arrests, pulling their numbers out of thin air.

Now let's look at the Ministry's numbers.

Let's say that 50,000 were really arrested between September 2000 and September 2006, during the height of the intifada, as they claimed in 2006.

If that is true, is it remotely credible that more than double that amount has been arrested in the 5 years since then, when things have calmed down considerably?

If 100,000 were arrested in the past 5 years, that would be 20,000 a year or about 55 a day. Yet an already unreliable study published at the end of December claims only 3,300 were arrested last year, and the most arrests were in 2007 when some 7,000 were alleged.

Even those numbers seem grossly exaggerated, as the only group that seems to keep tracks of actual arrests is PCHR, and they only record about 1000-1500 arrests a year. Last week, for example, they recorded 31 arrests and 29 the week before.

Since 2006, the number of Arab prisoners in Israeli jails has decreased from about 10,000 to under 4,000.

While all available evidence shows that the number of arrests is far less than the Ministry of Prisoners Affairs is reporting, no one is questioning them (or Addameer) for their absurd inflation of these statistics.

These ridiculous numbers get accepted by the UN and by the mainstream media.

This is not some NGO without any oversight issuing these numbers. This is the Palestinian Authority, funded with billions of dollars from the West, and using that money to issue ridiculous lies back to those same Western countries.

Isn't it time that someone calls them on these fabrications?

"Israeli prisons worse than Nazis'"

Today's disgusting statement by a Hamas minister:

Palestinian Minister for Captives Affairs Ataollah Abu Sabah said Palestinian prisoners are suffering harsh and inhuman conditions in Israeli jails, and stressed that Israeli prisons are much more horrible than those of the Nazis'.

Speaking to FNA, Sabah said that almost 4,400 Palestinian prisoners are incarcerated in Israeli jails, and added that those prisoners who are sentenced to long terms of imprisonment are kept in central prisons whose conditions are gravely inhume and terrible.

"These prisons lack sanitation and are overcrowded," he said, and added that Israel is using the harshest methods of suppression against Palestinian prisoners in these jails.

He added that conditions in Ketziot Prison, where many Palestinian political prisoners are held, are even harsher than the conditions tolerated by prisoners in the Nazi Germany.

Sabah added that prisoners in Ketziot are not safe from night torture.

Palestinian prisoners have always voiced complaint about the torturing and mistreatment of prisoners by Israeli guards.

In July, more than 20 Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli Negev jail were poisoned after eating meals served in the prison's canteen, prisoners reported.

They explained that after eating burger sandwiches from the canteen the prisoners suffered from diarrhea and vomiting after which they were carried to the prison's clinic but the administration did not tell them about their condition.

They asked the Red Cross to intervene and demand their transfer to hospital for adequate checkup.

Canteens? Burgers? Red Cross? Treatment in a hospital?

Not to mention TV, free college education, smuggled cell phones, Halal meals...the list of evil Zionist torture devices goes on and on.

As far as overcrowding is concerned...when Dachau was liberated, the Americans found 32,000 people in 20 barracks - 1600 per barrack - each designed to hold 250 people.

I would not mind one bit if Abu Sabah finds out what real torture is, first hand.

By the way, if you want to do a social experiment, the PressTV version of the interview said that there were 44,000 prisoners, not 4,400. Do a search to see how many webpages reproduce that version without giving it the slightest bit of critical thinking.

(h/t CHA)

What does it mean for Jews to be pro-Israel today? (Expanded)

I gave a little more thought to the question asked in Moment magazine of "What does it mean to be pro-Israel today?" that I briefly answered on Friday.

I would like to expand the answer, and to narrow the question a little bit, to "What does it mean for Jews to be pro-Israel today?"

If you are Jewish, then you are more than just someone who shares a belief system with other Jews. You and the Jewish people also share nationality, culture, and a long-standing emotional ties to the Land of Israel with your fellow Jews. As Jews colloqually say, you are a "member of the Tribe."

You are, effectively, family. And family members, when they are not dysfunctional, are expected to love each other unconditionally.

Of course we fight. Of course we argue. Of course we get passionate, and angry, and emotional. But the undercurrent of all these actions is love. We want what is best for our family, for our people, for our nation, and we are willing to fight for what we believe is right, even when most others disagree.

Israel, both in its geographic and its political incarnation, is our home. We can disagree and argue over what is best for Israel, and in fact we do. And as long as the dominant emotion behind the disputes remains love, all is fair.

But there are two things that family members do not do to each other.

One is that they do not air their disagreements in public. They do not go to media outlets outside of their community to disparage their own. They especially do not tell their family's sworn enemies that they agree with them and disagree with their own people. When one does that, it indicates that he or she is more interested in their own selfish agenda than in bettering their people. It is effectively a declaration of independence from the family, a statement that one believes that the family's actions are so reprehensible that one does not want to be associated with them anymore.

Anyone is free to do this, of course. But their actions show that they are not behaving out of love, but rather out of spite. It shows that they are taking themselves out of the community and that they respect their own people so little that they cannot stomach trying to fit in anymore.

That is not how family members behave.

And the other thing that loving family members do not do to each other is to assume that when others within the community do anything seemingly disagreeable, that they are automatically guilty.

When anything happens in Israel that looks bad on the surface, the vast majority of the time it can be shown to have been misunderstood or even fabricated. The psyche of Israelis is one of morality; while there might be exceptions one cannot fairly say that Israel is an immoral country. There is always another side to the story, one that sadly does not get the publicity of the seemingly bad one.

To be pro-Israel is to start with the assumption that Israel is right, and to be skeptical when things look otherwise. In the end, perhaps the explanation will not be satisfactory, but one needs to make the effort to at least find out what it is. If you are truly pro-Israel you would first do everything possible to find out the truth. That is what support means. And that is what family members do for each other.

When you start assuming that your family's actions are abhorrent before you even investigate their side of the story, you are placing yourself outside the community.

These two metrics show who is pro-Israel and who is not. Criticizing Israel or Jews is not inherently anti-Israel or anti-semitic, but criticizing them in the pages of Al Akhbar or the Guardian is. Lobbying your own community institutions to change is admirable; lobbying outside parties to force your community to change is reprehensible. Doing that shows that you care more about pleasing the rest of the world than about your own people. It doesn't matter that Israel's enemies can read our criticisms of each other in Ha'aretz - what matters is that the intended audience is your own people. Nothing needs to be hidden, but publicly disparaging your own people in venues that are not friendly to them indicates that you do not believe you are a member of your people any longer.

Similarly, hearing a rumor or a report that makes it sound like your relatives did something bad and jumping to the conclusion that it is symbolic of an inherent evil that pervades your own people is not what a loving family member does. They would find out the truth, and trust what their own relatives say above what a newspaper says, all else being equal.

In short, being pro-Israel means treating it the way you would treat your own loving family.

Any member of the Jewish community is free to leave. They are free to cut all ties with their family. But they are not free to claim that they are criticizing out of love when their actions show that they have no love for Jews or Israel. When they act against the family as a whole, they should not be surprised to no longer be treated like a family member.

Israel building more "Talmudic Gardens", says PA

The official PA Wafa news agency reports that Israel is building new "Talmudic gardens" all around Jerusalem:

Israeli bulldozers Sunday increased its work speed to establish Talmudic gardens between Damascus Gate and Herod’s Gate (Bab el-Amoud and Bab al-Sahira in Arabic, respectively), two of the most famous gates of the Old City of Jerusalem, aiming to judaize the city and change its historical and cultural character, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said that several Israeli bulldozers increased their work pace more than usual, after finishing the first part of work in the area near the Damascus Gate and in Sultan Suleiman street, adjacent to the Old City's walls, which character was completely changed through the establishment of car parking lots, a Talmudic garden near Sulaiman cave (Mgharet Sulaiman) in Sultan Sulaiman Street.

Similar works are under way in Tantur Faron, an area south of Al-Aqsa mosque, which is considered an archaeological area that extends back thousands of years.

The committee for the defense of Silwan uncovered the building of fake Jewish graves in Tantur Faron area in an attempt to seize the land permanently to connect it to nearby settlement outposts.

In addition, similar works are also under way in Wadi al-Rababa, an area in Silwan south of Al-Aqsa Mosque in order to establish Talmudic gardens, near al-Bustan neighborhood in Silwan.

What exactly is a "Talmudic garden?"

Are they growing Mishnah flowers, Baraita bushes and Tosefta trees?

As we mentioned the last time we came across this term, it seems that the Arabs use the word "Talmudic" as an epithet when they really, really hate something. So we hear about, for example, "Talmudic rituals" being practiced by Jews who visit the Temple Mount.

Most archaeological tourist sites in Jerusalem show a Jewish presence in Israel that far pre-dates the Talmud (which itself pre-dates Islam.) The mention of the "Talmud" in relation with these shows that what the PA hates and fears more than anything is Judaism - not Zionism, not Jews, but actual living Judaism that shows an unbroken connection to the Land for thousands of years.

After all, the Mishna and Talmud Yerushalmi were all written in Israel - well after the destruction of the Second Temple. They show that there was a vibrant Jewish community in Israel up until the Muslim invasion. The recent discovery of a Menorah stamp in Acre, apparently to tag bread as kosher, was created in the 6th century.

When you include Talmudic times in the Jewish history of Israel, it is the Muslim presence that appears to be anomalous and temporary - not the modern manifestation of Jewish statehood.

This might be why the word "Talmud" gets the Arabs so riled up. It reminds them that they are the interlopers, invaders and colonialists - not the Jews.

(h/t CHA)

Let's reframe the Israel debate (Point of No Return)

From the Point of No Return blog, currently behind a paywall at JPost:

We need to explode the misconception, commonly held on the Left, that Israel is an outpost of western colonialism and imperialism. Jews were indigenous to the region 1,000 years before the Islamic conquest, with an uninterrupted presence not just in Palestine, but all over the ‘Arab’ world. The Arab invasion turned native Jews and Christians into minorities in their own lands, converting them to Islam, appropriating their shrines and erasing their history. Jews ‘stealing Arab land’ is an offensive inversion of reality. Jews in 10 Arab countries were stripped of their rights and in most cases dispossessed of their property.

The terms we use undermine Jewish rights to our ancestral homeland. ‘Settlements’ and ‘West Bank’ reinforce a sense that the land has always been Arab, and paint Israelis as colonialist imposters. Yet, until their ethnic cleansing in 1948, Jews had always lived beyond the Green line. Yet it must be said that to talk of Judea and Samaria, and Israeli ‘communities’, not settlements, in no way precludes an Israeli withdrawal as part of a peace deal.

We need to restore a vital context to the discussion: the conflict is not between the Israeli Goliath and the Palestinian David. It pits six million Israelis against 300 million Arabs. In terms of values, the battle is between pluralistic, democratic Israel and the jihadists of Islam. The Palestinians are not independent agents. Economically they are propped up by international aid; strategically, they represent a pan-Arab, and increasingly pan-Islamic cause; politically, they are controlled by external regional forces.

We need to emphasize that half the Jews of Israel never left the region - they were uprooted from the Arab and Muslim world to a tiny sliver of land on the Mediterranean. If these Jews are now full and free Israeli citizens, it is largely because Israel offered them unconditional refuge from pre-existing Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism.

...We must convince western libertarians to see the self-determination of a small, indigenous Middle Eastern people – the Jews – as a progressive cause. Rejectionism of Israel is rooted in a religious and cultural view of ‘dhimmi’ Jews and Christians as inferior, forced to surrender their rights to the Muslim overlord. For a non-Muslim people to rule itself, still less Arab Muslims, is anathema. By supporting the Palestinian campaign against Israel – deceptively cloaked in the language of human rights - western liberals have become unwitting agents for the re-establishment of Arab and Muslim supremacy over a ‘dhimmi’ people.

Israel represents the national liberation of the Jews, one of the most ancient of native Middle Eastern peoples. If we are to win hearts and minds, we must reframe the debate.

Read the whole thing.

IDF Bedouin family proud to serve their country

From The Jewish Press:

(h/t Yerushalimey)

PLO admits it is not taking talks with Israel in Amman seriously

Pan-Arab Al Hayat reports (via PalPress) that even while the PLO is going through the motions in attending Quartet-sponsored meetings in Jordan with Israel, it has no real interest in reaching any agreement and is planning its next stage of de-legitimizing Israel.

The PLO is expecting to hold these cosmetic talks until January 26, after which it is planning a diplomatic offensive to get UN Security Council members to vote to call for a halt in Israeli building across the Green Line.

Abbas is already meeting European leaders to urge them to pressure Israel to stop the settlements and to agree to the "1967 borders" as the basis for negotiations. He is also planning a meeting with Arab leaders next month in light of the "failure" of the current negotiations that he has not yet even begun.

As usual for Arab leaders, when he talks to the West he is blaming his people for his intransigence, saying that the Arab citizens of the territories would never accept any negotiations while Israel continues to build in the settlements. Of course, his people never said a word about it when Abbas himself was negotiating with Israel without any building freeze - it is a pre-condition he created himself around 2008.

It needs to be repeated that Israel only allows building within existing settlement lines, and there is no official support for building in new areas. In fact, just last week the IDF demolished three outposts considered illegal - including one raid at 3 AM - not that this was covered by the mainstream media.

Tuba-Zangaria resident: "No way a Jew torched this mosque" (updated)

Three months ago, a mosque was burned in the Israeli Arab village of Tuba Zangaria.

Graffiti scrawled on the mosque seemed to indicate that it was done by Jewish settlers in a "price tag" revenge attack against Arabs. Israel's leaders condemned the attack and many came to the village to show solidarity in the face of the Jewish terrorists.

I noted last month that an Israeli blogger, Gal Chen, went to see the situation for herself and unearthed some serious inconsistencies between the official story.

Now, Israel's Channel 2 went back to Tuba Zangaria three months after the supposed "price tag" attack and asks some of the same questions Chen did.

And at least one Tuba Zangaria resident says he is certain that the arsonists came from the village itself:

"No Jew came to burn this mosque"

"The one who burned this mosque is one of us - I am not afraid to say so."

The report goes on to mention what Chen said: that no Jew knows where that mosque even is, that there are three mosques on the way, and that the way that "price tag" was written indicates it was done well after the arson.

UPDATE: A few hours after this report was aired, the house of the resident shown here, Bassan Saweid, was sprayed with automatic gunfire.

(h/t Yoel)

Hezbollah's leader mocks UN. No one is bothered.

Intransigence without penalty:

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah dismissed on Saturday a United Nations call for his movement to disarm, saying it was determined to maintain a military capacity to defend Lebanon.

"I affirm today, firmly, decisively and with the greatest conviction ... the choice of armed resistance," Nasrallah said. "These weapons, along with the Lebanese people and army, are the only guarantee of Lebanon's protection."

Mocking a demand by visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that Hezbollah lay down its weapons, Nasrallah said he was happy that Hezbollah's military prowess was a cause for concern.

"Your concern, Secretary-General, reassures us and pleases us. What matters to us is that you are worried, and that America ... and Israel are worried with you," he said in a televised speech marking a Shiite holy day.

Ban, speaking in Beirut on Friday, said he was "deeply concerned about the military capacity of Hezbollah" and the lack of progress in disarmament. "All these arms outside of the authorized state authority, it's not acceptable," he declared.

There are a lot of people out there who defend the UN and express righteous indignation when it is perceived to be disrespected.

I haven't heard anything from them about this.

Hamas building tourist hub on beach, displacing residents

From The Media Line via JPost:

If the plans proceed on schedule, [Gaza's] Al-Rashid Road, popularly known as the Beach Road, will be transformed into a scenic seaside promenade, or corniche, in the style that has made the meeting between land and sea in places like Beirut, Alexandria and Nice tourist attractions and a gathering place for their residents.

Sami Abu Hamdah, one of the project supervisors, talks enthusiastically about the corniche and its surrounding infrastructure, which will cut a swathe of 40 meters (130 feet) over two kilometers (1.2 miles), as well as plans to extend it deeper into the city in the next phase.

The narrow asphalt strip will be widened to a grand boulevard helping to ease the traffic congestion. Sidewalks along both sides of the street will be widened and a seafront promenade 11 meters across will run along the length of the beach. Parking areas are being built for visitors as well as a series of tunnels that will deliver beachgoers to the seashore away from the noise and cars of the street.

Once this phase is done, says Mugani, officials have ambitious plans to turn large parts of the city side of Beach Road into parks and gardens that will encourage tourism projects in Gaza.

But widening the road and adding new attractions has to come at a cost, and Abu Mahmoud Al-Ara’ir is one of the people paying it.

More than a decade ago he squatted on a piece of shorefront property, building a small house out of simple materials and fencing off the area around it with pieces of plastic and wood. The fence has come down as Abu Mahmoud is undertaking a strategic retreat in the face of warnings from the city to surrender all his property.

“After all, I don’t own this land and the municipality isn’t even obliged to compensate me according to the law,” he told The Media Line. “But the fact that I have been living here for the past 11 years makes me the owner, I think, even if I don’t have ownership papers or actually paid for it.”

Not all of the area’s residents are taking their loss with such equanimity. While the beachfront would normally be desirable real estate, many of those living in the area are poor.

Interviewed by The Media Line, many expressed the view that they should be entitled to squatters’ rights and that even if the authorities compensate them with other land, they don’t have the money to build themselves new homes on it. “Don’t we have the right to accept or refuse or even choose the location or compensation? Why can’t they just leave us alone and do this project somewhere else?” asks one.

Gaza’s municipal government is not sympathetic. In a statement issued in response to the complaints of angry beachfront residents, it said: “Ninety percent of these ‘owners’ don’t actually own their land. They took it and built simple houses on it over the last 10 years. The governments left them there because they had no place to live and the lands weren’t needed. So we aren’t obliged to offer compensation.”

I have a feeling that the people who are up in arms about Israel evicting Bedouin squatters who build illegal housing will not say a word about Gaza's government doing the same.

At least future anti-Israel activists will have a nice promenade and park benches from which to write their eyewitness accounts of the horrors in Gaza.

Work accident!

From Ma'an:

An explosion in the southern Gaza Strip killed a member of the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, the group said late Saturday.

Khalid al-Qaisi, 38, died and five others were injured in the blast at the al-Qaisi home in Rafah, the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades said in a statement. The injured were not named.

The statement said al-Qaisi was killed in action while performing a "jihad mission" in Rafah, but no other details were disclosed.

A medical official, Adham Abu Salmiya, said the charred corpse of an al-Qaisi family member was transferred to Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital after the explosion in Rafah, which borders Egypt.

A Ma'an correspondent said parts of the city "literally shook" during the explosion, the cause of which was not immediately clear. An Israeli military spokeswoman denied army involvement.

The PRC said secretary-general Zuhair al-Qaisi, a relative of Khalid, was unharmed.

This is of course Israel's fault.

If Gaza wasn't so crowded, PRC members wouldn't have to build their bombs in their own houses. They would have modern, gleaming bomb/suicide belt/rocket factories, with the latest quality control procedures to minimize these "work accidents."

Perhaps even the UN and Jimmy Carter's "Elders" could send inspectors to issue certifications and vouch for the safety of these factories, all to ensure the health and security of Gaza's terrorists.

Latest Latma

Many of the jokes this week would only be understood by Israelis.

38 of worst 50 countries persecuting Christians are Muslim

Here are the countries ranked as the 50 worst in persecuting Christians during 2011:

North Korea

Afghanistan

Saudi Arabia

Somalia

Iran

Maldives

Uzbekistan

Yemen

Iraq

Pakistan

Eritrea

Laos

Northern Nigeria

Mauritania

Egypt

Sudan

Bhutan

Turkmenistan

Vietnam

Chechnya

China

Qatar

Algeria

Comoros

Azerbaijan

Libya

Oman

Brunei

Morocco

Kuwait

Turkey

India

Burma (Myanmar)

Tajikistan

Tunisia

Syria

United Arab Emirates

Ethiopia

Djibouti

Jordan

Cuba

Belarus

Indonesia

Palestinian Territories

Kazakhstan

Bahrain

Colombia

Kyrgyzstan

Bangladesh

Malaysia

Nine of the top ten, and 38 of all 50, are Muslim countries.

Given this list, UN Watch points out the irony that the Organization of the Islamic Conference sponsored a UN resolution entitled "Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping, stigmatization, discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against persons, based on religion or belief."

Netanyahu: "For the first time I see Iran wobble."

From The Australian (registration required):

Benjamin Netanyahu is cast as the ultimate "heavy" of the Middle East. But after a long discussion in this small office, a discussion sandwiched between meeting the Indian foreign minister in the morning and a delegation of powerful US congressmen in the afternoon, Netanyahu extends our time together for a few minutes because there's one thing he likes to show visitors.

He leads me over to his window.

"You see this," he points to a small collection of stones taken from an archeological dig. The stones are dated from nearly 3000 years ago. This is the signet ring of a Jewish official of that time. And the official's name was Netanyahu." The Israeli leader never misses an opportunity to emphasise the long, deep connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.

He is, I suspect, all the things he is said to be: tough, ruthless, determined, qualities it is hardly surprising that an Israeli Prime Minister will possess. But he is also intensely self-aware, full of irony and humour, constantly making jokes he then rules off the record.

He is, in his own words, committed to peace and a fair settlement with the Palestinian people. But, for the moment, he is most of all concerned with the threat from Iran. At last, he believes, international pressure is starting to bite.

"For the first time I see Iran wobble," he declares, in words that will surely shake the Middle East.

Tehran is wobbling, in Netanyahu's view, "under the sanctions that have been adopted and especially under the threat of strong sanctions on their central bank".

Netanyahu believes they just might work: "If these sanctions are coupled with a clear statement from the international community led by the US to act militarily to stop Iran if the sanctions fail, Iran may consider not going through the pain. There's no point in gritting your teeth if you're going to be stopped anyway. In any case, the Iranian economy is showing signs of strain."

A few days before we meet, Iran announces it is moving a big nuclear facility underground. This would make it harder to hit. Netanyahu is trenchant, but measured, in response: "Iran is brazenly violating international law and its own commitments. It's trying to sneak underground its nuclear weapons program.

"It's enriching uranium now in two facilities. I believe this is a great danger to the peace of the Middle East and the world as a whole."

Netanyahu wants to stress that it is not only Israel that would be endangered by an Iran with nuclear weapons: "The greatest threat facing humanity is that nuclear weapons will meet up with a radical Islamic regime, or that a radical Islamic regime may meet up with nuclear weapons. The first will happen if the Taliban takes over Pakistan. The second will happen if the ayatollah regime were to acquire nuclear weapons. Either one would be a catastrophic development for peace, for the supply of oil to the world, for the peace and safety of many countries, first of all my own, but also many others."

If Iran is the most acute issue Israel faces, the agonising effort to find a modus vivendi with the Palestinian populations in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem is the most chronic and pathological. Shortly after he became Prime Minister for the second time three years ago, Netanyahu surprised many by declaring his commitment to a Palestinian state.

"My vision of peace is a demilitarised Palestinian state that recognises the Jewish state of Israel," he said.

For much of the past three years the Palestinians have demanded that Israel stop all construction beyond the 1967 borders, that is, in the West Bank, and in the Jewish suburbs of East Jerusalem, and said it would not enter peace negotiations without that pre-condition being met. Israel responded that East Jerusalem occupied a different status from the West Bank and that within the West Bank it would not occupy any more land for Jewish settlements, but would not stop construction within existing settlements. This week, for the first time in a very long time, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Jordan to talk directly. What does Netanyahu hope these talks can achieve?

"The most important thing to come out of them is a commitment to have continuing negotiations in order to achieve an agreement. We're prepared to do that, the Palestinians aren't. They keep piling on pre-conditions for the beginning of such negotiations. I think this is a mistake.

"Israel is prepared to sit down without pre-conditions, the Palestinians are not. There's a simple way to prove it. I'm willing to get in a car and travel the eight minutes, 10 minutes, from here to Ramallah and sit down to negotiations immediately with (Palestinian) President (Mahmoud) Abbas. He is not prepared to do the same thing with me. This may not be the fashionable international perception, but sometimes it's important to cut through the accepted perception and get to the truth."

But could a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians really be practical in today's environment?

"We can't know until we do it. Obviously much has changed in the last year with the convulsions that have rocked the Arab world. This increases our concerns for our security because we are concerned that any territory we vacate will be taken over by radical Islamic forces. That has happened already twice - Lebanon taken over by Iran's proxy, Hezbollah. And when we left Gaza and it was taken over by Iran's proxy, Hamas. We cannot let this happen a third time, to have the Judean and Samarian (West Bank) mountains taken over by Iran.

"Israel would be left in a tiny corridor - 10 miles wide by the sea, and have over 100,000 rockets targeting our cities, our air fields, our vital installations. So, naturally, we are concerned about having security safeguards."

When a nation is absorbed with as many immediate threats and issues as Israel is, it can be easy to lose sight of the longer term, the more fundamental questions. But Netanyahu is deeply absorbed in both Jewish tradition and the wider world of ideas. He recently read Gertrude Himelfarb's study, The People of the Book, which recounts the tale of pro-Jewish sentiment within British history, what Netanyahu calls "philo-Semitism". It is perhaps typical of Netanyahu's robust outlook that he likes to take consolation from the existence of philo-Semitism as much as he is sobered by the evidence and legacy of anti-Semitism. Nonetheless, I ask him why there is so much hostility to Israel in the world. "First of all, it's not so uniform as one might think. I just had breakfast with the Indian foreign minister. We talked about great projects of co-operation. It was a very positive conversation. We have similar experiences with China, which we feel has a desire for greater co-operation with Israel. Both countries express a real appreciation for Israeli technology. Israel has become a world power in technology: in agriculture, in medicine, in irrigation, in telecommunications, in IT, in cyber and in many other areas.

"Our president just went to Vietnam. Israel, I would say, is quite popular in Asia. People judge that it makes sense to have a close collaboration with Israel in the 21st century, the century of knowledge. I said in jest to the Indian foreign minister that together our two countries comprise about one sixth of humanity. We're small, but we punch above our weight."

Netanyahu is actually making a profound point here. Israel is making very big gains in Asia, which an Atlantic-centric Western media and the Arab world both tend to miss. Israel is making significant progress in Asia diplomatically, economically, in all measures of trade and in military-to-military exchanges. And it's not just in Asia that Netanyahu has something positive to talk about: "The same thing is happening in Africa. I'm going there soon, but I just had visits from the leaders of Uganda, Kenya and South Sudan. They're concerned with the Islamist tide above them.

"We have excellent relations with many countries of central Europe. They're concerned with the Islamist tide to the south. Canada is like the other Australia, or Australia is like the other Canada, an extraordinary country.

"I would also mention that small, little-known country called the United States of America. The support for Israel in the US has skyrocketed. It has always been high, but it has gone up year by year."

Netanyahu cites a plethora of polls to bolster this claim, and continues: "An overwhelming swath of the American public identifies with Israel because they view it as sharing the same values and ideals as the US.

"So the description of Israel as isolated in the world is not correct.

"I didn't even talk about certain connections we have in the Arab world where there is concern with the directions things might go."

Nonetheless, Netanyahu certainly acknowledges a deep hostility to Israel in parts of the Western press and in parts of the Arab world: "Where you have this antagonism to Israel, it is intensified in certain segments of Western European opinion, not necessarily European opinion as a whole, but Western European opinion.

"Obviously you have bastions of friendship there for Israel, but you also have an amalgam, a strange union between radical Islamists and radical people on the fringe of European politics.

"It's almost as if the Anarchists join the Islamists. These radicals speak often of being progressive, of being for gay rights, women's rights and so on. The only point of common cause they make with radical Islamists is animosity to Israel and to the US. Israel is seen as representing the US. It's the most anti-Western forces in the West that cause the problem. They can sometimes even shape the positions of some governments."

Is traditional anti-Semitism a part of this?

"There is traditional anti-Jewish feeling in the Islamist movements. That is different from traditional European anti-Semitism. There are two forces in the West - traditional anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism. In the 19th century philo-Semitism won. There was a shift in the inter-war years. The pendulum has swung from very strong support for Zionism in British intellectual circles to opposition.

"In general the European vision of Israel is different from the American. The formative European experience in foreign affairs was colonialism. The formative American experience was nation-building. Some Europeans wrongly conceive of Israel as a foreign implantation in someone else's land. We don't view ourselves as foreign interlopers in our own land."

The wearer of the signet ring, that earlier Netanyahu officiating in Jerusalem those millennia ago, no doubt felt the same.

(h/t P)

What does it mean to be pro-Israel today?

Moment magazine has a very interesting (and somewhat puzzling) list of people answering the question "What does it mean to be pro-Israel today?"

I would answer it a bit differently than the esteemed contributors.

An important Jewish concept is to be "dan l'chaf zechut," to give the benefit of the doubt. And if there is a distinction to be made between the pro-Israel and the anti-Israel crowd, it is that the former practices this dictum with respect to Israel and the latter tramples upon it.

When anything happens in Israel that looks bad on the surface, the vast majority of the time it can be shown to have been misunderstood or even fabricated. The psyche of Israelis is one of morality; while there might be exceptions one cannot fairly say that Israel is an immoral country. There is always another side to the story, one that sadly does not get the publicity of the seemingly bad one.

To be pro-Israel is to start with the assumption that Israel is right, and to be skeptical when things look otherwise. In the end, perhaps the explanation will not be satisfactory, but one needs to make the effort to at least find out what it is. If you are truly pro-Israel you would first do everything possible to find out the truth. That is what support means.

In short, being pro-Israel means treating it the way you would treat your own loving family.

It is a shame that some people who call themselves "pro-Israel" do the exact opposite - they take every sensationalist story out of the region as a priori proof that Israel is in the wrong. That is not "pro-Israel" by any definition. The excuse that they are doing it "for Israel's good" rings hollow when their antipathy is so consistent.

Being pro-Israel means that you are willing to be dan l'chaf zechut towards the Jewish nation.

"Freedom Convoys" to Syria blocked in Turkey and Jordan

From Gulf Daily News:

Authorities prevented a convoy of 200 opposition activists yesterday from entering Syria via Turkey with medical aid for victims of the ongoing uprising.

Some of the activists said they had travelled from as far afield as the US and western Europe in order to join the so-called 'Freedom Convoy' which included five buses and several cars.

Brandishing Syrian flags, the convoy was initially stopped by Turkish police at a lay-by, 15km from Oncupinar customs gate in the southeastern Turkish town of Kilis.

And a delegation from the convoy which approached the border was later turned back by Syrian officials and returned empty-handed.

"Our delegation was denied entry and so we have decided to stay here until we reach a decision all together," said Dalati Bilal, a 42-year-old Syrian-American businessman who had travelled to Turkey from California.

"If the Syrians refuse (to let us in) then we will just camp here until they allow us to.

"The whole idea of the convoy is to support the Syrian people inside, to show that we are with them even if it's so little what we are doing. They are dying for freedom."

Zeyna Adi, one of the organisers, said a second "Freedom Convoy" which had been hoping to enter Syria via Jordan was cancelled at "the last minute" after being blocked by the authorities there.

Curiously, no one seems to be blaming Turkey and Jordan for stopping them.

Islamists tell us their plans, Westerners hope for the best

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from a Friday sermon delivered by Egyptian cleric Ali Abu Al-Hasan, which aired on Al-Hekma TV on January 6, 2012:

Ali Abu Al-Hasan: With the [Muslim] emigration [to Europe], and the unwillingness to get married and have children [among the Europeans]… A hundred of people there are succeeded by eighty, and ten years later, those eighty will be succeeded by sixty, and those sixty will later be succeeded by forty, and those forty will become ten a decade later, and twenty years later, not a single one of them will be left!

Europe has realized this. After a while, Europe will become a single Islamic state, which will know nothing but "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His Messenger." This will happen whether they like it or not. This is the decree of Allah. Islam is coming!

But if this message gets you upset, please latch onto what British Foreign Secretary William Hague has to say about the Arab Spring:

Electoral success by parties rooted in Islam has led some to fear that change may be for the worse. But to say that Arab Spring has turned into cold winter is wrong. Such pessimism misses the extraordinary opportunities that popular demand for freedom and dignity bring...[G]reater freedom and democracy in the Middle East is an idea whose time has come. It holds the greatest prospect for the enlargement of human freedom and dignity since the end of the Cold War.

It is true that parties drawing their inspiration from Islam have done better at the polls than secular parties and there are legitimate concerns about what this will mean. ...But these parties will be under pressure to stick by their pledges to share power and chart a moderate course.

Now is not the time to lose faith in the Arab awakening — but to show the same boldness in our thinking as the people of the region have shown in their actions.

See? Now you can breathe easier again. Things will all work out great.

As long as you have faith.

(h/t Israelinurse)

Salafi leader in Egypt: Forbidden to greet Christians on their holidays

From Al Masry al Youm:

Abdel Moneim al-Shahat, a senior figure in the Salafi-oriented Nour Party and the official spokesperson for the Salafi movement in Alexandria, said in a television interview on Wednesday that giving festive greetings to Copts on their occasions is forbidden under Islam.

Shahat is known for making controversial statements based on his extreme Salafi views, and some blame him for causing his party to lose seats during the recent parliamentary elections.

His comments on Wednesday came during an interview with Moataz al-Demerdash, the presenter of the “Masr el-Gededa” talk show on the privately owned on Al-Hayat satellite channel.

In the same interview, Shahat said: “The maximum tolerance for this belief [Christianity] is that I tell them: "You have your own religion, and I have my own religion.”

He continued: "The Christian is a partner in my homeland, but this has nothing to do with greetings."

His stance contrasts with official views on the matter of greeting Copts during Christian holidays, with many Muslim establishment figures attending public occasions related to Christmas and Easter, and publicly greeting figures from Christian denominations.

The Salafist Nour party has received roughly 25% of the vote in the parliamentary elections.

You can read Shahat's opinion on Christmas in this article.

Unity! Haniyeh says Abbas tried to stop leaders from meeting him

Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh is accusing Mahmoud Abbas of attempting to prevent the leaders of Arab countries from meeting him on his recent mini-tour.

Haniyeh said in a speech in Gaza City on Thursday, "I told by the brothers in Tunis, that Abbas sent a message to prevent the President of Tunisia from receiving me.

"Tunisia is a country of law and it received Haniyeh as the legitimate Prime Minister according to the law."

It appears that Haniyeh's charges are correct. There have been other reports of the PA being upset at his trip, acting like the Prime Minister of Palestine. Moreover, Fatah apparently planted a false story in the Palestinian Arab media about Meshal telling Arab leaders not to meet with Haniyeh.

Another manifestation of Hamas/Fatah "unity" - scheming behind the scenes to take the other side down.

(h/t CHA)

What is the Muslim Brotherhood's goal? Oh, just world domination.

Mohammed el-Badi, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, spoke at the end of December in a speech that was reported on in Al Masry al Youm. Here is a translation of part of that speech:

The Brotherhood is getting closer to achieving its greatest goal as envisioned by its founder, Imam Hassan al-Banna. This will be accomplished by establishing a righteous and fair ruling system, with all its institutions and associations, including a government evolving into a rightly guided caliphate and mastership of the world....When the Brotherhood started its advocacy [da’wa], it tried to awaken the nation from its slumber and stagnation, to guide it back to its position and vocation. In his message at the sixth caucus, the Imam [Banna] defined two goals for the Brotherhood: a short term goal, the fruits of which are seen as soon as a person becomes a member of the Brotherhood; and a long term goal that requires utilizing events, waiting, making appropriate preparations and prior designs, and a comprehensive and total reform of all aspects of life.The Imam [Banna] delineated transitional goals and detailed methods to achieve this greatest objective, starting by reforming the individual, followed by building the family, the society, the government, and then a rightly guided caliphate and finally mastership of the world.

There seems to be a formula we can apply: history's biggest pushers of the fraud known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are invariably those who really actively plan to take over the world themselves.

(h/t DG via Raymond Ibrahim)

Imagine the headline: "Evil Zionist doctor murders unborn Iranian child"

This is from a couple of months ago, but in light of the earlier post about the Dutch woman who felt that Israeli doctors showed their racism by treating her pregnancy with way too much care, this seems appropriate:

Although the leaders of Iran regard Israel as a Satan to be destroyed by nuclear weapons, Israeli medicine is regarded as excellent by some Iranian doctors, including one who consulted a senior physician at Kaplan Medical Center and prevented complications that would have risked a pregnant woman’s life.

Dr. Adi Weissbuch of the unit for at-risk pregnancies at the Rehovot hospital was recently contacted with urgency via e-mail by a female doctor who identified herself as “NN” from an Iranian-university hospital.

She had read a comprehensive article published in an international medical journal in which Weissbuch wrote about a rare genetic complication of pregnancy and supplied his e-mail address at the bottom.

Consultation was urgent, the Iranian doctor wrote, because according to Islamic law, abortion is forbidden after the 18th week of pregnancy, and her patient was already in her 16th week. She sent the Kaplan physician a copy of lab results and asked his opinion.

Weissbuch wrote back that on the basis of the data, there was very little chance that the woman would have a healthy baby and that delivering the baby would endanger her life. The Rehovot doctor had discussed a very similar case in his article.

After receiving the information, the Iranian doctor advised the woman to undergo an abortion immediately, and she did so.

This is of course just part of the slow genocide that Zionists are perpetrating on the unborn Iranian people.

(h/t Yoel)

Palestinian-Lebanese historian says "Protocols" describes Judaism perfectly

From MEMRI:

On December 27, 2011, the Palestinian-Lebanese historian Bayan Nuwayhed Al-Hout published an article in the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, which dealt, among other things, with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and their connection to Judaism, the Zionist movement and the state of Israel.

In her article, Al-Hout claims that the Protocols are an exact reflection of the Zionist idea and Jewish thought, and that their true essence is a Jewish aspiration to rule the world by various means. Therefore, "the question of the Protocols' authenticity is no longer relevant."

Al-Hout writes: "Those who judge the Protocols by the literal text might find that they [resemble] an imaginary and impractical tale more than a political program. However, those who judge the Protocols by their general spirit and essence will find that they are an exact reproduction of statements and writings by Zionist leaders past and present, and of the principles of the Zionist movement."

According to Al-Hout, "The Zionist idea and the Zionist plans up until the time of Herzl, let alone those that followed, such as [the plans of] Ben Gurion and Begin, are permeated with the spirit of the Protocols and their general essence. Harming democracy and praising dictatorship are cornerstones of the state [envisioned by] Herzl; use of money for political purposes is [this country's] only method. The media, or "the press" in the language of the Protocols, was utilized by Herzl and Zionism, just as [the Protocols instruct]... Western media, and particularly the American media, which is currently controlled by Zionism, is proof of this."

Regarding the link between Judaism and the Protocols, Al-Hout writes: "[The Protocols] completely correspond to [the words of] the great Rabbis throughout the ages, and to the Talmud itself. The Chosen People is a basic Talmudic concept, meaning the people who were chosen to rule and dictate."

The idea that Palestinian Lebanese are anti-semitic is nothing particularly new

What is notable is that this same newspaper's English edition hosts columns by Max Blumenthal, Antony Loewenstein and Ben White,

Think any of them will protest their newspaper publishing anti-semitism - or applaud it?

Anyway, this gives me the opportunity to display a great video on the topic that I haven't shown since 2006, when my readership was a bit smaller than now.

(h/t CHA)

Russian arms ship makes it to Syria despite being caught

Yesterday:

Russia's apparent military support for the Syrian regime emerged on Wednesday when a Russian ship carrying 60 tonnes of arms for Damascus was stopped in Cyprus.

The MV Chariot, which set off from St Petersburg in early December, was forced to pull into the Greek Cypriot port of Limassol because of stormy seas. It had been on its way to Turkey and Syria, inspectors said.

Customs officials who boarded the ship discovered four containers. They were unable to open them but concluded that they contained a "dangerous cargo". State radio in Cyprus went further, alleging that the Chariot was carrying "tens of tonnes of munitions".

Russia is one of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's few remaining international allies. Moscow resents what it regards as western encroachment on its traditional sphere of influence and has continued to supply Damascus with advanced weapons and other arms, to the annoyance of Washington.

For its part, Syria gives Russia a strategic foothold in the Mediterranean via a shared naval maintenance facility in the port of Tartus.

The cargo ship was apparently heading to the Syrian port city of Latakia. As well as blocking a UN resolution last October in the security council, condemning Syria's human rights resolutions, the Kremlin is sending its warships to call on Syrian ports this summer.

The Cypriot foreign ministry said the boat was allowed to continue its voyage after assurances from the Russian owners it would not go to Syria. The Chariot, a St Vincent and Grenadines-flagged ship, technically broke an EU arms embargo to Syria, imposed amid Assad's continued violent crackdown against peaceful demonstrators.

And today:

A Russian ship, allegedly carrying tons of weapons, made a dash for Syria after Cypriot officials allowed it to leave their waters, Turkish officials said Thursday.

The ship had made an unscheduled stop in Cyprus Tuesday, technically violating an EU embargo on arms shipments to Syria, which has killed thousands in a crackdown on dissent.

Cypriot officials — told by the ship's owners it was heading for Syria and Turkey — only allowed the ship to leave Wednesday after the owners said it had changed its destination for Turkey only.

But Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal — citing information from the Turkish navy — said the ship had docked Thursday at the Syrian port of Tartus, which Russian warships use as a resupply stop.

The St. Vincent and Grenadines-flagged ship, the Chariot, had apparently turned off its tracking device and the information could not be independently verified.

Once again I am disappointed that Russian arms smugglers, shipping explosives to a murderous regime so it can kill thousands of its own people, would actually lie to the nice people in Cyprus.

What's the world coming to when you can't trust people? They looked so nice, too. And honest.

There is another protest against UNRWA at the Nusseirat camp today over an alleged reduction of services. Apparently a clinic reduced its evening hours.

One of the leaders of the protest. Munir Abu, said that UNRWA's services to the Palestinian Arabs for the past six decades were not a favor, but a "right" of the "refugees." He claims that this right was affirmed by UN resolution 194 and lots of others, saying that until the Palestinian Arabs "return" to the nonexistent homes of their ancestors it is the international community's obligation to support them. He called on UNRWA to actually increase services, warning that failure to do so would constitute a "humanitarian crisis."

Nusseirat is in Gaza. It is in Palestinian Arab occupied territory. There is no reason the residents there should be considered refugees, even under the tortured UNRWA definition allowing descendants to inherit that designation forever, because they are already in what they consider their own land. There is nothing stopping the PA from dismantling the camps in its own territory and telling everyone to stop whining and do something productive.

But the reality is that the camps are there for a reason - to foment hate towards Israel, either directly via the residents or indirectly via people being angry that poor "refugees" are stuck in camps ostensibly because of Israel.

UNRWA has no plans to mainstream "refugees" into having normal lives - even if they live in "historic Palestine!" Rather than act like a real refugee agency where the goal is to reduce the number of people getting services, UNRWA encourages the problem to grow, and thereby keeping themselves in business to beg for more money every year to forestall yet another budget crisis directly due to their policies.

And so it goes.

(Update: Corrected a basic fact h/t Ian.)

Latest libel: Israel's doctors are too careful with their patients' lives

The Dutch newspaper Trouw has an unbelievable article written by Ilse Van Heusden, who had pre-natal care done in Israel for her child.

Her verdict? "The Chosen People have to be perfect."

Van Heudsen's thesis is that Israelis value Jewish children's lives because they think they are better than everyone else. Therefore, they recommend all of these unnecessary tests to make sure that they have nice, perfect children. Israelis, she says, are obsessed with perfect children, and will abort any child who falls short of this standard.

It is, to her, irresponsible to care that much about a mere baby. Her implication is that it is borderline racist.

Here's the kicker: Tests showed that she had a virus, CMV. As a result, Israeli doctors recommended a battery of tests to ensure that her baby would not be infected with the virus, since 20% of babies with CMV develop serious health problems.

Most people I know would insist on doing everything possible to ensure the health of a baby. But Israel-haters are a special breed indeed.

She saw every test as proof of the Chosen People's absurd obsession with the health of an unborn child. She considered her Israeli doctor, doing everything possible to ensure the health of her baby, a scaremonger. She complains that "the Israeli health insurance reimburses unlimited fertility treatments for women to 45 years, until they have two children. In the Netherlands there is a limit to the number of treatments and there is debate about treating women older than forty."

How dare they!

She even says:

Finally we held this little baby boy in our arms that went through all those tests. When we admired his little fingers and toes we saw that one of his toes was too small. His personal revenge on the Israeli health system.

Yochanan Visser of Missing Peace has an excellent point-by-point critique of her article and points out the factual errors she makes about Israel's health care system.

But the article itself is very simple: A woman who hates Israel is trying to find a racist motive for the excellent pre-natal care she received.

Which just goes to prove that hate has no rhyme or reason, and that haters can take any fact and twist it in their minds to fit their pre-determined conclusions.

Muslim Brotherhood flip-flops, now says it would consider allying with Salafis

Last month the Muslim Brotherhood website said:

The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) denied alleged alliance with the Salafist al-Noor Party, and confirmed that the only electoral coalition now is with the Democratic Alliance which includes 11 parties, al-Noor not one of them.

Saad El Katatny, FJP Secretary General, criticized media fabrication of news about the FJP and its alleged alliance with the Salafist al-Noor Party to form an "Islamist government," and urged Egyptian media to abide by professional standards of accuracy and objectivity at this critical timing.

This was echoed at OnIslam a couple of days ago:

Salafi and Brotherhood leaders have ruled out an alliance between the two Islamist groups in parliament as Salafis are seen as politically inexperienced.

But now Al Jazeera says that the MB's Freedom and Justice Party is considering an alliance with the Salafi Nour party.

A deputy of the Muslim Brotherhood told the newspaper that FJP is still looking at all possible coalition partners, but that it is "obvious" that there will be some sort of alliance with Nour and it would be natural to invite them into the coalition.

Al Masry al Youm said on Sunday that the FJP was considering a coalition with Nour, as one of five options the party is studying.

Syria death toll for 2012 tops 300

Here is the death toll in Syria since January 2, according to Al Arabiya quoted in Now Lebanon:

2-Jan	24
3-Jan	19
4-Jan	21
5-Jan	30
6-Jan	61*
7-Jan	26
8-Jan	32
9-Jan	18
10-Jan	36
11-Jan	27

I don't have the number killed on January 1, but unless Assad's troops took a holiday this means that there have already been over 300 killed in Syria this year.

(*this number includes the 26 victims of the suicide bombing in Damascus)

Jimmy Carter has "no problem" with Islamists in power (ElderToon)

AFP reports:

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter gave the thumbs up on Tuesday to Egypt’s parliamentary elections, saying the people’s will was “expressed accurately.”

“We have been very pleased,” Carter told reporters during a tour of a polling station at the Rod al-Farag girls’ secondary school in a working class district of the Egyptian capital

Asked about Islamists coming to power, Carter said: “I have no problem with that. The U.S. government has no problem with that either.”

The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party's platform, when discussing women, says (in Arabic) that it aims to "Ensure that all women get their rights as long as these don’t contradict Islamic Sharia and as long as they are balanced against their duties." Meaning that the FJP is explicitly against equal rights for women.

The platform also criticizes the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Yes, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and supposed defender of human rights - who quit the Southern Baptist Convention because of its stand towards women - has no problem with the most populous Arab nation being controlled by a group whose platform is explicitly against equal rights for women (not to mention its attitude towards Egyptian religious minorities.)

Where is the outrage from Carter's fellow liberals?

Turkey to rebuild mosques in Gaza

From Hurriyet Daily News:

Turkey will help Palestinians in the Gaza Strip repair mosques damaged in Israeli strikes and rebuild those torn down, the head of the Religious Affairs Directorate Mehmet Görmez said yesterday.

“As the Directorate of Religious Affairs, we will help them in every way possible to repair and rebuild the destroyed mosques,” Görmez said after a meeting with his counterpart from Gaza, Salih Alreqed.

(h/t D)

"Attempted murder" against rabbi in New Jersey

From CBS New York:

Authorities are investigating a firebombing of a northern New Jersey home attached to a synagogue as attempted murder and bias-related arson.

The fire was reported around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday at Congregation Beth El in Rutherford.

Police say someone threw explosive devices through the window.

“Incendiary devices were used to attempt to start of a fire in the upstairs portion of the structure which is a residence,” Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli told 1010 WINS’ Steve Sandberg.

Rabbi Nosson Schuman, who lives in the home with his wife and five children, said he saw a flash of fire outside his bedroom window before his bedspread caught fire.

“The fire in the bedroom, I had to go put it out. My quilt was on fire. I had to put it out,” he told WCBS 880′s Sean Adams. “Got the kids out and realized that this must have been a continuation of the hate crimes that have been occurring throughout the area.”

Schuman said damage to his home and congregation were minimal.

CBS 2′s Christine Sloan reports Schuman suffered burns to his hands but neighbors said he is doing okay.

Authorities say multiple devices were tossed at the home, including Molotov cocktails and rigged aerosol cans. All appeared as if they were being aimed at the second floor of the house.

Officials say whoever did this was targeting Schuman.

“At this point it’s not just a hate crime and a bias crime. It’s now an attempted murder,” said Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli.

It comes just one day before a meeting between representatives of more than 80 synagogues, law enforcement and some Jewish day schools to discuss several incidents targeting Jewish temples in Bergen County.

There was a suspicious fire and two anti-Semitic graffiti incidents in the past few weeks.

It is a small Orthodox synagogue that looks like a converted house:

PA TV sermon: "Every evil in the world is caused by Jews"

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from a Friday sermon in Al-Bireh, the West Bank, which aired on Palestinian Authority TV on January 6, 2012.

Preacher: “Oh servants of Allah, every evil and catastrophe on the land of Palestine – moreover, in the whole world – is caused by the Jews.

“They generate civil strife with their clandestine handiwork, their despicable texts, their bitter hearts, and their abominable intentions.

“Allah said: ‘Whenever they kindle the fire of war, Allah extinguishes it, but they strive to do mischief on earth. Allah loves not those who do mischief.’ This is the history of the Jews.

“Many a covenant have they violated.

“Many a prophet have they slayed.”

I think Israel is way overdue for a peace treaty with these guys, don't you?

(This was run on the official PA TV - not Hamas, not a pirate channel, but the TV channel that reflects the opinions of the PLO.)

(h/t CHA)

Egyptian media spinning Abuhatzeira tomb ban

From Al Masry Al Youm:

For the first time in years, nine-year-old Sherif and his friend Mahmoud, residents of the village of Damtu, are able to play freely outside their house, which is located across from the tomb of Abu Hasira, a 19th-century Jewish rabbi, after years of deprivation due to security orders.

Sherif, Mahmoud and all of the village residents were finally able to enter the area around the mausoleum without fear. Previously, anyone who tried to enter the area would be beaten, humiliated or imprisoned for weeks because former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly’s security forces had turned the area around the shrine into a military barracks, forbidding anyone from approaching it.

The festival, scheduled for 9 to 10 January, is held on the annual anniversary of the death of Abu Hasira, whose mausoleum is located in the village of Damtu outside Damanhour. A number of political groups in Egypt announced Monday that they plan to protest at the Abu Hasira festival.

The usual security measures were absent around the tomb, which is located on top of the small village’s highest hill. Only one police vehicle with five policemen can now be found at the mausoleum, and for the first time in years, dozens of village residents are visiting the shrine.

Abu Hasira was born in Morocco and, according to Jewish lore, the ship that was carrying him to Palestine sank. Abu Hasira floated on a straw mat that eventually landed on Syrian shores. The rabbi, according to Jewish tradition, went from Syria to Palestine and then on to Egypt.

He died in Damtu in 1880. Every year, thousands of Jews come to celebrate the anniversary of his death.

Al-Masry Al-Youm, together with a number of village residents and activists from the Beheira Governorate, visited the tomb, which Jews failed to visit for the first time after activists declared they would form a human shield to prevent any Israelis from setting foot in the area.

Abu Hasira’s tomb lies in the center of Damtu. It is located on a 5-meter-high hill, where a closed shrine encloses the rabbi’s tomb, and three other tombs, which Jews say belong to his grandchildren. Abu Hasira’s tomb is covered with a large piece of black cloth embossed with Hebrew phrases embroidered with gold thread.

The room that includes the mausoleum is 30 square meters in area and includes three oil paintings of the Jewish rabbi, a marble plaque written in Hebrew at the entrance, and a group of small coin-like pieces placed on top of one of the adjacent tombs. It also contains a small, broken wooden painting and nine wooden windows, most which have been broken as a result of rocks being thrown at them.

After the revolution, a group of people tried to demolish the tomb, but village residents stopped them.

“We are against the tomb, but at the same time we are against demolishing it in such a manner. The revolution didn’t erupt to demolish such tomb,” said Mohamed Fawzym, one of Damtu’s residents.

Umm Abadam, a 50-year-old woman, might be the only resident suffering from the festival's cancellation. She benefited from being the closet neighbor to the tomb.

She used to earn money cooking food for the visitors of the tomb.

“What were [visitors] doing? I used to sell to them. In the beginning, they bought cows and goats from the village. People from Tanta used to come here and sell them cloth. But the number of visitors has decreased, and I was forced by security to not sell them anything,” Umm Abadam told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Bassiony Mohamed, another village resident, shed light on another aspect.

“We had suffered a lot from the visits of Jews. Secret police were all over the place. During the festival, we weren’t able to move freely. The secret police were summoning the people who live close to the tomb and threatening them if something bad happens at the festival,” Mohamed said.

While the article sheds some light on the situation, it is filled with spin.

The newspaper is trying hard to make it sound like the residents have no problem with Jews, but only with the security services that made their lives miserable. But articles about the pilgrimage from previous years show real Jew-hatred, and not merely people upset at the security forces:

In 2008, villagers described it as "another foothold of Jews in Egypt", and complained about practices of the Jewish revelers from the "slaughter of pigs and drinking, dance and exercising unethical behavior."

A group of lawyers sued to stop "this harassment and moral pollution" caused by the Israelis and the Jews of Europe to the people of the village.

The earlier article made it sound like the security cordon was in place only for the week that the pilgrims would arrive, unlike the Al Masry al Youm article that says it was year-round.

Villagers also described "alcoholic celebrations spilled over the tomb, and then the slaughter of sacrifices that are often sheep or pigs, roasting meat, and dancing. Celebrants then hysterically sing Jewish melodies as they become almost naked, and then say some prayers, entreaties and tears to the tomb, burning, beating their heads on a wall and asked for their needs."

And the Facebook groups and others who are determined to stop Jews from coming to Egypt are explicit that they simply don't like Jews in Egypt.

We don't even have to go to previous years to see the hatred of Jews from the residents of the village. A blog called AntiAbuHosira quotes a newspaper as saying the villagers would allow Jews to come "over their dead bodies." Another Facebook group calls on the tomb to be "destroyed immediately."

And who exactly broke every window with rocks?

Iran's currency in freefall; leaders panicking

From Reuters:

Iran's currency has slid 20 percent against the dollar in the last week despite central bank intervention, and Iranians concerned about the economy said on Tuesday attempts to send text messages using the word "dollar" appeared to be blocked.

The central bank reportedly pumped $200 million dollars into the market last Wednesday after new and much tougher U.S. sanctions prompted nervous Iranians to change rials into hard currency, accelerating a rise in the price of dollars on the open market.

Saying it would act to stabilise the currency, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) imposed a rate of 14,000 rials to the dollar - up from record lows of around 18,000 rials - but many exchange offices would not sell at that price.

By Tuesday the exchange rate had risen again to around 17,000 rials, according to exchange bureaus, 50 percent more than the CBI's "reference rate" of 11,240 rials.

The currency slide is a huge risk for consumer prices in a country where the official inflation rate - considered an underestimate by many economists - is already around 20 percent and rising.

In a hint of political sensitivity over the issue, Iranians, long used to controls over Internet and mobile communications, said they were unable to send text messages containing the word "dollar".

"My colleagues and I tried to text each other in the office and to our surprise we found that texts that included words like 'dollar' and 'foreign currency' could not be delivered," said Malek, a 45-year-old government employee in Tehran.

Newspapers reported on the problem, adding that officials had denied filtering text messages. Reuters calls to officials went unanswered.

The head of the Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce, Asadollah Asgaroladi, estimated that annual inflation stood at 40 percent this month and that it would have been 27 percent without the currency slide, Khabaronline, a website close to the government, reported.

There is nothing in the official Iranian press about this.

In related news, India is set to cut Iranian oil imports:

The union government [in India] has told refiners to reduce Iranian oil imports and find alternatives as New Delhi may not seek a waiver that would protect buyers of Tehran's oil from a fresh round of U.S. sanctions, two industry sources said on Wednesday.

India, Iran's second largest oil buyer after China, is already struggling to pay for the crude due to existing sanctions, and fresh U.S. measures aimed at isolating Iran over its nuclear programme will make payment even harder.

The South Asian country buys from Iran about 12 percent of its oil needs, or 350,000-400,000 barrels per day (bpd) and worth $12 billion annually.

Indian oil firms were told by officials at a meeting on Monday that the government was not planning to seek an exemption from the U.S. sanctions, and were advised to reduce dependence on Iran and be ready with alternative supply sources.

It looks like the increased Western sanctions against Iran - and threats of new sanctions - are finally starting to take effect. It is a shame that they were not in place years before.

Is this a case of better late than never?

(h/t Yoel)

Two tunnel families shooting each other in Rafah, Egypt

Two competing family owners of Gaza smuggling tunnels have escalated their war with each other on the Egyptian side of Rafah.

Five people have been injured in recent days from gunshots between the clans. There have also been kidnappings.

Witnesses say that the families shoot at each other during the afternoons.

The families have installed machine guns on the roofs of their houses. Some Palestinian Gazans go through the tunnels to help with the fighting.

The report says that there is effectively no police presence in Rafah since the Egyptian Revolution; the military guards the border and the entrances to the city only.

The tunnel trade to Gaza remains lucrative and strong as ever.

Ismail Haniyeh was quoted in a Gulf newspaper as saying that Hamas remains committed to "resistance" - and he didn't mean protests.

The Hamas leader in Gaza said that "resistance that did not stop as many people imagine, but we are at the stage of study and planning to come back strong as ever, because the Palestinians know that their holy places will not return except by Jihad."

Haniyeh added that "the resistance of the Palestinian people is the only option to restore the Islamic holy sites, especially the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and that jihad is our choice for the restoration of holy places in Palestine."

Haniyeh returned to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday evening after finishing his trip that led him to Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia and Turkey.

Another Iranian nuclear scientist assassinated

From Iran's PressTV:

A terrorist car bomb explosion around a square in northern Tehran has killed yet another Iranian nuclear scientist and wounded two bystanders.

The victim, identified as Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, was a chemical engineering graduate of Iran's prominent Sharif University of Technology and served as marketing deputy of Iran's Natanz nuclear installation.

Witnesses say they spotted a motorcyclist attaching a sticky bomb to a car near a college of the Allameh Tabatabaei University in the Iranian capital on Wednesday.

An investigation is underway over the incident.

Wednesday's terror bombing bears the hallmark of a 2010 terror attack that killed Majid Shahriari, another university professor, in Tehran.

On November 29, 2010, unidentified terrorists slapped adhesive bombs onto the vehicles of Iranian university professors Majid Shahriari and Fereydoun Abbasi and detonated them.

Professor Shahriari was killed immediately, but Dr. Abbasi, the current director of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, and his wife sustained minor injuries and were rushed to a hospital.

On December 2, 2010, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced that the Israeli Mossad, the American CIA, and the British MI6 all played a role in those attacks.

Professor Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, another scholar at Tehran University, was assassinated by a booby-trapped motorbike in the Iranian capital in January 2010.

The terror bombing took place near the professor's home in northern Tehran.

Many analysts assume that the Mossad is behind these assassinations. At least one longtime Iran observer thinks that most of the recent examples of sabotage and assassinations are really from internal Iranian opposition.

Another possibility:

A top Iraqi security official claims that the Mossad has increased its recruitment efforts in country's Kurdish region, focusing mainly on Iranian refugees.

According to France's Le Figaro, the move is part of Israel's efforts to wage an intelligence war against Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The refugees, which according to the paper's sources are Iranian dissidents, are recruited by Israeli agents to target Iranian nuclear experts.

(h/t Yoel)

Tel Aviv named "Best Gay City"

From JPost:

Tel Aviv was voted the best gay city of 2011, according to an online poll on LGBT travel website gaycities.com.

"The gay capitol of the Middle East is exotic and welcoming with a Mediterranean c'est la vie attitude," the website said.

Tel Aviv garnered 43 percent of the vote, far ahead of the next competitor, New York City, which raked in 14%.

Other cities on the list included Toronto, Sao Paulo, Madrid, London, New Orleans, and Mexico City.

I wonder how Ramallah did.

After all, as a tiny percentage of gay people know, the Palestinian Arabs are far more tolerant towards gays than Israel is, and every gay person who voted for Tel Aviv in this poll is obviously "pinkwashed" with evil Zionist propaganda.