Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, January 20, 2012

Fatah nervous about elections

From AP:

Fatah, the mainstream Palestinian national movement whose survival is key to hopes for a peace deal with Israel, appears ill-prepared for a promised electoral showdown with the Islamic militant Hamas.

The movement’s leaders, blaming Fatah’s loss to Hamas in 2006 parliament elections on lack of organization, say this time they’ve come up with a detailed plan to mobilize supporters and field attractive candidates. But skeptics note the party, known for epic infighting, hasn’t even begun looking for a presidential candidate to replace leader Mahmoud Abbas, 76, who says he is retiring.

Some say the movement that once cast itself as a band of swashbuckling revolutionaries needs “rebranding” ─ its star dimmed after two decades of corruption-tainted rule in the Palestinian autonomy zones and the failure of negotiations with Israel meant to produce an independent state.

In the West Bank’s largest city of Hebron, district party leader Kifah Iwaiwi said he spent much of the past four years on the job apologizing for the past misbehavior of Fatah members. Relying largely on volunteers and donations in the campaign, Iwaiwi said one of Fatah’s biggest assets, at least locally, is the ability to solve voters’ personal problems because of its ties to the Palestinian Authority.

Fatah and Hamas ─ after several years of running rival governments in the West Bank and Gaza ─ agreed in principle to “reconcile” and hold presidential and parliamentary elections by May 2012. Since then, Islamists have emerged victorious in parliamentary elections in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, feeding a fear that the Palestinian territories ─ if elections indeed are held ─ could be next.

A political takeover of the West Bank as well by an unreformed, globally shunned Hamas would isolate the Palestinians, crushing any hopes for peace and a negotiated path to Palestinian independence. It could also mean the end to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of annual foreign aid from the West, which regards Hamas as a terror group.

“Everyone feels that if Fatah falls down again, it’s the end,” said Iwaiwi. Hebron overwhelmingly voted for the Islamists last time.

The election date is linked to progress in slow-moving reconciliation talks, and Abbas’ initial election date of May 4 already seems out of reach.

Central Elections Commission director Hisham Kheil said he still awaits Hamas permission to update voter records in Gaza, a process of some six weeks. Elections would be held about three months after preparations are completed, with the date set in a presidential degree by Abbas.

The delay has raised questions about whether Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal are genuinely committed to elections. They announced again last month that they are ready to end the split, but the goodwill gestures promised at the time, such as releasing political detainees and lifting travel bans, have not been carried out. They plan to meet again in Cairo in early February.

Abbas has told Fatah’s 22-member decision-making Central Committee repeatedly that he is serious about retiring and moving forward with elections, and that the party had better find a presidential candidate.

But polls show that only Abbas could defeat a Hamas candidate, and that his lieutenants ─ except senior Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, imprisoned by Israel ─ would win minimal voter support.

Egyptian cleric: "These Jews are a cancer in the body of planet Earth"

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from an address by Egyptian cleric Hazem Shuman, which aired on Al-Rahma TV on September 9, 2011.

Hazem Shuman: What was our response when six Egyptians were killed by Jews on the border? Was the Jewish ambassador summoned? No. Was he expelled from Egypt? No. Was the Egyptian ambassador recalled from Israel? No. So what was the response? Brothers, this is about the honor of the people. I am talking to the Jews in the name of 85 million Egyptians, who hate them from the bottom of their hearts.

[...]

I saw footage of a young Egyptian fighting a lion. He did this for the sake of the thrill. He went into the lion's cage holding a spear, and they filmed him fighting the lion. He got out of the cage after overcoming the lion. I said: By God, young Egyptians who fight lions cannot fight the Jews? Can't they devour the Jews? How many millions of our young men are ready to fight lions... I mean, Jews.

[...]

I address them on behalf of 85 million Egyptians, whose hearts beat with hatred for the Jews, and with the knowledge of what the Jews did to us and of how Allah warned us about them...

I tell them that the battle is bound to come, Allah be praised. The Prophet Muhammad, whose words are divinely inspired, said: "Judgment Day will come when the Muslims fight the Jews." That means that the Muslims will be the ones who engage [in fighting]. It's not just any battle. He said: "The Muslims will fight the Jews, and the stones and the trees will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." Even the stones and the trees hate them. The battle is bound to come.

[...]

Jews will be Jews, guys. The Jews of today are the Jews of Khaybar, who tried to poison the Prophet Muhammad. They are the Jews of Banu Nadhir, who tried to kill the Prophet Muhammad. They are the Jews of Banu Qaynuqa', who tried to lift up a Muslim woman's dress. Jews will be Jews. We know what you are like, you Jews, and we know your hatred toward the religion of Allah, toward the servants of Allah, and toward the Muslims worldwide.

You will be vanquished, Allah willing, but it will not be us who will vanquish you. It will be Allah. Just like He used wind to vanquish you in the War of the Ahzab, and like He used fear to vanquish you in the Battle of Khaybar, Allah will vanquish you again.

Today, 92% of the world's film industry is in your hands, 90% of the world's famous actors are Jews, and 90% of the giant news networks, like CNN, are in Jewish hands.

[...]

Oh nation of Muhammad, Allah says to you: If you fear war with the Jews, brace yourselves for war with Allah. It is either a war with the Jews or a war with Allah. Allah says that the entire nation could be replaced if it is not prepared to sacrifice its blood for the sake of Palestine.

[...]

My message to all the Jews is that the battle is bound to come and you will be vanquished. Allah has promised that you will be vanquished and that we will prevail. I tell you that our Prophet Muhammad, whose every word we believe and whose light we follow - the moment he signed the Hudaybiyya Treaty with Mecca, the first thing he did after the battle with the Quraysh tribe, only 20 days after signing the Hudaybiyya Treaty, he took his army and attacked Khaybar.

Why, oh Messenger of Allah? Because these Jews are a cancer. These Jews are a catastrophe. There is not a catastrophe in the world that is not the handiwork of the Jews. These Jews are a cancer in the body of planet Earth, and if permitted, it will spread and infect the entire body. Getting rid of these Jews is a must.

I think he really meant to say "Zionists." All this is just a slip of the tongue.

Hamas says it will investigate attack on human rights activist. Sure.

Ma'an reports:

The Gaza government on Thursday vowed to find the perpetrators of an attack on a human rights activist who was stabbed in Gaza City.

Mahmoud Abu Rahma was attacked by masked men and stabbed multiple times while walking back from his brother's house on Friday night, he told Ma'an.

"There were three masked men following me, I ran quickly toward the house but I tripped on the stairs and fell over. They began attacking me, stabbing me in my right thigh, three times above my right knee, my back and left shoulder, and cutting off part of my hand," Abu Rahma told MADA, the Palestinian center for media freedoms.

He had received death threats shortly after authoring an op-ed calling for legal redress for victims of misfiring and other operational mistakes by resistance groups as well as violations by Palestinian governments.

The Hamas-led government in Gaza condemned the attack, which it said violated religion, law and customs in a statement Thursday.

The Interior Ministry will investigate the incident and find the perpetrators, the statement said, adding that the government had received a complaint from the Al-Mezan human rights group which employs Abu Rahma.

The main focus of Abu Rahma's article in Gaza was Hamas itself. It is highly likely that he was attacked by one of those masked Hamas "security forces" that show up quite often in Gaza.

Hamas also has a history of attacking NGOs in Gaza, of arresting critics of its policies, and for shutting down any activity that it doesn't explicitly approve.

This should be a fun "investigation."

EoZ Facebook issue fixed

Things are now working again; people can paste links to EoZ from Facebook and you can "Like" my posts again.

Unfortunately, I had to pull some strings to get it done; I don't think FB ever read any of the complaints sent to them through their own forms.

I don't like to use my vast worldwide Zio-powers to accomplish something so trivial, but sometimes you have to bend the rules....Thanks to the members of the International Zionist Conspiracy for helping me out!

Funny Israeli commercial (Well, Iran won't think so.)

Click the CC button to read the subtitles. Not the greatest subtitles, but you'll get it.

Iranian actress told not to return home after nude photo

From The Daily Mail:

An actress who has starred with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe has been banished from her home country of Iran - because she posed nude in a French news magazine.

Golshifteh Farahani says she has been contacted by the Iranian government, telling her that she is no longer welcome in the country and advising her not to return home.

The offending photo - a black-and-white 'art shot' featuring the 28-year-old Farahani posing against a black backdrop with her hands strategically placed over her breasts - was first published in Madame Le Figaro.

Click picture to see the topless photo

Jimmy Carter blames the Jooos for Christian exodus from "Palestine"

Yeah, he's an honest broker:

I wonder how he explains all the Christians leaving Egypt, Iraq, and every other Muslim-majority area? It's got to be Israel's fault somehow; I mean, what else could all those Christian populations have in common?

And the fact that Israel's own Christian population is increasing is just more evidence for Israel's evil. You see, they are nice to some Christians in order to cover their seething hate for Christians.

Call it "crosswashing."

It is so obvious, once you know how the sickening Israeli mind works, right? Luckily Jimmy is an expert.

(h/t jzaik)

The Delilah cruise missile

From the IDF:

“Honestly, it’s the most amazing weapon in the Air Force today.” – These are the words an IAF officer used to describe the Delilah and it’s easy to understand why he is right.

For many years the Delilah was one of the IDF’s biggest secrets, quietly undergoing improvement after improvement, until it became what it is today. Delilah is a cruise missile but it possesses some very unique capabilities that set it apart from the rest.

A typical cruise missile is launched and finds its pre-programmed target with the help of its navigational system. The navigator can send the missile commands and make small adjustments in its flight path, but once the missile begins its final approach no changes can be made. If the missile attacks a target that moves in the last moment or even a wrong target, the missile simply misses with possibly devastating consequences. This is where the Delilah’s special abilities come into play.

Let’s say Delilah is approaching a target and in the last moment the navigator sees on the images transmitted from the missile’s camera that there are civilians in the target zone. All he needs to do is push a button and Delilah aborts its attack, returns to the air and keeps loitering in the target zone until it receives new instructions. Delilah can also be launched in the direction of a suspected target and be instructed to patrol the area and search for its target, effectively functioning as a surveillance drone. Once the navigator identifies the target, he instructs Delilah to approach it. If the target was correctly identified Delilah will attack. If it was not the correct target, a push of a button is enough and Delilah will abort its approach and continue to search for the real target.

In the same article about the latest IDF technology, you can learn about the Simon, an amazing door-breaching weapon:

What do these weapons have in common? They represent years of effort and huge sums of money to create weapons that do not kill innocent people.

How to square that simple fact with the way that Israel-haters prefer to portray the country and the IDF is left as an exercise to the reader.

(h/t JW)

PalArab newspaper reminds readers to shut up about terror orgs

Palestine Today, which is associated with Islamic Jihad, has a curious article telling its readers that some things about "resistance organizations" that must remain unsaid.

Examples of things about members of terror groups that must never be revealed:

Names, jobs and social status
Affiliation
Type of work done
Distinctive marks that could identify someone
Members' temperaments, habits
Members' routines
Where they hang out (mosques, cafes, parks)
Their relatives and friends
Telephone numbers and addresses
Details on their cars or transportation methods

As far as the organizations themselves go:

Objectives, strategies
Precautions
Where secret work is done
Where they get money from
The organization chart
How they recruit
How they communicate
Their front organizations

Somehow, I don't think a "Wikileaks" in Gaza would go over very well.

A paper on Israel-India relations

A student at Israel's National Defense College, Itzhak Gerberg, wrote a nice monograph in 2010 on "India–Israel Relations: Strategic Interests, Politics and Diplomatic Pragmatism." It discusses the reasons why India made its decision in 1992 to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, and by implication it provides a blueprint of how Israel's unique strengths position it to make diplomatic victories.

The transformation of Indian policy on Israel and the establishment of the diplomatic relations on 29 January 1992 are considered by India one of the most important steps in Indian diplomacy. The former Secretary of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs J. N. Dixit, described it thus:

I consider our establishing relations with South Africa and then with Israel as the most significant among developments in India’s foreign policy, which occurred during my period as Foreign Secretary (Dixit 1996).
To comprehend India-Israel relations it is essential to understand the change of the Indian policy towards Israel as a formative event that led to the evolving relationship between the two countries.

After the establishment of diplomatic ties, the relationship became a cornerstone of the two countries’ foreign policy, with direct implications for their national security. This was particularly notable under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments in India. In May 2004 a new Indian government, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), was formed by the Congress party headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Relations with Israel thereupon were moderated somewhat. Nevertheless, the relations of the two countries with regard to defence have continued to develop, based on the convergence of their strategic interests.

The paper describes the congruence of interests between the two states:

Military
Counter-terrorism
Intelligence
Foreign Affairs
Economic
Geo-strategic (energy and the Indian Ocean)
Nuclear power

The National Defense College itself is fascinating. It focuses on the study of national defense: the relationship between economic strength, military power, social strength, and the international status of the country. Upon graduation, students get a masters degree in political science and an NDC graduation certificate. Students are required to conduct a research, submit several papers, to write tests and to participate in simulations.

There are between thirty and forty students in the NDC. The students are colonels and lieutenant colonels of the Israeli Defense Force, and their equivalents in the government service.

The NDC inaugurated an international program in 2006, in which officers from other countries study in Israel at the NDC for one year towards receiving an M.A. from Haifa University. The students are usually colonels. There have been students every year from the United States, Singapore, Germany - and India. In addition, the NDC has taught French and Italian officers.

But, I am told, no British officer has ever attended.

(h/t Ruchie)

Security conference in Bahrain reveals Arab fears. Israel not mentioned.

There was a major regional security conference held in Bahrain this week, meant to position the Gulf Cooperation Council countries for the challenges in the new Middle East.

One of the themes of the conference was the threat from Iran:

Saudi Arabia's former intelligence chief says the Iranian escalation will lead to "misadventure", stressing the readiness of the Arab Gulf States to use all options available to defend their interests.

Prince Turki al-Faisal said that "everyone heard about the provocative maneuvers carried out in the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea, as well as statements by the leaders of Iran on the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the targeting of neighboring countries."

Quoted by the local media Wednesday the senior prince stated that "the increasing escalation and tension may lead to a misadventure or a military confrontation." Prince Turki stressed that the Gulf states are not part of the conflict between Iran and the West over Tehran's nuclear program, however he noted that the GCC countries are fully committed to "legitimacy and international laws."

Many of the speakers talked about the challenges of economic disparities and some speakers floated the idea of a federation between the six GCC states in the face of external threats. Women's rights were also a minor topic.

(One of the less serious speakers was our old friend Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan, General Commander of Dubai Police, who had his fifteen minutes of fame with his bizarre announcements after the assassination of Mahmoud Mabhouh in Dubai. He said that the Muslim Brotherhood was no less dangerous as Iran is. He also criticized US policy in the Gulf.)

The Bahrain News Agency summarized every speech.

And it is most interesting that in a major Gulf conference of the priorities for regional security, neither the word "Israel" nor the word "Palestine" was mentioned once - but Iran was mentioned in the summary 50 times.

When these same leaders speak to Western leaders and newspapers, they always position Israel as the single biggest threat to the world's security, and pretend it is their top priority. But when they are speaking to their own, they show their true feelings and fears. They aren't afraid of Israeli "aggression" because they know that Israel is not a threat to them, directly or indirectly.

They fear the Islamists, they fear Iran, and they fear modernization sprinting ahead of their own abilities to lead their people.

But they don't fear Israel.

UPDATE: Ma'ariv reported that a Gulf country communicated with Israel that sanctions against Iran will not help, "and in the end we will all go to Heaven." (h/t Yoel)

The godmother of today's Jewish defamers of Israel

Sol Stern in City Journal writes a long and excellent article, "Hannah Arendt and the Origins of Israelophobia." Here are some excerpts:

In last year’s extensive commentary marking the 50th anniversary of the Eichmann trial, one name—Hannah Arendt—was mentioned nearly as often as that of the trial’s notorious defendant. It’s hard to think of another major twentieth-century event so closely linked with one author’s interpretation of it. Arendt, who fled Nazi Germany at 27, was already an internationally renowned scholar and public intellectual when she arrived in Jerusalem in April 1961 to cover the trial for The New Yorker. Arendt’s five articles, which were then expanded into the 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, proved hugely controversial. Many Jewish readers—and non-Jews, too—were shocked by three principal themes in Arendt’s report: her portrayal of Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion as the cynical puppet master manipulating the trial to serve the state’s Zionist ideology; her assertion that Eichmann was a faceless, unthinking bureaucrat, a cog in the machinery of the Final Solution rather than one of its masterminds; and her accusation that leaders of the Judenräte (Jewish councils) in Nazi-occupied Europe had engaged in “sordid and pathetic” behavior, making it easier for the Nazis to manage the logistics of the extermination process.

Since the publication of Eichmann in Jerusalem, serious scholars have debunked the most inflammatory of Arendt’s charges. Nevertheless, for today’s defamers of Israel, Arendt is a patron saint, a courageous Jewish intellectual who saw Israel’s moral catastrophe coming. These leftist intellectuals don’t merely believe, as Arendt did, that she was the victim of “excommunication” for the sin of criticizing Israel. Their homage to Arendt runs deeper. In fact, their campaign to delegitimize the state of Israel and exile it from the family of nations—another kind of excommunication, if you will—derives several of its themes from Arendt’s writings on Zionism and the Holocaust. Those writings, though deeply marred by political naivety and personal rancor, have now metastasized into a destructive legacy that undermines Israel’s ability to survive as a lonely democracy, surrounded by hostile Islamic societies.

...When you review Hannah Arendt’s voluminous writings on Jewish affairs in the decades from 1942 to 1963, it is shocking to discover how mistaken she was on so many issues. She was wrong on the charge of “fascism” leveled against Jabotinsky, Bergson, and Begin; she was wrong in her judgment that the Soviet Union was protecting Jewish national rights; she was wrong to remain silent about the Roosevelt administration’s abandonment of the European Jews; she was wrong about Israel’s ability to defend itself in 1948 without foreign intervention; she was wrong in insisting that the binational approach provided a realistic solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict; and, above all, she was wrong to claim that the Holocaust had become Israel’s justification for abusing innocent Palestinians.

Despite these monumental errors of political and moral judgment, Arendt’s published work on Zionism, Israel, and the Holocaust continues to be viewed by leftist intellectuals as a model of truth-telling and integrity. In the pages of the liberal journals that Arendt once wrote for, we hear echoes of her disdain for a Jewish (now Israeli) tribalism that threatens world peace and universal human rights. How familiar it sounds when her disciples instruct the people of Israel that they must make amends for their previous sins by risking their own security and either ushering in an independent Palestinian state or creating a new binational state with their Palestinian brothers. Familiar, too, are the complaints of excommunication and suppression when the stubborn, parochial Jews decide to reject this gratuitous advice.

Arendt got pretty much everything wrong about Israel, but is regarded as a saint by the anti-Zionist Left. There are a number of cogent analogies between Arendt and today's leftist critics of Israel - including the charge of being "excommunicated" by the all powerful Jewish community when in fact their very criticism of Israel is what catapults them to fame.

The article is well worth reading.

(h/t Samson)

EU publishes report based on false information

From YNet on January 12:

The European Union has decided to pursue a series of steps which may undermine Israel's control of Area C in the West Bank, an official EU document obtained by Ynet on Thursday suggests.

The Oslo Accords divided the West Bank into three areas of control: Area A which is under the Palestinian Authority's full control; Area B, which is under Palestinian civil controls and shared Israeli-Palestinian security control; and Area C, which is controlled by Israel.

Area C makes up 62% of the West Bank, but the Palestinians make up only 5.8% of its population.

The document, titled "Area C and Palestinian state building," harshly criticizes Israel's policies in the West Bank, claiming they have caused the Palestinian population in Area C to shrink significantly and recede into enclaves.

Is this true?

The EU report itself was published last July.

Legal scholar Avi Bell analyzed the document and the sources it gave, and wrote this up:

I first went to the EU report. This is the key paragraph: "According to Save the Children UK (SCUK) Fact Sheet on the Jordan Valley of October 2009 more than 90% of the Jordan Valley is designated as Area C. Prior to the Israeli occupation in 1967 the Palestinian population of the Jordan Valley was estimated at between 200,000 and 320,000. As of 2009 the population is approximately 56,000 with roughly 70% of residents concentrated in the City of Jericho (located in Area A). ..." The citation is to http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/English_Jordan_Valley_Fact_Sheet_and_Citations.pdf.

That link is stale, but I found the fact sheet at http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/opt_prot_savethechildren_Jordan_Valley_Fact_Sheet_oct_2009.pdf. The fact sheet has the following statement in bullet points under the heading "Background": "Prior to the Israeli occupation in 1967, the Palestinian population of the Jordan Valley was estimated at between 200,000 and 320,000. [MA’AN]". No other reference is given.

While the MA'AN in question is not identified, it appears to be the Ma'an Development Center, which put out a 2008 report called Palestine's Forgotten Displacement: The Plight of the Jordan Valley Bedouin with the following paragraph on page 18: "... While exact figures for displacement and in particular displacement of Jordan Valley Bedouin do not exist, comparisons of data from the time of Jordanian rule and today suggest that the region has suffered significant forced displacement. Prior to 1967 estimates range from 200,000 to 320,000 people who lived in the Jordan Valley. Today however the total population is set between 52,000 to 56,000 (for the greater Jordan Valley). Local community leaders also say that approximately 90 per cent of the villages that existed prior to 1967 have disappeared from the map." Needless to say, no sources are cited. Page 19 offers the following, again without sources: "Though Bedouin are disproportionately affected, residents across the Jordan Valley are especially vulnerable to displacement. Since the 1950s, the population has decreased from around 300,000 to only 56,000 today."

According to subsequent Ma'an reports, the pre-1967 population has increased to first 300,000-320,000 and then to 320,000-350,000.

Page 8 of the 2010 Ma’an publication Bankrolling Colonialism: How US Zionist Organizations in the Jordan Valley are Undermining a Future Palestinian State," jointly published with the Jordan Valley Popular Committees states that "The Palestinian population of the Jordan Valley is 58,000 approximately 2% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank. 70% of Jordan Valley residents live in the city of Jericho. Prior to the 1967 occupation the population was estimated at between 300,000 and 320,000." The latter population number is cited to “Jordan Valley Solidarity" That site states, “When Israel occupied the Jordan Valley in 1967, 320,000 people resided in the area. Following the continued Israeli campaign of creeping ethnic cleansing, only 56,000 Palestinians still reside in the Valley on a permanent basis today.” Jordan Valley Solidarity’s citation for the 320,000 figure is to a dead link in the site of the “Popular Struggle Coordination Committee”. But while the link is dead, the apparent reference is to a 2009 report by the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee called an Eye on the Jordan Valley which states, “when Israel occupied the Jordan Valley in 1967, 320,000 people resided in the area.” The footnote cites: “‘Eye on the Jordan Valley: To exist is to resist’: The Grassroots Palestinian Anti Apartheid Wall Campaign: May 07.” Eye on the Jordan Valley: To exist Is to Resist from May 2007 turns out to be a fact sheet put out by Ma’an and The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. Page 14 contains the following statement without citation: “Between 1948 and 1967, the Palestinian population of the area from Ein Gedi in the south to Bisan in the north reached 320,000. However, once the occupation began, hundreds of Palestinians were killed; dozens of Palestinian communities were leveled; and Palestinian residents were forced to immigrate to Jordan.” (In other words, if you go through the string of citations, Ma’an cited itself as the source.)

Eye on the Jordan Valley, a 2010 report jointly published by Ma’an with the Jordan Valley Popular Committees states on page 26, without any citation of sources, “Between 1948 and 1967, the Palestinian population of the area from Ein Gedi in the south to Bisan in the north was around 320,000. However, once the occupation began, hundreds of Palestinians were killed, dozens of Palestinian communities were leveled, and Palestinian residents were forced to emigrate. Currently, only 52,000 Palestinians permanently live in the Jordan Valley.”

Page 42 of Ma’an’s 2011 "Diary" states that "when Israel began occupying the fertile Jordan Valley in 1967, 320,000 Palestinians lived in the region. ... Since 1967, Israel has managed to decrease the Palestinian population in the Valley by 82.5% to only 56,000." Of course, no sources are cited.

Restricted Access and Its Consequences: Israeli Control of Vital Resources in the Jordan Valley and Its Impact on the Environment, a 2011 report by Ma’an, states on page 2: “In addition to the extremely adverse effects on Palestinian population levels in the Jordan Valley, decreasing from over 320,000 in 1967 to 52,000 today, the Israeli policies have had grave consequences for the Palestinian agricultural sector and have produced a number of continuing and residual environmental concerns.” Footnote 44 on page 41, in the meantime, states: “There has been speculation that the unjust treatment of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley is part of a strategy to cleanse Palestinians from the area in an effort to facilitate complete annexation of the valuable area by Israel. The Palestinian population of the Jordan Valley has decreased by 82% since 1967, from 350,000 to 56,000 today.” No sources are cited and no explanation given of the additional retroactive jump from 320,000 to 350,000.

Finally, the following statement appears in the publication “To Exist is to Resist: Save the Jordan Valley,” jointly put out by Ma’an Development Center and Jordan Valley Popular Committees: “Jordan Valley has been under complete occupation since 1967. Prior to the 6-day war, the population of the Jordan Valley was between 300,000 and 320,000. The population now stands at 53,000 of which about 70% live in the city of Jericho.” The August 2010 Ma’an’s bi-monthly “Developmental Focus” explains the publication as follows: “MA’AN’s publication To Exist is to Resist – Save the Jordan Valley outlines the situation of the Jordan Valley in an easy accessible coffee table format. The Latest Publications book is made in cooperation with the Local Popular Committees in the Jordan Valley and funded by the Representative Office of Norway.” The same article tells us, “Together with MA’AN Development Center, the Palestinian National Authority and international solidarity groups, the Jordan Valley Solidarity Campaign is working with the Palestinians in the Jordan Valley at the grassroots level. The slogan of the campaign; ‘To Exist is to Resist’ emphasizes the importance of remaining in the Jordan Valley to resist Israeli apartheid, colonialism and forced displacement in order to keep working for a future Palestinian state.” (http://www.maan-ctr.org/pdfs/Newsl.pdf, page 8).

To sum up, the figures in the EU report, while cited to Save the Children UK, apparently come from a report by a Palestinian organization called Ma’an. The Ma’an figures vary from report to report, and are cited to no external sources whatsoever.

And how good are the Ma’an sources? They are obviously made up.

You can find Israel’s 1967 census of the West Bank here There is no breakdown of figures for the Jordan Valley, but the total West Bank figure is 598,637, with only 9,078 in the Jericho district. Interestingly, if you take the figures for the Jericho, Nablus, Tulkarm, and Jenin districts together, you get to 311,983. This suggests to me that the figure of 320,000 is the entire Samaria north of Ramallah. (The other districts are Jerusalem, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron).

We've seen before how NGOs and the media are willing to believe Palestinian Arab statistics without any fact checking, even when they are spurious. Apparently the EU is just as sloppy.

Deputy PM of Iran allegedly calls Israeli hacker "Jew bastard"

Over the past couple of weeks there have been a number of hacker attacks, first by an alleged Saudi hacker exposing Israelis' credit card numbers, then with Israelis doing the same to Saudi email account passwords, and from there we have had attacks on websites like El Al and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

Israeli hacker "Hannibal" writes that he received an email from the deputy prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Reza Rahimi. I have no idea if this is authentic, but it is funny:

It is easy enough to forge a sending email address, so this should be taken with a large grain of salt.

Hannibal replied

Hi
I now publish the letter he sent me deputy prime minister of Iran
Funny to me that he had time to go into a mailbox and curse and threaten me ..
Mr. Muhammad, you do not scare anyone! You never find me !!!!!
Say thank you at least who censored you the email ..
Link to the picture :
http://i40.tinypic.com/143mkpk.png
State of Iran, I'm so going to teach you a lesson soon
Today I post about 25 000 e-mail accounts and Facebook accounts of arabs to my new permanent procedure.. On Saturday night I will publish new list of 100,000 emails and Facebook accounts

(h/t amiyena, article at Mako)

Egyptian military says videos of protester beatings were faked

Jimmy Carter reports on his trip to Egypt:

Tuesday morning we received detailed analyses by experts on the election process and political affairs, and then had a thorough discussion with Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the SCAF and acting as de facto president of Egypt.

I was received with a friendly welcome as I congratulated the military leaders for what seemed to be a successful election, and then asked a number of questions. It seemed that the SCAF had full confidence that there would be accommodation to their demands by the Muslim Brotherhood and their coalition partners as the new government is formed. Instead of the reported 12,000 mostly political prisoners being held for trials in military courts, the Field Marshal stated that there were no more than 3,000, all of whom were guilty of criminal acts and being tried in civilian courts. He stated that the widely promulgated videos showing military attacks on demonstrators and a woman "with the blue brassiere" were all falsified. He said the soldiers were actually helping the woman re-clothe herself with what was provocative attire.

Here's the video. I had no idea that Egyptian animators were this good to make the event look so real.

Carter, of course, shows no skepticism at all towards Tantawi's claim.

Bizarre: Iran offered Syrian MB power over Syria?

From Al Arabiya:

Iran has offered the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood a deal that includes giving the Islamist opposition group all of the government, but under the condition that President Bashar al-Assad remains as the country’s premier, an official said in a newspaper interview published on Wednesday.

Mohammed Taifour, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s Deputy Superintendent and one of its representatives in the country’s main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, told the London-based al-Hayat Newspaper that via a Turkish businessman he knows three Iranian merchants requested to see him.

Taifour, who rejected negotiation with the Iranian businessmen citing Iran’s support of the Syrian regime, said their deal offer started first with giving the Islamist group four ministerial positions and ended with giving them the entire government, as long as Assad kept his leadership position.

The initiation of the first deal offer came three months ago, said Taifour.

Taifour rejected the notion that Hamas had played an intermediary role, saying that his group’s relationship with Hamas is almost nonexistent.

Iranian businessmen negotiating Syria's leadership with Syria's opposition?

I guess when hard facts are in short supply, people will publish whatever rumor they can find.

Mass graves discovered at Treblinka

From The Daily Mail:

Treblinka victims

A British forensic archaeologist has unearthed fresh evidence to prove the existence of mass graves at the Nazi death camp Treblinka - scuppering the claims of Holocaust deniers who say it was merely a transit camp.

Some 800,000 Jews were killed at the site, in north east Poland, during the Second World War but a lack of physical evidence in the area has been exploited by Holocaust deniers.

Forensic archaeologist Caroline Sturdy Colls has now undertaken the first co-ordinated scientific attempt to locate the graves.

As Jewish religious law forbids disturbing burial sites, she and her team from the University of Birmingham have used 'ground-penetrating radar'.

Her work at the site, where the Nazis tried to destroy all traces of industrial-scale killing, is being followed in forthcoming Radio 4 documentary The Hidden Graves Of The Holocaust.

Sturdy Colls said: 'All the history books state that Treblinka was destroyed by the Nazis but the survey has demonstrated that simply isn’t the case.

'I’ve identified a number of buried pits using geophysical techniques. These are considerable in size, and very deep, one in particular is 26 by 17 metres.'

The programme’s presenter says that the pits contain the burnt remains of thousands of bodies.

The forensic archaeologist, who has now presented her findings to the authorities responsible for the memorial at Treblinka, added: 'I really hope this is the first stage in a long-term programme to seek out those hidden graves of the Holocaust.'

Also, a book was just released of 32 detailed sketches drawn by an apparent worker at Birkenau which was hidden in a bottle, depicting parents being separated from children and other scenes from the camp.

(h/t Dan)

Yiddishe dabba do!

A freilach alt tzeit:

(h/t Jacob Richman tweet)

"Thousands of SAMs smuggled into Gaza"

Buried in a CNN article:

"We have smuggled thousands of shoulder-launched (surface-to-air) SAM missiles to Gaza through the tunnels for a transporting fee only," a Bedouin leader from Tarabeen tribe told CNN.

But not all those weapons may have gone to the Palestinian territory. The same man claimed Bedouins would turn some of those weapons against Egypt's military-led government unless their demands were met.

"We saved some for us ... stockpiles of RPGs, machine guns. And I personally have ten 14.5 mm anti-aircraft guns that I bought at $12,000 a piece.

"We have declared war against the military and will not wait for them to kill us all," he said.

There is no way to verify the tribal leader's claims, but an Egyptian national security officer, Usama Emam, told CNN that weapons from Libya and Sudan had arrived in Sinai by sea.

Another military intelligence official told CNN: "There are advanced anti-tank missiles that come to Sinai and go to Gaza through tunnels, but I don't have information on the SAMs coming through."

The Washington Post reported on the SAMs last October:

Large caches of weapons from Libya are making their way across the Egyptian border and flooding black markets in Egypt’s already unstable Sinai Peninsula, according to current and former Egyptian military officials and arms traders in the Sinai.

Egyptian security officials have intercepted surface-to-air missiles, most of them shoulder-launched, on the road to Sinai and in the smuggling tunnels connecting Egypt to the Gaza Strip since Moammar Gaddafi fell from power in Libya in August, a military official in Cairo said. Arms traders said the weapons available on Sinai’s clandestine market include rockets and antiaircraft guns.

No problem, though. All these weapons are moderate.

(h/t Ian)

Britain's chief rabbi defends Christians - and capitalism

From FrontPage:

British Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks visited with Pope Benedict XVI last month in Rome and defended Europe’s Judeo-Christian heritage, including the “religious roots of the market economy and of democratic capitalism.” In a speech there, he urged that Jews and Christians to work together to “help Europe recover its soul.”

Separately, in a speech to the British House of Lords, Sacks denounced increasing persecution of Christians by radical Islam, warning that the “fate of Christians in the Middle East today is the litmus test of the Arab Spring.”

“If Europe loses the Judeo-Christian heritage that gave it its historic identity and its greatest achievements in literature, art, music, education, politics, and economics, it will lose its identity and its greatness,” Sacks warned during his Rome speech. “When a civilization loses its faith, it loses its future. When it recovers its faith, it recovers its future. For the sake of our children … we – Jews and Christians, side-by-side – must renew our faith and its prophetic voice.”

He critiqued Europe’s secularism and materialism while pointing out that biblical religion created the foundations of prosperous market economies. “When Europe recovers its soul, it will recover its wealth-creating energies,” he said. “But first it must remember: humanity was not created to serve markets. Markets were created to serve humankind.”

“We are very concerned obviously with the soul of Europe, I mean Europe was built on Judeo-Christian foundations, even the market was built on Judeo-Christian foundations,” Sacks told Vatican Radio. In his Rome speech, he described the West’s democracy and prosperity relying on biblical understandings of “dignity of the human individual,” respect for property rights and labor, job creation over charity, and creation of wealth so as to become “partners with God in the work of creation.” He noted that ancient rabbis “favored markets and competition because they generate wealth, lower prices, increase choice, reduced absolute levels of poverty, and extend humanity’s control over the environment, narrowing the extent to which we are the passive victims of circumstance and fate.”

Sacks quoted a Chinese scholar who realized why the West had surpassed once wealthier and technologically superior China centuries ago: “The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics.” The Chief Rabbi noted that Europe’s religious values had facilitated “hard work, industry, frugality, diligence, patience, discipline, and a sense of duty and obligation.” They created capitalism as a “moral enterprise” that “generated wealth, softened manners, tamed unruly passions, and diminished the threat of war.” Capitalism “enhanced human dignity, leaving us with more choices and a longer life expectancy than any generation of those who came before us.”

Sacks lamented that Europe is today “more secular than it has been since the last days of pre-Christian Rome” thanks to “aggressive scientific atheism tone deaf to the music of faith.” He suggested Jews and Catholics serve together as “creative minorities” to restore morals, culture and civic life. And he concluded: “The Judeo-Christian heritage is the only system known to me capable of defeating the law of entropy that says all systems lose energy over time.”

Sacks also has urged defending international religious liberty. “It is important that Jews, the British Jews, the European Jewish community stand in solidarity with Christians where they face persecution,” he told Vatican radio. In his speech to the British House of Lords, Sacks’ declared that “as a Jew in Christian Britain,” he was grateful to “this great Christian nation, which gave us the right and the freedom to live our faith without fear.” And he asked: “Shall we not, therefore, as Jews, stand up for the right of Christians in other parts of the world to live their faith without fear?” The Chief Rabbi quoted Martin Luther King, Jr: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”

Both the speech in Rome and an article in the Times of London (that this article refers to as a speech to the House of Lords) are online and well worth reading.

For those who are uncomfortable with the phrase "Judeo-Christian," he says "Admittedly the phrase 'Judeo-Christian tradition' is a recent coinage and one that elides significant differences between the two religions and the various strands within each." And he goes on to point out the importance of the market system in Jewish thought:

There is, though, enough common ground to speak, at least here, of shared values. First there is the deep biblical respect for the dignity of the human individual, regardless of colour, creed or class, created in the image and likeness of God. The market gives more freedom and dignity to human choice than any other economic system.

Second is the biblical respect for property rights, as against the idea prevalent in the ancient world that rulers were entitled to treat property of the tribe or nation as their own. By contrast, when Moses finds his leadership challenged by the Israelites during the Korach rebellion, he says about his relation to the people, “I have not taken one ass from them nor have I wronged any one of them.” The great assault of slavery against human dignity is that it deprives me of the ownership of the wealth I create.

Then there is the biblical respect for labour. God tells Noah that he will be saved from the flood, but it is Noah who has to build the ark. The verse “Six days shall you labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God” means that we serve God through work as well as rest.

Job creation, in Judaism, is the highest form of charity because it gives people the dignity of not depending on charity. “Flay carcasses in the market-place,” said the third century teacher Rav, “and do not say: I am a priest and a great man and it is beneath my dignity”.

Equally important is Judaism’s positive attitude to the creation of wealth. The world is God’s creation; therefore it is good, and prosperity is a sign of God’s blessing. Asceticism and self-denial have little place in Jewish spirituality. By our labour and inventiveness we become, in the rabbinic phrase, “partners with God in the work of creation”.

Above all, from a Jewish perspective, the most important thing about the market economy is that it allows us to alleviate poverty. Judaism refused to romanticize poverty. It is not, in Judaism, a blessed condition. It is, the rabbis said, “a kind of death” and “worse than fifty plagues”. At the other end of the spectrum they believed that with wealth comes responsibility. Richesse oblige. Successful businessmen (and women) were expected to set an example of philanthropy and to take on positions of communal leadership. Conspicuous consumption was frowned upon, and periodically banned through local “sumptuary laws”. Wealth is a Divine blessing, and therefore it carries with it an obligation to use it for the benefit of the community as a whole.

The rabbis favoured markets and competition because they generate wealth, lower prices, increase choice, reduced absolute levels of poverty, and extend humanity’s control over the environment, narrowing the extent to which we are the passive victims of circumstance and fate. Competition releases energy and creativity and serves the general good.

The Globe and Mail's praise for a "moderate" terrorist

The Globe and Mail is upset because Khaled Meshal is ending his term as Hamas leader - because, they say he was so, so moderate:

Hamas leader to step down just as his relative moderation most needed

Mr. Meshaal will leave office at a sensitive time, just when his relative moderation may most be needed.

The quiet, intense man has been pivotal in efforts to reconcile with the secular Palestine Liberation Organization, and even has prodded Syria’s embattled President Bashar al-Assad to usher in political reforms rather than attack his own people. His strategy has led to Hamas’s estrangement from its long-time benefactor, Iran.

Compared to Sheik Yassin and Dr. Rantisi, both refugees in Gaza camps, Mr. Meshaal, born in a village north of Ramallah in the West Bank, is a moderate, and this may explain his voluntary swan song now.

This moderation became evident in early January, 2009, in the middle of Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, which followed a Hamas campaign of firing rockets into Israel.

With hundreds of Gazans killed by Israeli aerial bombing, rocket and mortar attacks and few Israeli casualties, many thought Hamas would bring out the one weapon in its historic arsenal to have claimed many Israeli lives and struck fear in the whole country – suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. Beginning in 1994 and ending in 2005, Hamas had carried out several dozen such attacks and inspired other groups to do the same.

But Hamas members of parliament said that Mr. Meshaal had ordered an end to such attacks in 2005. Despite the pummelling Hamas was enduring in Gaza, he had no intention of resorting to the deadly tactic that gave Hamas its notoriety for violence, according to those parliamentarians.

Indeed, not during that time, nor any time since, has Hamas carried out a suicide attack against Israeli civilians. It’s now coming up to seven years.

As long as you don't count the suicide bombing murder of 73-year old Lyubov Razdolskaya in 2008. Its Hamas mastermind was killed by Israel a few months later. Shhhhh.

As Honest Reporting notes, the reason that suicide bombings has gone down because of Israeli security measures, including the security fence, a fact acknowledged by Islamic Jihad.

But forget that. In the twisted minds of Western journalists, people who support shooting thousands of rockets at Israeli cities, targeting innocent civilians, can be called "moderate." People who continue to brag about their suicide attacks are "moderate." Shooting a laser-guided missile at a school bus, killing a teenager, and bragging about it - not even claiming it was a military target - is a mark of "moderation."

In defense of the reporter, Patrick Martin, he did try to make sure he threw in the word "relative" most of the times he said "moderate."

That's what makes his report is only moderately disgusting.

EoZ Facebook problems continue

Despite weeks of complaints to Facebook, it is still banning links to this blog:

Sorry, this post contains a blocked URL

The content you're trying to share includes a link that's been blocked for being spammy or unsafe:

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

For more information, visit the Help Center. If you think you're seeing this by mistake, please let us know.

This is costing me thousands of hits that I normally get from FB.

It is also stopping people from "Like"-ing any of my posts on the blog itself.

Chances are someone who didn't like my opinions decided to shut me down by complaining that the blog is spam.

For those who are frustrated and want to share EoZ links on Facebook, my suggestions are:

Click on the "let us know" link and fill it out every time; maybe someone will actually do something
When you paste a link from this blog, replace "elderofziyon.blogspot.com" with "eoznews.com" in the URL. Hardly ideal - FB doesn't show the beginning of the post nor any pictures - but at least it works.
Switch to Google Plus and join my page there :) (Unfortunately, I cannot update that page automatically so it is usually behind.)

For some reason, links that are generated from my Tweets are still allowed in Facebook, so you can subscribe to my FB page and click on my links from there successfully.

And following me on Twitter will also allow you to see all my posts as well as my tweets - and there are tweets every day to interesting items I never get around to blogging (like this, for example, that came from a comment here by Shtrudel).

Thanks for all the people who have been emailing me about this. I appreciate the support.

Deceiving Palestinian Arabs for 63 years

From a report from The [American] Consul at Jerusalem (Burdett) to the Secretary of State, marked "Secret," October 29, 1949 (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, Volume VI, page 1457:)

Better informed refugees now realize that repatriation in the sense contemplated by the December 11, 1949 [sic] resolution of the General Assembly is out of the question and they no longer think the United Nations will enforce the resolution. However, no one dares to say so openly for the great mass of the refugees has been nourished on this illusion and a frank statement of the extent of the deception might kindle an explosion. It would certainly eliminate the chances of leadership of the person making the first announcement.

Nothing has changed.

Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon, Syria and around the world are still told the lie that they will one day "return" to land they never lived in, and no one has the ability to tell them that they have been fooled for 63 years and to find another solution for their own children and grandchildren.

Which is why they will remain stateless for the next 63 years as well.

Recall that an outgoing UNRWA official stated the truth a while back, in an episode remarkable for its rarity. Andrew Whitley said

If one doesn’t start a discussion soon with the refugees for them to consider what their own future might be – for them to start debating their own role in the societies where they are rather than being left in a state of limbo where they are helpless but preserve rather the cruel illusions that perhaps they will return one day to their homes – then we are storing up trouble for ourselves....We recognize, as I think most do, although it’s not a position that we publicly articulate, that the right of return is unlikely to be exercised to the territory of Israel to any significant or meaningful extent...It’s not a politically palatable issue, it’s not one that UNRWA publicly advocates, but nevertheless it’s a known contour to the issue.

Whitley was slammed for his statement by UNRWA, the PA and Jordan, forcing him to recant.

Sounds exactly like what the Consul predicted six decades before!

So many countries and leaders and organizations are wedded to the myth of Palestinian Arab "return." Everyone knows it is a myth, and everyone has known this since 1949 - but no one is willing to stand up and say the plain truth out loud.

The misery of the Palestinian "refugees" will be prolonged for generations to come because their leaders, and those of the world community at large, are made up of cowards.

It's time for Iran's "Hollywoodism" conference!

Last year, Iran held its first "Hollywoodism and Cinema" conference, where we learned lots of new things, such as the fact that Hollywood is the "most active section of the U.S. and Israel military industry."

Yes, somewhere buried in the Pentagon budget, is hundreds of millions of dollars to produce the next Transformers movie.

The conference was such a smashing success that another one is planned for this year:

Organizers of the 30th Fajr International Film Festival will be holding the second conference on “Hollywoodism and Cinema” to review the influence of the Zionist regime on Hollywood.

Over 40 foreign experts and cinema critics are invited to attend the second edition of the conference running from February 2 to 4, Culture Ministry official Gholamreza Montazemi said in a press conference held here on Monday. The names of the guests will be announced later.

The Foreign guests invited to the conference, which is being held on the sidelines of Fajr festival, are due to discuss the impact of Hollywood in the world of cinema and how to resist this impact, Montazemi added.

Cinema of Hollywood is trying to promote the idea of conciliation between Satan and man, this is while Iranian cinema is the cinema of awakening, he said at the conference.

He continued that several topics are to be discussed at the conference including the world awakening, the influence of Hollywood on public opinion, the destruction of family and humane values, and how to fight against this influence.

A seminar on Islamic Awakening is also to be held on the sideline, in which experts are to discuss the issue of Islamic Awakening.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s sister-in-law Lauren Booth, who has converted into Islam, is expected to attend the Islamic Awakening seminar.

One of the films to be screened at the festival is the very appropriately named "The Anti-Semite," a joint Iranian/French production.

See also Israellycool's take.

Hamas forces beat 20 Shi'ites in Gaza (updated)

From PCHR:

[A]t around 18:30 on Monday, 14 January 2012, large numbers of security officers wearing military uniforms and helmets, and some being masked, stormed a house in Beit Lahiya, where about 20 Palestinians were performing Shiite rituals. The security officers used clubs to severely beat the persons in the house, and then transferred them to the main police station in the northern Gaza Strip. The detainees were placed under interrogation and they were questioned about personal information and the reason why they were in that house. Then the detainees were beaten again and a number of them sustained fractures and bruises as a result. Those who sustained injuries were transferred to Balsam Hospital and Kamal Odwan Hospital.

There have been reports that Iran had cut their funding of Hamas because of Hamas' reluctance to take the regime's side in Syria.

This story might mean that those reports are true. Hamas wouldn't dare anger its main sponsor by attacking Shi'ites unless it had nothing to lose.

UPDATE: Avi Issacharoff in Ha'aretz adds:

The Hamas-run government is convinced that Iran is expanding its influence in Gaza by means of Islamic Jihad.

Gazan sources told Haaretz that Islamic Jihad now contains a group of converts to Shia Islam. The group is led by Iyad al-Hosni, also a convert, who was ousted from Islamic Jihad but recently reinstated, probably under Iranian pressure: Islamic Jihad's leadership visited Iran two months ago, and afterward, al-Hosni was appointed a senior officer in its military wing.

Some of the men arrested on Friday issued a statement on Sunday urging Iran to stop funding Hamas due to its persecution of Shi'ites.

Tehran has already reduced its support for Hamas, among other things because Hamas has refused to support embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Becoming Shi'ite is a growing trend in the Gaza Strip: Hundreds of Sunnis, both Islamic Jihad activists and ordinary people, are known to have converted.

(h/t T34)

Hindustan Times calls on India to go public with Israel ties

From the Hindustan Times:

India and Israel is the bilateral relationship that dare not speak its name. If one were to go by New Delhi's official rhetoric, nothing has changed between the two countries. India continues to casually denounce Israel on the Palestinian issue, keeps mum when Iran or others promise to destroy the Jewish State, and still tends to vote against Israel in the United Nations or other multilateral fora. If one were to go by substance - security, trade and technology - there are few bilateral relations to match it in the world. Israel can be counted on to be the first or second largest provider of arms to India every year. Bilateral trade and investment runs into several billions of dollars on the civilian side. Israel, one of the great tech hubs of the world, is a close partner of India in software, pharmaceuticals and renewable energy. It says something about the trust that exists between the two countries that their closest links are in the most sensitive of areas: intelligence, counterterrorism, defence technology and even nuclear weaponry.

Bringing the public and private relationship with Israel in sync has been a particularly tortuous business with the UPA government. The government's first term was hostage to the ideological demands of the leftwing parties - the political formation most hostile to Israel. Half of its second term had to pass before New Delhi sent the foreign minister on a State visit. A prime ministerial or presidential visit, in either direction, continues to be the stuff of dreams - and solely because New Delhi has political nightmares at the thought. This is unbecoming of India: a constant and running act of hypocrisy by a country that sees itself as deserving of global influence and emulation. Israel has repeatedly stepped up to the plate when India is under threat, most notably during the Kargil crisis.

Some will shrug that this is the reality of India. But the evidence says this 'reality' is actually a bouquet of illusions. The most common claim is that a more public relationship will cause an eruption among the Muslim population. The truth is that an Indian Muslim is as pragmatic as the next one and has better things to worry about than the historical conflicts of the Levant. When politicians have raised the Israel-Palestine issue, they have come up empty-handed. The other claim is that India will lose standing with the Arab world. The opposite has proven to be the case: countries like Saudi Arabia sought to strengthen relations with India in part because the latter normalised relations with Israel. India's relations with Israel are spreading into other areas of existential importance to the country. Israel is a key partner in agriculture, and being the world's most-efficient liquid recycler, in water as well. If Israel becomes a major natural gas exporter in a few years, there will almost no missing links in the relationship. And the present official stance will lose any semblance of pragmatism and be merely a veil of the absurd.

I had asked Danny Ayalon about Israel's relations with India last month; he said they were "very good" but unfortunately didn't elaborate.

(h/t P)

The Egyptian army's strangehold on Egypt's economy

Two weeks ago I posted a very well researched article that revealed the depth of the Egyptian army's land and business holdings in Egypt, and the corruption that results.

The Media Line looks at the issue as well, not so much from the perspective of corruption but to show that the army is not likely to give up power any time soon:

Concrete information on the extent and holdings of the army’s business operations is difficult to come by. The armed forces are secretive but have portrayed themselves and the government generally as poor and hemorrhaging money. In the case of the government, that is certainly the case, but in the case of the army that is less evident.

In one of the most unusual intra-government transactions of the year, the military loaned the central bank $1 billion to help support the sagging Egyptian pound last month. The transaction not only pointed up the relative wealth of the two institutions but also the extent to which the army has access to money beyond the reach of the civilian authorities to whom it is supposed to be reporting.

Amr Hamzawy, a political analyst and newly elected member of parliament, estimates that the military controls as much as a third of Egypt’s economy. Paul Sullivan, a U.S. National Defense University professor and expert on Egypt’s military, told Time magazine last year that the military accounts for some 10% to 15% of the economy.

Mohamed Kadry Said, a retired general and a military analyst for the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, puts the figure at 8% of gross domestic product, a seemingly small percentage but, in Egypt’s $180 billion economy, one that puts the annual turnover of Egyptian Army Inc. at more than $14 billion.

As Egypt moves on its rocky road toward democracy, observers say the army’s efforts to preserve its business interests are likely to be a major barrier. More democracy will almost certainly entail more accountability and perhaps a direct assault by the country’s civilian politicians and economic reformers on the military’s economic power and privileges.

Many doubt that the generals will relinquish power so quickly. Among those is Mohamed ElBaradei. who announced over the weekend that he had dropped out of the presidential race, saying he saw no hope that the election due by the end of June would bring a real end to the military's rule.

“They use their businesses to maintain their power now more than ever. They own restaurants and tourism companies, so for the leadership today, stability and crushing the opposition to their rule is paramount to maintaining their wealth,” Ahmed, a former general who asked that his name not be used, told The Media Line.

...As an institution, the armed forces own and run much of the food industry, including plants manufacturing olive oil, milk. bread and bottled water – all of which are subsidized by the very government they are in charge of.

They also run a number of cement factories, gas stations and refineries, clothing and kitchen facilities, vehicle production – one local newspaper reported the military is in partnership with Jeep to produce Cherokees and Wranglers – as well as resorts and hotels.

Since February last year, the role of the military and business has become more visible and controversial. All these industries, says economic analyst Gamal Abdel-Salam of CS Securities in Cairo, lead to a conflict of interest.

“The military runs all these companies, factories and tourist destination spots, and now is in charge of the government, so it means they are giving money out and supporting industry that in essence they are already in charge of,” he says.

Topping it off, military businesses are free from government oversight and are not required to pay taxes, which Abdel-Salam says means that as the government gets poorer, “the military and its leaders are getting wealthier, so why would they want to leave power if they are winning on all sides?”

Abdel-Salam contends that the generals “see an opportunity to push forward without fear of government oversight, because they are the oversight and that is why they are silent on their role in the economy.”

....Overcoming wealth and power in Egypt may be difficult to achieve, even if a new constitution – which the military wants to ensure contains no oversight over its budget and income – is established in the next few months. Indeed, for the former general the revolution that toppled Mubarak is starting to look like the one that toppled King Farouk in 1952 and inaugurated nearly six decades of military rule.

“What we are seeing,” he says, “is Egypt’s military taking a very Soviet-style approach to things and one we have seen before, in the 1950s with Nasser and look how that turned out for the country.”