Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 13, 2012

It's official: Everything is Israel's fault, including the Arab Spring

During Monday’s session of former President Mubarak’s ongoing trial, Mohamed al-Gendy, one of former Cairo Security Director Ismail al-Shaer’s defense lawyers, suggested that third parties, including Israel, helped fuel the revolution, the state-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA) has reported.

"It’s unimaginable that those in the cage are murderers, and that the countries proven to have been funding organizations in Egypt did not participate in the events,” said Gendy. "It is unimaginable that Israel, which was spying on the mobile networks, had nothing to do with fueling the events."

Mubarak, former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly and six of Adly's assistants are charged with killing protesters during the 25 January revolution, while Mubarak, his sons Alaa and Gamal and businessman Hussein Salem are being tried on corruption charges. Adly was convicted of money laundering and fraud in May 2011.

Israel has now been accused of being pro- and anti-Egypt Revolution; pro-Fatah and pro-Hamas, pro-Assad and pro-Syrian opposition, anti-American and pro-American.

I guess when you control the world, it really all ends up being your responsibility.

(h/t Dan)

"Saudi 'apostate' faces certain execution"

From Free Malaysia Today News:

The blood of deported Saudi journalist Hamza Kashgari is on Malaysia’s hands.

According to Human Rights Watch Asia deputy director Phil Robertson, Malaysia did not give Kashgari access to his lawyers or to the United Nations refugee agency, and speedily sent him on a plane back to Saudi Arabia.

Because of this, Kashgari would most likely face an almost certain death at the hands of his government.

“Malaysia’s action to deport Kashgari to Saudi Arabia sets all new lows in the Malaysian government’s failure to respect human rights standards, and if he faces execution back in Saudi Arabia, the Malaysian government will have blood on its hands,” he said in a press statement.

He added that the Malaysian government did not allow Kashgari access to his lawyers for days, and prevented the United Nations from meeting him.

“But on Sunday, the police told those lawyers that Kashgari was still being held after he already had been forced on a plane,” he said.

The lawyers then fought to get a court injunction to prevent Kashgari’s deportation, but were too late. The Saudi journalist was already on his way home.

This was despite the claim that Malaysia did not have a formal extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia.

“By its actions, the Home Ministry once again showed that it believes rule of law is whatever it says and that it is more than willing to be totally opaque in its operations to maintain its flexibility to do what it wants when it wants,” he said.

Many called for his head after he supposedly insulted the Prophet Muhammad; which is considered blasphemous in Islam. It is also a crime punishable by death.

Kashgari had been planning to fly to New Zealand, intending to seek asylum there. He was in transit from Jordan when he was detained here.

According to Robertson, Malaysia appeared to be hypocritical in its human rights stance, especially where the UN was concerned.

“When seeking a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, the Malaysian government pledged that it would abide by international human rights treaties.”

“But from the day Malaysia took it’s seat, Malaysian government leaders have walked away from that pledge,” he said.

Malaysia defended its actions:

The Malaysian Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said the deportation to Saudi Arabia was legal and that Malaysia cannot be seen as a safe haven, said the BBC.

Mr Hussein was quoted by the AP news agency as saying: "I will not allow Malaysia to be seen as a safe country for terrorists and those who are wanted by their countries of origin, and also be seen as a transit county."

Egyptian presidential candidate would make hijab mandatory

From Al Arabiya:

An ultra-conservative Egyptian presidential hopeful has said that if he is elected as head of state he would force women to wear the hijab (veil) or “change creed,” adding that Islam provides no guarantees of personal freedom.

“If you claim that Allah considers it your personal freedom, show me your reference. Nobody has ever said that - except for people who have no understanding of the Shariah,” Hazem Saleh Abu Ismail, a long-time supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, said in a recent interview with the Egypt’s Tahrir TV.

He said that if he is elected president he would enforce the hijab on women and that if they do not want to wear it, they have to change their “creed.”

He did not elaborate on what he meant by changing their “creed” and whether this meant changing their religion, knowing that such a move is strictly forbidden under the Shariah law and could result in capital punishment.

Ismail said that following the Shariah (Islamic law) is like being in the military, where a person has to follow a strict code of conduct.

He said that the Islamic saying of “no compulsion in religion” is comparable to “no compulsion in the military, meaning that if someone wants to enter the military, he can enter and if he does not want to, he does not have to enter.”

But once a person enters the military, that person has to respect its rules, the cleric said.

“If you join, then you are obliged to wear their uniform, to attend their classes, to attend the training with them and to obey their leader,” Ismail said.

In August 2011, Ismail appeared in an online video praising Osama bin Laden and describing him as a martyr. He said the late al-Qaeda leader spoke “the word of truth on power” and went to the “front lines to work in the path of Allah.”

Ismail said he has “some minor differences” with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group he left before expressing intentions to run for president.

The Muslim Brotherhood doesn't have any official candidates for president, so given their huge victory in the parliamentary elections, this guy really could be the next president of Egypt.

Morning links

Honest Reporting: You Can’t March In Step With Suicide Bombers and Lecture About What’s Mainstream discusses an Australian journalist who loves to contextualize suicide bombings making declarations about what most Australians think. (Here he is about 9/11; doesn't sound "mainstream" to me.)

Honest Reporting also debunks a rumor that CNN had let go of all its Jewish staff in Israel. (People had sent me that story for a few days but I am not going to report on something that incendiary without a lot more proof. I had written to some of the reporters who were let go but they didn't respond.)

Magen David Adom's first Muslim ambulance driver is a woman:

"At first it was difficult working with a team comprised mostly by men, but I've gotten used to that already. They're nice. At the station I am friends with the Jewish girls. I teach them Arabic and learn Hebrew from them. In the meantime I use the advantage of my language in east Jerusalem."

A review of "A Convenient Hatred" - a book about anti-semitism, at Stonegate Institute.

Also at Stonegate, a look at radicalization of young British Muslims.

Iran reported preparing "suicide bomb boats" at the Straits of Hormuz.

Isi Liebler of the Jerusalem Post is interviewed about a possible military strike on Iran:

(h/t Daphne Anson)

Attacks on Israel embassies in India, Georgia

From NYT:

JERUSALEM - Unidentified bombers attacked staff at Israeli embassies far apart in India and Georgia on Monday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said, and images from New Delhi showed what appeared to be a minivan consumed by flames.

"There was one attempted attack, and one successful, as it were," Paul Hirschson, a spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry, was quoted by Reuters as saying. "In both cases, the people concerned worked with the Israeli embassies."

He also confirmed that a bomb had been found in a car belonging to a staffer at the embassy in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, which was defused by local police.

Indian police said at least one person had been injured in New Delhi but there was no immediate word on fatalities.

Shota Utiashvili, a spokesman for the Georgian Interior Ministry, confirmed that a bomb was discovered affixed to the car of an employee of the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi.

"The car of a Georgian national working for the Israeli embassy was mined," he said. "The embassy employee noticed a suspicious object and he called the police, and the police successfully defused it before it went off."

He said the car was not parked close to the embassy at the time. He said this was the first attempted attack on an employee of the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi. Police have not yet identified any suspects, he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either of the apparently coordinated attacks.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the attackers were known to Israeli officials, though he did not immediately name any group. "We know exactly who is responsible for the attack and who planned it and we're not going to take it lying down," the daily Haaretz quoted him as saying.

In New Delhi, Indian officials said a driver and the wife of an Israeli diplomat were injured in the late afternoon blast close to the Israeli Embassy, The Associated Press reported.

"They are in the hospital and being tended to," an Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Syed Akbaruddin, told The A.P.

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Hezbollah leader Imad Mugniyeh.

The Egyptian Parliament yesterday threatened to cancel the peace accords with Israel if the US stops aid to Egypt.

Essam el-Erian, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Egyptian parliament, said that if the United States decided to cut off economic aid for Egypt, it would endanger the Camp David agreement.

He said that part of the Camp David accords was for continued US aid to Egypt, and that if the US would pressure Egypt it would end up hurting Israel.

He said that Egypt is impervious to pressure and that it now makes all of its own decisions.

The US started sending about $1.5 billion in military aid to Egypt after Camp David, but it is not part of the signed agreements. Other US aid to Egypt is not even implicitly tied to Camp David as far as I can tell.

Gaza blackout update

Israel's Channel 10 reported about the impending power outages in Gaza City as a result of there being no fuel to run the power plant. It included some video of the darkened streets (around 20:15 on the link):

But it appears that this footage is from the normal daily scheduled outages, not from the power plant going offline. According to Palestine Times, that will happen "at any moment" as supplies coming from Egypt are sporadic and relatively small.

That is not the only problem, though.

Egypt has been cracking down on ordinary diesel and fuel smuggling to Gaza, which residents have been relying on for their cars and personal generators. Because of the fuel shortages in the northern Sinai, Egyptian authorities have been stopping the shipments to Gaza to keep their own people from rioting.

Yet in public forums, at least one Gaza official still blames Israel, according to Ma'an:

Walid Saad Sayil manages Gaza's only electricity plant, and said the lack of fuel deliveries leaves three options to stave off blackouts, speaking at the Gaza-based forum PalThink for Strategic Studies on Wednesday.

Sayil says the best and most feasible solution is to bring natural gas from Egypt instead of the current diesel which is purchased from Israeli suppliers. It would take six to eight months to arrange, but would save the Palestinian Authority about 60 percent of its budget on fuel, he told the forum.

Another option is an emergency injection of fuel and electricity, Sayil added, without specifying possible sources.

The Gaza Strip could also connect to a joint electricity grid current shared by eight Arab states. The energy authority recently visited Egypt to discuss this possibility, but he warned that such a connection would take more than a year.

A prerequisite to each option it the upgrading of Gaza's electricity network to handle the new wattage, he said.

Gaza has been refusing power plant fuel deliveries from Israel for over a year, so I think this might be a mistake on Ma'an's part. Because when Sayil says he might want an "emergency injection of fuel" he might be referring to purchasing it from Israel as they used to - but he is apparently too scared to say that out loud in Gaza.

Sayil indicated the major cause of the current energy crisis is the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority's delay in payments for fuel.

The PA is currently working to plug a $1.1 billion deficit in the public budget, but has been criticized before by Gaza officials for failing to deliver critical payments to the blockaded coastal strip.

The power plant director said the energy authority and company in Gaza also bear some responsibility for the crisis, and it worsened over the winter as electricity needs shot up.

In 2003, a proposal was developed to build a new power station in Gaza, but supporters have failed to commit to their pledges, he said, adding that neither government in the West Bank or Gaza Strip have implemented the project.

Again, Sayil is trying to appease his Hamas leaders, because while it is true that the PA has been slow in paying fuel bills, the Gaza utility company has been very bad at collecting money owed by residents who routinely ignore their electric bills.

Egypt said it would be interested in hooking Gaza up to its electric grid.

As far as delivering Egyptian natural gas to Gaza - do you think that will stop the saboteurs in the Sinai from attacking the gas lines that also go to Israel (and Jordan)?

(h/t Yoel for video link)

Fatah insulted by Khamenei's saying Arafat abandoned resistance

During Hamas Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh's visit to Iran, he met with the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television quoted Khamenei as saying to Haniyeh that Hamas must continue its resistance against Israel, pointing out that the late Palestinian leader "Yasser Arafat lost his popularity because he distanced himself from the resistance."

The Iranian leader added that Iran "always stands to the side of the Palestinian resistance."

Fatah is not happy with this characterization of their founder.

Ahmed Assaf, Fatah spokesman, lashed out at Khamenei. He said, The status of the martyr leader Yasser Arafat is immortalized in the consciences of the Palestinian people and Arab and Islamic nations and the free world, and does not require the false testimony of Khamenei of Iran."

Assaf added, "The Israeli occupation assassinated the commander of the Palestinian people because of his steadfastness on the rights of our people and adherence to legitimate resistance to occupation and settlement, so he became a martyr after a siege in his headquarters in the home for three years. "

Assaf continued, "We deplore the Haniyeh's consistent abuse of the history of the Palestinian people in exchange for for a bunch of money," calling on Iran to stop interfering in Palestinian and Arabic affairs.

(h/t Eliyahud)

Syrian defector: "After we defeat Assad we will be stronger to face the Jews"

Israel's Mako has an interesting interview with a Syrian army defector.

Until six weeks ago Hassan was a lieutenant in armored division 5 of the Syrian army. Since March 2011 he fought as a soldier in the Assad's army in suppressing riots, until he decided he could do it no longer.

With the help of an organized network that runs the Free Syria Army, Hassan managed to defect together with another officer and a soldier.

For most of the interview he describes how the Free Syria Army is fighting and his observations of what he is calling a civil war.

But at the end of the interview:

Lt. Hassan will continue to fight the Syrian army and spread the messages of the Free Syria Army over the Internet. During our conversation there is one message he felt is important to him to clarify in no uncertain terms: "Zionists, do not think that after the government is replaced we would give up the sword. The Golan Heights and the Zionist state is still defined as 'Dar al Harb' (Muslim area of war). After we release Syria from the corrupt regime, we will be stronger to face the Jews."

Lovely.

(h/t Yoel)

Now Twitter helps fuel hateful Arab incitement

From The Warped Mirror blog in JPost:

Friday night, I discovered that on his Electronic Intifada blog, Ali Abunimah had put up a post claiming that Likud leaders were planning to go to Al-Aqsa early Sunday morning and that they were calling for “cleansing” Jerusalem and building a Jewish temple instead of the mosque. At the bottom of the post, Abunimah added an update that half-heartedly acknowledged that there was no basis to the story, but he nevertheless concluded by claiming:

"There’s certainly no doubt that whoever published this flyer […] is tapping into a history of calls and growing support for destroying Al-Aqsa. Feiglin’s supporters too are clear about their desire to take over the Temple Mount."

In response, I wrote a post pointing out that spurious claims about Jewish threats to the Al-Aqsa mosque had been used by Arab agitators for almost a hundred years: it was the notorious mufti Haj Amin al Husseini who first used this libel in the 1920s. In the almost 100 years that have passed since then, it was of course only sites sacred to Jews that were desecrated and destroyed in Jerusalem.

When I wrote this post last night, I noted that Abunimah’s post had about 100 tweets and some 150 Facebook endorsements. Some 24 hours later, it had 381 tweets and 523 Facebook “likes”, and there were the beginnings of a Twitter intifada: word of the evil designs of the wicked Likudniks had reached the popular Egyptian-American writer Mona Eltahawy, who send out a tweet about it – and she has more than 100 000 followers…

Luckily, by that time, Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department and professor at Princeton, had also gotten word of the story and found out that it was a hoax. Realizing that it was a very dangerous hoax, she sent out multiple tweets to alert her more than 20 000 followers.

Mona Eltahawy quickly deleted her original tweet and also helped to get out the message that it was a hoax, but by that time, the Al-Aqsa libel was already spreading like wildfire. As one tweet by a professor of sociology put it: “Scared of all the fake rumors about Al #Aqsa. First rule of sociology is if enough people believe something, it will have real consequences.”

Maybe Ali Abunimah will be pleased by the thought that just like with his #IsraelHates- campaign, he once again managed to cause a stir in the Twittersphere – and this time around, there was even the specter of going beyond a merely verbal “Electronic Intifada” to a real intifada of senseless violence and bloodshed.

The Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation and various Muslim firebrands are well-known for creating false rumors about supposed Israeli designs on the Temple Mount. They do it practically every week on their website, and many of those make it into the mainstream Palestinian Arab press. Here are just a few I have documented over the years:

November 2008: Israel Antiquities Authority drawing up plans to build the Third Temple
April 2009: Israel is building a subway to the Temple Mount
June 2009: Netanyahu is planning to build the Third Temple
September 2009: Israel will give exclusive access to Jews to the Al Aqsa Mosque for 50 days a year
February 2010: Cracks on the Temple Mount is from Israeli construction and plans to destroy it
March 2010: Israel will start construction of the Third Temple on March 16, 2010

Now we have Twitter and inciters like Abiminah who are willing to help these rumors spread even faster. And it would be funny if it wasn't true that sometimes rumors like these lead to deadly results.

Surprise! Tourism to Egypt plummeting

Osama el Ashry, Egypt's undersecretary of tourism, says that bookings have gone down 20% since the recent kidnappings of tourists.

He said "the kidnapping of the Koreans, and before that the Americans, led to a decline in hotel occupancy, which was already suffering from a crisis from the security situation."

Meanwhile, civil aviation officials said that the number of air travelers to Egypt has declined by 60% since the revolution.

Egypt's tourism industry was worth about $11.6 billion in 2009,and it employs some 12% of the workforce.

Electricity crisis in Gaza gets worse

Egypt apparently sent small amounts of fuel to Gaza's power plant on Friday night, but only about a half-day's worth, according to the chief engineer of Gaza's electric plant Canaan Obeid.

On Thursday he had warned that there was only enough fuel for the power plant to run for 72 hours.

He charged the PA with pressuring Egypt not to send any diesel to Gaza, saying that Mahmoud Abbas insists that the fuel only go through Israeli crossings.

As I reported on Thursday, Hamas has been refusing to receive power plant fuel from Israel since January 2011. And it appears that Hamas has been getting its fuel through smuggling tunnels under Rafah, meaning that it never had a steady supply and it is especially bad now that Egypt is suffering from its own fuel problems and is cracking down on fuel smuggling.

Obeid says, seemingly accurately, that the electricity crisis is "highly political." Just he only blames the PA, when in fact Hamas is at least as guilty by placing its citizens at risk rather than accept fuel from Israel.

We'll see if Gaza goes dark tomorrow.

More indications of a split within Hamas

From YNet:

Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar has publicly expressed his opposition to a reconciliation agreement signed this week by the Islamist group's politburo chief, Khaled Mashaal, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Zahar told a Gaza-based news agency that the agreement, under which Abbas would head an interim unity government of politically independent technocrats whose main task would be to prepare for presidential and parliament elections, was finalized without consulting other Hamas leaders.

"Handing the reins of government to Abbas is completely unacceptable," Zahar said. "It's a strategically erroneous plan."

The Hamas leader added that Hamas leaders in Gaza and abroad will convene in the coming days to discuss the terror group's official position on the agreement.

In the interview, Zahar said that the Doha declaration of unity was effectively Meshal recognizing Israel and that it causes a "major threat" to the future of Hamas.

He denied that there was a rift, and said that political decisions in Hamas must not be done unilaterally but must instead go through its Shura council.

Meanwhile, Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh is in Iran, and Al Arabiya sees that as another indication of a split:

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah’s trip to the Iranian capital of Tehran highlighted the disagreement between the movement’s leaders at home and abroad, particularly his relationship with Damascus-based politburo chief Khaled Mashaal.

Haniyah’s acceptance of an invitation by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to participate in the celebration of the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, demonstrates the disagreements between Hamas leaders inside and outside the Gaza Strip, said political analyst Mekhimar Abu Saada.

“This division started becoming clear after the reconciliation agreement signed in Cairo between Fatah and Hamas,” he said.

At the time, he explained, Mashaal surprised Hamas by granting Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas a one-year grace period to conduct negotiations with Israel.

However, Abu Saada added, divisions inside Hamas were made clear when the resistance movement was required to take a stance as far as the Syrian crisis is concerned and the general inclination was to reject Iran’s demand that Hamas support Bashar al-Assad’s regime like Lebanon’s Hezbollah did.

“Mashaal was in the camp that favored distancing itself from Iran and Syria and getting closer to the Sunni axis represented by Turkey, Qatar, and the Palestinian president.”

That is why, he pointed out, this visit seems to have been an explicit rejection of Mashaal’s stance and that of the majority of Hamas leaders.

“This move by Haniyah and any similar moves likely to take place by Hamas leaders at home can be attributed to financial factors.”

Abu Saada explained that Hamas in Gaza is more in need of financial aid from external powers and that is why it is in its best interest not to contradict Iran.

“This, in addition to Haniyah’s objection to the rapprochement between Mashaal and Abbas, is expected to encourage the prime minister to maintain strong relations with Iran even though it supports the Syrian regime unlike Hamas’s initial stance.”

According to sources, Hamas leaders abroad as well as several Gulf nations advised Haniyah not to accept the Iranian invitation.

For his part, Haniyeh told a crowd in Iran that Hamas will never recognize Israel and will actively seek its destruction:

Hamas “will never recognize Israel,” its Gaza prime minister said Saturday in a speech in Iran that is likely to complicate Palestinian efforts to form a unity government in the teeth of opposition from the Jewish state.

“They want us to recognize the Israeli occupation and cease resistance but, as the representative of the Palestinian people and in the name of all the world’s freedom seekers, I am announcing from Azadi Square in Tehran that we will never recognize Israel,” Ismail Haniyeh said.

“The resistance will continue until all Palestinian land, including al-Quds (Jerusalem), has been liberated and all the refugees have returned,” he said.

Haniyeh’s reiteration of Hamas’s long-held stance was made on the occasion of Iran’s commemoration of its 1979 Islamic revolution. The Gaza leader spoke to an estimated crowd of 30,000 from a stage alongside Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Did Interpol help nab Saudi "apostate"?

From The Guardian:

Interpol has been accused of abusing its powers after Saudi Arabia used the organisation's red notice system to get a journalist arrested in Malaysia for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Police in Kuala Lumpur said Hamza Kashgari, 23, was detained at the airport "following a request made to us by Interpol" the international police cooperation agency, on behalf of the Saudi authorities.

Jago Russell, the chief executive of the British charity Fair Trials International, which has campaigned against the blanket enforcement of Interpol red notices, said: "Interpol should be playing no part in Saudi Arabia's pursuit of Hamza Kashgari, however unwise his comments on Twitter.

"If an Interpol red notice is the reason for his arrest and detention it would be a serious abuse of this powerful international body that is supposed to respect basic human rights (including to peaceful free speech) and to be barred from any involvement in religious or political cases."

He called on Interpol to stand by its obligations to fundamental human rights and "to comply with its obligation not to play any part in this case, which is clearly of a religious nature".

Interpol, which has 190 member countries, has a series of coloured notice systems that police forces around the world use to pass on requests for help. Contacted at its headquarters in Lyon, France, the organisation did not immediately reply to requests for comment on the Kashgari case.

In response to past criticisms of the red notice system, it has said: "There are safeguards in place. The subject of a red notice can challenge it through an independent body, the commission for the control of Interpol's files (CCF)."

Last year Interpol was accused by Fair Trials International of allowing the system to be abused for political purposes when it issued a red notice for the arrest of the Oxford-based leader of an Asian separatist movement, Benny Wenda, who has been granted asylum and has lived in the UK since 2003.

Interpol has hundreds of people listed in its Red Notice system; over 160 are wanted by Saudi Arabia alone. (It looks like the limits of a database query is 160.) There are plenty of categories to hide a request for apostasy, for example "hooliganism" or simply "at large."

Anyway, it is too late for Kashgari:

Saudi citizen Mohamad Najeeb A. Kashgari, better known as Hamza Kashgari, who allegedly posted blasphemous tweets on Prophet Muhammad's birthday, was deported back to his country hours before his lawyers managed to get a High Court injunction to stop the deportation.

The lawyers, led by R Kesavan, said that they got the injunction at 1.30 pm today only to be told that Kashgari has been put on a private plane sent by the Saudi authorities at 10 am this morning.

The injunction was an order to the police, the Home Ministry, as well as the Subang and Kuala Lumpur International Airport immigration authorities to stop Kashgari's deportation.

"We managed to get the injunction from High Court Judge Datuk Rohana Yusof at her house.

"We are very disappointed that the authorities refused us access to Kashgari and we were given the runaround. We were not told of his whereabouts since he was detained at KLIA last Thursday. As he is now out of the country, there is nothing more we can do," said Kesavan.

Saudi Arabia, where you can get executed for a tweet.

Report: Saudis would buy nukes from Pakistan within weeks of Iranian bomb

There goes the neighborhood:

Saudi Arabia would launch a military nuclear program immediately if Iran successfully developed atomic weapons.

While Riyadh signed an agreement with the US in 2008 stating that it would only pursue nuclear power for civil purposes, the Saudi government is likely to abandon the deal if Tehran had a nuclear bomb, reported The Times.

"There is no intention currently to pursue a unilateral military nuclear program but the dynamics will change immediately if the Iranians develop their own nuclear capability," a senior Saudi source said.

"Politically, it would be completely unacceptable to have Iran with a nuclear capability and not the kingdom."

In such an eventuality, Saudi Arabia would start work on a new ballistic missile platform, purchase nuclear warheads from overseas and aim to source uranium to develop weapons-grade material.

Officials in the West believe Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have an understanding in which Islamabad would supply the kingdom with warheads if security in the Gulf was threatened.

A Western official told The Times that Riyadh could have the nuclear warheads in a matter of weeks of approaching Islamabad. Other vendors were also likely to enter into a bidding war if Riyadh indicated that it was seeking nuclear warheads.

Both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have denied the existence of any such agreement.

Like the US and many other countries in the West, Saudi Arabia believes that Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons and the kingdom is preparing for a worst-case scenario, the Saudi sources said.

If this is true (The Times has a spotty record in such scoops), it is bad enough that Pakistan is willing to sell nuclear warheads to protect Saudi interests.

And if they are willing to sell to the Saudis, chances are they would do the same for other gulf countries.

And if they do that, the chances that a terror group would end up with nukes skyrockets, especially in the chaos that the "Arab spring" is bringing.

And beyond that, who could the "other vendors" be that are willing to sell nukes to Saudi Arabia? China? Russia?

Notice that no Arab countries felt this threatened by the assumption that Israel has had nukes since the 1960s.

(h/t Yoel)

Saturday night open thread

Haven't done one in a while...

University of PA responds about Amy Kaplan's politicizing of her courses

I asked the chair of the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania, Nancy Bentley, to comment on my post earlier today about a Q&A at last week's PennBDS conference.

Here was her answer:

I can say I didn't agree with the way the blog characterized Professor Kaplan's comments on the recording. The blog stated the following:

"At the Q&A session, another teacher asked Kaplan how to incorporate the BDS memes of demonizing Israel into college courses, even when the course has nothing to do with "Palestine." And Professor Kaplan answered him. Here we have a professor at an Ivy League university explicitly calling on like-minded educators to shoehorn hate of Israel into every one of their classes."

This characterization is not accurate. Contrary to the claim that Professor Kaplan believes that political views on Israel-Palestine should be forced into college courses that have nothing to do with that subject, Kaplan explicitly said she didn't think that was feasible: "I don't know how you can address the issue if you're not dealing with a course that has no content or relationship to it."

She took the position instead that certain kinds of thematic courses, such as prison literature or prison history, would have an inherent relation to the topic of Israel-Palestine (as one case among others). Prison writing is a well established area in literary studies, as is the history of prisons. Any search of data bases will reveal this neutral fact of academic history. And I fail to see how the case of the Israeli-Palistinian [sic] conflict would be inherently inappropriate as a case study for a thematic course of that sort, just as with courses like war literature or the literature of mourning and violence. If you can explain how this is not the case, I'd be happy to comment.

"For these academics, college is not about teaching but it is merely a platform for them to spout their political views at their captive audience." This assertion on the blog does not seem accurate to me either, since Professor Kaplan expressed the idea that only courses in which Israel and Palestine were relevant to the advertised course theme would be logical candidates for discussing these questions. Such courses (prison writing, war and literature, etc.) are not required of English majors or SAS students, so discussions of the politics of the Israeli-Palestine conflict would never be forced on a "captive audience."

Professor Kaplan didn't say that one shouldn't try to figure out a way to fit one's politics into a course that should have nothing to do with politics - just that she doesn't know exactly how one would do it in a practical way.

The basic issue, which Professor Bentley avoids, is that the university should not be a place where professors a priori craft their classes to push a political viewpoint, as Kaplan says she wants teachers to do and indicates she does herself. If the best example of prison studies includes Palestinian Arab events, or if the best example of poetry includes Darwish, there is nothing wrong with including that in the course. But if a professor specifically includes it for the express purpose of pushing an anti-Israel agenda there is something very wrong with that.

I'm not saying it is inherently inappropriate. I am saying it is inappropriate when the teacher decides to include it for reasons that have nothing to do with academics. Kaplan is not only doing that proudly, but she is telling like-minded people how to do it - to "make courses" that have the desired political content.

That is an problem, and to see Penn sweep it under the rug this way indicates that it is a much bigger problem than just the actions of one professor.

Here again is the Q&A:

AUDIENCE MEMBER (PROFESSOR) ASKS QUESTION:
My question falls on Professor Norton's statement that Boycott may not be the most important part of BDS, and is kind of the closest to where we live as academics and also with Professor Kaplan's call to think about a positive program on BDS, a positive aspect of the Boycott [of Israel]....And that's um about teaching in the classroom about BDS and how, not just in our life as professional producers of knowledge, and scholars, but as teachers, how can that be formed in this pedagogy, especially I guess when the course is not dealing directly with material that has to do with Palestine"

AMY KAPLAN RESPONDS:
Well I don't know how you can, how you can address the issue if you're not dealing with a course that has no content or relationship to it.... But I know that, I mean, you can make courses that have content. I mean, for example, I happen to know that you're interested in prisons, and the literature and culture about, you know, prisons, so you can teach a course on which you included prison as a really, really big thing, not only in the political life of Palestinians, but also in their literature and in their poetry, so that will be kind of an ideal way -- you take a thematic course, and you bring in themes from this issue, and literature is really a great way to teach students about what's going on -- students they think, they know they have an ideological line, a political line, and then they read, you know, they read darwish, they read, you know, The Pennoptimist and it opens up a whole new world -- so that's my answer to that.

Say goodbye to Egypt's tourism industry: 3 more kidnapped in Sinai

From Ma'an:

Armed men kidnapped three Korean tourists and an Egyptian guide in St. Catherine in the southern Sinai on Friday, an Egyptian security official said.

Maj. Gen. Muhammad Najib, director of south Sinai security, said a group of armed Bedouins stopped a bus of Korean tourists and kidnapped three in addition to the guide in Wadi Firan area.

Security sources predicted that the kidnappers may be the same who kidnapped three Americans in order to negotiate releasing Bedouins imprisoned for weapons and drugs violations.

If tourists are in danger on a tour bus, you can kiss the entire industry goodbye.

Egypt does not have a bright future. The Muslim Brotherhood will not be able to fix Egypt's financial woes; the newly powerful Salafists will push their 8th-century morality; and the Egyptian people now have the idea that they can simply protest their problems away.

Whoever is in charge will need a strong security force - whether it is SCAF or a successor - to be able to even do day-to-day governing.

And that force is going to end up killing a lot of people.

"The Jew is Satan in human form"

I linked to it before, but MEMRI just uploaded this video to YouTube, and I have to embed it here.

I mean, what would Satan do?

Following are excerpts from an interview with Sheik Bassam Al-Kayed, head of the Palestinian Islamic Scholars Association in Lebanon, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on February 1, 2012:

Bassam Al-Kayed: The Jew is a satan in human form. Allah inflicted the Jews upon humanity in its entirety, and especially upon the nation of Islam, including the early prophets and the Prophet Muhammad. The Jew is a satan in human form. We could almost say that the satanic jinn take lessons from them.

What they do is very peculiar. It transgresses all boundaries. They attribute no sanctity to anything that is sacred, to any treaty or agreement. They violate all the international laws, all the human norms, and all the Islamic and man-made laws. They violate all values. They are deterred by nothing but force.

Hey, if Allah put us here, then he must want us here, right? Sounds like Bassam saying that Allah purposefully inflicts pain on Muslims. Either that, or Jews are Allah's chosen people and the Muslims deserve to be punished. How else can we be so powerful?

Strange theology, but I'm OK with it.

OK, gotta go teach some Jinn.

Iran blocking major websites; HTTPS

From TechWeek Europe:

Iran has reportedly begun blocking sites using the HTTPS secure protocol, effectively censoring major bank sites, Google, Gmail, Facebook and many other commercial sites.

According to reports from Kabir News and The Washington Post, Internet providers in Iran began censoring the sites on Thursday, leaving behind a page which says: “According to computer crime regulations, access to this web site is denied”.

Kabir News states that the government will likely continue blocking access until Esfand, the next month in the Persian calendar, and the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

A more sinister suggestion about the downtime is that it could signal the introduction of Iran’s ‘National Internet’.

“The government’s technology officials have announced the construction of a domestic Internet network comparable to an office intranet, which would block many popular sites,” wrote Thomas Erdbrink, The Washington Post’s correspondent in Iran.

“Officials stress that there will still be access to the Web — just not to the “damaging” sites. But Iranian Internet users and activists fear that the activation of the National Internet will cut them off from the rest of the world, and put them under increased surveillance by authorities,” he wrote

Censorship has long been an issue in the country, but for a long time savvy users have been using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to bypass barriers guarded by Iran’s cyberpolice. The Post is reporting that even these means have become unviable due to extremely low speeds.

WaPo adds:

Whenever Maysam, a prominent Iranian blogger, connects to the Internet from his office in the bazaar, he switches on a special connection that for years would bypass the Islamic republic’s increasingly effective firewall.

But recently the software, which allowed him and millions of other Iranians to go online through portals elsewhere in the world, stopped working. When it sporadically returns, speeds are so excruciatingly slow that sites such as Facebook and Balatarin.com – which evaluates unofficial news and rumors in Farsi — become unusable.

“There has been a change,” said Maysam, who spoke on the condition his last name not to be used out of fear of being summoned by Iran’s cyber police. “It seems that the authorities are increasingly getting the upper hand online.”

Having seen social media help power uprisings across the Middle East, Iran’s leaders are trying to get control over what is uploaded, posted and discussed on the Internet. And after a slow start, authorities are becoming more and more successful, Iranian Internet users say.

(h/t CHA)

Saudi faces death after tweeting about Mohammed

From AFP:

A young Saudi journalist is facing calls for his execution after tweeting remarks about the Prophet Mohammed, and the kingdom's top clerics are demanding his trial after denouncing him as an "apostate."

On the occasion of the Muslim prophet's birthday last week, 23-year-old Hamza Kashgari tweeted: "I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don't understand about you."

"I will not pray for you," he added.

[Another reads: “No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice.” - EoZ]

The controversial tweet sparked a frenzy of responses -- some 30,000, according to an online service that tracks tweets in the Arab world.

In one response, Abdullah, a lawyer, said that since Kashgari was "an adult... we should accept nothing but implementing the ruling according to Islamic law" or sharia.

Insulting the prophet is considered blasphemous in Islam, and is a crime punishable by death.

Kashgari quickly apologised for his remarks, but the calls for his execution only multiplied.

A Facebook page entitled "The Saudi people demand Hamza Kashgari's execution" already has nearly 10,000 members.

A recent posting thanks the page's members for their support and calls for even more recruits.

"Our page has almost 10,000 members... but we need you to work harder. The prophet deserves more respect," said one post.

A committee of top clerics in charge of issuing religious edicts in the kingdom issued a statement calling Kashgari "an apostate" and an "infidel," and demanded that he be tried in an Islamic court.

The statement, released late on Wednesday, said: "Muslim scholars everywhere have agreed that those who insult Allah and his prophet or the (Muslim holy book) Koran or anything in religion are infidels and apostates."

It is therefore "the duty of our leaders to judge based on sharia law," which stipulates that an apostate must be sentenced to death, the statement added.

So Kashgari, reasonably, fled Saudi Arabia in fear for his life.

Unfortunately, he went to another Muslim country:

Malaysian authorities Friday said they had detained a young Saudi journalist who fled his country after Twitter comments he made about the Prophet Mohammed triggered calls for his execution.

Hamza Kashgari was taken into custody after flying into Malaysia's main international airport on Thursday, national police spokesman Ramli Yoosuf told AFP.

"Kashgari was detained at the airport upon arrival following a request made to us by Interpol after the Saudi authorities applied for it," he said.

Officials in Interpol's office in Malaysia could not immediately be reached for comment.

The state news agency Bernama said the 23-year-old Kashgari had been detained by Muslim-majority Malaysia "for allegedly insulting Islam and the Prophet Mohammed".

Would Interpol really help to hunt down an "apostate"?

Islamists in Egypt stop filming of TV show for "indecency"

From Egypt Independent:

It's easier to act when the audience can't see your face

Islamist students halted the filming of an Egyptian television series at Cairo's Ain Shams University protesting against the "indecent" clothing of the actresses, the production company said Thursday.

Misr International films had obtained permission from the university's management to film on site, the head of the company, Gaby Khoury, told AFP.

But "when the shooting started, the director of the engineering faculty, Sherif Hammad, came to tell us that some students and teachers were against it, because of the clothing worn by the actresses," he said.

The series, adapted from the novel "Dhat" by Egyptian author Sonallah Ibrahim, takes place in the 1970s, "when women wore short clothing."

Hammad "insisted that the filming should stop and that we would be reimbursed ... explaining that he was not able to guarantee the protection of the materials or the artists," Khoury added.

In a statement on Wednesday evening, the production company said "the student members of the Muslim Brotherhood at Ain Shams University had prevented the film crew from the 'Dhat' TV series from shooting the scenes set at the university."

The students had objected to the "indecent" clothing, it said, and "categorically refused" to let the filming continue unless the costumes were changed.

BDS professor at Penn explains how to demonize Israel IN EVERY CLASS

At the PennBDS conference last weekend, there was a breakout session on the "Academic Boycott of Israel."

One of the panelists was Amy Kaplan, professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.

At the Q&A session, another teacher asked Kaplan how to incorporate the BDS memes of demonizing Israel into college courses, even when the course has nothing to do with "Palestine."

And Professor Kaplan answered him.

Here we have a professor at an Ivy League university explicitly calling on like-minded educators to shoehorn hate of Israel into every one of their classes.

For these academics, college is not about teaching but it is merely a platform for them to spout their political views at their captive audience.

Watch this (audio courtesy StandWithUs)::

Do you think that this reflects the policy of the University of Pennsylvania?

For a fuller description of how the PennBDS conference was more about pushing hate than about dialogue, see this report from Guy Herschmann at JWeekly.

UPDATE: This looks like one of the courses that Kaplan "made up" more for its propaganda value than its educational value. But, of course, she is "even-handed" in including some Israeli authors as well.

Fall 2010

English

016.402

Contact and Conflict: Literatures of Palestine and Israel

UPDATE 2: The UPenn English chair responded to this post.

So why is Gaza running out of fuel? Because of Hamas' stupidity!

As a follow-up to my post earlier about Gaza's latest fuel crisis, where I pointed out that Gaza has refused diesel fuel from Israel for a bit over a year, I did a little research on why Gaza does have a shortage.

The answer is that it is all because of their own stubbornness combined with problems with their good friends, the Egyptians.

There have been big clashes in the Sinai between the Bedouin and the Egyptian security forces - today some 18 policemen were kidnapped. The disagreements are over the smuggling of goods (and people) to Israel and Gaza. Egypt is trying to curb illegal smuggling and sometimes they kill the smugglers.

Meanwhile, as I've reported, northern Egypt is suffering its own fuel crisis - mostly for butane used by consumers and especially the cylinders they are stored in. Residents are rioting and upset. So Egyptian security is cracking down on smuggling to Gaza, and it looks like their efforts are affecting the power plant fuel as well.

Because, believe it or not, when Hamas decided they don't need fuel from Israel any more, they were not relying on a steady supply of diesel from Egypt being sent in trucks through Rafah - but illegally smuggled diesel going through makeshift pipes underground!

Putting all this together, Hamas has created this crisis because of its hate for Israel - a country more than willing to supply Gaza with fuel at market rates.

Meanwhile, Egypt's ambassador to the PA says that Egypt will do what it can to ease the crisis - but it will not tolerate smuggling. Egypt's plan, as I have previously reported, is to hook Gaza up to its own power grid. That will take some time. Meanwhile, there is no easy way to get fuel to Gaza - except through Israel.

It is not inconceivable that Hamas is hoping to take advantage of this crisis to plunge Gaza into darkness and create pathos-laden wire service photos of poor people with candles illuminating homes and hospitals. They have already used that playbook when they created an artificial shortage of flour just to get the media to show the poor Gazans standing in line for bread.

(h/t G)

The Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, is on Friday to make a visit to Iran, which is celebrating the anniversary of its 1979 Islamic revolution, Iranian government officials said.

The Palestinian leader was to be received by Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, the officials said, without giving other details or the duration of the visit.

Media said Haniya would hold talks with Iranian officials and receive an honorary degree from Tehran University.

But sources close to Haniya, currently on a tour of Arab states in the Gulf, could not confirm the visit, which the Palestinian daily Al-Quds said leaders in the Gulf were urging him to call off because of their strained ties with Tehran.

I wonder what the honorary degree will be in. Murder? Terror? Extortion? Ruthlessness?

Haniyeh's visit coincides with Iran's celebrations of the anniversary of the revolutionaries declaring victory over the Shah.

His current tour includes Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain.

I imagine he'll be returning with a suitcase full of cash. If it is in Iranian rials, he'd better spend it quickly.

Interesting reactions to Madonna's upcoming Tel Aviv concert

Right after the Super Bowl, Madonna announced that she is kicking off her next tour in Israel:

Pop icon Madonna will launch her upcoming world tour in Israel, her Israeli show producer, Shuki Weiss, announced Tuesday.

The tour for Madonna's new album, MDNA, will set off on May 31 at Ramat Gan Stadium.

Unlike her last two concerts in Israel, where general admission cost NIS 490 per ticket, most audience members will pay between NIS 240 and 490 for the MDNA concert. Like last year, VIP entrance will cost between NIS 1,500 and NIS 2,500.

On Sunday night, the 53-year-old singer crazed Super Bowl audiences with her half time show, where she performed the songs, "Vogue", "Like a Prayer", "Music" and "Give Me All Your Lovin'" – from MDNA, which is set to be released in March.

According to numbers released by NBC Sports on Monday, Madonna's performance was the most-watched Super Bowl half time show featuring entertainment on record - and actually edged out the game's averages in both ratings and total viewers.

This will be the fourth performance by the Queen of Pop in Israel. Her first show was in 1993, and in her last world tour, "Sticky & Sweet", Madonna brought her mix of provocative music and spirituality to the Holy Land with two concerts in 2009.

Madonna also visited Israel in 2004 and 2007 on private pilgrimages, along with other Kabbalah devotees. She's been dabbling in Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism, for more than a decade and has taken on a Hebrew name, Esther.

The Material Girl will arrive in Israel two weeks before the concert, accompanied by an entourage of more than 300 people, to carry out intensive lastminute rehearsals. While she will visit certain sites and take advantage of being in Israel, Weiss explained that Madonna is taking the show seriously and plans to spend most of her time preparing for the big event.

“It isn’t even a regular visit anymore when she comes,” the local producer said. “It’s as if she is the process of making aliya.”

What does the BDS movement say?

Their protests seem, well, desultory. LondonBDS' Facebook page only has a couple of comments on the story. The number of foul-mouthed complainers on her web page is also minimal. It seems that since she spends so much time in Israel anyway, they've given up.

A completely different reaction is reported by AAP:

"Please don't stop the music!"

That's the plea of one Israeli fan of Madonna who has set up a Facebook group calling for Israel to delay until after the diva performs here in May what some fear will be an attack on Iran.

"Bibi! No war with Iran until after Madonna's performance on May 29," the anonymous enthusiast pleads in Hebrew in the newly created group, using a popular nickname for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

(I couldn't find that Facebook page. It still amazes me that any bozo that puts up a Facebook page can gain news coverage.)

Anyway, BDSers have their work cut out for them this year. I wanted to get a list of acts going to Israel thsi year, but "Australians for Palestine" already did an even better list of concerts in Israel planned (or maybe rumored) for this year. Thanks, guys!

Kenny Barron (Jazz piano, Philadelphia) is scheduled to play in Tel Aviv on 13 January
Janis Ian - 20 January (could be hopeless. she celebrates her Jewishness, and she’s posted this: ”Third Israel show added! How fantastic is this?! Sold out beyond belief”)
The Uri Caine Ensemble [USA] is scheduled for January 19 in Eilat Harbor.
The Karl Seglem Quintet is scheduled for January 20 in Eilat Harbor.
Bad Plus [Minneapolis, USA] is scheduled for January 20 in Eilat Harbor.
Anonymous 4 is scheduled for January 20 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.
Kora Jazz Band is scheduled for January 21 in Eilat Harbor.
Bela Fleck and the Fleckstones are scheduled for January 21 in Eilat Harbor.
Arch Enemy is scheduled for January 24 at the Barbie Club in Tel Aviv.
Ana Moura [Portugal] is scheduled for January 27 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.
James Blake [UK] is scheduled for January 27 at the Block Club in Tel Aviv.
K’s Choice (Belgium) – 23 January (again, they played here last year, and could be supporters of Israel)

Oran Etkin is scheduled for February 24 at the Tel Aviv Jazz Festival.
Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares (choir) is scheduled for February 24 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.
The Kit Downes Sextet is scheduled to tour israel from February 26-march 1.
Oli Mustonen is scheduled for March 17 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.
Justin Bieber is scheduled for April 14 in Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv.

The Jasmine Vardimon Dance Company (UK) is scheduled for May 24-25 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.
Michel Tabachnik is scheduled for May 27 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.
Alexandra Soumm is scheduled for May 27 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.
Madonna is expected to perform on May 31 in Tel Aviv.

Bruce Springsteen is scheduled for June at Ramat Gan Stadium.
Marty Ehrlich is scheduled for June 1 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.
Drew Gress is scheduled for June 1 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.
Roberto Dani is scheduled for June 1 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.
Momix Dance Company is scheduled for June 6-9 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (based in London) is scheduled for June 7th-12th in the magical setting of Masada.
The Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan is scheduled for June 13-16 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.

Andreas Staier and Alexander Melnikov are scheduled for July 4 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.
Kynan Johns is scheduled for July 24 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.
Peter Donohoe is scheduled for July 24 at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.

Stefani Germanotta is scheduled for August at Petah Tikva Stadium.
Cirque du Soleil is scheduled for August 8th-18th at the Nokia Arena in Tel Aviv.
Red Hot Chili Peppers are scheduled for September 10 in Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv.

I can add to that list "Cat Power" on February 12 (although now it looks like she caved), The Scorpions on May 7, and Lamb of God on May 30.

(h/t OnionTearsNews)

Galloway defends Syrian regime, blames Israel

Those 6000 people murdered in Syria? That's not the issue.

From George Galloway's radio show:

(h/t Yoel)

IDF foiled 5 kidnap attempts since Shalit was freed

From the IDF:

Since the soldier abducted by Hamas terrorists and kept in captivity in the Gaza Strip for five years, SFC Gilad Shalit, was returned to Israel, there were over five attempts to kidnap soldiers in northern Israel.

"There is a direct link between Shalit's return and the kidnapping attempts," said Northern Command's military police commander, Lt. Col. Nir Golan and explained: "Terror organizations know that Israel will pay a high price for kidnapped soldiers and their motivation to abduct additional soldiers is on the rise."

The abduction attempts were reported by soldiers. After such an attempt is reported, it is conveyed to the IDF criminal investigation division for further investigation. "The reports that could not be proven false are considered to be kidnapping attempts," said Lt. Col. Golan.

The military police began intensified preventative operations, such as mock abductions and raising awareness among soldiers. "Every day there are undercover teams looking for hitchhiking soldiers," said Lt. Col. Golan.

I was curious as to who would be attempting to kidnap soldiers in the north - Hezbollah? Hamas? Israeli Arabs?

I asked the IDF spokesperson and the reply I received was "The kidnapping attempts were executed by Israeli Arabs, sympathizers with terror organizations. That's all we can say about the subject currently."

More on Hezbollah denying taking orders from Iran

As a followup to my post about how Hassan Nasrallah is denying that Hezbollah takes any orders from Iran, I got an email from Zach that showed:

The Wilayat al-Faqih claims worldly, political and social authority over all Shia. As scholar Hassan Mneimneh recently put it in an article on the Arab reception of the concept: “Wilayat al-Faqih entails the recognition of the absolute worldly authority of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Supreme Leader (Rahbar), in whom the ultimate executive, legislative, and judiciary powers [are] supposed to reside.”

Hezbollah’s own experience lends support to Mneimneh’s remarks. Not only did Hezbollah seek Khamenei’s permission to enter parliamentary politics in 1992, but the party’s deputy secretary general, Naim Qassem, has written in his book on Hezbollah that “the wali al-faqih alone possesses the authority to decide war and peace.”

And:

Yahya Rahim Safavi, former commander of the Revolutionary Guards and military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Guide, Ali Khamenei, declared that in case of an Israeli attack on Iran, the Iranian retaliation will come from Lebanon, “because all the Zionist cities are within the range of our ally Hezbollah's Katyushas.”

And in a Q&A with Hezbollah's former secretary general, Sheikh Sobhi Tufayli:

Analysts have repeatedly raised the possibility of an armed conflict with Israel if the Assad regime were to fall. Do you believe Hezbollah would be willing to wage another war with Israel?

Tufayli: This decision is neither in the hands of Hezbollah nor the Lebanese people. Iran will play the Lebanese card according to its own interests. War is a possible option; however, I do not foresee a conflict in southern Lebanon for now.

Do you believe Iran’s political goals in Lebanon have changed over the past decade? Has Iran abandoned its Wilayat al-Faqih [Guardianship of the Jurist] project?

Tufayli: No country in the world will ever forgo its strategic interests. Iran will not abandon its dream of creating a Wilayat al-Faqih in Lebanon.

Again, it is disappointing to see terror leaders and would-be genocidal murderers who are so willing to lie. What ever happened to morality?

Gaza power plant running out of fuel - but not because of Israel

Palestine Today reports that "the city of Gaza will sink into darkness within 72 hours" if no fuel is found to run the power plant.

The Energy Authority in Gaza sent out a distress call to the Arab and Muslim countries for urgent intervention to resolve the crisis.

Of course, they can get plenty of fuel - from Israel. It used to be that this was exactly where they received the heavy diesel to run the power plant. But about a year ago they started refusing to use that evil Zionist fuel and instead relied on receiving the fuel from Egypt.

It is nice to see that Hamas is so principled that it will happily make its own people miserable and put them in danger rather than accept fuel from the hated Zionist entity.

Shhhh! Jews and Arabs from territories plant trees - together!

Here's another example of co-existence that the Leftists don't want people to see:

School children from the Efrat settlement and residents of the neighboring Palestinian village of Jurat al-Shama planted trees together in an initiative that promoted co-existence in the West Bank, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Wednesday.

The event, held on the Jewish holiday of Tu B'Shvat, aimed to block the hazardous dust that is being disseminated by a nearby tree-processing plant.

The factory's owner and a resident of Jurat al-Shama, Abu-Taled, relented recently to residents' complaints and built a stone wall that blocked the dust; but the barrier proved bothersome to both the Palestinian and Jewish residents of the area.

When a new traffic circle was installed at the entrance to Efrat recently, Mayor Oded Ravivi decided to level the land between the plant and the settlement, and replace the wall with a small forest.

"We met with Abu-Taled, and agreed to plant a grove on Tu B'Shvat in order to block the dust," Ravivi said. "Abu-Taled was very enthusiastic, and promised to bring friends and employees.

"This is how we could fulfill the mitzvah while also tightening our ties and work towards peaceful co-existence," he said, refering to the Jewish custom of planting trees on the nature-oriented holiday.

According to Ravivi, the sides are currently considering the possibility that Efrat security personnel would guard the factory at night, as part of the effort to cultivate a neighborly relationship.

To the Israel-hating Left, "co-existence" means attending conferences where Jews and Arabs can both attack Israel equally.

They hate real cooperation and co-existence between Jews and Arabs in Judea and Samaria, because it exposes them as hypocrites.

The idea of Jews with kippot working next to Arabs in keffiyehs does not make them smile. On the contrary, it makes their blood boil.

Proving once again that the Israel-hating Left is anything but liberal.

Analysis of Fatah-Hamas Doha agreement (JCPA)

JCPA's Jonathan D. Halevi has published an analysis of the latest agreement between Hamas and Fatah signed at Doha, and it is a nice expansion of things I have been writing as well.

The agreement makes Abbas the supreme authority for all PA institutions. In addition to heading Fatah, Abbas serves as leader of the PLO, chairman of the PA, and soon as Palestinian prime minister as well. Although appointing “the president” as prime minister contravenes Palestinian basic law, it served as a compromise to overcome Fatah-Hamas disagreement on this issue.

Although the words sound weighty, their practical significance is small since the Doha Declaration, similar to the Cairo reconciliation agreement that preceded it, does not express genuine Hamas recognition of Abbas’ leadership or his authority as leader of the Palestinian people. Instead, it is merely verbal, expedient recognition for tactical reasons, intended to enable Hamas’ official entry into the PLO in the framework of new elections for the Palestinian National Council and to pave the way for presidential and parliamentary elections.

The Hamas leaders are trying to implement the strategy of the Arab Spring in the Palestinian arena. They assume they will win an overwhelming majority in the elections to the representative Palestinian institutions and, thereby, complete their historic takeover of the Palestinian national movement. In other words, they view Abbas as the doorman who opens the gates to the Trojan horse.

Hamas sees no political significance in the envisaged Abbas-headed transition government. This is evident from the fact that its powers are limited to carrying out the presidential and parliamentary elections and working to rehabilitate Gaza. From Abbas’ perspective, his appointment as prime minister, in addition to president, will enable him to maintain the international recognition of the Palestinian government despite the agreement with Hamas, and give him room to maneuver in contacts with the international community, both politically and in terms of keeping the aid money flowing.

The Doha Declaration, like previous Fatah-Hamas agreements, emphasizes the need to implement the agreements between the sides – once again demonstrating the difficulty of achieving institutional unity in the Palestinian arena in light of Hamas’ declared ambition to assume senior status in representing the Palestinian people. The two sides will have to show great creativity to overcome the many obstacles facing the holding of elections, from unifying the separate civilian and security institutions in the West Bank and Gaza, to budget allocations.

Both sides have a basic interest in joining forces. Hamas, as noted, sees the move as an opportunity to attain seniority and rebuild its infrastructure in the West Bank. Fatah is drawn into the reconciliation by force of circumstances and awareness of the lessons and implications of the Arab Spring, which has led to the loss of its Egyptian support and the rise in power of the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent-movement of Hamas. It appears that the Fatah leaders prefer swimming with the current to sinking beneath it. Abbas thereby buys himself some quiet for an interim period. When it ends, though, he will likely find himself without assets and in a minority in the representative institutions of the Palestinian national movement.

Abbas’ cooperation with Mashaal, and his uncompromising refusal to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, illustrates the strategic choice he has made. He does not prefer the path of a political settlement but, rather, to link up with Hamas and the other regional forces emerging in the Arab Spring and thereby use them as a force multiplier against Israel without having to offer political concessions. The release of the 64 prisoners is not only a gesture to Hamas but also an implicit message that the security cooperation with Israel is secondary in Abbas’ eyes to the old-new alliance with Hamas.

BDS hypocrites (poster)

As I noted last year, BDSers want you to boycott tons of exports of strawberries, peppers and cherry tomatoes grown by Palestinian Arab farmers - simply to hurt the Israeli exporter they rely on to reach the European markets.

These hypocrites would rather see thousands of Arab farmers unemployed.

Pakistan official hints they would support Iran in a war

From The Sun:

Pakistan's High Commissioner to Britain Wajid Shamsul Hasan told The Sun in an exclusive interview that his country's relations with America are at their lowest ebb....

On Iran, Mr Hasan said: "We would not like Israel to attack any country, irrespective of whether it's Iran or any nuclear country. We wouldn't like to be seen as part of Israel's campaign against any country. If Israel attacks Iran, it will have an impact on Pakistan as well.

"We will have to safeguard our own interests. We also have a Shia population in Pakistan who will not take it lying down."

He warned that India and Gulf countries could also get involved in any conflict.

Edgar Davidson thinks his statement is even worse.

UPDATE: From AP a few days ago:

A European diplomat based in Pakistan, permitted to speak only under condition of anonymity, said that if Israel attacks, Islamabad will have no choice but to support any Iranian retaliation. That raises the specter of putting a nuclear-armed Pakistan at odds with Israel, widely believed to have its own significant nuclear arsenal.

(h/t Yoel)