Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Israeli researchers: Empathetic people understand sarcasm. Yeah, right.

Israeli scientists locate sarcasm in the brain

Don't you just hate it when you delivery a zinging putdown line to some annoying person, and it goes right past them?

Well, it turns out that they're not necessarily dense, or ignoring you. Israeli researcher have discovered that the ability to comprehend sarcasm depends upon a carefully orchestrated sequence of complex cognitive skills based in specific parts of the brain.

The research details an 'anatomy of sarcasm' that explains how the mind puts sharp-tongued words into context. The findings appear in the May issue of Neuropsychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA). The findings could provide vital clues to the best way of helping people with autism and Asperger's syndrome, as well as those with some forms of brain damage, to improve their communication skills.

Simone Shamay-Tsoory, PhD, and colleagues at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa and the University of Haifa who conducted the research explain that for sarcasm to score, listeners must grasp the speaker's intentions in the context of the situation. This calls for sophisticated social thinking and 'theory of mind,' or whether we understand that everyone thinks different thoughts. As an example of what happens when 'theory of mind' is limited or missing, autistic children have problems interpreting irony, the more general category of social communication into which sarcasm falls.

'To detect sarcasm, irony and jokes, and to better understand what people mean when they talk, we must have empathy,' said Shamay-Tsoory.

Suuuuuuuuuuure.

A 15-year-old Palestinian was arrested at the Hawara checkpoint outside Nablus on Tuesday afternoon after he was discovered carrying two pipe bombs inside a black bag.

On Sunday, a 14-year-old Palestinian wearing a belt with two pipe bombs strapped to it was arrested, also at the Hawara checkpoint.

Security officials noted that since the beginning of the year, 52 Palestinian minors were caught wearing explosives belts or attempting to smuggle weapons through checkpoints in the West Bank.

Even Amnesty International seems to have noticed this, although for some reason they missed 49 of the attacks. And, of course in the end of the same article (not quoted here), in an amazing display of cognitive dissonance, they have to make it "evenhanded" by blaming Israel for arresting kids and without sources, they claim Israel tortures them.

Amnesty International reiterates its calls to Palestinian armed groups to put an immediate end to the use of children in armed activities.

"Palestinian armed groups must not use children under any circumstances to carry out armed attacks or to transport weapons or other material", Amnesty International said.

On 22 May 2005 a 15-year-old Palestinian child carrying explosive was arrested by the Israeli army at the Huwara military checkpoint, at the entrance to the West Bank town of Nablus.

This is the third such incident this year in which Palestinian children have been arrested at Israeli military checkpoints while carrying explosives or munitions. On 3 February a 17-year-old was arrested at the same checkpoint while carrying explosives and bullets, and on 27 April two 15-year-olds also carrying explosives and bullets were arrested at a military checkpoint at the entrance of the West Bank town of Jenin.

Several Palestinian armed groups, including the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an offshoot of the ruling Fatah party, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), have used children to transport explosives and munitions, thereby endangering their lives. In some cases these groups have sent children to carry out suicide attacks.

On 1 November 2004 a 16-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank town of Nablus carried out a suicide bombing which killed three Israeli civilians in a Tel Aviv market. He was the youngest Palestinian to carry out such an attack. The PFLP claimed responsibility for the attack. The boy's family condemned those who used their child for the attack.

Palestinian armed groups have repeatedly shown total disregard for the most fundamental human rights, notably the right to life, by deliberately targeting Israeli civilians and by using Palestinian children in armed attacks. Children are susceptible to recruitment by manipulation or may be driven to join armed groups for a variety of reasons, including a desire to avenge relatives or friends killed by the Israeli army.

The missing Hawranites

South of Damascus, in what is now southwest Syria, is the area known as Hawran. (It is a Biblical name.) Although there is not much that can be found about them nowadays, it seems that the people who lived there had been there for many centuries, at least since the Crusades. They had interesting architecture (buildings made out of lava) and a very fertile, although treeless, land.

There was a major famine in the early 1930s that made life difficult for Hawranis. Guess where they went? (July 5, 1934)

And they were not alone: (November 22, 1933)

11/23/33:

8/1/34

My email to Condoleeza Rice

Subject: Democracy versus Freedom

Dear Madame Secretary:

I read with interest your comments about the importance of democratic institutions to be developed in Palestinian areas before true peace can occur.

I am afraid that I've been seeing too many people in the administration substitute "democracy" for "freedom." Democracy is not a panacea; after all, Hitler was elected democratically. What needs to be stressed, as Natan Sharansky has been saying and writing, is that the existence of a free society is a necessary precondition to true democracy.

It is apparent that terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah would do quite well in democratic elections, but their being voted in does not make them less terroristic by one bit. Unless true freedoms have a chance to take hold in Arab societies, unless women and minorities can walk around without fear, unless the culture of hate disappears and is replaced by a culture of life - only then can elections be meaningful and fruitful. Until then, I am afraid that elections would just be a smokescreen for more terror with a dignified veneer.

Thank you.

Email to the State Department:
http://contact-us.state.gov/ask_form_cat/ask_form_secretary.html

Article about Rice's speech:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3089434,00.html

May 24, 1936 Palestine Post: Response to Arab riots

Note the "peaceful" protests of the Arabs to the existence of Jews owning land in Palestine. Notice how even then, the Jews stress how they want to live in peace.

Another point mentioned is that Arabs at the time were moving to Palestine "in the thousands" as a result of Jewish hard work in making the land a paradise. And they were specifically moving to the most Jewish areas. A significant percentage, perhaps most, of today's "Palestinians" are descended from these thousands who did not live in Palestine before the 1920s.

Some 2,500 Palestinian Hamas members, unmollified by a now-retracted magazine allegation that US soldiers desecrated a copy of the Koran, streamed out of mosques in the West Bank city of Nablus Friday chanting, 'Death to America, death to Israel.'

They sound like reasonable people who can be trusted if they are elected in the democratic process.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was forced to issue an official apology to the Indian Embassy, after Knesset security personnel prevented Indian legislators clad in orange from entering the Knesset.

The incident occurred yesterday, when members of India's largest opposition faction, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), visited the Knesset while wearing orange scarves. Orange is their party's official color - but the Knesset guards were not impressed. Apparently told to prevent the color orange from being brought into the Knesset because of its association with the anti-expulsion protest campaign, the guards immediately informed the visitors that they could enter - but without their scarves. The scarves were returned to the lawmakers at the conclusion of their visit.

'I found it to be ridiculous not to allow a piece of cloth,' one of the Indian delegation members told Army Radio. 'Those are messages of intolerance. Today it's cloth, and soon it could be ideas that are barred.'

I wonder when the government will apologize to Jews who are not allowed to practice free speech and wear orange - Jews who elected this government to begin with?

I try very hard to run this blog with Jewish unity in mind, and I try not to dwell on inter-Israeli politics and disputes. But when a government that prides itself on the freedoms given its citizens, and on being the only democracy in the Middle East, acts in ways that are the antithesis of freedom and democracy, it is proper to mention it.

No matter what your position on disengagement is, what the government is doing now to curb peaceful protests and free speech is completely against what Israel stands for. For more details, go to disengagement.org.

January 22, 1939 - The more things change... (updated)

I have long held that there is a common denominator in the Arab side of the Israel-Arab conflict: the fact that Arabs do not want Jews to own land in the Middle East.

It is not that they don't want any Jews there, because historically there have been Jews in Arab lands. It is simply that they cannot abide Jews owning land in the area, no matter how legally it is acquired. I believe this is because the Arab Muslim psyche is so heavily invested in the idea that Jews are weak dhimmis, as they acted this way for centuries, and this was some sort of validation of the supremacy of Islam. But for whatever reason, land is the single factor that can explain every Arab action vis a vis Israel since the beginning of modern Zionism. It explains 1948, it explains 1973, it explains Camp David (where Sadat said that he'd rather have war than lose a single grain of sand of the Sinai), it explains the Intifada, the infamous "stages" plan of Arafat, and it explains the entire existence of the Palestinian people as the pawns they became and remain. It also explains the existence of Hamas and Hezbollah.

This fact must be recognized and addressed before any real peace can occur. And, frankly, this would require a complete turnaround of a century of Arab opinion and incitement, something that will not occur any time soon.

Read between the lines: At this point in time, Jews only lived on land they legally bought.

Every single "demand" of the Arabs mean the same thing: Jews should not own land in then-Palestine.

And the doubletalk at the end of the article is well-known to anyone who follows the news: Only when Jews no longer own land will Palestine have "tranquility" again. As in today, those the Arabs declare to be enemies don't actually have to do anything to cause problems - they just have to exist, and when Arabs riot as they did in the early 1930s, it is the fault of the Jews for owning land.

SoccerDad brings this up to date:

The PA passed legislation in 1998 making Israeli ownership of Palestinian real estate a "harm to national security" that constitutes a "crime of high treason" punishable by death. ³³ The murders of five Palestinian land dealers who sold property to Israelis indicated that the Palestinian Authority was not simply using rhetoric.

And an even more egregious example happened quite recently:

The Greek Orthodox church in the holy land, already mired in financial and political scandal, has been accused of secretly selling off a prime Arab area of Jerusalem's old city to Jewish settlers.

The Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, has ordered an investigation of the sale of land and buildings in Omar Ibn al-Hitab square, next to the Jaffa Gate, a sensitive area because its future is uncertain in any negotiated settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Mr Qureia said he suspected the deal was part of a broader strategy by Jewish groups to buy up property and force Arabs out, "all with the goal of making Jerusalem Jewish".

"It is dangerous and a clear indication of the Israeli plan that targets the holy city," he said.

Notice that no one is accusing Jews of buying the land illegally...just the fact that Jews want to buy land in Jerusalem is enough to drive Arabs crazy.

How can anyone think that a true peace is possible when Arabs clearly do not accept the idea of Jews owning or buying the tiniest bit of land in the area?

Fanatic factoids

A Google News search on the term "Jewish fanatics" brings up:

3 stories from Al-Jazeera.info;
1 story from AlJazeera.com;
1 story from a Cuban website;
1 story from the Times of London (Headline: "Jewish fanatics flood into Gaza to resist withdrawal");
and one quote of an Israeli general saying "I do not rule out the possibility that some Jewish fanatics might open fire on other Jews during the evacuation!"

"Earlier Sunday, Mrs. Bush placed a note in the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest shrine..." (Guardian)
" The stamp depicts the pontiff's stop at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site..." (CBC)
"Laura Bush placed a note in the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest shrine..." (ABC News/AP)
"Laura Bush spent a few moments of silence in the women's section at Judaism's holiest shrine..."(Times of India)
Mrs Bush headed to the Western Wall, Jerusalem’s holiest shrine. (Ireland OnLine)
The Wailing Wall, the last remnant of the Second Temple which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, is the holiest site in Judaism and backs onto the mosque compound, which is the third most sacred spot in Islam. (IOL - South Africa/AFP)
Laura Bush spent a few moments of silence in the women's section at Judaism's holiest shrine, the Western Wall...(ABC Australia/AFP)

The holiest site in Judaism is the site of the Kodesh K'dashim, the "Holy of Holies," where the Aron (Ark) stood in the two Temples. This is on part of the Temple Mount. It is so holy that many rabbis say that Jews cannot visit there, and others allow visits only to specific areas and under certain circumstances.

It is not a hard concept to understand, but for some reason most of the media doesn't seem to get it, or want to get it. Probably because it could open up a can of worms - in an era where Muslims kill each other over a false report of a single desecration of a printed book, of which many hundreds of millions have been printed, the very existence of the Dome of the Rock is a daily desecration of Judaism's holiest site. And when it is admitted that the Temple Mount isthe holiest site on the planet, then people will start wondering how the Muslims decided it became their third-holiest site. And these questions may show other uncomfortable truths about Islam, and where exactly Islam got the idea of the Temple Mount being the third holiest site to begin with. (I do not believe all the statements in the link I just posted about the Muslim claim that Jerusalem is its third holiest site only started in the 1930s; I found a Palestine Post article from 1939 that states the holy status of Jerusalem to Islam matter-of-factly, but even so, the pictures speak for themselves that the Muslim world did not place too much importance on Jerusalem before the Jews came.)

So in general, it is easier for the world media to pretend that the Western Wall (or "so-called Western Wall", as Al-Jazeera.com terms it) is Judaism's holiest site, because the truth just is too messy to think about.

(To their credit, the London Telegraph and the BBC more accurately portrayed the Temple Mount as Judaism's holiest site.)

Has the Elder reached the big time?

This blog has been mentioned (in passing) yet again in this weeks Hevel Havelim and it is getting to my head so much that I'm starting to refer to myself in third person. What can I say...all is vanity.

As it is, the article referenced has already become by far the most read and discussed thing I have written, with links from Israellycool, a Little Green Footballs message, and Zibbiboisgood. (Of course, while getting 85 unique visitors in one day may be a big deal for me, it is background noise for the more popular blogs. )

But I would be remiss if I didn't thank my visitors, thank SoccerDad for suggesting that I self-nominate, and ask RACHack my usual HH host question: shouldn't הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים be pronounced "Havel Havalim"? I expect a proper scholarly answer!

I also fully expect to fade back into semi-obscurity by the time the next issue comes out.

PA promised to stop incitement in February

This Jerusalem Post article, published in March, says:

The Palestinian Authority has decided to impose restrictions on preachers who deliver Friday sermons in West Bank and Gaza Strip mosques, a senior PA security official told The Jerusalem Post Tuesday.

Under the new restrictions, preachers would not be able to deliver sermons that have not been authorized by the PA, he said.

This will be the first time that since the establishment of the PA that preachers will be unable to deliver their own Friday sermons. The move is seen as an attempt by the PA leadership to stop incitement against Israel and the US in mosques.

"From now on, the preachers will be given speeches prepared in advance by the PA authorities," the official said. "Anyone who does not abide by the text will be fired."

Guess who's speech they were pretending to respond to?

The PA's decision to impose censorship on preachers follows protests from Israeli and the US officials over a recent sermon in the Gaza Strip, in which the khatib, or preacher, called for the liberation of all of Palestine.

On February 4, Ibrahim Mudiris, a prominent PA preacher, said in a sermon broadcast live on the PA-owned television station and translated by The Middle East Media Research Institute: "We do not love any land more than the land of Palestine. Had the Jews not expelled us from it with their planes, their tanks, their weapons, their treachery around us, we would never leave you, O Palestine.

"We tell you, Palestine, we shall return to you, by Allah's will. We shall return to every village, every town and every grain of earth which was quenched by the blood of our grandparents and the sweat of our fathers and mothers. We shall return, we shall return. Our willingness to return to the 1967 borders does not mean that we have given up on the land of Palestine."

Yup, the same guy that called for the genocide of Jews in last Friday's televised sermon.

Somehow, AP and the other "reporters" in the media didn't notice this blatant lie by the PA. But they could easily publish that the PA promised again to stop it.