Tuesday, June 06, 2006

  • Tuesday, June 06, 2006
  • Elder of Ziyon
JBlogsphere.net (notice the spelling!) is a new aggregator page like JRants and Jewish Blogging. One nifty feature is the ability to mouse-over a posting and read part of the post.

Of course, the bad news is that some people can read this post without going to my site and I don't get any hits...
  • Tuesday, June 06, 2006
  • Elder of Ziyon
During Israel's War of Independence, the Palestine Post published occasional dispatches from Dorothy Bar-Adon called "Emek Diary" showing the human side of the war from her perspective.

In this amazing article, Bar-Adon describes the close relationships between her village's Jews and the Arabs of Zer'in (now Jezreel), who lived in a town overlooking much of the valley. The town's strategic position made it ideal for shelling and sniping at the Jewish villages below, and for months the Jews lived in fear of being shot in their houses or fields.

An Iraqi general and his troops arrived in Zer'in and built up fortified positions to attack from. It is unclear when exactly the residents of Zer'in left the town; most of them apparently left when the Iraqis arrived and before the Jews conquered the hill. But as this article makes clear, the Israeli soldiers could hear the Arab women of the village - neighbors and friends of the Jews in years past - shout out war cries during the first unsuccessful attempt to take the town.

Bar-Adon shows that she is in a position to be far more sympathetic to the Palestinian Arab refugees of Zer'in than the international community who were (and still are) insisting on allowing the Arabs to return: she knew them intimately, she celebrated happy times with them, she ate with them. But, as she explains, to allow Arabs to go back to Zer'in is unthinkable, knowing that they chose their sides, they waxed lyrically hoping and expecting the deaths of hundreds of Jews around Zer'in, and that they would choose sides again against the Jews if they are given a chance.

(See Palestine Post-ings for a larger version of the article.)


  • Tuesday, June 06, 2006
  • Elder of Ziyon

A Palestinian child holds a weapon during a a demonstration in support of Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah.


A very large list of similar photos can be found at LGF.
  • Tuesday, June 06, 2006
  • Elder of Ziyon
Just another link to send brain-dead reporters and editors who insist on claiming that Hamas is holding by a truce:

From Ha'Aretz:
Hamas operatives in the West Bank have experimented with adding toxic chemicals to their bombs, security sources told Haaretz Monday.

The organization also is amassing large stocks of explosives so operatives will be ready to launch attacks immediately should its leadership decide to end the security "lull," the sources added.

Currently, Hamas' West Bank cells are focusing mainly on buying arms, training operatives, setting up explosives factories and conducting experiments. However, a few cells - mainly in the southern West Bank, around Hebron and Bethlehem - are continuing to carry out small-scale attacks. These cells are only loosely connected to the organization's leadership in Damascus and Gaza, and as long as they keep a relatively low profile and do not claim responsibility for their attacks in Hamas' name, the leadership does not interfere. One such cell was arrested early this year after murdering six Israeli civilians near Gush Etzion and Hebron.

In Gaza, Hamas operatives often assist attacks carried out by Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees. The rockets fired at Sderot last week, for instance, were made by Hamas, and "rebellious" members of the organization helped launch them. The Shin Bet security service also accused senior Hamas operatives of having helped the Popular Resistance Committees prepare a attack in April at the Karni crossing between Gaza and Israel. That plan was foiled by PA security personnel.

There is also one type of attack to which Hamas' leadership has given its unequivocal blessing: attempts to kidnap Israeli soldiers or civilians for use in negotiations over the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

The Shin Bet and police arrested a senior Hamas operative in Ramallah two weeks ago who was responsible for planning several "mega-attacks." The arrest was made public Monday.

Ibrahim Hamed heads Hamas' military wing in the West Bank. His planned attacks included attempts to blow up railway tracks and an attempted bombing of the Pi Glilot gas storage facility.

Monday, June 05, 2006

  • Monday, June 05, 2006
  • Elder of Ziyon
Prosecutors launched a criminal investigation Monday of two Azerbaijani newspapers that published collages featuring the heads of Iran's spiritual leaders placed on the bodies of two dogs.

The collages appeared just weeks after a caricature published in an Iranian newspaper, depicting Azeris as cockroaches, sparked deadly riots among Azeris in Iran.

The images, published in the newspapers 'Gun' and 'New Fakt' last week, also prompted an official protest from the Iranian Embassy, which called them offensive and blamed the United States and Israel.

'Such a move serves the dirty intentions and unlawful goals of America and its Zionist allies and is intended to promote division between religions, faiths and ethnic groups, as well as in the unity of the Islamic world,' the embassy said in a statement.
The Cartoon Division of the World Media Section of the International Zionist Web was once considered a place for slackers to relax and shoot spitballs at the Sports and Hollywood divisions, but ever since late last year the Cartoon Elders have stepped up to the plate and done their fair share around here. Kudos!
  • Monday, June 05, 2006
  • Elder of Ziyon
I was always curious about why Palestinian Arab terrorists/policemen spend so much time practicing jumping through flaming hoops:


It finally hit me! It isn't, as I conjectured in February, that the "policemen" were staring a circus to cheer up the poor Palestinian Arab children and alleviate the humanitarian crisis.

But the real answer can be seen in another picture, variants of which have been published many dozens of times (כן ירבו):


Notice the relative sizes of the flaming hoops and the burnt out car window.

Palestinian Arab "police" are pursuing a skill that is very practical and much in demand in the territories: they need to practice quickly jumping out of the windows of flaming cars!
  • Monday, June 05, 2006
  • Elder of Ziyon
In today's Newark Star-Ledger is an amazing article about the Gaza economy that effectively sympathizes with a terrorist:
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip -- Silhouetted by the late afternoon sun, a lone family of Palestinian bathers gathers around a table at Ibrahim's beach café to sip tea against the backdrop of the shimmering Mediterranean.

The scene easily could have been lifted from a marketing pamphlet for an exotic beach resort. But Ibrahim's actually is located in Shirat Hayam, a former Israeli settlement, and the beach is surrounded by rubble where militant squatters make their own law.

The beach had been off limits to Palestinians before Israel ended a four-decade occupation of Gaza in September. Now, a strip of Spartan yet rustic cafés like Ibrahim's has sprung up in anticipation of a busy summer.

"We are hopeful that the coffee shops will be crowded," says Sabri el Khidra, the 48-year old owner of Ibrahim's and a local militia leader who plunked about $15,000 into the renovation. "There are a lot of plans to make this a tourist area and to make Khan Younis the most beautiful beach in Gaza."

The reporter, Joshua Mitnick, is quick to describe his ideas of the source of the problems with building the Gaza economy:

The problems here begin with economic isolation and the desperation it has spawned.

Bracing for cross-border attacks, Israel's military has sealed key commercial crossings and lobbed thousands of tank shells into Gaza. At the same time, the refusal of Hamas (the country's ruling party) to recognize Israel after taking power in March has brought a suspension of international aid.

Nowhere does Hamas' and other Palestinian Arab terror aims have any part of the equation. Israel's closure of crossings is described in the active voice; everything else is in passive voice. No responsibility for Gaza's problems is ascribed to those that practice or advocate terror.

After talking about the "success" of turning Jewish schools into a branch of Al-Aqsa University, Mitnick concludes:
Still, Ibrahim's owner, el Khidra, is hopeful the financial crisis will end soon. He even believes tourists one day might discover Gaza.

"I am prepared to protect any tourist that comes here," he boasts.

Almost any tourist. Israelis, as el Khidra points out in a stark reminder of how little things really have changed, won't ever be welcome here.

"If I could get inside (their country) today and blow myself up, I would do it."

So in paragraph 30 of this long story, we find out that the person that the reporter is profiling as a bright shining star in rebuilding Gaza is in fact a would-be mass murderer.

An article that could have emphasized that terrorists are running Gaza instead implies that Gazan terrorists are just ordinary people who want to build up their country despite Israel's and international pressure.
  • Monday, June 05, 2006
  • Elder of Ziyon
In comments on this posting, VJ claimed that I was demonizing Palestinian Arabs. Although that was not my intent, to an extent he is right, and while perhaps I was not as careful in my wording as I should have been, it got me to thinking about the actual responsibility that Palestinian Arab people (rather than their leaders) have towards a peaceful Middle East.

I strongly feel that nations and peoples have a mass psychology similar to individuals. Sometimes they coincide with their leaders' psyches, sometimes not. These psyches can change over time but it is usually a slow process. Understanding global patterns and knowing how to act properly in any given situation depends on knowing how all the players think and are likely to react, and a fatal mistake that global leaders often make is the assumption that people are all the same and would all act the same way that their own people would.

In a previous posting, I laid out my analysis of the Palestinian Arabs' psyche:
Arab people just want to raise their families with dignity and pride.

The entire brief history of the Palestinian Arabs shows this to be true. The ones who lived in Palestine in the 1800s didn't care that they were under Ottoman rule, they didn't crave independence. After the Jews started coming in serious numbers and the economy boomed, many (I believe most) of the ancestors of today's Palestinian Arabs moved into Palestine from Syria and Jordan, because that was how they could best provide for their families. More moved in under British rule than under Ottoman rule, because economic concerns were far more important than political concerns.

If "independence" was the uppermost concern of Arabs, then why do over a million choose to stay in Israel rather than move to PA-administered areas? As the Clinton team famously observed, "it's the economy, stupid."

The people who have screwed the Palestinian Arabs the most have always been their "leaders." It was their leaders who decided to force them to boycott Jewish goods to their detriment, it was their leaders who kept them in "refugee" camps, it was their leaders who forced them to fight losing battles against the hated Zionists.

The "golden age" of Palestinian Arabs was during the "occupation" - this was when they had good paying jobs, when Israel built them an electrical and safe water infrastructure, when the Zionists used their devious Jewish expertise to dramatically increase the Palestinian Arab life expectancy and slash their infant mortality rates. During Oslo, tens of thousands of Jordanians moved illegally into the West Bank so they could raise their families in the comparative paradise that Israel built for the Palestinian Arabs.

The ordinary Palestinian doesn't care who his leader is or about Zionism or occupation or terror or democracy as long as his basic needs are met.

This is the background needed to understand the Hamas victory.
While I still largely believe this to be true, I did not mention a strong component to the current Palestinian Arab psyche: the effect of decades of government-controlled, institutionalized hate speech against Israel and Jews. Years of blaming Jews for every problem, as well as years of telling people that they should live in a welfare state and that they are owed jobs, money and a country, will have a slow but cumulative effect. Palestinian Arabs are slowly turning from the most creative, ambitious and hard-working of all the Arab people into whining babies. (It is no coincidence that when they were in daily contact with Jews and Westerners was when they have traditionally acted the most maturely.)

Given all this, given the cards they have been dealt by their leaders, by other Arab leaders and by Israelis, what are the Palestinian Arab people's responsibilities? How should they be acting?

No matter what one's situation, one must act like a moral, mature and responsible human being. Growing up in a terror environment no more justifies becoming a terrorist than growing up in a crackhouse justifies becoming a criminal. It may be harder but ultimately we must be held responsible for our own decisions. This is basic.

While I do not believe that the Palestinian people voted Hamas in power because of Hamas' desire to create a Jew-free Middle East, they are in the end responsible for that result. They were aware of Hamas' goals even if that was not the primary factor in their decision to choose Hamas.

If a US state would elect a governor who is a KKK member and who advocates racist laws, even if the people elected him on a "law and order" platform, we would do everything we could to blunt the effect of that election - legally, economically and socially. We would expect boycotts of that state's products, we would expect conventions to move to other states, we would expect the federal government to pass laws to counteract any state laws the governor manages to pass, we would expect ordinary people to react with disgust and horror. Some of these actions would inevitably hurt the people of that state and in the end that is wholly appropriate.

The Palestinian Arabs should be ashamed that the bigoted and murderous Hamas ended up in power. One does not discern any sense of shame, however.

So the first responsibility is to treat a genocidal terrorist group as pariahs and not as heroes.

There is another choice that Palestinian Arabs have: whether to remain pawns in the power plays of their leaders, or to actually work to build their state and their economy.

I mentioned here that Israel's existence was no more certain in 1946 than Arab Palestine's is today, and the circumstances that the Jews lived under were quite difficult. Even so, individually and without a central quasi-governmental plan, they built universities, they built industries, they started projects that would take years to bear fruit. A people who want to be treated as an equal among other nations must act as if they deserve that status - and if they need handouts to reach that goal, the handouts should come from their own people before they demand it from the world.

In other words, their second responsibility is to build things unilaterally, not destroy them.

This posting is already going on longer than I expected, but I must mention that there are many other responsibilities that Palestinian Arabs should be taking on but on a whole are not: protecting their children from violence and from indoctrination into terror groups, teaching tolerance for other people, protesting against the culture of death, protesting against honor killings, stopping the hero worship of terrorists. The lack of responsible actions on the "street" is not the fault of their leaders, but of the people themselves. Until one sees public protests that are against violence and for acting responsibly, until one sees a huge groundswell from the people and from their press to act like responsible human beings, it is not unreasonable to criticize the Palestinian Arabs themselves.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

  • Saturday, June 03, 2006
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the Jerusalem Post:

New public opinion surveys conducted among "opinion elites" in Europe show that support for the Palestinians has fallen precipitously, according to a leading international pollster, Stan Greenberg, who has been briefing Israeli leaders on his findings in the past few days. There has not necessarily been "a rush to Israel" but there has been a "crash" in backing for the Palestinians, he noted.

Greenberg told The Jerusalem Post that the shifts in attitudes reflected in the surveys were so dramatic that he "redid" some of the polls to ensure there had been no error.

He singled out France as the country where attitudes had changed most dramatically. Three years ago, 60 percent of French respondents said they took a side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and of that 60%, four out of five backed the Palestinians. Today, by contrast, 60% of French respondents did not take a side in the conflict, and support for the Palestinians had dropped by half among those who did express a preference.

Greenberg said the figures were still being finalized, and so did not go into further details. But shifts such as these, he said, represented "an incredible pace of change," with significant consequences.

The Intifada combined with the Hamas victory in the elections has come close to ending Europe's love affair with Palestinian Arabs. Add to the mix the clear support among Palestinian Arabs for Al Qaeda, for the bombing attacks in London and Madrid, for Saddam Hussein and for Iran, and the Europeans are slowly realizing that they are backing people who want them dead.

Interestingly, this is not translating yet into support for Israel. Changing the anti-Israel attitudes will take much longer.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

  • Thursday, June 01, 2006
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Defense Update.com, hat tip to Epaminondas.

Showing yet again who the good guys are.

Iron Fist Active Protection System (APS)

Israel Military Industries (IMI)


Iron-Fist active countermeasure shown here engaging an RPG at an extremely close range. The explosion consumes the countermeasure's case to minimize the risk of collateral damage  from the explosion.
In Eurosatory 2006 IMI is unveiling its new Active Defense System (ADS) called - Iron Fist. Until recently, the development of Iron Fist was shrouded in secrecy, as it was developed in parallel to a different Israeli developed ADS system - RAFAEL's Trophy, which entered full scale development in 2005. However, due to rapid development pace and successful testing, IMI expects to deliver the first systems for IDF testing and qualifications by mid 2007. Unlike competing systems, IMI's Iron Fist can be installed on light vehicles, including trucks and even Humvees, offering effective protection from RPGs. IMI conducted extensive testing against a full spectrum of threats, engaging various types of threats from stationary and moving armored personnel carriers. The system already demonstrated effective protection of light vehicles and heavy armored vehicles, from small rocket propelled grenades, anti-tank missiles and tank rounds equipped with shaped charge warheads as well as advanced kinetic threats (armor piercing tank rounds).

An Iron-Fist interceptor shown during an intercept with an RPG. The Iron-Fist can also defeat kinetic energy (KE) rounds by destabilizing them and reduce their penetration capability.The system uses a fixed radar sensor, mounted on the protected platform, to detect potential threats, measure distance and trajectory, providing the fire control system with data for calculates engagement plans. When a threat is identified as imminent, an explosive projectile interceptor is launched toward it. The interceptor, shaped similar to a small mortar bomb, is designed to defeat the threat even when flying in very close proximity. Unlike other systems, the Iron Fist uses only the blast effect to defeat the threat, crushing the soft components of a shaped charge or deflecting and destabilizing the missile or kinetic rod in their flight. The interceptor is made of combustible envelope, fully consumed in the explosion. Without the risk of shrapnel, Iron Fist provides an effective, close-in protection for vehicles operating in dense, urban environment. The use of close proximity, rather than "hit to kill" mechanism avoids complex interception techniques and contributes to reduced cost.

One of the main advantages of the Iron Fist is its integration into routine operations. Its sensor provides essential input to situational awareness systems, based on ground radar surveillance, moving target detection, classification and tracking and motion detection. Furthermore, by loading other types of projectiles, such ass non lethal, anti-personnel, smoke or illumination, the system can be used in support of routine operation.

Iron Fist is supported by Israel's MOD Defense Research & Development Directorate (DRDD). The program is designed to protect medium and light vehicles, but based on its performance, has the potential to be fielded on heavy armor as well. In future configurations, the system has a growth potential to protect sensitive elements of fixed installations or patrol boats, protecting from RPG attacks, frequently encountered in counter insurgency operations.



  • Thursday, June 01, 2006
  • Elder of Ziyon
In a twisted but not surprising story in today's Jerusalem Post:

A group of Palestinian children were sent towards the Gaza Strip border fence holding toy guns on Thursday in order to test the vigilance of the soldiers on duty.

From a distance, troops noticed four apparently armed Palestinians approaching the border north of the Kissufim crossing.

When the four were some 400 meters from the fence, the soldiers realized that they were children, who looked to be about 13 years of age, and that their guns were toys.

This is not the first time that Palestinian Arabs cynically played with their children's lives.

But in the sick world of the Palestinian Arab psyche, it makes sense. As has been pointed out many times, the actions of these Arabs are completely inconsistent with building a state and completely consistent with destroying Israel.

Dead kids that can be blamed on Israel get media attention, putting pressure on Israelis to be more careful as they try to come up with better ways to defend their own lives as well as the lives of Palestinian children. The mileage that Palestinian Arabs can get out of a dead kid (or pretend dead kid) can be enormous. Combine that with the culture of death that permeates the territories and you have a paradoxical situation:

Palestinian Arabs have a vested interest in having their kids be killed by Israel, and Israel has a vested interest in keeping Palestinian Arab kids as safe as possible.

So Israel spends more time and money and effort in protecting Palestinian Arab children than the Arabs do.

This reason alone demolishes the "argument" that far-left and pro-terror websites use that Israel is practicing genocide against Palestinian Arabs. Forgetting that Israel actually has some morals, unlike its enemies, even if Israel wanted every Arab kid dead she wouldn't do anything about it because it only ends up hurting Israel.

And yet, even when the two sides of a conflict have such diametrically different views of morality, the world insists on being "even-handed" in dealing with the conflict.
  • Thursday, June 01, 2006
  • Elder of Ziyon
In an editorial that is ridiculously far-far-left even by al-Ha'aretz' standards, the esteemed publication advocates Israel giving up all of the Old City of Jerusalem:
Israel is having trouble formulating a logical and consistent stance with regard to East Jerusalem, and therefore it has been taking inconsistent and hypocritical steps. The decision to allow East Jerusalem residents to participate in the PA elections is part of this same duality. East Jerusalem's residents live here, vote for the PA and are citizens of Jordan. Instead of removing Palestinian parliamentarians from the eastern part of the city, it would be better to remove East Jerusalem from the State of Israel and transfer it to the Palestinian Authority.
So, if Israel is hypocritical, we must punish ourselves!

In Ha'aretz' world, a Jewish-majority state is desirable, but Judaism is not. (Talk about hypocrisy!) The ideal Israel would be a clone of Delaware, or perhaps Duba'i. The Jerusalem that we've cried over for two thousand years is just a bit of worthless real estate.

I would suggest that Ha'aretz' editors just stop being wishy-washy and convert to Islam already, but Muslims would not be interested in anyone with so little attachment to any belief system.

(Interestingly, since it is apparent that al-Ha'aretz' Judaism is purely ethnic and not religious, the desire to disengage from Arabs really does smack of racism. So I predict that as soon as they realize this, they will be writing editorials advocating the right of return for all Palestinian Arabs and the renaming of Israel to Falashtin. Otherwise, they'd be guilty of the hypocrisy they pretend to be so concerned about.)

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