Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Peaceful PalArab news

I'm not certain if it is the same one, but apparently the synagogue that the Arabs are so upset about is being built 100 meters away from the Dome of the Rock, in the Cotton Market. So the "extremist Jews" will have to expand it through a few dozen businesses before getting close to the mosque, but it is enough for the PalArabs to make a worldwide call to stop the construction and claim that it will cause "structural damage" to the mosque.

Islamic Jihad announced that they shot 8 rockets at Israel in recent days, including one today to Sderot and two towards Ashkelon.

Two shops, a pharmacy and a cafeteria were blown up in Gaza by rival fighting PalArab families.

We mentioned last week about a Tel Aviv trade show, sponsored by the Peres Center for Peace, to help Palestinian Arab high-tech companies do business in Israel. Well, a prominent Nablus official isn't happy about it and wants the Palestinian Arabs to boycott any companies that participate. Sami Al-Sadr wants to publish a blacklist of the names of the companies and will lobby the PA to launch an investigation of this terrible crime of cooperating with Israelis.

EoZ News Headlines:

Mahmoud Abbas is meeting with Islamic Jihad terror leaders in Damascus.
Fatah accuses Hamas of building a "tunnels republic" under Gaza - with American money.
The PA Interior Minister confirmed that half of a $120 million donation delivered to the PA is simply missing.

All this and more on EoZ News!

That great moderate, Mahmoud Abbas, traveled to Syria to meet with that other great moderate, Bashir Assad. But while there he also paid a respectful visit to Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, the Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad movement. But not to worry - I'm sure he's a moderate also.

Meanwhile...

The spokesperson of the Fatah movement in the West bank, Jamal Nazzal, on Saturday accused the Hamas movement and government of spending millions of US dollars on the excavation of tunnels between the Gaza Strip's cities. He compared the network of tunnels in Gaza to that which Al-Qaeda established in Kabul.

Nazzal said that the tunnels, which have been discovered, indicate a huge project aimed at establishing an underground structure which he called, the "tunnels' republic," to which press and law can have no access.

According to the spokesperson, Palestinian minister of interior Dr Mahmoud Zahhar had recently confirmed that $120 million was delivered to the Palestinians, yet only $60 million entered the treasury. Fatah has demanded that the finance ministry reveal the whereabouts of those millions.

We already mentioned Friday how the chaos in Gaza is ensuring that there is no accounting oversight, but even we are surprised at the audacity of just taking $60 million.

Not that this little incident will dissuade Europe and the US from giving more and more to the "moderate" Abbas, or to pressure Israel to give millions more of "tax revenue" to be earmarked for killing Israelis.

Palestinian Arabs forging Israeli money

But the forged coins are so bad, the victims seem to be their own people, not Israel.

From Maan News:

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Many Palestinian merchants and store keepers have confirmed that the Israeli five shekel coin is easily forged and is widespread in the Palestinian territories. However, it can be easily identified.

Ma'an News Agency has acquired one of these forged pieces, which are now spreading throughout the occupied Palestinian territories. The coin can be identified easily because, although it appears almost perfectly shaped, it seems to be made from copper which is apparent when scratched.

This phenomenon of forged 5 shekel coins is going to mainly affect those Palestinians of low income as better off Palestinians and businessmen do not require such small change. Five Israeli shekels is a little over one US dollar.

A 15-year-old boy told Ma'an that he felt so ashamed when he went to buy something from a shop and he was told by the shopkeeper that the coin was forged.

Another local man told Ma'an that a Palestinian criminal gang travelled to China and asked a local factory to fabricate a large quantity of these coins. They then brought these forged coins to the Palestinian territories, the man said. However, no official source has been able to confirm this.

Ma'an News Agency is endeavouring to obtain official answers from the relevant official departments, especially in regards to advice for ordinary people who acquire such coins.

Iran's state-run prostitution and slavery ring

Here is an amazing article about what is really going on in that enlightened nation that aims to be the model of Islamic morality and integrity in the world:

...Iran's new Islamic-guided government has established a system of legalized prostitution, through the practice of "sigheh" or "temporary marriages," by which a mullah arranges a "legal union" between a man and a girl (some as young as nine years old) for a fee. The so-called marriage can last anywhere from one hour to 99 years. Under this system, men are free to enter into as many temporary marriages as they so desire, without having any legal obligation or responsibility toward the women and children that they "marry" only to use as sexual objects and slaves.

Not surprisingly, this legalized system of slavery and oppression has led to a growing sex-trafficking industry that is partially operated by government officials and mullahs themselves. The girls who are forced into this system of sexual and economic slavery are typically transported to various countries in the Persian Gulf and are sold to individuals as well as to established brothels. The budding industry of sexual trafficking of Iranian girls has led to growing concerns about the spread of AIDS/HIV and other sexually-transmitted diseases throughout the region.

The article goes into much more detail on other abuses of women and children in Iran, including the death penalty against children. Read the whole thing.

Secondary effects of Gaza chaos

Reuters' terror apologist, Nidal al-Mughrabi, has an interesting article on how people are staying away from Gaza because of the danger there. While he spins it in the patented Reuters way, there are some facts that he buries and whose implications he ignores completely.

Simon McGregor-Wood, chairman of the Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Israel, said fewer foreign journalists have been going to Gaza due to the uncertain security situation.

This means that not too many people are reporting on how truly bad things are in Gaza. When an attack with multiple deaths occurs between Fatah and Hamas, it makes the news; when people get killed from gunfire at weddings or "work accidents" or clan clashes it never does. The hourly threats and rhetoric between Hamas and Fatah get ignored as well, not to mention the lower-level non-fatal attacks between them as well as between prominent families and the militias. The irony is that reporters are leaving Gaza because of the daily insecurity but they aren't reporting it!

This also means that in a strange kind of way, amateurs like me are better reporters about what is happening in Gaza than real reporters on the ground there. They are clearly afraid for their lives and of being kidnapped, and the terrorists do not care about a free press and routinely will go after anyone who happens to piss them off that day, including reporters. While most Palestinian Arab newspapers are mouthpieces for one movement or another, and there is certainly some self-censorship, they do more reporting that the foreign media does and it is easier to discern the truth of what is happening in Gaza from the original Arabic sources than from a foreign reporter in an armored car with a police escort who knows that if he reports something upsetting he may die.

Khalil Abu Shammala, director of Ad-Dameer Association for Human Rights, said foreign donors to some of his group's projects no longer visit Gaza to follow up on activities they finance.

This is the very last sentence in the story, and is probably the most important. Remember how all the donors from Europe were saying how careful they are now to make sure that there is transparency and accountability to ensure that their aid would make it to the people who need it? Well, throw all that out the window. Some or most of the aid ends up going to buy guns and RPGs and giant posters of whatever terror leader is popular in a specific area.

Gaza is run by thieves, thugs and murderers.

And Gaza is the model of what a Palestinian Arab state would look like.

Carter/Nazi story finally gets some coverage

I quoted and linked to a JTA story three weeks ago that Arutz Sheva just picked up as an "exclusive."

See...my readers get all the scoops :)

Hamas threatens Al-Arabiya TV

Maan News, in English:

The Palestinian government has announced that it will prosecute the television station Al-'Arabiya for the news it broadcast on Wednesday night, in which the television channel reported that Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh uttered the controversial statement, "We will not accept conditional aid, even if it were to come from God."

The government has described this statement, which was disclosed during a programme called "Akher Sa'ah", meaning 'The Final Hour', as lies and fabricated. In a statement, the government also said that they are considering boycotting the Al-'Arabiya satellite channel and are calling on the station to stop broadcasting the news.

The article goes on to say that Haniyeh was just quoting something a Fatah advisor said on Al-Manar TV and would never have said such a blasphemous comment.

But a little more color and detail emerges from the Arabic Maan News account of the aftermath:

The Fatah movement condemned threats against journalists, the media, local, Arab and international multiple formats by the Hamas movement and the government. "

Fatah said, "Hamas lost Atzanha and balance across crazy threats against the Arab channel judiciary and its correspondents in Gaza and the contents of the threats brutal murder, arson, kidnapping and a succession of terrorist methods multi following the broadcasting of a report that the audio recording of the Prime Minister insulted by the divine self..."

Now, the rhetoric and wild accusations between Fatah and Hamas have been steadily increasing so there is no way of knowing if Hamas really threatened murder or kidnapping because they didn't like a news story in this case. But it would be consistent with attacks against reporters and news outlets in the past, including recent attacks and threats against the Wafa pro-Fatah news agency.

More terrible Israeli oppression

Maan News (Arabic) reports that next Monday there will be a trade show in Tel Aviv featuring 25 Palestinian Arab technology companies who want to get business cooperating with Israeli companies.

PalArab terror apologists may note that this conference is organized by the Peres Center for Peace and therefore doesn't represent the mainstream of Israeli thinking, which is of course filled with hate and apartheid and genocidal wishes as they never tire of saying. However - is there a Palestinian Arab counterpart to the Peres Center for Peace?

Two forgotten examples of historic Arab rejectionism

These are both very small stories, and as far as I can tell they have been forgotten by history. But in their own way they illuminate how hard it is to consider compromise with Arabs today.

A small detail in a story about the 1956 Sinai campaign from the Time magazine archives:

In 1953 Ben-Gurion suffered an election setback and retired to a pioneer desert community. Into office went Moshe Sharett, a modest, cautious lawyer who made some effort to diminish Arab hostility, to settle the problem of the 900,000 Palestinian refugees, to let some of them back into Israel and to join with Arab states in diverting Jordan water to desert land on which refugees could build new homes.

The Arabs rejected all of Sharett's proposals.

Here's another interesting find from the same source, from 1965:

...It all began with some remarks by Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, who often says out loud what most sophisticated Arabs say only in private. Returning home from a Middle Eastern tour in which he visited the Jordanian refugee camps near Jericho, where 71,000 Palestinian Arabs have languished for 17 years, Bourguiba declared that it was obviously impossible to erase Israel from the map by force and that therefore it made sense to accept its presence. He proposed that the long-festering refugee problem be settled on the basis of the 1947 United Nations partition plan, which would require Israel's surrender of about a third of its territory.

The West applauded Bourguiba's effort to begin an Arab-Israeli dialogue, but Israel's Arab neighbors responded with a bellow of rage. Two months ago, Bourguiba had infuriated Middle East Arabs by rallying North Africa to reject Nasser's campaign against West Germany. Now Bourguiba's Arab critics were angrier than ever. Government radios, from Baghdad to Cairo, blasted Bourguiba as a traitor, a madman "who should be locked in an asylum," and as a Judas "who should be immediately executed." Mobs blossomed in the streets of half a dozen Arab capitals. In Cairo, 20,000 students charged across the Nile bridge to Gezira Island and tried to burn down the Tunisian embassy. In Jerusalem, Bourguiba Street was hastily renamed by Jordanian authorities. In Baghdad, even resident Tunisian students joined the anti-Bourguiba demonstrations.

Compromise was as rare a concept among Arabs in 1953 and 1965 as in 2007.

Arabs turn their backs on their Palestinian Arab "brothers" - again

Since the fall of Saddam, Palestinian Arabs who live in Iraq have been under attack:

A Palestinian official says 520 Palestinian refugees have been killed by militias since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The head of the refugee affairs department at the Palestine Liberation Organization, Zakaria al-Agha, said Wednesday a total of 809 Palestinians have been attacked, of which 520 were killed and 140 injured and maimed.

...Palestinians, all of whom are Sunni and perhaps a handful of Christians, have become a favorite target for government-backed Shiite militias since the U.S.-led forces toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.

The attacks are generally regarded as acts of vengeance, not because the Palestinians are Sunni, but because the community supported Saddam's regime, which had provided the Palestinian refugees with free homes, an education and livelihoods in Iraq during its three-decade reign.

It is interesting that the PLO official continues to refer to these people as "Palestinian refugees" rather than the more accurate "Iraqi refugees of Palestinian origin," as they have lived there for generations, as ReliefWeb notes:

Although the violence in Iraq is so extreme that all civilians are at risk regardless of their religion or ethnicity, certain groups are particularly vulnerable. One such group is the Palestinians of Iraq. Many have been in Iraq since 1948, have children and grandchildren born there, and consider that country their permanent home. During Saddam Hussein's rule, Palestinians received special privileges. Palestinians were given subsidized housing, often to the detriment of Iraqis who were evicted or forced to rent their property to Palestinians free of charge.

Perceived as loyal to Saddam Hussein and the Baath party, Palestinians are now targeted by all factions in Iraq. Their vulnerability is increased by the fact that they are stateless and have nowhere to go. Some have tried to flee the country and are now living in a no-man's land in between Syrian and Iraqi borders. UNHCR has unsuccessfully tried to negotiate their admission into an Arab country or resettle them.

And then comes this beaut:

Despite the sensitivities linked to the resettlement of Palestinians outside a comprehensive peace agreement with Israel, there is no other immediate solution for the Palestinians from Iraq. The UN estimates that around 15,000 remain in Iraq and are in imminent danger.

Let's sum up:

All Arabs in Iraq, not just Shiites, hate the Palestinian Arabs.
Even though their situation is considered grave, their neighboring Arabs refuse to let them in.

But on the other hand:

Palestinian Arabs who settle in other lands and become successful are still called "refugees."
The idea of resettling Palestinian Arabs in other Arab lands, even when they are in dire need, is frowned upon because of "sensitivities."

The first two points show that Arabs don't give a crap about Palestinian Arabs on a human level, period.

The last two points, however, show that there is great political importance to keeping the idea of a "refugee" problem alive as long as possible.

Remember that Palestinian Arabs are the only group in history whose descendants are considered to be "refugees" as well. This is a purely political decision made by the UN, whose only purpose is to extend Palestinian Arab suffering as a means to pressure Israel.

And similarly, the very idea of moving Palestinian Arabs anywhere in the world besides Israel - even if the PalArabs themselves would want to do it themselves - is considered so "sensitive" to the political leaders of the Arab world that the psychology has been put into place that it is not even mentioned aloud as a possibility until there is a dire need.

When a few dozen Iraqi PalArabs were moved to Canada a couple of months ago, the political leadership was very upset - because helping individual Palestinian Arabs and making them happy is counterproductive to the "unity" of the "Palestinian people!"

Other Arabs hate Palestinian Arabs on a human, gut-level and will not lift a finger to truly help them. The money they send is used more for guns than butter. The Palestinian Arab leaders themselves have a vested interest in keeping Palestinian Arabs suffering.

And there is a huge portion of the world (including, as can be seen above, "human rights" organizations like ReliefWeb who will only consider resettling PalArabs when they are in imminent danger from non-Jews) that will do anything they can to keep Palestinian Arabs suffering just to be able to blame Israel for their problems.

Jerry Seinfeld and the Shabbat-observant realtor

From Arutz Sheva:

American Jewish comedian Jerry Seinfeld was ordered by the court to pay a Sabbath-observant realtor her fee, which he withheld due to her not having answered her phone on Saturday.

The realtor, Tamara Cohen, was unavailable when Seinfeld tried to reach her on a Saturday in February, 2005, according to the New York Post. The comedian and star of the highly successful sitcom bearing his name wanted to see a luxury apartment on 82nd street but could not get in touch with Cohen.

Seinfeld’s estate manager had visited the apartment with Cohen in January 2005, when the listing broker for the townhouse agreed to co-broke the house with her. On Friday, February 11, the estate manager and Seinfeld’s wife Jessica were shown the property by Cohen again. The next day, after Cohen did not answer her cell phone due to it being the Sabbath, the Seinfelds visited the apartment on their own, buying the home for $3.95 million without a broker.

Seinfeld testified that Cohen did not deserve the payment as she had been unavailable when he and his wife wanted to see the home. Both Seinfelds said they had not known the reason Cohen did not return their calls was that she was a Sabbath-observant Jew.

New York State Supreme Court justice Rolando Acosta ruled that the Seinfelds must pay Cohen at least $98,000 for her role as co-broker – a ruling that is seen as a positive defense of religious worship for Sabbath observers.

Acosta said that notwithstanding Cohen's failure to immediately return the Seinfelds' calls, "[T]he evidence clearly indicates that she served as the Seinfelds' real estate broker."

"The only real issue here . . . is whether the broker's fee was 5 or 6 percent," Acosta said, meaning Cohen may get as much as $118,500.

Richard Menaker of Menaker & Hermann, the law firm that represented the Seinfelds, said he intends to move to re-argue. "Not a single one of the [six] arguments we made was addressed," Menaker said, according to Law.com. "At the oral argument I pointed out that Ms. Cohen is not licensed. You can only recover on an oral agreement if you're a licensed real-estate broker," he added. Cohen’s lawyer said that she is in fact licensed and that the court apparently agreed.

I'm no expert on real estate law, but I believe that if she is a licensed broker and was the broker for that property she indeed deserves the money. In fact, it is considered very bad form (if not illegal) to bypass the broker and make a deal for a property that the broker represents.

The fact that they saw the house with Cohen on Friday solidified her position as a listing broker for the property, so it sounds to me like the judge did the right thing.

The next question is - if Seinfeld found out that the broker was at a funeral, or out of town for a day, or that her phone was broken - would he have fought paying the fee?

The IDF kills some terrorists (video)

From the IDF website:

A few days ago, during the evening, a force from the Givati Brigade's Shaked Battalion identified two suspicious figures crawling near the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip. The force called out on the two figures, discovered to be terrorists, and when the two did not stop the force fired at them. Due to the explosives the terrorists were carrying on them, the firing led to a large explosion. Through their alertness and high operational effectiveness, the IDF forces thwarted a terror attack attempt.

And since the IDF website doesn't make their videos as easy to see as possible, I uploaded it to YouTube. It is a hell of an explosion.