Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Pity the poor keffiyeh manufacturers

Even though the keffiyeh has been part of Middle Eastern dress for a while, it is mostly associated with Yasir Arafat who claimed to fold his headgear into a makeshift map of "Palestine." Possibly as a result, the keffiyeh has not been very popular worldwide during the heyday of PLO terror.

One of the consequences of the Palestinian Arabs turning in world public opinion from terrorist to trendy is that the Che-worshipping crowd started to wear keffiyehs as a sort of fashion statement, showing how uber-cool they are to embrace a terrorist symbol.

This increased the keffiyeh market quite a bit, as a number of mail-order houses started marketing them to rich, left-wing defenders of the oppressed to wear in dance clubs and the like.

Naturally, the demand for keffiyehs went up as people jumped on the "oppressed rocket-shooter" bandwagon, and then the hated free-market took over.

Chinese manufacturers started making keffiyehs - cheap.

al-AP goes on from there:

Yasser Herbawi once supplied much of the West Bank and Gaza with black-and-white checkered scarves, the proud emblem of Palestinian identity made famous by the late Yasser Arafat.
But most of his looms now stand idle, his product edged out by cheap imports from the world's newest keffiyeh capital: China.
After a decade of being flooded with Chinese goods, from scarves to toys and bags, the West Bank's largest city is struggling to compete — yet another obstacle to economic independence for Palestinians as they strive for a state of their own.
Two-thirds of Hebron's textile workshops have closed and 6,000 shoe factory workers have lost their jobs in the last eight years, pushing unemployment to 30.5 percent, the highest in the West Bank, according to Hebron's chamber of commerce.
Cheap imports have hit manufacturing towns across the world, but the economic decline of this city of 230,000 is particularly ironic. Hebron long adhered to what is now China's recipe for success: work hard and sell cheap. And Chinese goods are imported to the West Bank by traders from Hebron, the city suffering most.
It's hard to find an upside to globalization here.
The door to China opened for Palestinians in the mid-1990s, after Israel and China forged diplomatic ties. The response among Palestinian business people was especially enthusiastic in Hebron.
Flights from the Middle East to China were soon packed with Hebronites, especially to big trade fairs. China operated a visa office in Hebron for several years, and even street vendors began pooling their cash to send representatives there to shop.
By 2005, Palestinians imported $111 million worth of goods from China annually, compared to $1.8 billion from Israel and $120 million from Turkey, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. The value of Chinese imports was up 20 percent from the previous year, compared to 3 percent higher from Turkey and a 7 percent hike from Israel.
Local industry quickly felt the pain.
Herbawi, unable to compete, closed his keffiyeh workshop in 2000 after four decades in operation, switching off 15 looms that used to make about 350 scarves a day. With the support of a dozen loyal customers, he said he reopened last year and rehired one worker who now arrives every day to run four looms for a few hours.
Herbawi wants import restrictions, but these seem unlikely: His son, Izzat, noted that even Arafat's Fatah movement, once a large customer, now buys some keffiyehs from China.

Not only does this show the unintended consequences of these trendy terror-supporting morons ending up making their idols lose jobs, but it also shows, yet again, how little regard Fatah has for actual working Palestinian Arabs.

(h/t jusa)

Today's Gaza edition of "biting the hand that feeds you"

Ma'an (Arabic) mentions that, today, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades of the PFLP has shot mortars both at the Sufa crossing and the Kerem Shalom crossings into Gaza.

Of course, these crossings are the major ways for humanitarian aid and food to enter Gaza, and even Egypt has been sending aid recently (sent from Algeria) through Kerem Shalom.

The world media consistently ignores the almost-daily rocket and mortar attacks on the very crossings that are the lifeline for Gazans.

Once again, the Palestinian Arabs are not expected to take any responsibility for their actions.

Gaza factory cemetery - who killed the jobs?

Gazans have come up with another PR gimmick to blame Israel for their problems, the Cemetery for Factories:

As Reuters, which willingly goes along with any anti-Israel act, writes:

Palestinians inaugurated a symbolic graveyard on Tuesday for factories forced to close by an Israeli blockade that they say is killing jobs.

"The Main Gaza Cemetery for Factories" contains some 40 graves covered with the Palestinian flags and flowers.

"The Plastic Tools factory, 190 workers became jobless," the inscription on one headstone reads. "The Print House, 150 workers lost their source of living," reads another.

What Reuters of course doesn't mention is that even in the early years of the Intifada there was the Erez Industrial Zone between Gaza and Israel that employed thousands of Palestinian Arabs. As the terrorism increased, Erez became a favored place to attack random Israelis; at least 11 were murdered. Finally, Israel closed down the zone altogether - after over three years of attacks by Palestinians from Gaza.

And if they every wanted to re-open the factories, they had a funny way of showing it, because the number of attacks towards Erez didn't decrease. Here's a list:

On January 4, 2005, an Israeli civilian was lightly wounded from two mortar shells that were fired at the Erez industrial zone.
On January 2, 2005, an Israeli civilian was seriously wounded from a mortar shell that was fired towards the Erez industrial zone.
On August 31, 2004, a Palestinian terrorist wearing explosive underwear was arrested at the Erez crossing.
On April 17, 2004, a suicide bomber killed a Border Policeman when he detonated himself at the workers' crossing terminal into the industrial zone.
On March 6, 2004, four terrorists traveling in three vehicles (two of which were rigged with explosives) attempted to kill Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers at the Erez crossing.
On Feb 26, 2004, an IDF reserve soldier was killed when two gunmen infiltrated the Erez industrial zone through a tunnel.
On Jan 14, 2004, a female terrorist carried out a suicide bombing attack in the workers crossing terminal in the Erez industrial zone, where magnetic entering cards are issued. As a result of the attack, one civilian was murdered, in addition to two IDF soldiers and a Border Policeman. The Hamas and Fatah terrorist organizations claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing. It is important to note that this was the first time that Hamas had used a female suicide bomber. The terminal was severely damaged, and needed to be rebuilt. As a result, Palestinians were not able to enter the industrial zone for a few days.
On Dec 4, 2003 a package containing components for making an explosive device was discovered in a truck carrying mail out from the Gaza Strip.
On June 20, 2003, a terrorist attack using a bicycle laden with explosives was thwarted at the Palestinian workers’ crossing near Ganei Tal.
On June 8, 2003 four IDF soldiers were killed and four others injured when three terrorists infiltrated the IDF post Magen 12, in the Erez industrial zone.
On April 15, 2003 two Israeli civilians were murdered when Palestinians infiltrated the Karni terminal.
On Feb 21, 2003 a gunman armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, three hand grenades, four magazines, a knife and a fence cutter infiltrated the Erez industrial zone and was killed.
On May 12, 2003, an Israeli civilian was murdered when a Palestinian worker opened fire at him at the Hila crossing.
On April 20, 2002, a Border Police officer was killed when a Palestinian gunman opened fire at an IDF post in Erez.
On April 12, 2004, a Border Police officer was killed when a Palestinian gunman opened fire at the Erez terminal.
On Nov 26, 2001, four IDF soldiers were lightly injured when a suicide bomber blew him self up at the entrance of the Erez terminal.

And that is just to the beginning of 2005.

While a symbolic grave for factories may be a nice gimmick, people shouldn't forget the direct reason why so many Gazans are unemployed - because they had a nasty habit of trying to murder their employers.

Purim Torah

The beautiful and talented DoZ called me this morning asking if I could make up some Purim Torah for her to deliver on motzei Shabbos, with a theme of "rock and roll." I wrote something up quickly but I wanted to ask the collective wisdom of the J-Sphere if they had anything to add.

(For those unfamiliar with the term, Purim Torah pretends to be a scholarly exegesis of Torah topics while actually being nonsense.)

So, here it is:
------------------------------
There are two types of entities in the world, the eternal and the temporary. While there is only one true Eternal, Hashem has given us symbols of tangible objects that also can be considered "permanent" because they last for very long periods of time.

To see what Hashem is designating for us to consider "permanent" we need to see how Hashem Himself is described. And one of the most famous descriptions of Hashem is "Hashem Tzuri v'Goali", Hashem is my Rock and my Redeemer. The reason Hashem is described as a Rock is because rocks are permanent features in our lives; by referring to Hashem as a "Rock" we mean that He is eternal and reliable, just as huge stones are permanent in our lifetimes.

So we see that the concept of a Rock is associated with permanence, with eternity.

What object would be most associated with transience? The Gemara talks about two different kinds of kinyanim, those for things that are immovable - like land (kinyan karka) - and those for things that are portable (kinyan metaltilin).Even very heavy objects would be considered metaltilin, movable, because, in theory, one can place them on wheels and roll them somewhere else. In a sense, the best symbol for something that is not permanently in place would be the wheel. Indeed, in Kabbalistic thought we have the concept of "gilgul neshamos", that our own temporary lives roll from one instance to another as if they are all part of a wheel, a gilgul. Things that are temporary are things that can roll on wheels.

So we have these two concepts: permanence and transience, of the constant and the temporary - of the Rock, and the Roll.

Rock and roll represents the synthesis of these two diametrically opposed concepts; it is the place where the Eternal meets His lowly subjects, and we can only get a glimpse of His power by listening to an electric guitar powered by a thousand-watt amp cranked up to 11. Just as the Bnei Yisrael "saw" the kolot at Har Sinai, the sense of hearing being transformed into the sense of sight, so we can "feel" the sounds from a good rock and roll band, transforming sound into feeling, and giving us an experience as similar as possibly to Maamad Har Sinai.

And rock and roll artists understand their role in this synthesis. For example, when The Who proclaims "Long Live Rock" notice how they are only talking about the permanent part of the equation, the Rock, and not the temporary Roll, which would be nonsensical. But it makes perfect sense for Joan Jett to declare "I Love Rock and Roll" as she is proclaiming her love of all of Creation as well as the Creator.

Perhaps the best proof of this dialectic (a perfect word that I've never used in my life before!) is in the halachos of Purim itself.

We all know that we celebrate Purim on the 14th of Adar - except in walled cities, when we celebrate it on the 15th. The walls of the walled cities symbolize the permanence of the Rock - indeed, the walls were constructed out of rocks - while the Purim of everyone else is the Purim of galus, or temporary existence, of the Roll from one place to another. Shushan Purim is mainly celebrated in Yerushalayim nowadays, which houses the Even Shesiyah - the Foundation Stone, the Rock of all rocks. Together, Shushan Purim and Purim are the Rock and the Roll.

But there is a hidden aspect of this concept that both proves it and makes us understand it better.

So far, we have discussed the "Rock" and the "Roll" of "Rock and Roll." But we have ignored the "and", the small word that connects the two, In fact, that "and" is terrifically important in understanding the synthesis of the Rock and the Roll.

This year, Purim and Shushan Purim are not next to each other, but we have a Purim MeShulash here in Eretz Yisroel, a three-day Purim that is separated by Shabbos. Just as Rock and Roll are connected by the "and", so is the triple Purim of this year connected by the Shabbos. And this hidden aspect of the "and" - the hester astir - shows us the importance of the Shabbos.

Shabbos has aspects both of the permanent Rock - it is eternal and always there - and the transient Roll - it only rolls around once a week. Indeed, in Olam Haboh, it will be "yom shekulo Shabbos u'menuchah" - it will be truly permanent. But in this world it only gives us a taste of permanence, but it is not permanent itself. Yet is is certainly also not temporary.

So Shabbos is the bridge between the eternal and the temporary, between the Purim and the Shushan Purim, between the Rock and the Roll.

But this still leaves a major question: if Purim precedes Shushan Purim, then why is it called Rock and Roll, and not Roll and Rock?

The answer is simple. In Hebrew, "and" is not a word, but a mere letter - the letter vav. And, in this case, specifically on the day that is v'nehepach hu, it is a vav hamehapeches, a vav that turns Roll and Rock into the proper Rock and Roll.

May we always learn from Purim Hameshulash, and from Rock and Roll how to run our very temporary lives with a constant awareness of the Eternal.

A truly encyclopedic work

I just saw a link to a webpage trying to list everything that offends Muslims.

It doesn't look like it has been updated in a long time but it is still a nice list, even if it is doomed to always be hopelessly incomplete.

Clan clash!

Ma'an reports:

A Palestinian man was killed by unidentified gunmen in the Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, seemingly as a result of a family dispute on Wednesday morning.

Palestinian medical sources named the victim as Salamah Al-Agha whose corpse was taken to Ash-Shifa hospital in Gaza City for forensic medical investigation. The sources said he had been shot in the head.

Immediately after the killing, members of Al-Agha family attacked a house belonging to Kalakh family and set fire to the house.

Al-Agha was in his thirties.

The number of Palestinian Arab self-deaths for 2008 is now 37, which would be considered a "holocaust" in current PalArab nomenclature if Israel was behind them.

UPDATE: Palestine Today says that a 60-year old "collaborator" was executed in Qalqiya yesterday. 38.

84% of Palestinian Arabs support massacring children

Yesterday I reported on a poll done by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research that showed increasing support for Hamas. The raw numbers were not available on their website yet, so I wrote the posting based on their press release.

I prefer to look at the entire poll because then I can draw my own conclusions and not be force-fed only the results that the pollster wants to highlight. And this time, the pollster held back a doozy.

The New York Times got a hold of another poll result from PCPSR that, to most people, would be considered a bit more important than parity in the polls between Haniyeh and Abbas:

A new poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the attack this month on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight young men, most of them teenagers, an indication of the alarming level of Israeli-Palestinian tension in recent weeks.

Notice the NYT spin to minimize the results, making them sound only temporary. And it waits until paragraph 7 to write the real results:

According to the poll, conducted last week with 1,270 Palestinians in face-to-face interviews, 84 percent supported the March 6 attack on the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, one of Israel’s most prominent centers of religious Zionism and ideological wellspring of the settler movement in the West Bank. Mr. Shikaki said that this is the single highest support for an act of violence in his 15 years of polling here. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

The NYT again does everything it can to justify the numbers of Palestinian Arabs who blatantly support terror against kids by positioning the school as being some sort of extremist organization.

The PCPSR is somewhat disingenuous as well. The last time that they even asked in a poll if the respondents supported attacks against Israeli civilians inside the Green Line was September, 2006, when 57% supported and 40% opposed. So while the number that supported this specific attack is higher, that could just as easily mean that while the people polled are against terror in the abstract but support it in reality. Either way, a convincing majority of Palestinian Arabs have consistently supported terror against civilians, over decades. For the pollster to say that he hasn't seen such support for a specific terror attack before indicates more that he hasn't asked.

In 2001 and 2002, between 52% and 58% supported terror attacks against civilians inside the Green Line and over 90% supported terror attacks against civilians in the territories. Even before the intifada, 52% supported terror attacks versus 43% opposed.

These are the real facts, that the NYT is downplaying and the PCPRS is willingly ignoring: the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs want to see Jews killed, on both sides of the Green Line, and they have always felt that way.

Methodist storybook indoctrinates children against Israel

From the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle (h/t Solomonia)

The book, “From Palestine to Seattle: Becoming Neighbors and Friends,” is billed as a “storybook on Israel and Palestine” for children 6 through 12. This is no benign Sunday school text, however. It is a well-crafted bit of propaganda that portrays Israeli security checkpoints as the cause, not the result, of Palestinian violence. This message is underscored by the teacher’s manual marketed along with the storybook.

The storybook describes adventures of two children from Seattle -- Allison and Matthew -- whose father, a Protestant minister, has just returned from a visit to Bethlehem.

...When Allison and Matthew see a checkpoint for themselves as they travel to Bethlehem, they are “shocked to see a barricade across the road, with sandbags and barrels lining the street. Looking up they saw a soldier with a gun sitting in a watchtower!”

The image accompanying this part of the story shows five soldiers standing around the van in which Allison and Matt are riding and a sixth soldier standing in a guard tower nearby. The image of barbed wire, guard shacks, sandbags and menacing armed soldiers surrounding a brightly-colored van filled with innocent children is reminiscent concentration camps in Eastern Europe in the 1940s.

...The lesson then ends with this coda [in the teacher's guide]: “Remind the children that when people are denied things that they believe everyone should have, they feel bad and sometimes become angry, too. Invite the remaining children to get juice and grapes from the refreshment table.”

The implication is undeniable. Suicide bombings -- which are not described anywhere in the either the storybook or the teacher’s manual -- are the consequence of Israeli checkpoints, which deny the Palestinians “the things that they believe everyone should have” and in turn make “people feel bad and sometimes become angry.” The impression the children are left with is that if the Israelis took down the checkpoints, Miriam, the young Israeli would no longer be frightened of bombs going off in her neighborhood.

FrontPage Magazine described the same book last month and it is even worse than described here:

The Arab boy, Tarek, has never been to McDonald's because the closest one is in Jerusalem, and travel there requires a pass by the Israelis. Naturally, the American children are disturbed. In an ongoing pen pal exchange, Tarek asks the American children why their country thinks all Palestinians are terrorists. The Americans are embarrassed. They summon up the nerve to ask Tarek why passes are needed to travel to Jerusalem.

Tarek responds that Israeli soldiers require passes, and that Palestinians without them are turned away, whether they are going to their jobs, or to hospitals. “How can people be so unfair?” the American children ask their pastor father. The father is unsure how to answer. But he helps them begin another correspondence with a little Israeli girl, who recounts that her cousin, an Israeli soldier, has been imprisoned for refusing to guard the “checkpoints” because “they were wrong and they were hurting people.”

Apparently, there is only one side to the story according to the Methodists, and it is identical to the side of the people who hand out candies when Jews are blown up.

Freedom of the press, Hamas-style

Hafez Barghouti is the editor of the Fatah daily Al Hayat al-Jadida newspaper. He has printed things that were critical of Hamas in the past year, and Hamas has revoked the credentials of Al-Hayat to work in Gaza.

Now, Hamas is bringing it to another level - they are suing Barghouti for libel!

From Ma'an (Arabic):

al-Hayat al-Jadida editor Hafez al-Barghouthi received a lawsuit via fax yesterday from the [Gaza] Strip Magistrate's Court inviting him to appear before it on Monday the twenty-fourth of this March to be tried on charges of libel violation of Article 204, 203 and in 1936 for disseminating Publications offensive to the members of the Palestinian government .

For its part the [Palestinian Arab] Journalists Union condemned the case and considered it against press freedom and against Palestinian journalists.

Reuters' biased headline of the day

Palestinian stabs rabbi in Arab East Jerusalem

The incident happened in the Old City of Jerusalem, which from roughly 1870-1948 had a majority Jewish population. The Muslim Quarter, where this incident occurred, used to be called the "Mixed Quarter" because Jews, Muslims and Christians all lived there, until the 1929 pogroms against the Jews.

While there are parts of East Jerusalem that are predominantly Arab, to categorize all of East Jerusalem as "Arab" is an editorial comment, not a statement of fact. To say that the Old City is "Arab East Jerusalem" is pretty dishonest, even if there are more Arabs living there now than others. It is effectively enshrining Jordan's illegal annexation and ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem for 19 years as being legitimate, and the existence of Jewish-owned lands in East Jerusalem as illusory. It is also meant to make the existence of a yeshiva in the Old City's "Muslim" quarter look as if it is a recent "settlement," when in fact the yeshiva is occupying the building of the only Jewish school or synagogue that was not destroyed by Jordan in 1948 (Torat Chaim, est. 1886.) All additional buildings that Ateret Cohanim own were purchased legally.

East Jerusalem is much larger than the Old City, of course, and using the term "Arab East Jerusalem" to describe something that happened in the Old City would be like saying that the Upper East Side crane accident over the weekend occurred in "New York State." It appears that Reuters is specifically choosing this terminology in order to render Israeli building in other parts of East Jerusalem, such as in Har Homa, as being illegitimate, since Reuters considers it "Arab" land - notwithstanding that most of Har Homa was also owned by Jews in 1948.

New Saudi Miss Camel to be crowned

Loyal readers will remember the horrible news last January when a Saudi beauty contest winner died and was mourned by many.

Well, it is time for her replacement to be named. (Warning: Camel pron ahead)

Camel breeders are open about their admiration for the physical attributes of the animals as they gather at this spring's camel markets.

"It's just like judging a beautiful girl," said Fowzan al-Madr, a camel breeder. "You look for big eyes, long lashes and a long neck."

Public displays of affection between men and women are rigidly policed by the feared officials of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice but in the camel bazaars anything goes.

"Camels are just like humans," breeder Haza al-Shammari told the International Herald Tribune. "They love and hate just like humans. That's why you have to bring them up very gently."

Mr Shammari grabbed his favourite camel's neck and kissed the beast on the mouth.

"She isn't married yet, this one," he said. "She's still a virgin. Look at the black eyes, the soft fur. The fur is trimmed so it's short and clean, just like a girl going to a party.

"When you get to know the camels, you feel love for them. My camels are like my children, my family."

British author Robert Lacey, a resident of Saudi Arabia, said ownership of a troupe of camels was central to an elite lifestyle that revolves around desert entertainment.

"They let you stroke them and pet them," he said.

"You can go out for the day, two or three hours out of Riyadh, have lunch, play with the camels, have tea, say the sunset prayer in the desert. Camels are a gentleman's pastime and this is how a gentleman entertains his friends.

"In a way, you're also re-enacting the pageant of your ancestors."

With camels changing hands for as much as 17 million Saudi Riyals (£2.2 million), camel owners are keenly awaiting the emergence of a new reigning champion.

The previous top camel, Mashoufan, died in January. Four of its offspring are seen as favourites to claim the crown.

The organiser of the pageant said it was drawing as much interest as a human competition would elsewhere in the Middle East.

"In Lebanon they have Miss Lebanon," said the man who has the username Walid on a competition's website. "Here we have Miss Camel."

Another half-ton of explosives found in the Sinai

Palestine Press Agency reports(Arabic):

An Egyptian security source says that 500 kilograms of explosives and 40 mines had been uncovered during the last two days near the border with the Gaza Strip.

As quoted by the French news agency, the Egyptian source said that the explosive materials and mines found in two locations near the border with the Gaza Strip were intended for smuggling into the (Gaza) sector."

I have not seen this yet at AFP or any other news source yet, but PalPress has been pretty reliable over the past on topics like these.