Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Saudis upset over "9/11 surcharge" by airline

A news website in Saudi Arabia reported this week that “angry reactions hit the Saudi streets at the new extra charge under the name the Sept. 11 Security Charge” being imposed by British Midland International (BMI) on Saudi tourists traveling to London.

“This is downright humiliation as the increase in the price of air tickets is only imposed on Saudi citizens,” the website quoted a number of Saudis as saying. It added that the move “has serious implications and that it destroys all the roads being built to maintain links with these people after 9/11.”

The website, sabq.com, said that some observers in the Kingdom believed that the charge might have been imposed for reasons other than those announced, namely to counter the steady increase in oil prices. “If this is the reason, it is also meant to punish Saudis since Saudi Arabia is the largest oil exporting country.”

Robert Lickley, commercial development manager for BMI in Saudi Arabia, explained to Arab News yesterday the exact cause of the problem. It too involved a website — this time BMI’s own booking page. “It is a requirement by law that notification of a 9/11 surcharge is put on the ticket of every Internet booking made for flights originating from the United States,” he said, adding that in updating their website, the information concerning the 9/11 surcharge had been carried across to the BMI site that included information and booking forms for the rest of the airline’s network.

“It was a simple clerical error, and when we discovered it, we corrected it immediately,” Lickley said. “However, the error was online for sufficient time that a number of observant Saudis saw it.”

What they were unaware of was that the 9/11 surcharge information is on every Internet ticket for every airline flight originating in the US, he said.

“There are absolutely no special surcharges for flights to or from Saudi Arabia,” Lickley said.

Security surcharges have been a fact of life on all airlines and therefore on ticket prices for several years. They are not specific to any group or nation and help meet the cost of tightened security for airlines since 9/11.

Isn't it interesting that all of British Midland's customers worldwide saw the surcharge, but only the Saudis assumed that it was directed at them alone?

Do you think that perhaps they are a tad sensitive that their wonderful kingdom spawned most of the 9/11 hijackers?

Finally, notice the irony as the Saudis claim to be the victims of bias at the exact same time they refer to all Westerners as "these people."

If the Saudis had any sense of true responsibility, they would have offered to pay the entire cost of the 9/11 surcharge and save millions of travelers the money that they have to spend now because of the culture of hate that Saudi Wahhabi ideology has wrought.

Kosher cooking school opens in Brooklyn

From JTA:

On the first day of class at a new kosher cooking school in Brooklyn, 22-year-old Erica Zimmerman carefully slices raw potatoes into a stainless steel bowl.

Zimmerman, a student at New York University, says she’s always been interested in cooking, but as an observant Jew only wanted a kosher school. Why learn to cook food she'd never be able to eat?

That limited her options.

“The only kosher cooking school is in Israel, and I can’t take off a year to go,” she says. “Then I heard about this new school on Facebook, and I jumped at the opportunity.”

On Monday, the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts opened in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Flatbush.

The six-week, $4,500 intensive course, run in cooperation with the continuing education department of Kingsborough Community College, is the only professional kosher cooking school in North America.

According to director Jesse Blondel and founder Elka Pinson, it is the only one in the world besides the Jerusalem Culinary Institute, a 5-year-old school in Israel.

Pinson, whose husband runs a housewares store on Coney Island Avenue, the main shopping street in the neighborhood, has been dreaming of establishing such a school for years. Last year she took over the top floor of the shop and advertised for a chef/teacher on craigslist.

Blondel, a 26-year-old Brooklyn native, responded. The kitchen manager at the Culinary Center of New York, he was seeking a new position. Organizing and directing a new cooking school seemed just the ticket.

“I realized there isn’t any other kosher cooking school, I’m Jewish, and I grew up not far from here,” he says.

Pinson and Blondel opened negotiations with Kingsborough, and ironed out the details in May. That left little more than a month to set up the room, build the curriculum and advertise for students.

Thirteen people showed up this week for class. On the first day, they sit around a large steel table intently watching chef Mark D’Alessandro, the school’s main teacher, demonstrate the finer techniques of chopping vegetables.

Holding up half an onion, D'Alessandro shows how to place it on the cutting board and dice it finely by making several horizontal slices before chopping vertically with his chef’s knife.

“There’s no machine that can do that for you?” one student asks anxiously.

D’Alessandro looks at her balefully.

“That’s the second time my heart has been broken,” he says to muffled laughter.

All of the students keep kosher to one degree or another. The class is about evenly split by gender, and range from a 16-year-old boy to a grandmother in her 60s.

Well, whaddaya know?

Firas actually allowed my comment.

So far, the only response is "Here they are heroes you sons of conquest, not those who hand in their weapons to the Zionists"

A Syrian sheikh just issued a fatwa against T-shirts that show pictures of the stars of the phenomenally popular TV show "Noor."

The sheikh said that it is forbidden by the Prophet, that angels do not appear in rooms that show pictures like these and that her hair is uncovered so it is not allowed to look at her.

In addition, since angels cannot appear where these pictures are displayed, then if these youths wear such T-shirts to mosques for prayer they are stopping the angels from showing up, presumably making the prayers unacceptable to Allah.

Mainstream PalArab media praising terrorist

Since the announcement that the body of terrorist Dalal Mughrabi would be involved in the "prisoner swap" with Hezbollah, Israel's Fatah peace partners have been celebrating and articles have been written to remind all Palestinian Arabs about their heroine.

The problem is that she was involved in a massacre of civilians, including 13 children as well as a female American photographer. How can Palestinian Arabs publicly celebrate a terrorist without feeling like hypocrites? After all, fatwa after fatwa claims that it is against sharia to target women and children, which is precisely what Mughrabi did. So how can Palestinian Arabs keep lionizing someone so despicable?

Simple. They lie.

Firas Press' biography of Mughrabi, and others I have seen, say that the bus that was hijacked and ultimately firebombed was filled with "Zionist soldiers" and not the families of bus drivers going to a picnic. They also claim that they killed or injured "hundreds" of Israeli soldiers during the attack, another piece of fiction.

This is a recurring motif - redefining every terror victim in Israel as being a "soldier," meaning that they are all legitimate targets. This way their celebrations and handing out candy doesn't cause any unnecessary angst among those who still might maintain shreds of morality.

Here is yet another example of the veracity of Palestinian Arab "news" and "history" sources.

UPDATE: I commented on the article:

She was not a martyr, she was a murderer. The bus she hijacked did not have soldiers, it had families going on a picnic. 13 children were murdered by her and her group. To praise her is disgusting.

You are lying to your readers.

I autotranslated it to Arabic (and then back to English to make sure that the message stayed roughly the same.) We'll see if they post it.

Work accident, plus other peaceful PalArab news

YNet:

Two people were killed and two were injured in an explosion at a Hamas training camp near the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, Palestinian sources reported Tuesday morning.

The circumstances of the blast were unclear, but a source in the Strip said it caused a building in the training facility to collapse.

The Israel Defense Forces has yet to comment on the incident, which is believed to be the result of a "work accident" during the production of weapons.

Ma'an adds:

The blast took place at the evacuated Israeli settlement of Gani Tal, west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

You see, it is the Zionists' fault! If only they hadn't left Gaza these mujahadeen would still be alive!

In other peaceful Palestinian Arab news, the PA Attorney General was injured in a car bomb/assassination attempt in Ramallah. He had previously been kidnapped by Hamas when he visited Gaza last year.

Gazans attempted to break down the Rafah crossing, and one unsuccessfully rammed a car at the gate.

Hamas stormed the house of a former PA culture minister near Gaza City, confiscating his computer and other material. This sort of thing is a daily event in Gaza.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 105.

Hundreds more Arabs killed in Yemen. Arab world yawns.

As a follow up to my post in May about the fighting between Yemen national forces and the Houthis, in the past few days hundreds more have been killed:

For the fourth day in a row, the Yemeni army has been attacking with heavy weaponry and fighter jets several villages in Mirran district and other areas in Amran governorate’s Harf Sifyan district, believed to be another stronghold of Houthi loyalists, tribal sources said Sunday, noting that hundreds on both sides were killed or injured.

“During direct clashes between the army and Houthi supporters, army fighter jets dropped bombs on Saturday, but they missed their targets, instead hitting military positions in the area of Mirran, resulting in an increased death toll involving troops,” the sources continued, pointing out that the same mistake was repeated Sunday morning.

According to the sources, bloody confrontations between army personnel and Houthis have continued for many days in the Mirran mountains as the Yemeni army attempts to score a ground victory and seize control of strategic positions in the area. However, despite backing from fighter jets, the army is facing fierce resistance by Houthis.

Recent events include a 14-year old suicide bomber killing between 4 and 7 people outside a government building, and another suicide bomber that killed a dozen in a mosque.

One would be hard-pressed to find these stories mentioned in most Arab newspapers, let alone the Western press. Because, once again, Arabs murdering Arabs isn't news - it is how everyone, including their darlings on the Left, expect them to act.

It is only newsworthy when there are non-Arabs around who can be blamed for the violence.

Interesting censorship at Saudi Gazette

The Saudi Gazette wrote a fairly stupid article called "Science refutes doctrine of trinity." The article says that because humans have DNA they cannot possibly be gods or sons of God.

Anyway, I wrote to the newspaper about one part of what they wrote, saying that, "Over and above the dogma of godhood of Jesus, the Jews also claimed Ezra being the Son of God and the pagans said, the angels are the daughters of God." I answered,

I don't know where that strange piece of information comes from, but the idea of God limiting Himself in a human body is just as alien to Judaism as it is to Muslims.

No Jewish source claims that Ezra was anything beyond human. If the only source for this idea is the Koran, this casts more doubt on the Koran itself than anything else.

Needless to say, they didn't reprint the second paragraph.

"Calm" before the storm

From McClatchy Newspapers, in the last paragraphs of an article:

In a nondescript Gaza Strip mosque, a group of Islamic Jihad fighters wearing black facemasks and combat vests proudly showed off Chinese-made machine guns and Russian rocket-propelled-grenades.
"It's like rain coming down," said one 25-year-old militant who identified himself as Abu Thabet. "You can get all kinds of weapons."
Though they aren't regularly firing rockets, Islamic Jihad members said they're still making new ones.
"This cease-fire is a matter of rest," said a 20-year-old fighter who gave his nom du guerre as Abu Mohammed. "It's a fighters' break, to prepare for the next stage."

The Jerusalem Post elaborates on Hamas' own activities during the "calm"

Hamas is feverishly training as well as acquiring relevant weapons systems - of a type far superior in quality to those previously associated with the organization.

The weapons systems on which Hamas is thought to be currently training in the Gaza Strip include a wire-guided anti-tank missile, probably the AT-3 Sagger, and additional anti-tank guided missiles: the AT-4 Spigot, the tripod-fired AT-5 Spandrel and the shoulder-fired AT-14 Spriggan - all useful against armor. All these systems have ranges of several kilometers.
In addition, Hamas is thought to have brought into Gaza large numbers of RPG-29 Vampir handheld anti-tank grenade launchers with a range of 500 meters, which are capable of penetrating reactive armor and are considered far superior to the RPG 7 systems used by the movement in the past.
Hamas is also developing improvised explosive devices, i.e. bombs. The organization possesses an Iranian-developed, locally-produced system known as the Shawaz explosively-formed penetrator that it says can penetrate 20 cm. of steel. Hamas also claims to possess air defense missiles, though no information could be obtained on their nature or the veracity of the claim. Imports from Iran and Syria and local production are all playing a role in the movement's development of its arsenal.
In addition to arming Gaza to the teeth, Hamas is recruiting fresh fighters. Once again, the model is Hizbullah, and the intention appears to be to develop a force part-way between a regular army and a guerrilla force, of the type developed under Iranian tutelage by the Shi'ite Lebanese group. Extensive recruitment has been taking place in the past month. New fighters have been accepted to both the Izzadin Kassam Brigades - Hamas's long-standing military wing, and to the Executive Force - the newer group created since Hamas's election victory in January 2006.

Dozens massacred in Syrian prison

AFP reports:

Syrian authorities on Sunday blamed inmates for provoking riots in a prison for political detainees during which human rights groups said at least 25 people were killed.

The official SANA news agency said security forces took action to put down a violent protest which broke out on Saturday by prisoners in Saydnaya jail -- one of Syria's largest -- without making clear if order had been restored.

But the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a brother of one detainee said rioting continued on Sunday.

According to the Observatory, which is close to the opposition, at least 25 people were killed after military police fired live bullets at Islamist inmates when rioting erupted after a raid by prison guards.

The Syrian Human Rights Commission adds:

The Syrian Human Rights Committee (SHRC) has learnt from numerous sources in the Syrian capital, that detainees in Sednaya Military Prison, west Damascus, are being subjected to a massacre in which dozens have been killed and injured. Although the prison and intelligence authorities have taken measures to keep this matter discreet, the sources have confirmed that smoke was seen to be emerging from the prison buildings. It is not clear whether this fire was a result of shooting or a product of the release of smoke grenades on prison cells.

It is also important to note that the majority of political detainees in Sednaya prison are of an Islamic background, and they are exposed to the most brutal treatment and horrific torture, as well as the greatest violation of their rights as humans.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Rolling in her grave

Martha Gellhorn was an amazing journalist who did some groundbreaking reporting over sixty years, traveling to most major conflicts.

I've mentioned her views on Palestinian Arabs in the past, when she filed reports from 1961 and 1967. Even though she was a committed leftist, she had no patience for how the Palestinian Arabs had turned into pawns in the conflict nor for their wildly inflated claims as to what happened in 1948. She was passionately pro-Israel.

So she would be aghast at the fact that the award named in her honor has been going to people who she would have eaten for lunch in real life, such as Robert Fisk. The award committee includes such rabid anti-Israel advocates as John Pilger.

The latest co-awardee is Mohammed Omer, whose credentials as a journalist are non-existent, as he only writes for his own website and he gets articles printed in rags such as the "Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. " His account of his interrogation by the Shin Bet as he returned home from receiving the award is so over-the-top ridiculous that it is amazing that anyone believes it:

The security men also demanded he show all the money he had on him, and particular attention was paid to the British pounds he was carrying. His Gellhorn prize money had been awarded in British pounds but he was not carrying the entire sum on him bodily, something the investigators refused to believe.

After being unable to produce the prize money, he was ordered to strip naked.

"At first I refused but then I had an M16 (gun) pointed in my face and my clothes were forcibly removed, even my underwear," Omer said.

At this point Omer broke down and pleaded for an end to such treatment. He said he was told, "you haven't seen anything yet." Every cavity of his body was searched as one of the investigators pinned him down on the floor, placing his boot on Omer's neck. Omer began vomiting, and fainted.

When he came round his eyelids were being forcibly opened and his eardrums probed by an Israeli military doctor, who was also armed. He was then dragged along the floor by his feet by the Shin Bet officials, with his head repeatedly banging on the floor, to a Palestinian ambulance which had been called.

Israeli officials deny any mistreatment but who are they next to an "award-winning journalist" whose media sponsor couldn't even arrange press credentials for him to go across the border?

If Gellhorn would still be alive, she would have figured out that Omer is a fraud in a couple of seconds. Unfortunately, her name is now associated with people who she wouldn't deign to spit on.

Saudi newspaper fawns over bulldozer terrorist

The Arab News goes even beyond calling terrorism "natural" for Arabs:

Israelis killed a Palestinian youth for driving a bulldozer onto the midst of a crowd in the heart of East Jerusalem and killing three Israelis last week. But the reaction of the Western political leaders to the action of the Palestinian worker, one of over a million and half living in humiliation of the Israeli occupation, amounted to killing him and other Palestinians a thousand times.

Yes, this brilliant writer from our "moderate" friends in Saudi Arabia considers a condemnation of the purposeful killing of Jews to be equivalent to killing a thousand innocent Palestinian Arabs. This is the sort of sick mentality that is mainstream in the Arab world.

While the Western leaders did not feel any compunction in condemning the poor building worker in the harshest words they could find in the dictionary, they did not have the guts to describe the incident as the natural and likely reaction of a human being put to indignities beyond his endurance powers.

Indeed, a fully employed Palestinian Arab, who gets paid by evil Jews hellbent on destroying his dignity, is quite justified in killing them en masse because of his abject humiliation. In other words, Arabs are naturally (really, genetically) prone to murder because their honor is far more important than mere Jewish lives, and the West doesn't have the guts to realize this simple fact and start praising the murderer instead of condemning him.

Over the past six months 365 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, most of them civilians, with children accounting for 50 percent.

I don't know about the 365, but the 50% number is wholly fictional, but it must be OK for an Arab to make up statistics making Israel look bad because, after all, he is being humiliated by the very existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. If killing is justifiable, certainly lying is.

It is high time that we made a clear distinction between the acts of terror, particularly from a state that calls itself a democracy, and the acts springing from frustration, injustice and humiliation.

In one sentence the author has just justified every single Arab and Muslim terror act over the past century, because each one must have sprung on some level by someone's "frustration" or perceived "humiliation." This, of course, also includes terror attacks against Saudi Arabia itself, not to mention 9/11.

This Palestinian youth was a human being with normal feelings of pride and honor. He could not be blamed for losing his equanimity for a moment when he thought about the plight of his brothers and sisters who are being treated like dirt in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and put under a blockade denying them the most basic requirements of life.

Our good editorialist has now descended from pure fantasy into mind-reading as he not only justifies a terror attack, he places it in a context where such an attack is positively praiseworthy. The author, Abdul Aziz Al-Suwaigh, is a diplomat who has been an employee of Saudi Arabia's Ministry for Foreign Affairs. And this is all done in English in a newspaper that cannot publish anything without the approval of the Saudi royal family.

A blog post by Richard Landes about this post here