Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Today's PalArab news

A "work accident" injured four Hamas members in Khan Younis.

Saudi Arabia denied Hamas accusations that they didn't give Hajj visas to Palestinian Arab pilgrims, as both sides continue to trade accusations and insults.

Hamas attacked, beat and killed a 41-year old chicken seller in a public market in the Maghazi camp in central Gaza.

The PalArab press quotes Maariv as saying that Israel will intercept the Libyan ship headed for Gaza, purportedly filled with humanitarian aid that is due to arrive on Monday. (UPDATE: They did.)

Meanwhile, Turkey says it will send its own ship to Gaza, in coordination with Hamas. It would supposedly contain medicines and "Palestinian campaigners."

Islamic Jihad said that it has no intention of continuing the illusory "calm" in Gaza past the six month mark, whose deadline is due in the coming weeks.

It is instructive that while the world media has been tirelessly reporting on the smuggling of food and fuel (and motorcycles and TVs) to Gaza, Egypt keeps intercepting shipments of weapons and explosives also bound for Gaza. These smuggled goods somehow escape the radar of the intrepid journalists.

Speaking of tunnels, an enterprising young man in Gaza has found a good use for the soil that is dug up by the tunnel diggers - he is building old-fashioned ovens out of the mud mixed with straw, and selling them for 150 shekels each. Apparently the mud is ideal for these ovens.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 216.

The evil thinking of Muslim terror apologists

An article from a London based blogger named Muhammad al-Arabi, reprinted in the Google News-indexed Redress website, shows how "moderate" terror supporters can simultaneously say how horrible the Mumbai attacks are but at the same time blame the victims.

But why India? The answer, in my view, is very simple. Since the early 1990s relations between India and the racist, Zionist entity known as "Israel" have been getting increasingly closer, with defence and intelligence cooperation being at the top of the bilateral agenda. Simultaneously, over the same period India has refocused its foreign policy away from Russia and the Third World and towards the USA and its British lackey.

So, for discontented Indian Muslims – or Kashmiris or Pakistanis, if there is indeed a Pakistani connection – India is the South Asian symbol of the critical mass of evil accumulated by the US and Britain in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.

This really saddens me. For one thing, the targets in Mumbai – innocent civilians – cannot be held responsible for the shortsightedness and stupidity of the Indian government or, in the case of the foreign tourists, for the policies of Israel's puppets in Washington and London.

It also saddens me because, when I think of India, I would like to think of Gandhi, Nehru and the non-aligned movement of the 1960s and 1970s, not racism, Zionism, imperialism and sheer greed.

Unfortunately, it would seem that one outcome of the Mumbai outrage is that India will be driven further into the arms of the devil. However, as the saying goes, "If you dance with the devil, you will get burnt".

Sadly, as we have seen in Mumbai, those who pay the price for recklessness are the innocents.

Here we see the extent of Muslim "moderation." While they will pretend to cry over the deaths of innocents, in their warped and sickening worldview, it is not the fault of the terrorists at all - it is entirely because the victim country has done things that the terrorists find distasteful.

The subtext, as we have seen numerous times before, is that Muslim terrorism is a natural phenomenon, one that cannot possibly be fought because it is as inevitable as night following day. How can Muslims be blamed for blowing up innocent women and children - they are pushed to the edge by such crimes as India's foreign policy! They have no choice! They have no free will! They are like animals who act out of instinct and cannot think independently!

So since the Muslim apologists have defined their co-religionists as subhuman, as being utterly unable to think like normal people, then the responsibility for keeping them under control goes to the adult world. This moral midget is saying that since India knows that Muslim animals will attack India for pursuing its own foreign policy interests, India should be held hostage to the extremist Muslim hordes (no, not the intellectual columnist, but his unfortunately animalistic co-religionists who are called "extremists") and India should do what the animals are demanding.

Since they have no independent ability to think, they bear no responsibility. But the West cannot treat them as animals, because that would be degrading to them. No, they are unthinking animals who must be treated with respect - or else they will kill you!

It is only sheer coincidence that the unthinking animals happen to want the same thing that their "moderate" Muslim brothers want as well, and that these "intellectuals" therefore want the West to react to the animals in such a way that will advance their own political interests.

What is amazing is that this subtext, that Islamic extremists are acting in a natural way when they rabidly attack people, is so endemic throughout the West as to seem shocking when one actually looks at the justifications given by their liberal and "moderate" Muslim friends.

Surviving Mumbai terrorist admits they targeted Israelis

As if anyone needed proof:

Kasab has told police that they were sent with a specific mission of targeting Israelis to avenge atrocities on Palestinians. This was why they targetted Nariman House, a complex meant for Israelis. Sources said Kasab's colleagues killed in the operation had stayed in Nariman House earlier.

"They have stayed in Nariman house on rental basis identifying themselves as Malaysian students.'' said a source. Police are trying to find out how Nariman House rooms were given to non-Jews. Police has taken all the records books of for verification. The second target was the CST railway station because casualties would be high.

Hamas preventing Gazans from going to Hajj

Hajj is the once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca that is obligatory on all Muslims who can afford it.

Last year Hamas allowed thousands of Gazans to go to Mecca...including some terrorists, some of whom reportedly went to Iran.

This year, the pilgrims are in the middle of a Hamas/Fatah spat, and Hamas is forcibly stopping them from crossing the Rafah border:

Thousands of Palestinian pilgrims seeking to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj have been blocked from leaving the Gaza Strip in the latest twist of the territory's internal political divisions.
Security forces for Hamas, the Palestinian faction in control of Gaza, reportedly turned pilgrims back from the Rafah border crossing into Egypt on Saturday.
The fate of Gaza's pilgrims has been in question for weeks amid continued political jockeying between Hamas and rival Palestinian faction Fatah.
A number of pilgrims told Al Jazeera they had been beaten by Hamas security forces for trying to cross.

While Egypt has mostly kept its border closed to the besieged strip since Hamas took control of the territory more than a year ago, Egyptian officials insisted that the border post had been opened for three days to allow pilgrims through.

At issue was also Saudi Arabia's recognition of the Hamas government structure in Gaza as legitimate.

Around 3,000 Gazans applied for Hajj visas through the ministry of religious affairs based in Ramallah, West Bank, while another 3,000 applied through the Gaza-based ministry.

Saudi Arabia is said to have it granted visas only to Palestinians who registered for Hajj through the Ramallah offices of the Palestinian Authority, which is run by Fatah.

Hamas has threatened and beaten journalists who have reported this story.

And Hamas preachers angrily attacked Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Egyptian president Mubarak as "traitors" during Friday sermons, to the point of veiled threats against the Saudi regime, saying that this might be the "straw that breaks the camel's back" in getting Saudi extremists to topple the government.

"Terrorism, espionage and blood-sucking"

Lest one think that it is only Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who makes outrageous, anti-semitic comments from Iran, here's one from the commander of Iran's army:

The commander of Iran's army, Major General Ataollah Salehi, says that Israel's espionage activities are aimed at saving it from collapse.

"The characteristics of the Zionist regime of Israel are terrorism, espionage and blood-sucking," the general told ISNA.

General Salehi stated that Israel is a "usurper regime which has occupied Palestinian lands by force.”

"Israel cannot continue its military, political and social life. Hence, it is trying to postpone its disintegration through activities such as espionage," he added.

Psychological projection, anyone?

Freedom of the Press, Hamas-style

In the latest example of Hamas attacks on journalists:

A Palestinian journalist with Saut Al-Quds (voice of Jerusalem) Radio Station accused members of the de facto government security in Gaza of torturing him as he attempted to cover the story of Gazan pilgrims waiting at Rafah crossing.

Ala Salamah said he was harshly beaten and forced to eat food full of sand. The journalist was fasting in the days leading up to Eid Al-Adha, and the police forced him to eat and break his fast.

Al-Quds Radio denounced the acts in a statement that described them as sinful deeds that were not “an attack on the Radio station itself but rather an attack on free speech.”

Firas Press reports that journalists are being threatened by Hamas not to cover the Gaza pilgrims massed on the Rafah border trying to go to Mecca.

Reporters Without Borders and the Tel Aviv-based Foreign Press Association continue to ignore all Palestinian Arab violations of free speech while they complain about Israel.

Curious LA Times chronology of hotel terror attacks

The Los Angeles Times lists some other attacks that happened at hotels. Interestingly, it lists the Irgun bombing of the King David hotel in 1948, and some attacks like the Robert Kennedy assassination, President Reagan's near-assassination and 2 IRA attacks against Britain.

In the Islamic terrorist attacks it does mention, such as the Taba hotel in Egypt, it never says who the attackers were.

Most disturbingly, the LAT does not seem to think to mention a single attack by Palestinian Arab terrorists against Israel - not even the Netanya Passover hotel massacre in 2002 that killed 30.

It appears that the intent is to show that terrorists can be found amongst any group of people, and it is bending over backwards not to mention the group responsible for the overwhelming majority of terror atacks in recent decades.

Muslims blaming Mumbai on "Zionists"

The Pakistan Daily has a series of quotes, purportedly from David Ben Gurion in 1967, saying that Pakistan is Israel's enemy and drawing the conclusion that therefore the Mumbai terror attacks (as well as the assassination of Benazar Bhutto) must have been Zionist plots.

Another article in the same paper makes the point more explicitly:

The Mumbai operation was too sophisticated for the alleged Deccan Mujahideen to carry out, which, according to the FBI, “e-mailed news organizations on Thursday claiming it had carried out the attacks.” (Great proof, you sleuths!)

The initial firing began at the Chabad/Nariman House, an easy access for Mossad operatives. Hindus of the Nariman area spoke live on several TV channels saying that for two years suspicious activities were taking place in the Chabad/Nariman House, raising concern regarding Israel’s involvement in the Hindutva Revolution, the current opposition government.

The American Muslim, after discussing the possibility that it was an Islamic terror group, opens up another possibility, using the types of bizarre conspiracy-theory thinking that has become all too familiar:

And then there is a possible Israeli angle that some are raising. Thus, the widely-read Mumbai-based tabloid Mid-Day, in an article about a building where numerous militants were holed up titled ‘Mumbai Attack: Was Nariman House the Terror Hub?’, states:

“The role that Nariman House is coming to play in this entire attack drama is puzzling. Last night, residents ordered close to 100 kilograms of meat and other food, enough to feed an army or a bunch of people for twenty days. Shortly thereafter, the ten odd militants moved in, obviously, indicating that the food and meat was ordered, keeping their visit in mind, another cop added.

“One of the militants called up a television news channel and voiced his demands today, but, interestingly, when he was asked where are they all holed up, he said at the Israeli owned Nariman House and they are six of them here”, one of the investigating cops said. Since morning, there has been exchange of gun fire has been going on and the militants seem well equipped to counter the cops fire. To top it, they have food and shelter. One wonders [if] they have the support of the residents, a local Ramrao Shanker said.”

A Mossad/Israeli hand in the affair might seem far-fetched to some, but not so to others, who point to the role of Israeli agents in destabilizing a large number of countries as well as possibly operating within some radical Islamist movements, such as a group in Yemen styling itself ‘Islamic Jihad’, said to be responsible for the bombing of the American Embassy in Sanaa, and which is said to have close links with the Israeli intelligence. Some have raised the question if the Mossad or even the CIA might not be directly or otherwise instigating some disillusioned Muslim youth in India, Pakistan or elsewhere to take to terror by playing on Muslim grievances, operating through existing Islamist groups or spawning new ones for this purpose.

The idea that a Chabad House might order large quantities of kosher meat at a time for its many guests, when kosher meat is difficult to get, obviously does not cross the minds of these Muslims who are so keen on finding any reason to blame the Jews - um, I mean "Zionists."

A Canadian columnist also mentions:

The mayhem in Mumbai had barely hit the news when I received the first e-mail suggesting the terrorist attacks had been carried out by agents of Mossad -- Israel's military intelligence -- masquerading as Islamic terrorists to give Muslims a bad name.
A writer from Toronto forwarded a news item claiming, "India's Internal Security Police are now holding and questioning an identified Israeli Mossad agent, who had been in communication with some of the alleged terrorists in India two weeks before the BLACK OP attacks took place."
As ridiculous as this may sound, chances are countless Muslims are deluding themselves into believing that it is not their co-religionists who are responsible for the savagery let loose on India, but some hidden hand that is part of a U.S.-Zionist conspiracy against Islam.

Of course, the seeming inability of the Muslim world to believe that Muslims are behind most terror attacks worldwide makes them part of the problem.

We are the targets

The world has been hearing a lot about "Islamophobia" in the past few years. Since 9/11, the Muslim community has been responding to every Islamic terror attack with statements cautioning the West to not succumb to this terrible disease of Islamophobia, often elevating its heinousness to a par with the terror attacks themselves.

However, while there is undoubtedly some discrimination against and fear of Muslims in the West, they do not live their lives as targets.

A Muslim can walk down the street in New York, Mississippi, London, Rome or Moscow, in full Muslim clothing, without any fear of being attacked because he or she is a Muslim. He does not have to worry that he will be in a hostage situation where someone will take his passport and single him out for death because of his name or nationality.

They might have to worry about getting certain kinds of jobs or being looked at funny. But they do not have to fear for their lives.

In Mumbai, the targets were clear: Americans, British, Israelis and Jews. The terrorists went out of their way to target these groups; months of research into targets that would maximize their damage to these groups and their own actions during the attacks prove this.

Islamophobia is a joke compared to the real fear that Westerners have in many countries worldwide for their very lives. The entire purpose of terror is to instill just this kind of fear. And the terrorists have made their targets clear.

To talk about "Islamophobia" as if it is a real, pressing, worldwide concern is not just deceptive - it is a conscious effort to minimize and deflect from the Islamic terrorism which is the real plague that needs to be eradicated. If the terror stops, the relatively small amount of discrimination against Islam will stop as well. The people pretending that "Islamophobia" is a major concern are part of the problem.

Iranian jurisprudence: Acid in attacker's eyes

From Sky News:

A Sharia court ordered the punishment based on the system of "qisas" or fair retribution, Etemad-e Melli newspaper said.

The man identified as Majid proposed several times but was spurned by the woman, identified as Ameneh, the daily reported.

In revenge, he threw acid in her face as she left her work in 2004, it added.

She travelled to Spain for surgery to reconstruct her face but efforts to restore her sight failed.

On returning to Iran, she asked the court for retribution, the newspaper said.

Majid was quoted as saying he did not regret his action but added: "I threw acid on her face so that she would be mine forever.

Judges "unanimously decided to sentence the accused to 'qisas' of his body part, blinding by acid" and to pay compensation, the report said.

PalArab press politicizing Mumbai

Ma'an published a condemnation of the Mumbai attacks from its editor, and tries to twist it as if Palestinian Arabs are like the Indians:

Palestinians follow what is happening hour by hour in Mumbai; the results of the bombings, shots fired at tourists, at hotel workers. Palestinians watch with painful understanding the death of innocent people and police officers in a country not their own.

As opposed to the celebrations with which they greet the deaths of innocent people in Israel.

We are sorry for those difficult moments experienced by India.

Regardless who claims the attacks in India, which group has planned and rallied to shake the country’s stability and security, it has become clear that our neighbor Israel will try to turn the tragedy into a case against the Islamic nation.

As a response to reports condemning Islam along with atrocities committed in its name we in Palestine announce our pain and solidarity with the Indian nation and emphasize the following:

First: The Indian nation was and will remain loyal and friendly to Palestinians since the days of Mahatma Gandhi's revolutionary period. The great man’s daughter Indira Gandhi then her son the President Rajiv Gandhi and even to this very moment the Palestinian people have felt the support of India. We will not forget Indian strength as Palestine stands up against Israel.

The generous aid to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the many scholarships offered to Palestinian students from India has endeared to us a nation whose history is not so different than our own. Palestine is a nation suffering from a siege, an occupation and constant aggression and we stand alongside India as forces act against the safety of its people.

Secondly: Regardless of who carried out the attacks in Mumbai we as Palestinians announce our condemnation of such an act against our Indian friends.

Thirdly: We must assert that the taking of Israeli hostages by the Mumbai attackers in no way indicates Palestinian involvement. Attempts have been made to link the violence in India with Palestinian groups, but these efforts will be unsuccessful.

Fourth: Palestine is a friend to India, and we are a nation who remembers our friends in their time of need. We watch the news closely, and feel the pain of the bleeding in Mumbai.

We Palestinians, as tired and frustrated as we are with the endless Israeli attacks against civilians send hope and encouragement to India and the residents of Mumbai. In your time of need, sorrow and uncertainty India, we send our support.

Glory to God, peace to earth and love to people.

Here we have a nation that was born some sixty years ago via a partition initiated by Britain, along with the concommitant transfer of populations between the two areas, that has been the victim of countless terror attacks by Muslims ever since. Who does that sound like?

As usual, the Palestinian Arabs are noticing only too well the parallels between the terror attacks against India and the terror attacks that they engineer and celebrate against Israel. And they want to publicly distance themselves from the international terror that, in many ways, they pioneered in the 1970s, and even try to score political points from it.

A couple of Iranian news stories

Here's another statement by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that will be ignored by the West:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that the Islamic Revolution of Iran is not limited to specific geographic or national borders.

"The Islamic Revolution is a deep and decisive move for all human beings," said the president during a ceremony to honor Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Hassan Firouzabadi.

And Iran's Press TV found a 9/11 "Truther", who worked for the CIA decades ago, to blame the Mumbai terror attacks on US policy:

Bill Christison, a former CIA official says the recent Mumbai incident indicates that the Muslim world is retaliating against US polices in the region.

In an exclusive interview with Press TV, Christison a former adviser to the CIA says that targeting UK and US citizen's in the latest attack in Mumbai indicates a frustration that is developing in the Muslim world caused by US polices in Central Asia and the Middle East in the past eight years.

The former CIA adviser said that the US partnership with Israel and the occupation of Iraq are all examples of wrong US polices in the region and warned of similar attacks as in Mumbai if US polices continue on the same road.