Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

A quick fisking of Amy Goodman

Veet in the comments wanted me to fisk Amy Goodman, a popular left-wing host of "Democracy Now!" which runs on many radio stations across the country, including many college stations.

From what I could tell from a quick look, she is just another moonbat, without much original or interesting to say, pretty much sticking to the party line.

Yesterday, she had a special guest, the tiredly predictable Juan Cole.

Here are some of the lies I caught from the transcript:

AMY: In Israel and the Occupied Territories, the Obama administration has continued the US government’s unwavering support for Israel.

Well, except for trying to open dialogue with Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, telling Israel not to attack Iran, trying to appoint officials with anti-Israel views, and Obama saying that he is anti-Likud - sure, he is "unwavering."

The administration recently announced it will withdraw its entire $900 million aid pledge if the pending Palestinian unity government does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. No such conditions have been imposed on Israel.

Um, perhaps because Israel already has recognized the Palestinian Arabs' right to exist at Oslo, 16 years ago?

Notice also that she doesn't say a word about the other precondition - that Hamas renounce terror. Apparently, Goodman believes that this is also an unacceptable restriction on her heroes in Hamas.

She also doesn't seem to find it strange to force Israel to negotiate with people who wish it to disappear. Perhaps she is not familiar with what "negotiations" mean - one does not negotiate their own demise, as much as Goodman might desire that to happen.

This comes in the wake of Israel’s brutal three-week assault on Gaza that left over 1,400 Palestinians dead, more than 900 of them civilians.

Actually, even according to PCHR, the 900 were "noncombatants," which is a very different thing. Israel has determined that no more than one third of the dead were civilians. You might argue over which is correct, but you do not accept the words of one biased party as fact and reject the other based on nothing but your own biases.

COLE: You know, there is a ban on politicians in the United States being critical of Israeli policy. And if you have anything serious to do with the US Congress, in particular, it’s not allowed to be critical, and you’ll have a lot of enemies who will try to shoot you down, try to get you unelected if you’re elected, try to get you unappointed if you’re appointed. And it’s a concerted effort on the part of a whole range of people. They include evangelical Christians on the right. They include right-wing Zionists in the Jewish community. It’s a very odd set of alliances, but it’s very effective.

A ban? There is no question that the Israel lobby is effective in...lobbying, just as the NRA and AARP are at least as effective in their own efforts to influence Congress. Saudi Arabia has an effective lobby as well. And there are even politicians - a minority, to be sure - who built their careers on being anti-Israel.

AMY: In our headlines today, reading that Netanyahu has formed a pact with the far-right politician Avigdor Lieberman, an attempt to form a right-wing government in which Lieberman would become Israel’s foreign minister. He’s called for laws to require Palestinians living in Israel to swear loyalty to the Jewish state.
JUAN COLE: He’s called for laws for Israelis, Israeli citizens, to have a loyalty test. These are—
AMY GOODMAN: Not singling out Israeli Arabs?
JUAN COLE: They’re singling out Israeli Arabs.

This is simply a lie. The loyalty oath that makes everyone so upset is for all Israeli citizens.

Can't you feel the sanctity?

From Photo Polygon.

UPDATE: I don't know anything about the site, which is in Russian, so maybe this is a Photoshop. The other photos at the site seem legit, though.

Links from my mailbox

I really appreciate when you send me links to comment on. I don't always have time to write a full post, but here are some recent links sent to me that you should check out.

Tom Gross: (Former?) CNN reporter goes on anti-Israel tirade during a press conference. (Many more details here.) Plus, UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness is a former BBC reporter and a pal of notoriously anti-Israel Jeremy Bowen. (h/t Brad Brzezinski)

An on-line anti-Hamas petition. I'm skeptical about the effectiveness of these things, but worth checking out. (h/t Renaud)

Seven Jewish Children: a modern passion play (h/t Ami Isseroff )

Jihadis question Al Qaeda links to Israel (h/t Bubbe)

Video: Vilified: Telling Lies about Israel (h/t sshender)

How terrorists define "torture"

From Ma'an:

Israel is torturing Ahmad Sa’dat, the secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in prison, the group said on Wednesday.

Good heavens! What terrible torture is Israel doing? Waterboarding? Breaking his fingers? Pulling out his toenails?

In a statement the PFLP said the “Israeli prison service keeps transferring Sa’adat from one jail to another, under dire conditions in light of his bad health condition. He has been suffering pains in his back and stomach in Israel’s custody as a result of bad conditions in detention.”

Ah, it must all that packing and unpacking is pushing him to his physical and psychological limits.

These tough terrorists really turn into babies when they have the slightest inconvenience.

And what was he guilty of again?

Israel seized Sa’dat from a Palestinian Authority (PA) prison in Jericho in 2006. He was held in PA custody after he was accused by Israel of arranging the assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi in 2001. In 2008 he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Just murder.

Gaza man tortured to death. Yawn.

From PCHR:

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 15:00pm on Monday, 16 March 2009, Zayed Jaradat was pronounced dead on arrival at Martyr Mohammed Yousif al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah city. The body was then transferred to the forensic department at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for further examination. Jaradat had been arrested by members of the police in the morning of Monday 15 March 2009. Police sources told PCHR that Jaradat had been detained in al-Quds Girls’ Secondary School, near al-‘Awda Square in the centre of Rafah. The police have been using the school as their headquarters since Israeli warplanes destroyed Rafah police station during their latest offensive on Gaza. According to the police sources, Jaradat was arrested on charges of drug possession.

A PCHR field worker, who visited the forensic department at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and took photographs of the body, witnessed traces of bruising throughout the body. The bruises were concentrated in the area around the neck and shoulders. The PCHR field worker also reported that Jaradat’s toenails had been removed. This indicates that Jaradat had been subject to torture during his detention.

Just another average day in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Perhaps George Galloway can add "toenail clipping"to his list of wonderful things Hamas does for Gazans.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 54.

How to boost traffic to your website

At the moment, I'm getting about 60 hits a day from a posting I wrote last week called "Tunisian sees wife in po-rn video", all of them from search engines looking for things like "wife po-rn" and "tunusian [sic] po-rn" and similar queries. Apparently I am now on the first page of Google searches for "wife po-rn."

Not quite my normal readership.

Indonesian cleric arrested for marrying 12-year old girl

From Monsters and Critics:

Police arrested a Muslim cleric in Indonesia's Central Java province for marrying a 12-year-old girl in violation of the country's child-protection law, an officer said Wednesday.
Pujiono Cahyo Widianto, 43, revealed in August that he had taken a 12-year-old girl as a second wife in a traditional Islamic wedding ceremony, sparking criticism from child-protection groups.
Police in Semarang, the capital of Central Java, said they had charged Pujiono with sexual exploitation of a child.
The country's child-protection law defines children as people under 18.
'The maximum jail term for such an offense is 15 years,' said Roy Hardi Siahaan, chief detective for the local police.
Pujiono has defended his action, saying he would not consummate the marriage until the girl reaches puberty.
Child rights activists have accused Pujiono of paedophilia and of depriving the girl of an education.
Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni also condemned the marriage and demanded it be cancelled.

While it is admirable that Indonesia has arrested the man, an AP report adds a relevant detail:

The cleric's wedding and proclamations that he intended also to marry two other girls, aged 7 and 9, angered many in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation with more than 210 million believers.

And finally another interesting point from Gulf News:

Pujiono Cahyo Widianto wed the girl before thousands of people in Central Java province last August.

Where was the outrage then? It looks like the real problem was his public intentions to marry the younger girls, not the marriage to the 12-year old.

(photo h/t Andre)

Hamas hates Gazans

In a region filled with ironies, one that flies under the radar of the Western world is the fact that Hamas treats the people of Gaza horribly, and often sacrifices their interests for its own political or military advantage.

From hiding among the people to draw Israeli fire, to diverting needed aid towards Hamas members away from the population, to its utter indifference towards building or maintaining basic infrastructure (most of which is done by PA members nowadays, not Hamas,) to its decision to turn abandoned Jewish communities into terror training camps instead of moving Gazans into real homes, it is clear that Hamas only makes decisions based on what is best for Hamas, not what is best for Gaza.

The latest in this long line of examples happened just in the past few hours.

Ma'an reports:

Egypt reportedly stopped two Hamas officials from returning to the Gaza Strip from Egypt on Tuesday with night-vision goggles and some $900,000 in cash, the Reuters news agency reported.

The report quotes anonymous security officials, and also does not name the Hamas officials involved. Customs agents reportedly [found] 500,000 euros and 250,000 US dollars while searching the officials bags.

The Hamas members were returning from the Egyptian-brokered Palestinian unity talks in Cairo.

As in the past, the items they were trying to smuggle were not meant for Palestinian Arabs but for Hamas itself. Hamas' reaction is even more blatantly anti-Gazan:

The de facto Palestinian government in Gaza refused to open the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Wednesday in protest of what it called “humiliating regulations” on Palestinian travelers.

The Interior Ministry in the Hamas-led government issued this decision as Egypt said it would open the Rafah border on Wednesday and Thursday. The de facto government however denied that it had received official notification of this.

Egypt planned to open Rafah today for Gazans to cross - and Hamas is stopping them, because of the "humiliation" it suffered by Egypt's seizure of banned items. Hamas has made yet another decision to make Gazans suffer for its own gain.

The irony continues with the hundreds of rallies for "Gaza" that are really demonstrations for Hamas rule - which is anti-Gaza! People who claim to be pro-Gaza must necessarily be anti-Hamas, but the reverse is true. The "Free Gaza" movement members and the George Galloways of the world happily shake hands with Gaza officials and take pictures with a group that is not only anti-Israel and anti-semitic, but anti Gazan.

How many protests have there been for Gazans themselves and against Hamas? What percentage of human rights workers are openly anti-Hamas? How many UN resolutions have been passed against Hamas' treatment of Gazans?

People who advocate boosting Hamas politically are, by definition, against the people of Gaza.

Jews with minds so open, their sense falls out

The Washington Post reports on the anti-semitic Caryl Churchill play, "Seven Jewish Children," being performed at...the Jewish Community Center of Washington:

As a work of art, "Seven Jewish Children" is "deftly constructed, evocative, elusive and provocative," says Ari Roth. He is the artistic director of the Jewish Community Center's Theater J in Northwest Washington, where staged readings of the play will be offered on March 26 and 28. (Collaborator Forum Theatre in Northeast Washington will house the play on March 27 and 29, as Theater J does not have Friday performances and Forum has put on Churchill's works before. )

Some have argued that the play is also something insidious. Consider these lines of dialogue: "Tell her they live in tents. Tell her this wasn't their home." And then, "Tell her they don't understand anything except violence." And then, "Tell her they're filth." And finally, the jarringly brutal, "Tell her I wouldn't care if we wiped them out."

When the play premiered in London this year, some theater critics called the work anti-Semitic. The Spectator labeled the play "an open incitement to hatred" and a "ten-minute blood-libel."

In British media, Churchill has denied charges of anti-Semitism; Roth wonders whether an American audience will have a reaction so vehemently negative. "The idea is to give the play a hearing, to approach it in the spirit of inquiry," Roth says. "We're not going to take a right-wing British journalist's word that it's blood-libel."

This statement is so stupid it stretches credulity. Does one have to watch a play to see what it states, or can one perhaps accomplish that by reading the script?

Instead, the two Washington theaters, both of which frequently hold issue-based discussion groups, will present the play as an opportunity for dialogue, holding forums after each performance. Theater J will also follow "Seven Jewish Children" by debuting a response play, "Seven Palestinian Children," which New Jersey playwright Deb Margolin wrote after reading Churchill's work.

I am insulted that the magnum opus I composed yesterday is not being considered as an appropriate response.

Although Margolin's play also features some controversial language -- "Tell him: When old men die, it is expected; when young men die, it is sacred" -- she argues that her play comes from a humanitarian perspective. "What I want to speak to is that moment when one human being is incapable of seeing the humanity in another," Margolin says. She is Jewish and says distress over some of Churchill's generalizations about the Jewish community caused Margolin to write her own play.

Unfortunately, this misses the point. The problem with "Seven Jewish Children" is a gentile, who is clearly antipathic towards Zionists/Jews, is lying about how Jews think and dramatizing those lies. A response play is not the proper way to put lies in context; lies have no context. They should be demolished or dismissed, but not taken, even for a moment, as fact.

"My druthers would be to critique this play dramaturgically, not politically," Roth says. But separating art from politics in a work as fraught as "Seven Jewish Children" might be a nearly impossible task, even for sophisticated theatergoers. The play brings up issues that prompt immediate emotional responses, however you perceive Churchill's intent.

The Washington Post understands the problem more than the Jewish art director of the JCC.

Roth believes that there are many rational ways to interpret "Seven Jewish Children." It's a quick play, he says, "that accomplishes an awful lot."

Oh, please. It isn't Shakespeare. There is only one rational way to interpret it, and it is to make Jews look like hypocritical, bloodthirsty usurpers of peaceful Arabs.
(h/t jh in the comments)

UPDATE: I wanted to point out another absurd part of this story:

"My druthers would be to critique this play dramaturgically, not politically," Roth says.

By Roth's logic, if someone would write a catchy pop song called "Kill the Jews," the proper response would be to write a competing song called "Please Don't Kill Us" and play both of them in the interests of "debate."

Simcha Open Thread

I guess that since I am at a wedding and can't blog, this is again a good time for an Open Thread.

Play nice, guys.

The majority of Palestinian Arabs are immoral

Buried in the results of the latest PSR poll of Palestinian Arabs and Israelis comes this tidbit:

54% of the Palestinians support and 42% oppose armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel.

Once again, a majority of Palestinian Arabs support terror attacks - not only against "settlers" but against ordinary Jews living in Israel. All of the people that keep telling us that Palestinian Arabs want peace are, simply, wrong. They want to see Jewish women and children killed.

This is nothing new. A similar percentage answered the same in June 2008 (before the Gaza op); last April a majority specifically supported suicide bombings against Israeli civilians; a different poll showed 68% of Palestinian Arabs supported terror attacks in Israel in April 2007, and in September 2006 the percentage was calculated to be 57%, with 63% supporting rocket attacks.

Can someone explain the wisdom of a "peace process" with people who desire the death of their "peace partners?"

This is not a poll of Hamas members. This is not a poll of only Gaza. This is the mainstream Palestinian Arab opinion, and it has been how they felt for years. Going back to 1995 - pre-Intifada, during the golden years of Oslo when Palestinian Arab employment was at record highs - the proportion that supported terror attacks well outnumbered those who opposed terror by 12 percentage points (although then was a pluraity, not a majority.)

At what point do we say that the real obstacles to peace are the people who openly and joyously support the murder of innocents? When will the world realize that we are pouring billions of dollars towards a people who are repeatedly and consistently pro-terror? How long do we have to wait before people realize that it is way past time for Palestinian Arabs themselves to take responsibility for their beliefs, their opinions and their actions?

It sounds harsh, but the polls have proven, time and time again, that a majority of Palestinian Arabs are immoral. They support terror. They support the wanton murder of innocents. Is there any other way to spin this?

And you cannot claim that Palestinian Arabs are only theoretically supportive of terror, and are aghast when it actually happens. Last year, an astonishing 84% of Palestinian Arabs supported the Mercaz Harav massacre of teenagers.

Why does the world still support a people who not only tolerate evil but celebrate it?

Protocols of the Drinkers of Coffee (Melanie Philips)

From Melanie Philips:

From Egypt, further evidence that the Islamist hatred of the Jews is not caused by Israel’s behaviour or even its existence. It’s caused by... hatred of the Jews. Here, Egyptian cleric Muhammad Hussein Ya’qoub raves:

If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving them? Of course not. We will never love them. Absolutely not. The Jews are infidels – not because I say so, and not because they are killing Muslims, but because Allah said: 'The Jews say that Uzair is the son of Allah, and the Christians say that Christ is the son of Allah. These are the words from their mouths. They imitate the sayings of the disbelievers before. May Allah fight them. How deluded they are.’ It is Allah who said that they are infidels.

Your belief regarding the Jews should be, first, that they are infidels, and second, that they are enemies. They are enemies not because they occupied Palestine. They would have been enemies even if they did not occupy a thing. Allah said: 'You shall find the strongest men in enmity to the disbelievers [sic] to be the Jews and the polytheists.' Third, you must believe that the Jews will never stop fighting and killing us. They [fight] not for the sake of land and security, as they claim, but for the sake of their religion: 'And they will not cease fighting you until they turn you back you’re your religion, if they can.'

This is it. We must believe that our fighting with the Jews is eternal, and it will not end until the final battle – and this is the fourth point. You must believe that we will fight, defeat, and annihilate them, until not a single Jew remains on the face of the Earth.

Egypt, let us not forget, is a ‘moderate’ Arab state that has a peace agreement with Israel. It is nevertheless a major source of barking-mad Jewish demonisation in the Arab world. Here is Egyptian Cleric Salama Abd Al-Qawi warning Muslims against the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – the notorious Czarist forged claim that the Jews covertly rule the world -- and many US companies :

They [the Jews]began conspiring to annihilate the Islamic and Arab nation, to plunder its resources, and to destroy its youth. Regretfully, the plots they hatched are being implemented today in detail. One of their conspiracies, which stemmed from their black hatred, was to gain control over the entire global economy, bringing the world under their thumb. So they founded huge companies, which, like spiders, send their webs all over the world. The main goal of these companies was to erase Islamic identity.

... Many basic products, which may be found in many Muslim households, like the Ariel, Tide, and Persil laundry detergents, are made by Zionist companies. The Coca Cola and Pepsi companies and all their products – Seven Up, Miranda, Fania, and all these products, all the carbonated beverages, with very few exceptions that don't bear mention... Almost all the carbonated beverages are Zionist-American products.

[...] Some restaurants, I'm sad to say, are teeming with Muslim youth, and their safes are full of the money of Muslims... McDonalds is Jewish-Zionist, Kentucky Fried Chicken is Jewish-Zionist, Little Caesar, Pizza Hut, Domino's Pizza, Burger King... By the way, all these products, which I have mentioned... In addition, there is a new type of coffee these days... All these are pure Zionist products, especially what is known as Starbucks, the well-known coffee. It is Zionist.

Ah yes, Starbucks: home of the Zionist genocidal apartheid bean. In January, Egyptian Cleric Safwat Higazi brought viewers of al Nas TV urgent news about the Starbucks logo:

Has any of you ever wondered who this woman with a crown on her head is? Why do we boycott Starbucks? ... The girl on the Starbucks logo is Queen Esther. Do you know who Queen Esther was and what the crown on her head means? This is the crown of the Persian Kingdom. This queen is the queen of the Jews. She is mentioned in the Torah, in the Book of Esther. The girl you see is Esther, the queen of the Jews in Persia...

Can you believe that in Mecca, Al-Madina, Cairo, Damascus, Kuwait, and all over the Islamic world, hangs the picture of beautiful Queen Esther, with a crown on her head, and we buy her products.[...]We want Starbucks to be shut down throughout the Arab and Islamic world. We want it to be shut down in Mecca and in Al-Madina. I implore King Abdallah bin Abd Al-‘Aziz, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques: It is inconceivable that in Mecca and Al-Madina, there will be a picture of Queen Esther, the queen of the Jews.

As anyone can see, however, the female figure in the Starbucks logo (pictured above) has two fish tails. This is a clue that she is not Esther, queen of the Jews in Persia. She is instead a twin-tailed siren of Greek mythology. This is because the company is apparently named in part after Starbuck, Captain Ahab’s first mate in the book Moby Dick.
What we are up against within the Islamic world is quite simply a wholesale negation of reason; nothing less.