Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, April 12, 2009

PCHR lies about "civilians" and agrees with IDF about Jabalya

PCHR finally came out with the English translation of their list of victims of the Gaza operation, and already a number of things merit attention.

PTWatch, in the comments, quickly looked at Hamas' list of "martyrs" from Gaza on its Al Qassam website and immediately found four people who Hamas happily claimed as members of their terrorist group - and who PCHR called "civilians."

#576 Ayman Mohammed Mohammed ‘Afana
PCHR -> civilian
AlQassam -> martyr & fighter

#959 Amir Yousif Mahmoud al-Mansi
PCHR -> civilian
AlQassam -> martyr & fighter

#406 Ali Zuheir Mahmoud al-Houbi
PCHR -> civilian
AlQassam -> martyr & fighter

#133 Mohammed Salah Hassan al-Sawaf
PCHR -> civilian
AlQassam -> martyr & fighter

To this list you can add #257, Ayman Fou’ad Eid al-Nahhal, whom PCHR identifies as a "policeman/civilian."

And Hamas clearly isn't publicizing the names of all of its members. These are just the ones on their website that they admit were killed. Both parties are lying.

There are other terrorists listed as "civilians," such as #864, Tareq Mohammed Nemer Abu ‘Amsha, who CAMERA noted that Ma'an listed as a member of Islamic Jihad al-Quds Brigades.

Intriguingly, some of the terrorists that CAMERA mentioned, who were listed in the weekly PCHR casualty reports, are mysteriously missing from the final report. Is PCHR protecting itself from listing too many dead terrorists? Were they never killed to begin with? It is something that people should be asking PCHR.

One other relevant part of the report: PCHR lists people who were killed "near" and "opposite" the al-Fakhoura School in the Jabalya camp on January 6th. You may recall that the UNRWA told me explicitly that they stood by the casualty figures of 30-50 dead at the school even after the IDF claimed that only 12 were killed. The PCHR itself claimed at the time that 27 civilians were killed instantly at the school.

Well, the PCHR counts of who died near the school are very interesting. Once you do not count the Deeb family - who PCHR says died "opposite" the school, who do appear to have been victims of an errant shell, and who were not counted as casualties from the school by PCHR in January - we are left with 12 dead! The IDF figures are found to be exactly right! The PCHR now says the Deebs were "opposite" the school, whatever that means, while the remaining 12 victims (11 from January 6, 1 from January 7) were "near" the school.

So now we know that not only is the PCHR lying as to who is a "civilian," and not only is Hamas lying as to the number of their own terrorists who were killed, but the UNRWA is also lying in claiming that many dozens were killed at the school - even according to the lying PCHR.

UPDATE: More names of terrorists described as "civilians" by PCHR, and terrorists not listed:

#1314 Ashraf Rebhi al-‘Abed Banar PFLP terrorist described as "Fallen in Battle" by PFLP, civilian by PCHR

# 908 Jamal Ahmed Hussein Nashwan PFLP terrorist "was a leader of the PFLP in the eastern area of Beit Hanoun"

#412 Nizar Abdul Kader Mohammed Rayan prominent Hamas leader

Hamas military leader Abu Zakariyya Al-Jamal not listed

# 468 Mahmoud ‘Adnan Mahmoud Abu Ma’arouf - Hamas member listed as Mahmoud Arif in Ma'an

# 747 Mohammed ‘Ayesh Mansour Abu Naser "affiliated to the Ayman Juda faction, an offshoot of the Al-Aqsa Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah."

#1185 Hamdi Saleh Mohammed Hamada "Al Aqsa fighter"

# 1054 Sa’ad Mohammed Abdullah Hassan "fighter"

# 1047 Ahmed Ibrahim Mohammed Abu Jazar Islamic Jihad "martyr"

Haggadah correction

I found a couple of mistakes in my downloadable Haggadah, plus I made some last minute additions before Yom Tov, so here is a link to the latest version.

In the end the EoZ Haggadah had over 750 downloads.

If I made it into a much more serious, expanded and better-designed Haggadah for next year, in full color with a hard-cover, would you pay $25 or so for it? I don't think I could self-publish it for any less. I know I could do a much better job, I just don't know if it is worth it.

Chag Sameach!

Because of Passover/Pesach, I will not be blogging until Saturday night.

I wish all of my Jewish readers a Chag Kasher V'Sameach!

Your chance to join the real Zionist Lobby

Last year, I attended the NORPAC Mission to Washington, where nearly a thousand committed American Zionists descended on Capitol Hill to meet with members of Congress and their aides, thank them for their help and ask them to vote on specific bills. As I wrote then, it was a very gratifying experience, especially when given the opportunity to have a more wide-ranging discussion about the Middle East.

This year's Mission is being organized now, and I highly recommend taking a day off to join NORPAC. The buses leave from various locations in New York and New Jersey.

You will be glad you did.

That Israeli racism

After days of searching, the body of the Israeli student who was missing in the massive earthquake in Italy has been found.

The Israeli press has had headlines about search for the student for the past couple of days. That search was so frantic that even other nations' media commented on the story. The Jewish press in places as far as Australia were also closely following the story.

Clearly, the Jewish state and the worldwide Jewish community was very concerned for the fate of the missing student.

Who was an Arab.

That fact was mentioned, if at all, only incidentally in the Israeli press. An Israeli was missing, and it didn't matter what religion he was, just as long as he was found.

If Israel is as racist against Palestinian Arabs as it is commonly portrayed, why would the entire nation be so concerned about the fate of "just another Arab?" If the goal of Zionism is to ethnically cleanse Israel of Arabs, why wouldn't his death be celebrated by those racist Zionist Jews?

And if the Palestinian Arabs cared so much about each others' fate, how come I cannot find a single article in any Palestinian Arab newspaper about Hussein Hamada over the past three days? Nothing in Ma'an, nothing in IMEMC, nothing in Firas or Palestine Today. Palestinian Arabs who get slightly injured by "Zionists" or "settlers" or the "IOF" get top headlines, but a school student who dies tragically in an earthquake gets no coverage at all. I also couldn't find anything in the general Arab press like Al Arabiya or Al Jazeera.

Israel once again seems to care more about Arab lives than Arabs do.

Here is what the sky looked like as Junior Elder and I waited patiently in our backyard for the sun to peek out for a minute so we could say Birkat HaChamah this morning. (We waited at the shul for about fifteen minutes before giving up.)

The picture doesn't capture it but the sun just became visible as I took the snapshot.

You can still download the free EoZ Haggadah

So far, over ~~450~~ 550 people have downloaded the Elder of Ziyon Haggadah, available here.

It contains the entire Hebrew and (almost the entire) English text of the Haggadah. It is quite usable during the Seder, especially if you print it double-sided. The commentaries all come from a religious-Zionist perspective, emphasizing themes of golut and geulah, that will enhance your Seder (or Sedarim.)

לשנה הבאה בירושלים הבנויה

Socialist writes against modern Leftist anti-semitism

An unusual op-ed from The Militant, a stridently socialist site:

The fifth annual “Israeli Apartheid Week” was held on campuses across the United States the first week in March. The activities are part of an international campaign to boycott businesses that have trade or other relations with Israel, and to sever ties between Israeli academic institutions and those in other countries.
The campaign has the backing of a range of groups that support the struggle of the Palestinian people against national oppression, including radical and socialist groups in the United States like the International Socialist Organization (ISO) and the Workers World Party.
The character of these activities—aimed increasingly at Jewish-owned businesses—is part of the deepening pattern of Jew-baiting and anti-Semitism in the middle-class left worldwide. It should be opposed.
At a February 10 panel discussion at Hunter College in New York, ISO leader Lichi D’Amelio appealed to students not to buy hummus produced by the company Sabra. After stating that the company gives money to the Israeli military, she also asserted that the chick-pea-based dip “is not even Jewish, but an Arab food.”

Starbucks, whose owner is Jewish, has become a target of this campaign internationally. On January 10 some 200 protesters looted a Starbucks coffee shop near the Israeli embassy in London and attacked a number of businesses in the area. One proud participant posted a video of the looting on YouTube under the header “How to really boycott Israeli products.”
Jew-hatred and anti-Semitism, a centuries old form of racism, has been used by ruling classes throughout history when their system faced a crisis. Modern anti-Semitism often comes draped in an anticapitalist and even socialist cloak. The real exploiters—the billionaire ruling families, whose great majority is non-Jewish—are replaced by a racist conspiracy that paints the Jews as the source of society’s problems.
The notion that Washington is a pawn of the Israeli lobby is a modern form of this anti-Jewish conspiracy theory. And those who promote it often use the term "Zionist movement" as a substitute for "Jew."
As part of Israeli Apartheid Week a meeting was held at New York University titled “NYU-Tel Aviv University: A Partnership in Occupation.” Students, academics and others are presented as a “partner in occupation” simply because they study or teach at Tel Aviv University. And, by that logic, why is studying or teaching at NYU less of a threat to the interests of humanity. It also produces scientists, politicians, and military leaders who advance the bloody course of U.S. imperialism—a far greater threat to humanity than the Israeli capitalist state.

He goes on to decry Leftist support of Hamas, which is hardly a socialist cause:

Support for the anti-Israel boycott effort among radicals—like the members of the Workers World Party and the ISO—often goes along with increasingly open support for Hamas. As ISO leader D'Amelio said of Khaled Meshal, the Hamas political bureau leader in Damascus, "There is little in what he says that I disagree with.”
The Hamas covenant, written in 1988, outlines the aims of that organization.
Speaking of the Jewish people, the document states, “With their money, they took control of the world media… . [T]hey stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution… . With their money they formed secret societies… . They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources.”

This has upset the truly hateful ultra-leftists.

AP can't avoid their anti-Jewish bias

Here's a picture of Jews performing the once-every-28 years Birkat Hachamah from AP:

Nice enough, until you read the caption:

Overlooking the Dome of the Rock Mosque, in the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, also known to Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City, Jewish worshippers wrapped in prayer shawls participate in the special "Blessing of the Sun" prayer, in Jerusalem, Wednesday, April 8, 2009. Devout Jews around the world on Wednesday observed a ritual performed only once every 28 years, saying their morning prayers under the open sky in the "blessing of the sun."

Before AP even bothers to say what is happening, it has to imply that the crazy ultra-religious Jews are coveting Muslim holy places. The existence of the mosque, illegally built on top of sacred Jewish land in order to erase all Jewish claims, is utterly irrelevant to the story, and the parenthetic phrase "also known to Jews as" mean that the Muslims have the absolute right to the Temple Mount while Jews have some sort of an irrational claim to Muslim land.

It shows how deeply ingrained the Muslim narrative has come to dominate the Western media. Anyone who thinks that the press is biased towards Jews should read this caption objectively - and if you cannot see what is offensive about it, it means that years of Muslim influence has made such incredible bias the norm.

Egypt closes "blasphemous" magazine

From Al-Arabiya:

An Egyptian court revoked the license of a literary magazine on Tuesday on the grounds that a poem it had published more than two years ago was blasphemous, court sources said.

Ibdaa (Creativity), a small circulation magazine issued by a government-controlled publishing house, lost its license for printing Helmy Salem's poem, "Laila Mourad's balcony" –a reference to a 1940s Egyptian movie icon.

The poem contains references to God, some phrased as questions, likening him for example to a villager force-feeding a duck.

The judge described the poem as "presumptuous drivel" and said a free press should be responsible. The ruling followed a lawsuit raised against the magazine by an individual.

BBC adds:

The court's ruling said: "Freedom of press... should be used responsibly and not touch on the basic foundations of Egyptian society, and family, religion and morals."

Which is the equivalent of saying that the press is free to write whatever it wants, as long as it is about rainbows and unicorns.

AFP indicates who supported the ruling - that bastion of academic freedom, Al Azhar:

The Islamic Al-Azhar University, the government's highest authority on religion, had submitted to the court its opinion that Salem was a heretic and his poem was blasphemous.

Don't invest too much stock in Salem's life.

Jews "desecrate the holy Al-Aqsa mosque"

Palestine Today has another photo essay of Jews "desecrating" the Temple Mount.

As we saw last time, their definition of "Jewish desecration" is "Jews existing."

Palestine Today also has another article warning that extremist Jews plan to "break into" the Al Aqsa mosque for Passover and start building the third Temple.

The Arab Lobby shuts down preacher

When Zionists complain about the opinions of someone, it is considered "censorship" and "shutting down free speech."

But what happens when Muslims complain about someone's opinions?

From al-Arabiya:

Members of France’s Muslim community called for ousting the director of the Paris Grand Mosque after comments he had made in a French magazine that were interpreted as praising Israel and justifying its latest offensive in Gaza.

In an interview Wednesday with the tourist magazine SVP-Israel, the Paris Grand Mosque imam Dalil Boubakeur lashed out at Hamas for firing missiles at Israel and implied that Israel's reaction was justified.

“Concerning the latest event in Gaza, I personally believe that when organizations like Hamas bomb Israel over several years, they essentially generate Israeli reactions and expose the Palestinian population to reprisals,” he told the magazine.

The mosque sought to distance itself from his comments Saturday and reaffirmed its support for the Palestinian people. The mosque has been inundated with calls, from religious organizations to prominent leftist politicians, about his statements, an official at the Paris Mosque told AlArabiya.net.

"They all wanted an explanation to this anti-Palestinian stance despite the fact that Algeria is known for supporting just causes," said Abdullah Zikri, who is also a member of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, which Broubaker heads.

"We do not agree with what Boubakeur said about Israel and I will demand an explanation. If he really said so, it would be an insult that we cannot accept," he said.

Broubaker sought to distance himself from the comments Saturday in an interview with AlArabiya.net.

"The magazine took my statements out of context and I am taking the necessary measures to file a lawsuit," he said.

Boubakeur, who is of Algerian origins, also told the magazine that he admired the intelligence of the Israeli people and that the Quran refers to Jews as God's chosen people.

The Franco-Algerian Association said it was preparing an official memorandum against Boubakeur for insulting Algerians and Muslims with his statements.

Is this that "free speech" that we hear so much about?

Hamas had Stinger anti-aircraft missiles?

I don't know how reliable this is, but the World Tribune reports:

The Hamas regime acquired U.S.-origin air defense systems but was unable to use them in combat.

Hamas sources said the Islamic military has acquired the Stinger man-portable air defense system. The sources said the Stingers were acquired from smugglers in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in 2008 and deployed in the 22-day war against Israel in January 2009.
"We were disappointed by them, and they were found to have been useless," a Hamas source said.
The source said Hamas smuggled four Stinger systems in 2008. The source said the Hamas military deployed the Stingers against Israel Air Force AH-64 Apache attack helicopters during strike missions in the northern Gaza Strip.
"Our gunners couldn't fire the weapon," the source recalled. "A notice came up on the display saying 'friendly aircraft.'"
Industry sources said Raytheon, producer of Stinger, installed identification friend/foe capabilities more than a decade ago. The sources said this would prevent Stinger from being fired against any aircraft used by the U.S. military.
Another Hamas source said gunners deployed Stinger along with heavy machine guns in attacks on Israeli helicopters during the war in the Gaza Strip. The source said one Stinger surface-to-air missile was launched, but the projectile veered off course and struck a Hamas gunner squad.
"The Stinger was drawn by the heat of our guns rather than the engines of the Israeli helicopters," the source said. "At that point, we stopped using this weapon."
The sources said Hamas has abandoned plans to acquire additional Stingers. Instead, the Islamic army has been ordering the Russian-origin SA-16, or Igla-1, surface-to-air missile system, with a range of five kilometers.

They also have a report on Hamas ordering more Chinese rockets.

Latest "outrage" - the "Umayyad" stone

As I mentioned in my morning update, some Palestinian Arabs are up in arms over a supposed Israeli desecration of yet another important Muslim shrine.

From Ma'an (Arabic):

Mohamed Awad, Secretary General of the Council of Ministers, denounced the capture of the Israeli occupation of one of the stones of the Umayyad palaces in the city of Jerusalem.

Awad said in a statement to Ma'an, "This action is a form of erasing Islamic history to change the parameters of the Holy City and the eradication of the Islamic and Arab identity and that the occupation authorities aimed at bringing about demographic change in the holy city and the deportation of Palestinians and the confiscation of their property ".

Also from Ma'an:

Tayseer Rajab al-Tamimi, Chief Justice of Palestine, accused Israel of the [destruction of] Islamic sanctities and the massacre of Christian civilization, blurring the historical landmarks, on the second day of the Forum on the Alliance of Civilizations of the United Nations in Istanbul.

He stressed that there is an unprecedented acceleration of the Government of the occupation and the Jewish religious extremist groups to Judaize the city of Jerusalem, the latest of which was the so-called "Israel Antiquities Authority," the theft of a precious archaeological sites in the Islamic Umayyad palaces in the south-east corner of the Masjid al-Aqsa mosque and placed in front of the Israeli Knesset, saying it has done as one of the greatest crimes of the times and in defiance of all the resolutions of UNESCO, the United Nations and a clear violation of the charters and resolutions, international conventions, "which states that Jerusalem is an occupied city laws do not apply for the Israeli and classified by UNESCO and is Amairha premises."

Another article in PalToday

calls it a "Rosetta Stone" and also accuses Israel of placing it in front of the Knesset.

So what are they talking about?

I finally found a picture of this "Umayyad palace" stone, at Al-Quds.

And the Al-Quds article sheds light on what should be obvious about this stone for anyone who ever visited the tunnels under the Western Wall: that this stone is from the Second Temple, not an Umayyad palace that was built over a millennium later.

The stone was taken to the Israeli Knesset and the public put in front of the building at the site to see both within the Israeli Knesset has allocated a small platform and the subject of concrete, according to Israeli claims of the institution, this stone structure is one of the stones of the alleged second temple.

Compare how this stone looks with the stones on the lowest level over the Temple tunnels, way beneath any Umayyad structure:

These borders and dimensions show that stone to be Herodian, not Umayyad. I know that Israel has started a project to protect the stones fo the Kotel from damage andI am not sure if this particular stone was moved as part of that project - that doesn't seem likely - but to say that this stone is Islamic is, simply, to lie.

Morning items of interest

The Wall Street Journal looks at anti-semitism that is fueled by the economic crisis.

Israel performed a successful test of it's Arrow-2 anti-ballistic missile system. Israel is worried that the US might cut funding for the Arrow-3 system as a result of Pentagon budget cuts. A UPI analysis says

Israel may lose U.S. funding for its ambitious Arrow-3 anti-ballistic missile interceptor, but the United States may instead sell Israel its already operational Standard Missile-3, which has a far superior performance to what the Israelis wanted from their Arrow-3 anyway.

Palestinian Arabs are upset that Israel supposedly removed a large historic stone from the southeast of the Temple Mount and moved it to the Knesset. This story sounds like a completely unfounded rumor or a wild exaggeration, as the Israel Antiquities Authority keeps close tabs on any Israeli construction that could damage any archaeological sites. (They are not quite as good about Arab construction.)