Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 31, 2009

Bloggers' block open thread

I couldn't come up with anything else good this morning so I have to fall back on my old stand-byes, looking at whatever the Saudi Vice Squad is up to - and the dreaded Open Thread.

Saudi Vice squad vs. the circus

If this report is correct, the Saudi vice squad is sometimes going against the wishes of the Saudi government itself:

The Commission for Promotion of Virtues and Prevention of Vice (the Hai’a) is cracking down on summer festivals that the government hopes will promote domestic tourism.

“These acts contradict the faith and must not be done, taught, spread or encouraged,” the Hai’a spokesman Abdullah Al-Mashiti told Al-Watan Arabic daily this week, referring to circus acts such as fire-eating and lying on beds of glass that he believes is a form of magic prohibited by Islamic Shariah law.

“They must be fought and those performing them must be reported and punished so as to be deterred and their evil restricted,” he said.

Reports suggest that the Hai’a was behind the last minute cancellation of the Jeddah summer film festival.

This month music concerts were also banned from the Abha tourism festival, in the mountainous southwest of the Kingdom. “Unfortunately such actions carried on by them (the Hai’a) do not adhere to the official political will and they sabotage the government efforts to improve and maintain the internal tourism industry,” said Mahmoud Sabbagh, a newspaper columnist.

Meanwhile, the muttawa has other pressing issues as well:

Worshippers in the Eastern Province have been warned they could be arrested by officials if they conduct prayers in mosques sporting “unsuitable” fashions.

A notice from mosque Imams in the region has reportedly been circulated informing of a ban on persons wearing “unusual and immodest clothes” from entering mosque premises, including those with “strange hairstyles or who use women’s bands in their hair”.

One Imam who preferred not to be named said the move followed a noticeable increase in the popularity of leg-wear known as “tayyihni” – most commonly seen in low-slung jeans with a crotch reaching down to the knees to partially or fully expose the wearer’s undergarments – as well as “haircuts unsuitable for a Muslim at prayer,” in probable reference to the widespread “kadash” Afro hairstyle.

“There has been cooperation between Imams and the police and the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in order to detain these violators during prayer,” the Imam said.

If I understand things correctly, the Muttawa makes sure that people attend prayers (arresting those who keep their shops open during prayer time, for example,) and then they arrest those who wear clothing that it unsuitable for prayer. Which means that they enforce a dress code for the entire country.

They sure keep busy!

Honor, humility, and realism in Islam

Amr Khaled, the charismatic Egyptian preacher I just mentioned who is under fire for being to sympathetic to Jews, has an English section to his website. I found the following passage fascinating:

We have previously discussed the importance of not being passive and that we should take positive actions, and the importance of seriousness and perfecting what we do. This time we will talk about the Honor and Dignity ('Ezzah) of the Muslim Ummah. 'Ezzah encompasses meanings of Honor, Dignity, Might, and Glory, and its opposite is Zillah or humility. Today we will say, "Yes" to Honor and "No" to humility. A Muslim only accepts Honor and never settles to humility. Allah wants us to be an Honorable and Mighty Ummah, so why do we drift ourselves to the weakness of humility? Do you know how we sowed the seeds of humility in our Ummah? When a Muslim father slaps his wife on the face, in front of his children, he's sowing the seeds of humility. When a teacher beats a student or punishes him or her in a humiliating way and when a father punishes his son in front of his friends, they are both sowing seeds of humiliation. All these things make a Muslim used to humiliation and make us forget that we were to be honorable people.

From reading this passage and the rest of the lecture, it is clear that Islam does not distinguish between humility and humiliation! Khaled does later on give specific examples of when humility is allowed (towards Allah and towards one's parents) but for him the two words are synonymous.

Self-esteem and humility are not opposites. On the contrary: both attributes should reflect a realistic self-image. To give a personal example, I may consider myself a pretty good writer compared to many bloggers, but compared to others I know I am not good at all.

A realistic self-assessment should impel one to improve him or herself; it should not lead to either despair or to self-righteousness.

Yet this Muslim preacher - who by any account is more modern and progressive than most - cannot conceive this simple concept. To him, humility is the exact opposite of honor. Worse yet, neither concept is based on reality.

For Islam, honor is something to be demanded, not earned. In Islam, humility is shameful. Neither of those views has a grounding in truth, which means that Islam is based on self-deception.

What a contrast with the Talmudic expression "Whoever seeks prestige, it flees from him, but whoever flees from prestige, it comes seeking him." Honor is not a right and humility is not a shame.

As a result, Islam looks upon people who are genuinely humble as being weak. Which brings up an interesting Catch-22 when dealing with the Muslim world today: if the West portrays itself as humble, it indicates weakness and that it is ripe for attack; if the West portrays itself as strong, it is perceived as humiliating Muslims and therefore it must be attacked.

Never do Muslims look at themselves as being inconsequential to the rest of the world, which is the biggest humiliation of all. Another example from Khaled illustrates that neatly:

The day the Jews came into our country and occupied Al-Aqsa Mosque; they were chanting a certain song. If you listen to that song, you will feel so sorry for yourself and will be eaten up with grief. Do you know what they were singing when they seized Al-Aqsa Mosque? They chanted, Muhammad is dead, he only got daughters. This is not meant to insult women, but rather to insult men.

The story is of course absurd. When Jews returned to Jerusalem, the last thing they were thinking about was humiliating Muslims, it was sheer joy at recovering the holiest site in the world. Yet even well-spoken Muslims cannot conceive of a world where they are not constantly in the center of everyone else's thoughts; they have to make up a story of Jews humiliating Muslims.

Once again, we see an Islamic worldview that is based on anything but reality, whether it is false bravado or a false sense of humiliation. (Of course, it is not only Muslims who have this failing, but Islam embraces this attribute.)

One cannot understand the Islamic world without understanding this essential concept.

Followup on Egyptian preacher

Al Arabiya finally translated the article I mentioned last week about Egyptian preacher Amr Khaled's Ramadan TV show about the life of Moses and the criticism it came under for being too sympathetic to Jews.

While I was pretty accurate, one important subtlety was lost in the autotranslation.

Khaled's website asked general questions about the life of Moses to get his viewers to think out of the box:

"Think about these questions," he wrote on the website. "You will not find their answers in any book. They just need brains and imagination."

Among the questions posted were those asking: Why did the Pharaoh order male Jews to be killed? What do you think was Moses’ political goal? Was it saving the Israelites or talking the Pharaoh into believing in God? Why didn't Moses call upon Egyptians to join his faith?

The responses were remarkable because the majority linked the story of Moses to the current political situation in Egypt and viewed it as an incentive to rebel against repressive leaders.

So while the criticisms of the program were slanted as to make Khaled appear to be pro-Jewish, the real reasons that the Egyptian government is against this series is because the Koranic story of evil Pharaoh reminds a lot of Egyptians of Mubarak.

They just knew that they could use the accusation of Khaled being a "Jew sympathizer" to help discredit him in among Egyptians.

Khaled's website is here and the page about the current story of Moses is here.

Today's PalArab news (8/30/09)

There were two bombs set off in Gaza, one outside Hamas security headquarters and another outside Mahmoud Abbas' (presumably empty) Gaza residence. A third bomb was discovered and dismantled. Looks like Jund Ansar Allah is not quite dead yet.

Hamas abducted five Fatah members in Gaza. Happy Ramadan!

Hamas called in members of the Independent Commission for Human Rights for questioning. The commission had criticized Hamas for how it treats prisoners, and Hamas wasn't happy with the report. A little pressure is always a fun diversion.

A preacher at the Al Aqsa mosque complained that Arab and Islamic leaders have abandoned Jerusalem, leaving it as a "captive and sad orphan." I dunno, it seems like that description fit a bit better when Arabs controlled the city.

Gaza groups against UNRWA Holocaust education (UPDATED)

From Ma'an:

A group of refugee camp committees in the Gaza Strip wants the United Nations to remove history of the Jewish Holocaust from its classroom curriculum.

In a letter to director John Ging, the committees urged the refugee agency to scrap its program because mention of the genocide "confirms the Holocaust and raises sympathy for Jews."

Holocaust denial is not uncommon in Gaza's refugee camps, where many feel marking legitimate Jewish suffering discounts the injustices done to Palestinians displaced from their homes in 1948.

Nevertheless, UNRWA's eight grade curriculum includes an overview, as part of its course on human rights, of the estimated six million Jews killed in European concentration camps. It was thought that by explaining the plight of Jews in Europe before they arrived, Palestinians would gain sympathy for their suffering, as well.

"The refugee camps committees categorically refuse to let our children be taught this lie created by the Jews and intensified by their media," the committees' letter said. "First of all, [the Holocaust] is not a fact, and secondly, those who added it to the curriculum intended to mess with our children's emotions."

Unlike, say, videos of children going to an amusement-park paradise after becoming "martyrs."

It will be interesting to see how UNRWA reacts. My guess is that this "overview" takes up a minuscule amount of the eighth grade human-rights curriculum.

UPDATE: The UNRWA denies teaching anything about the Holocaust to begin with. Presumably it will now be cowed into ensuring that such a topic is never introduced into the minds of helpless Palestinian Arab children who are taught that they are the only victims in history.

Terrorist Innovation: The Ass Bomb

From the Saudi Gazette:

The failed assassination attempt on Prince Muhammad Bin Naif, Assistant Minister of Interior for Security Affairs, Thursday night was planned by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula which operates from Yemen, sources confirmed.

According to Okaz sources, the bomber who detonated himself only a meter away from the Prince was part of a terrorist cell formed to target oil installations and public figures.

He had slipped into the Kingdom from Mareb, east of Sana’a, Yemen’s Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr Al-Qirbi told The Associated Press.

“He was in Yemen,” said Al-Qirbi. “He claimed that he was going to hand himself over to Saudi authorities and make a statement to his followers to abandon Al-Qaeda principles.”

Okaz sources said the bomb was implanted in the attacker’s rectum, which could explain why he refused to drink coffee at the Prince’s Court.

The bomber had sent word he wanted to surrender personally to the Prince who had ordered that he not be searched to encourage others to come forward.

At the Prince’s home in Jeddah’s north Obhur beach area Thursday night around 11.30 P.M., the attacker was in line to enter a gathering of well-wishers for Ramadan when he blew himself up. The Prince was lightly injured in the attack. The bomber died.

Al Arabiya (Arabic) adds more detail than you might be interested in, including interviews with experts on how exactly one can create an assbomb and how long it can be inside one's body. Al Arabiya's version says that the terrorist was searched but not quite that intimately. He was only a couple of meters away from the prince when he detonated, so it looks like Al Qaeda and its terrorist pals will be working a little harder at perfecting this technology.

Now is the time to lobby for Jonathan Pollard's release

No matter what you think of Jonathan Pollard, he has paid for his espionage many times over and it is way past time for him to be released.

Here are the facts of the case.

Now that the Obama administration is seeking to increase its credibility among people who support Israel, it would be an obvious move for President Obama to pardon Pollard and set him free.

This is the time to call and email the White House, every day, and ask them politely to pardon Jonathan Pollard.

More and more "civilians" being added to the list

PTWatch and t34zakat continue to scour various sources to identify more of the "civilians" killed in Gaza on the PCHR list that were in fact terrorists.

As the widget on my upper right corner shows, so far we have identified 331 terrorists who were named as "civilian" by the PCHR, in statistics that were unquestioningly used by other NGOs.

19 of them were also listed as "children."

Perhaps most importantly, we now have identified, by name, over 70% of the policemen killed in Gaza - 197 out of 280 - that were also members of terror organizations. In other words, we have conclusively proven that Hamas does not employ the principle of distinction between its supposedly civil police and its terrorist wing. This fact had been further proven in recent days as Hamas used uniformed Al Qassam Brigades terrorists - not police - to fight the Jund Ansar Allah group in Rafah, and in today's news that the Al Qassam Brigades claimed a "martyr" who was performing police duties.

This means that, contrary to the claims of human rights groups, Israel was more than justified legally in targeting the Hamas police force in the first days of the operation as being, effectively, the Hamas army. It also means that nearly half of the dead in Gaza have been identified as legitimate military targets by name. (This is not counting the real civilians who died directly because of Hamas/PIJ actions, like hiding weapons caches in civilian neighborhoods or using them as human shields, whose deaths would be considered legal as well when the targets are considered to be important military objectives.)

According to the IDF, over 90% of the police have been identified as terrorists. We're still working on reconciling that list.

There is no doubt that hundreds of civilians died in Gaza during the three weeks of Cast Lead. However, the numbers (using PCHR figures) show that the civilians were not a vast majority of the victims, and possibly not even a simple majority. Considering that Hamas and Islamic Jihad bragged about hiding among civilians and that they were shooting at Israel wearing civilian clothing, Cast Lead cannot be considered a "massacre" - it is more like a model for how to fight terrorists effectively while minimizing civilian casualties.

No other nation has ever shown greater regard for the lives of enemy civilians than Israel. Few other groups have shown more blatant disregard for the lives of their own people than Hamas and their cohorts.

The Arab and NGO meme of Israeli brutality is simply a grotesque lie that gets repeated far more often than the truth can be told.

Tunnel Collapse! Work Accident! And more...

Ma'an reports:

Three Palestinians were killed and another injured after a tunnel collapsed in southern Gaza on Friday morning.

Medics at Yousef An-Najjar Hospital told Ma'an three bodies were brought in after the Rafah tunnel collapsed. Another injured Palestinian was taken to the European Hospital, they said.

All four men were thought to be from the same family, the Al-Lahhams of Khan Younis.

I'm not sure if they are from the same al-Lahham family who lost four members during Operation Cast Lead - all of whom were Hamas terrorists (in that case, from Deir al-Balah, three listed as "civilians" by PCHR and one listed as "militant," and all four Hamas "policemen.")

Meanwhile,

A Hamas-affiliated militant from Khan Younis died overnight, its armed wing said in a statement on Friday morning.

The Al-Qassam Brigades said Tareq Abu Jazer, 22, was killed in an operation, the nature of which was not specified.

The group added that the Hamas-affiliated Palestinian was killed in the line of duty.

Which means he either blew himself up or was offed by "friendly fire" while Hamas was practicing killing Jews.

The slightly more interesting part is that the announcement is on the al-Qassam Brigades website - and they say he was killed while doing "police" duties. Which is just more proof that for Hamas, there is no distinction between police and terrorists.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 175.

In non-self-death news, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal's father died this morning.

A 65-year old Gazan who made it to Mecca for the Umrah died there.

The Palestinian Authority is trying to replace shekels with Jordanian dinars, dollars and euros as currency in Gaza. Gaza consumes some 50 million shekels of cash every month, which raises the question - if it is under siege, where does it all go? Some people in Gaza must be getting rich.

A Palestinian Arab human rights office was raided by unknown people and its computers were confiscated.

US supporting Judenrein PalArab state

From UPI:

A U.S. agency says it is replacing West Bank road signs
only in areas under full or partial Palestinian Authority control with English and Arabic ones.

The U.S. Agency for International Development denied reports claiming it was removing existing road signs in Hebrew in the Israel-controlled portion of the West Bank and replacing them with English and Arabic road signs.

Media reports Thursday implied the new road signs were in preparation for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The replacing of the signs is a small component of a larger project called the Palestinian Authority Capacity Enhancement Project, which works with six Palestinian ministries, including the Ministry of Transportation, the agency's press office said in response to a query submitted by United Press International Thursday.

The project's goal is to improve delivery service across the area "in ways that will make a noticeable difference for the Palestinian people," the agency said.

The agency said the new road signs in Arabic and English are posted in Area A, which is under total Palestinian control, and Area B, under Palestinian civilian control and Israeli security control. The agency insisted road signs in Area C, which is under total Israeli control, were not being touched.

Even if you assume that Area A and Area B are no longer negotiable or disputed, which is not necessarily true, this move - at the cost of $20 million taxpayer dollars - implies something much worse.

It means that the US admits that even after a "peace" agreement, Israelis will not be allowed to visit the West Bank as tourists in any large numbers.

Think about it. Some of the holiest Jewish spots in the world are in Areas A or B, along with a huge number of important biblical sites. Any country at peace would welcome the hordes of tourists - and, as we've seen elsewhere, will do everything necessary to make them feel welcome, including putting up signs in their native languages so they can get around.

If a Palestinian Arab state was truly at peace with Israel, crossing the borders would be about the same as crossing between Canada and the US. Almost certainly the Palestinian Arab tourist industry would try to cater to the types of people who would visit most often, and in this case Israelis and Jews would be among the biggest tourists.

Hebrew signs make sense - if you accept a scenario of true peace.

But if the "peace" that you imagine is one that is not true peace, if your definition of the term says that peace is simply the existence of a Palestinian Arab state that has no obligation to normalize relations with Israel - then it makes perfect sense that such a state will do everything in its power to keep Jews out.

If USAID is working towards a real kind of peace, then Hebrew road signs aren't an obstacle - they would be considered as normal as Arabic road signs in Israel are. But if USAID's idea of peace corresponds with the Palestinian Arab definition, then it makes sense to work now to ensure that "Palestine" will be Judenrein and to erase anything that would indicate that Palestinian Arabs and Jews could live together.

About that two-state solution that Hamas supposedly endorses...

There have been no shortage of people over the past few years trumpeting various Hamas statements as indicating that Hamas would accept a two-state solution.

Of course, these same people ignore Hamas when it says the exact opposite, in plain language.

So here is something else for them to ignore:

Hamas and Islamic Jihad rejected caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s plan to establish a de facto Palestinian state within two years, arguing that “resistance” is the only way to establish a Palestinian state.

Fayyad’s 65-page plan deepens “the reality of [Palestinian] division and the presence of the Israeli occupation. This fulfills the desire of the occupation in line with the policy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," said Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum.

“Fayyad is not authorized to make determine the political course for the Palestinian people … Fayyad’s government is not legitimate because he believes in coordination and negotiation with the [Israeli] occupation,” Barhoum added.

“We have one path for our Palestinian state to be established. The only way to do so is through resistance and a state without settlements, when all detainees are released and the refugees are back to their homeland,” he said.

Isn't that interesting? Hamas' goal isn't a state, it is a war.

In other words, what good is a state when it is not accompanied by lots of dead Jews?

I wonder what Jimmy Carter thinks about this latest peaceful statement from his Hamas buddies. I'm sure he'll condemn it real soon now.

Radical Islam: Totalitarianism, Mark III (TNR)

Today's must read, by Jeffrey Herf and published on TNR:

The Totalitarian Present: Why the West Consistently Underplays the Power of Bad Ideas
As uncomfortable as it may make some tolerant and well-intentioned souls, an intellectually respectable case can be made that radical Islam constitutes the third variant of totalitarian ideology politics in modern history. The first version emerged in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The second was that of modern communism in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. While these first two versions succumbed to military might and ideological exhaustion, respectively, the political, ideological and military battle with radical Islam remains undecided.

One way to illustrate the case for radical Islam as Totalitarianism Mark III (and perhaps draw some practical conclusions from it), is to focus on three points of comparison and contrast between the Nazi and communist eras and that of contemporary political Islam: the problem of underestimating the power of ideology; modernity and anti-modernity; and the issue of preemption in context.

Read the whole thing.

He partially blames liberal "sophisticated" thinking as one reason that the Islamist threat is not taken as seriously as fascism and communism was, but I would venture to say that much of it is simply that Islamism as a political ideology cloaks itself in religion, and most liberals don't want to challenge religious thought as much as they would like to challenge political ideas. If the separation between Islamism as a political movement and Islam as a personal religion could be explained better, then liberals would come around to the fact that they are against everything that political Islam is for.

Egyptians upset: Exodus story too sympathetic to Jews

An Egyptian TV preacher has brought up the apparently sensitive topic of the Exodus on his show being seen during Ramadan, causing controversy in Egypt.

According to Al Arabiya (Arabic), Amr Khaled created a Ramadan TV show called "Stories of the Koran." The second episode tackled the story of Pharaoh and the Jews, which very roughly parallels the Biblical story.

Khaled discusses Pharaoh's reasons for slaughtering the Jewish males. In his website, he asks the audience whether Pharaoh was justified (in the Koranic story, Pharaoh dreamed that the Jews would take away his property and this prompted his plans for genocide.) He also asks more general questions to prompt readers to think about the story, such as whether Musa (Moses) wanted to save the Israelites or if he wanted to convince Pharaoh to believe in Allah.

According to the article, Khaled (who is now in Saudi Arabia for the Umrah) is under pressure for airing a program that is so sympathetic to Jews, and he may not be allowed back into Egypt. Apparently the Interior Minister has asked Khaled to scale back his pro-Jewish views on TV, and Khaled refused. A colleague of his defends him, saying Khaled has no such sympathy for Jews, and future programs will talk about Israeli crimes to prove his loyalty to the Arab cause.

Don't play with firecrackers!

From PCHR:

...A family dispute took place between members of the al-Jamala family and those of the al-Bughdadi family in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north Gaza city. The dispute took place when a member of the al-Jamala family asked children from the al-Bughdadi family, who were playing with firecrackers in front of his house, to leave the area. The issue developed into a dispute between the two families. During the dispute one of the parties opened fire, killing two civilians:

1. Ghazi Munir Deeb al-Jamala, 20, hit by a bullet to the heart; and

2. Shadi Nabil Deeb al-Jamala, 23, hit by a bullet to the forehead.

You see, kids, this is why it's dangerous to play with firecrackers. Your neighbors might just kill members of your family because of it!

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is at 171.