Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, November 13, 2009

Those "Gaza authorities"

As I have mentioned previously, the Goldstone Report doesn't condemn Hamas, and instead often refers to the "Gaza authorities" as if they were a legitimate government that is separate from "Palestinian armed groups" who shoot the rockets to Israel.

Since the "Gaza authorities" cannot control the "armed groups," in Goldstone's imagination, they cannot be held responsible for the actions of the "armed groups."

Both the "Gaza authorities" and the "armed groups" answer to the name Hamas, but that little detail just doesn't seem to be on Goldstone's radar.

Anyway, today the respected "Gaza authorities" decided that they needed some construction materials, no doubt to rebuild their "civilian infrastructure" and not to work on bunkers.

So they went to the local dealer, along with their police, and beat up the owners of the company that sells these materials. They also shot some bullets in the air, no doubt to ensure that the salespeople would treat them politely. They then proceeded to take what they wanted.

These are the people who Goldstone is asking politely to perform a proper, transparent investigation into possible war crimes.

Top ten reasons to dress as a woman in Saudi Arabia

From Arab News:

Police in this northern city arrested an academic of Arab nationality working in an engineering college for hiding under an abaya, making people think he was really a “she.” According to a recent report in Asharq Al-Awsat, the cross-dressing professor was caught because despite being covered from head to toe he didn’t manage to replicate a woman’s “demeanor,” according to a Saudi shopper who informed the authorities of this clandestine man. Police are unsure of the motive for the professor’s disguise.

Top ten reasons a man might want to dress as a woman in Saudi Arabia:

10. Sheer jealousy at how well Saudi women are treated
9. Wants to hang out at the mall
8. Wanting to catch a glimpse of some serious ankle in the rest room
7. Hoping to get picked up by a handsome man
6. Those abayas are just so cute!
5. Hates driving
4. Embarrassed while practicing ululating
3. Undercover Muttawa agent
2. Wants to sweet talk professors into getting a higher grade
1. Really bad case of acne

Dumb as a wall

Another moonbat article comparing Israel's separation barrier to the Berlin Wall appeared in the Herald Scotland.

The author, who appears to be anonymous, starts this one off by assuming that since it is an anti-Israel article he will be accused of anti-semitism - before he even makes his point:

In writing this, I’m bracing myself for being called an anti-Semite, an appeaser of terrorists and propagandist for the Palestinian cause.

I’m none of those things. I say this simply because these days, it seems, anyone who dares criticise the policies of the Israeli government leaves themselves open to such accusations.

The compulsion to write something that would leave me prone to such an attack was instigated earlier this week by watching Berlin’s champagne and fireworks celebrations commemorating the fall of the Wall.

How strange it must be, I thought, for any Palestinian in the village of Abu Dis, sitting before a TV screen looking on as the world indulges in rapturous back-slapping over the restoration of freedom and human rights that came with the passing of the wall.

He goes on to describe the evils of the "wall", using the usual poor arguments. Noteworthy is how he dismisses the idea that Israel has gained any security from building it:

For Israelis such as these, there is simply no debate to be had. As far as they are concerned, the crushing effects of the wall on the lives of millions of Palestinians is a small price to pay for the relative – if somewhat imaginary – guarantee of their own personal security.

Imaginary? The number of victims of suicide attacks on Israel decreased from 289 in 2002 to virtually none now. But don't take my word for it - ask the terrorists:

PIJ leader Ramadan Abdallah Shalah told Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV that the terrorist organizations had no intention of abandoning suicide bombing attacks but that their timing and the possibility of carrying them out from the West Bank depended on other factors. “For example,” he said, “there is the separation fence which is an obstacle to the resistance [i.e., the terrorist organizations], and if it were not there, the situation would be entirely different” 1 (Al-Manar TV, November 11, 2006 ).

Mousa Abu Marzouq , deputy chairman of Hamas's political bureau in Damascus , was asked by a group of Egyptian intellectuals and politicians why the suicide bombing activity had decreased during since the Hamas government came to power. He said that “ [carrying out] such attacks is made difficult by the security fence and the gates surrounding West Bank residents ” 2 (Abd al-Muaz Muhammad, Ikhwan Online, the Muslim Brotherhood Website, June 2, 2007 ).

The calculus is simple: the author feels that the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Israeli lives saved by building the barrier are worthless.

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine if this opinion is anti-semitic or not.

UPDATE: For the terminally stupid, Meryl Yourish has a handy-dandy comparison between the Berlin Wall and Israel's security fence.

Swedish blood libeler: "My bad!"

Oops!

The Swedish journalist who wrote a controversial article claiming Israel Defense Forces soldiers kill Palestinians in order to harvest their organs is reportedly reconsidering his views after a recent visit to Israel, Army Radio reported on Thursday.

Donald Bostrom, according to the report, recently withdrew from participating in an anti-Israel conference to be held in Beirut, citing his recent, and highly contentious, participation in a media-affairs conference in southern Israel as the cause.

"The visit to Israel and the fact that I was part of a fair dialogue made me rethink the whole issue," the Aftonbladet journalist reportedly told close aides.

No, it wasn't the lack of evidence that made him rethink the issue. It wasn't the fact that it echoed anti-semitic accusations from centuries past. It wasn't because even the Palestinian Arabs he quoted said that they didn't believe that Israel killed their son for his organs.

No, it was because he found out, gosh darn it, that some Israelis are nice people who might not do such a thing.

Sorry, Donald. When you return the $5000 award you got from Algeria because of your lies, then we might think a little more highly of you. When you publicly apologize for your sick article, then maybe you can start on the road back to being a responsible human being. When you loudly tell the Arab world - which wholeheartedly embraced your blood libel - that you and they are completely wrong, then you can stand up with a tiny amount of pride as having tried to rectify your calumny.

Privately admitting to some friends that you might have been mistaken? That is a worthless gesture.

Daily Goldstone 11/12

Jonathan Dahoah Halevi looks at an episode detailed in Goldstone that I had looked at as well:

The Goldstone Report about Operation Cast Lead accuses Israel of an air strike on the mosque on January 3, 2009, which caused the deaths of “at least 15 Palestinians” who were in it at the time. During the confrontation with Dr. Gold, Goldstone claimed that 21 Palestinians had been killed, and he presented the attack as a salient example of Israel’s policy of deliberately targeting innocent civilians. However, Israel issued official documents stating that its Air Force did not attack the mosque and that the dead had been killed in fighting the IDF.

What really happened at the Ibrahim al-Maqadmah mosque, named for one of the heads of Hamas’ military-terrorist wing? The Goldstone Committee version is problematic because of its many essential failures and weak spots. The committee members relied exclusively on reports from “eyewitnesses” who did not see what was happening outside, especially at the entrance where the missile hit. Moreover, the committee was aware that all the Palestinian witnesses deliberately did not give any information about the activities of the terrorist organizations, because they were afraid of Hamas.

Therefore it is logically impossible to determine unequivocally that the Palestinian statements were “credible and reliable.” Another source of wonder is the dubious methodology used by the Committee in examining the circumstances of the event. The recorded statements of the Palestinian “eyewitnesses” posted on the UN website reveal that Committee members did not ask the Palestinians even one question about armed men or weapons in the mosque, or about what was happening in the open space in front of it.

The fundamental position of the Goldstone Committee was based on fallacious hypotheses. The Committee claimed that it found no evidence that the mosque was used for military purposes, and claimed that Israel presented a “false position” when it issued a Foreign Ministry report denying an attack on the mosque. However, in the same report read by the Committee members, there is unequivocal information supported by photographs of IDF forces seizing weapons in the Salah a-Din mosque in Gaza City during Operation Cast Lead.

The photos appended to the Foreign Ministry report clearly show various types of weapons and ammunition, including EFPs for attacking armored vehicles and a machinegun used to attack Israeli aircraft. The Committee did not explain why it chose to disregard the information completely, and its version becomes more entangled and incomprehensible in light of its admission elsewhere in the Report that it only visited two mosques in the Gaza Strip, because they were the two places the de facto Hamas administration permitted the committee to visit, since it wanted to exhibit the damage caused by the Israeli attacks.

The Goldstone Committee also failed by thoroughly examining the data. If Committee members had examined the names of the Palestinians killed at the Maqadmah mosque, they would have discovered that their identities and the membership of many of them in terrorist organizations contradicted the “eyewitness” claims that there were no terrorist operatives in the area, and contradicted as well the conclusions of the Report in that respect.

Seven of the 15 Palestinians killed at the mosque were members of terrorist organizations who had participated in fighting the IDF, most of them members of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military-terrorist wing, and a few of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Regarding one of them (Ahmed Abu Ita of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades), it was reported that he had gone to the Maqadmah mosque to meet “friends,” i.e., other armed terrorist operatives.

In light of the foregoing information, there is another scenario which can explain the circumstances of the attack on the mosque and bridge the gap between the positions of the IDF and the Goldstone Committee: Israeli intelligence discovered the intention of Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades operative Ahmed Abu Ita to go to the Maqadmah mosque to meet other terrorist operatives there or nearby. The Israeli Air Force drone located him as he and the others arrived, but did not spot the civilians because they were inside the mosque praying.

During the narrow window of time the decision was made to attack the groups of armed terrorists near the mosque entrance. The missile launched hit them, killing some outright and damaging the mosque wall, killing Palestinians inside.

The Goldstone Committee, which did not accuse Hamas of war crimes (rather, it mentioned “Palestinian armed groups”) and rocket attacks, also did not examine the aforementioned scenario , which can easily be found in open sources, and did not even try to ask Palestinians witnesses if such a possibility could exist. Based on partial, biased information and without making an attempt to reach the truth, the Committee accused Israel of the deliberate murder of Palestinian civilians.

Israel made the mistake of not presenting the facts and sources to the public, within the limits of security, to dispel the accusation of war crimes raised by the Goldstone Report.

Halevi also looks at the many times mosques were used for storing bombs and weapons, for recruiting terrorists, and for breeding suicide bombers.

(h/t t34zakat)

Israeli Arabs trying to take tabbouleh record from Lebanon

Last month, Lebanon made a big deal over the fact that it had broken the world records for the largest tabbouleh dish and the largest hummus plate. It particularly wanted to break these records because the previous hummus record was done in Israel, and Lebanon considers these to be particularly Lebanese dishes.

The Lebanese tabbouleh record might be short-lived.

Firas Press reports that starting this Friday, the northern Israeli Arab town of Shefa Amr, will have dozens of volunteers working to create a tabbouleh dish five meters in circumference and weighing over 4000 kg.

I've never seen the Lebanese complain about Jordanian or Syrian or Egyptian hummus, only Israeli. So it will be interesting to see if Lebanon will be as upset when the record for one of its claimed dishes is broken by Israeli Arabs as it was when the hummus record was broken by Israeli Jews.

Hamas cancels Arafat events, shuts down media

From PCHR:

At approximately 19:00 on Tuesday, 10 November 2009, members of the [Hamas] police investigation bureau and the Internal Security Service, who were armed and wearing civilian clothes, broke into the offices of Ramattan News Agency in Shawa and Hussari Building in the center of Gaza City. They prevented a press conference organized by the National Action Commission in Gaza City to publicize the Gaza government’s cancellation of a ceremony that was supposed to be held in Rashad al-Shawa Center on Wednesday, 11 November 2009, in commemoration of the death of the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. The security officers claimed that the conference was unlicensed. They also confiscated recording tapes belonging to Ramattan News Agency and al-Quds Television and ordered members of the National Action Commission to leave the offices.

In a press release issued on Wednesday, 12 November 2009, Ramattan News Agency announced the closure of all of its offices throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory pending a further notice. The news agency stated that "this step came following accumulative factors relevant to violations of the law, freedom of expression and press, and harassments against Ramattan, which peaked with the illegal storming of its offices on Tuesday evening, 10 November 2009, by a unit of the Internal Security Services of the dismissed government in Gaza, and preventing the National Action Commission in Gaza from holding a press conference… Ramattan points out that what happened yesterday had been the first time for offices of Ramattan to be stormed (by force) by a security force since its establishment 10 years ago."

Since Monday, 09 November 2009, security services in the Gaza Strip have sent summoning notices to scores of activists and leaders of Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip. The summoned persons were questioned about their preparations for the commemoration of the death of President Yasser Arafat, and were then released.

I'm sure that all those pro-Palestinian Arab European NGOs are working hard to convince Hamas to allow freedom of expression and freedom of the press. The press releases condemning Hamas are coming Real Soon Now.

Who are Miles of Smiles?

Today, after a month long delay, Egypt allowed a convoy of medical aid to arrive in Gaza:

The European medical aid convoy “Miles of Smiles” arrived in Gaza late night Wednesday night after spending 25 days waiting on the Egyptian side of the crossing.

Hamdi Sha’th, head of the committee against the siege, told Ma’an over the phone that the convoy will stay in Gaza only 48 hours and will leave on Friday after the noon prayer. The short trip was part of the terms negotiated by Egyptian border officials.

The group brings into the Strip 100 small trucks loaded with medical aid and nearly 260 wheelchairs in addition to a number of ambulances, 102 cars for transportation of the disabled and computers for schools damaged during the last war.

Their visit is not only humanitarian but also political:

Sha’th said the convoy consisted of 60 individuals from 10 different European countries, who would travel to the northern Strip where they would meet with members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, then head to the Ash-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, which bore the brunt of casualties from Israel's last war on the area in December and January. Later in the day the delegation will meet families of prisoners being held in Israel, and finally a meeting with de facto government officials.

Minister of Labor and Social Affairs in the de facto government Ahmad Al-Kurd said in a news conference after the convoy arrived in Gaza that it was carrying a moral message to the world, demanding they “stop besieging one and a half million Palestinians," and will carry the "devastating humanitarian impact” of the siege back to their countries and spread the word.

Both Hamas and Miles of Smiles seem to be on the same page that, like Free Gaza, their goal is not to help Gaza children but to spread Hamas propaganda.

Miles of Smiles is run by a group called Partners for Peace and Development for Palestinians (PPDP), and it was created specifically as a political organization:

Our mission is to establish a continuously expanding Palestinian network made up of a number of sectors from various professional committees and operating from different international centres. Through strategically managed programmes of co-ordination and co-operation, PPDP will be the umbrella organisation that facilitates exchanges of information and enhances knowledge and expertise between the established committees. The ultimate objective will be to create a situation where PPDP can contribute substantially to peace and development for a free Palestine.

It is not an NGO created to deliver aid. It delivers aid to further the political goals of Hamas.

They are associated with a Swiss group called "Driot Pour Tous" which says that it has admirable, universal goals:

It aims at long term, to address injustice throughout the world and wants to contribute to the application of international law in all parts of the world. It wants to fight against all forms of racism, antisemitism and discrimination.

It even states specifically:

We wish to establish clearly a difference between [anti-]Zionism and antisemitism and to vehemently condemn those who support the crimes of Hitler and who advocate anti-Jewish doctrines!

Yet DPT's activities are all centered on one topic: Palestinian Arabs. While it claims to be against "all forms of terrorism," I could not find a single article on their site that was against Arab terrorism (or against anti-semitism.) To its credit, it does not call for the wholesale destruction of Israel via a "right of return" and does not seem to go beyond UN resolutions.

DPT does, however, repeat the Arab trope that there can be no "peace without justice," which is a keyword meaning the expulsion of a half million Jews from their homes and no Jewish sovereignty over any Jewish holy place. It also links to at least one article that compares Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto (article no longer available.)

Although these groups do not seem as transparently deceptive as Free Gaza and the ISM, they both make it appear that they have a more universal focus than this one issue. PPDP, in particular, seems to be far more pro-Hamas than pro-PA.

Proof of Iranian lies

For some reason, the entire story of the intercepted Iranian arms ship to Hezbollah seems to have disappeared from the radar of the world's leaders. In the meanwhile, Israel has been meticulously documenting the links - and the deception.

From Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we can see:

A copy of the ship's manifest, showing that the cargo was being shipped by the Iranian company IRISL (Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines) and that the description of the goods was "poly ethelyne" (click to enlarge)

IRISL's stated vision starts off by saying "By trusting in Almighty's grace & eternal power, inspired by the long-term visions of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran...." It is clearly not an independent company.

Even more explicit were labels for explosives that say "Ministry of Sepah," which is a branch of Iran's armed forces:

The bags of polyethelyne were also manufactured in Iran:

Behind the polyethelyne, Iran labeled the rocket containers as "bulldozer parts" or "construction equipment": (click to enlarge)

The cases for the mortars (both 81mm and 60 mm) detailed the fuse type as being one that is manufactured in Iran specifically for the Iranian Army:

Iran had denied Israel's claims about the ship.

If Iran goes to such lengths to hide its illegal shipments to Hezbollah terrorists, what do you think they are doing to hide their nuclear weapons program?

Haniyeh pretends to be peaceful

When the audience is willing to believe what he dishes out, Hamas' Gaza leader is all too happy to serve:

De facto Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh told a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross that Gaza is "not looking for more violence," but that he was sure Israel has "plans to target the Gaza Strip once again.”

During a meeting with the delegation on Wednesday, Haniyeh said he "hopes what he said would not prove to be true, that the world will stop Israel from killing more children." If Israel does decide to attack, he added, "our people will not surrender, they will fight back," a statement from his office said.

Only last month, Haniyeh told his people that the Goldstone report will not affect Hamas' "resistance" plans.

Afternoon open thread

Got things to do this afternoon, so comment freely.

If you don't have anything to talk about, check out this post from Treppenwitz.

Daily Goldstone 11/11

Yaacov Lozowick finally puts his thoughts on paper after spending weeks reading Goldstone. His full article is 12 pages long. Here's a small part:

These representative examples – they are representative, not cherry-picked – show that the authors approached their investigation with a one-sided and tendentious understanding of the conflict, eager to embrace bogus depictions of facts which could have been easily checked, and with an image of Israeli society unrecognizable to most Israelis. This is crucial, as the single most important finding in the Report is that Israel purposefully targeted the population of Gaza. Even before reading the descriptions of events, it is reasonable to wonder "what Israel" it is the investigators were investigating; it certainly isn't the one its citizens recognize.

Even more baffling than the willingness of the investigators to invent Israeli motives, which at least is not denied, is their refusal to seek evidence of the actions and intentions of the defenders. They made a few feeble enquiries of what they call the Gaza Authorities about the fighters, were rebuffed with the odd response that these authorities had no knowledge of what the fighters of their own side might have been doing, and that was all. Yet in dozens of cases described in their report, the question demands to be answered: if the IDF was firing in this direction, what do the Hamas commanders have to tell about their forces? Had they booby trapped the building? Were they firing from here? Had they laid mines in this field? Were they congregating in this mosque, and for what purpose? Was this farm intended as a line of defense, or that zoo as a trap for advancing IDF troops? In many cases the investigators asked local civilians, but they never asked the fighters or their leaders.

Bizarre as it may sound – and it is truly bizarre – the investigators came to what had been the scene of a war, and tried to piece the events together without talking to either of the warring sides. They asked the Israelis, and the Israelis refused to talk. They didn't ask Hamas, so Hamas never even had to refuse. Yet they had the arrogance to tell what had happened.

Read the whole thing.