Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Martyr inflation

At the end of Operation Cast Lead, Hamas came out with a press release that claimed that only 48 "mujahadeen" had been killed during the fighting, while they estimated that they killed some 80 Zionist fighters.

Since then, they have kept adding more and more Gaza "martyrs" who were members of the Al Qassam Brigades to their website. At last count, Hamas has listed out the biographies of no less than 305 Al Qassam terrorists with details of their careers as fighters. (188 of them were listed as "civilian" by the PHCR.)

So in the end they understated their real casualties by an order of magnitude, and they also overstated Israel's casualties by an order of magnitude.

I'm sure that they are equally trustworthy in other areas.

What does a moonbat feed a starving Gazan?

From San Francisco's local ABC website:

A Watsonville art teacher and her husband are among three dozen people who have reportedly been detained in Egypt on their way to the Gaza strip.
Kathleen Crocetti had hoped to deliver a mural to a community center in Gaza, where a pro-Palestinian freedom march is planned for New Year's Eve.
Crocetti and her husband, Bill Lucas, have been ordered not to leave the hotel where they are staying, about 30 miles from Gaza, without a police escort.

"Clueless" is an understatement.

The IDF confirms that weekly demonstrations are always violent

A month ago, I wrote "Protests that happen in Bilin and Na'alin (weekly, not daily) are anything but peaceful, and IDF soldiers often get injured from the violence."

A commenter insisted that I was wrong, and said that "The overwhelming majority of demonstrations at both sites you mention have been thoroughly peaceful. Your claim to the contrary is not only not objective, but also not true. "

His evidence for this statement was a heavily edited video that didn't show any demonstrator violence and seemed to show the IDF shooting tear gas for no reason.

Well, I asked the IDF themselves. This response is from the IDF Spokesperson's Office, sent to me via email, and is on the record:

In 2009, there were weekly riots in both Nil'in and Bil'in every Friday, with the exception of 18.12.2009 in Nil'in. Every one of these protests has featured violence on the part of the protesters, for the most part that entails rock throwing, although firebombs, and burning tires are also a frequent occurrence.

These riots have been taking place on a regular basis at both locations for the past two years. In 2009, 57 defense force personnel were injured by rioters. The security forces take standard riot dispersal measures when the riots turn violent and in 2009 they arrested 20 rioters in Nil'in and 20 in Bil'in.

On several occasions during these riots, defense force personnel were seriously injured. In January, a Nil'in rioter hurled a rock, hitting a reservist in the face, causing permanent damage to his eye socket. In another incident during a Nil'in riot in April, both an IDF officer and Border Police officer were seriously injured by hurled rocks and had to be taken to a hospital to treat their facial injuries.

Administrivia open thread

I recently started a new job, and it will not afford me the ability to post as often as I have been. I've been trying to compensate this week by sleeping less, but that is not a very good long-term strategy! I have a couple of other non-blog related projects that I need to be spending some time on. Sorry!

In response to reader requests, I changed the comments to now open up in a new window rather than a pop-up, which messed some people up. Let me know if this is better.

Meanwhile, here is an open thread....

Today's PalArab news 12/31/2009

The PA seized 19,000 shekels worth of nuts that were supposedly grown in Israeli farms in the West Bank. Their goal is to stop all imports of West Bank Jewish products by the end of 2010.

Palestinian Arabs are dismayed at Jimmy Carter's pretend apology to American Jews. After all, they note, he had been such a friend to them; they are hoping that it is just a political move to help his grandson run for office and that it doesn't reflect his real feelings.

Palestinian Arabs are also complaining about an Israeli tourist campaign in China which include pictures of the Temple Mount. They are also upset that Chinese media sometime say that Tel Aviv is a "coastal city" and not the capital of Israel. Some 20,000 Chinese tourists visit Israel annually according to the article.

The 45th anniversary of...what?

Mahmoud Abbas will be giving what is billed as an important speech tonight, marking the 45th anniversary of the "start of the Palestinian revolution."

What momentous event happened 45 years ago?

Yasir Arafat co-founded Fatah in 1954 along with a number of other people, mostly Palestinian Arabs who were working in Gulf states and who went to college in Cairo. The PLO was founded in May,1964 and Fatah did not join it until 1967. There were other, mostly small, Palestinian Arab "liberation" groups that formed in the 1950s and 1960s.

So what, in Mahmoud Abbas' mind, was the seminal event that occurred 45 years ago?

Why, it's the anniversary of Yasir Arafat's first terror attack, an unsuccessful attempt to bomb Israel's national water carrier.

Out of all the events that Abbas could choose, it is notable that he chooses to commemorate the anniversary of a terror attack as the real beginning of the supposedly "national" movement.

Remember, in 1965, the PLO and Fatah's ambitions did not include the West Bank or Gaza at all. The original PLO Charter says:

Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area [part of the mandate that Syria seized - EoZ.] Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.

In this sense, I agree with Abbas that it is worthwhile to look at the history of the Fatah and PLO organizations that he heads. The goals have not changed, even if the tactics have.

UNRWA/Hamas lovefest

Palestine Today reports that outgoing UNRWA commissioner Karen Abu-Zayd met today with Hamas officials to say farewell.

According to the article, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh praised Abu Zayd in front of other Hamas officials, saying that she was daring in her role for the past nine years. He expressed hope that she would continue to speak out on behalf of Palestinian Arabs even after she leaves office.

Abu-Zayd, on her part, complimented Hamas on facilitating UNRWA's work , especially in the area of security, and she agreed to keep speaking out after she leaves her position.

UNRWA and Hamas - made for each other.

Israeli war crimes against Gazan sperm!

Palestinian Arabs keep trying to claim that Israeli weapons caused all sorts of genetic mutations in Gaza.

Dr. Muawiya Hassanein, director of the Emergency Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, tells Palestine Today that there have been over 75 cases of babies born with heart defects in Gaza since Operation Cast Lead.

A quick calculation shows that, in the US, about 0.9% of all babies are born with congenital heart defects (36,000 a year.) In Gaza, this would translate to over 500 babies born with such a condition every year. Perhaps those evil Israeli chemical and radiological weapons had a positive effect on Gaza children!

But more insidiously, Hassanein claims that these weapons have caused Gaza men to have abnormal sperm, low sperm counts and, tragically, infertility. To many Arabs, this could be worse than birth defects, as it attacks the very source of their manliness, and nothing is more important than that.

Perhaps some NGO will start keeping track of the number of dead and mutilated Gaza sperm, adding millions to the number of victims of Israeli aggression.

The "Holocaust survivor" moonbat

It is amusing to see how the Gaza Freedom March moonbats are acting in Egypt:

More than 1,000 people from around the world were gathered here on Tuesday for a solidarity march into Gaza despite Egypt’s insistence that the Gaza border crossing that it controls would remain closed to the vast majority of them.

The protest, the Gaza Freedom March, was planned for Thursday and intended to mark a year since Israel’s three-week military assault on the territory. On Tuesday, hundreds of the frustrated activists gathered to press their case on the front steps of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate here, holding “Free Gaza” signs and chanting, “Let us go.” Some declared a hunger strike.

About 100 French citizens staged a sit-in in front of the French Embassy, and some Americans pleaded for help at the United States Consulate.

The Egyptian government agreed to let 100 activists into Gaza on Wednesday, according to one of the organizers of the march.

The world of these moonbats is absurdly egotistical. Back in the good old days of protests, a hunger strike would be used to protest a real injustice. These guys are instead going on a hunger strike as a publicity stunt in order to be able to go and perform another publicity stunt - a purely symbolic entrance to Gaza that will provide essentially no real services to Gazans!

(Yaacov Lozowick shows two other examples of pure narcissism on the part of these protesters.)

The star of the protests is Hedy Epstein. As the New York Times writes (and includes a picture):

One protester, Hedy Epstein, 85, a Holocaust survivor, arrived in Egypt from the United States on Saturday. She said she started a hunger strike on Monday.
“My message is for the world governments to wake up and treat Israel like they treat any other country and not to be afraid to reprimand and criticize Israel for its violent policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians,” Ms. Epstein said. “I brought a suitcase full of things, pencils, pens, crayons, writing paper to take to children in Gaza — I can’t take that back home.”

The symbiotic relationship between the publicity-seeking and equally narcissistic Epstein and the group that is more than happy to trumpet her supposed Holocaust-survivor credentials is complete.

To call Epstein a Holocaust survivor is to stretch the definition of the term. While Epstein did lose her parents in the Holocaust, she herself spent all of World War II in England. Yet she has no problem using this non-experience as the moral fulcrum for her ego-driven moonbattery ("I can't take that back home!")

(Israel has shipped paper, pens and crayons into Gaza.)

UPDATE: Epstein has a telling interview in the Lebanon Daily Star. Regarding her hunger strike, she says:

“There comes a time in one’s life when one has to step up and risk one’s own body. We’re in a desperate situation here, but not as desperate as the people in Gaza.”

And here may be the key to her own hatred of Israel:

“I’ve been involved with the Israeli-Palestinian problem for many years. It probably goes back to my childhood, because I born in Germany and my parents were anti-Zionists,” she said.

“When Hitler came to power in 1933 I was 8 years old, and my parents very quickly realized that Germany is not a place to raise a family. So they tried to leave to go anywhere in the world, but there was one place they were not willing to go, and that was Palestine.”

It is possible that she is making this up after the fact, but if it is true, Epstein may be redirecting her own anger at her parents' decision - that may have led to their deaths - against the very nation that could have saved them.

Good news: Water desalinization plant goes online

From YNet:

The desalination plant in Hadera, which is considered the largest in the world, has commenced infusing water into the Mekorot system, Water Authority Chairman Uri Shani declared last Wednesday.

In recent weeks experts have been holding extensive testing aimed at ensuring the water's quality. The plant has been given the Health Ministry seal of approval confirming that the water being desalinated meet Israel's drinking water standards.

In the future, the plant will reach a maximum output of 127 [million] cubic meters per year.

The plant in Hadera is an addition to two existing active facilities in Ashkelon and Palmachim. When it reaches full productivity, accumulated desalination in Israel will amount to 300 million cm per year.

Abraham Tenne, desalination department head in the Water Authority told Ynet this week that the new plant will make a considerable contribution to the water economy in Israel and noted that as a result water reserves will be more secure in 2010.

He further added that the first benefactor will be Lake Kinneret which suffers an ever diminishing water level.

Charlie Ettinson has some good observations on the story.

And Israel21C has a story on how Mekorot is providing the desalination technology for California.

Saudi op-ed on runaway girls misses the point

Reading the Saudi press is like looking at the world through a concave mirror.

There is something about the lack of compassion and the rush to judge a Saudi woman’s behavior that’s very troubling in Saudi society.

Recently a 15-year-old girl was found by the Hai’a in Riyadh with her much older Yemeni lover. The girl was from the Eastern Province and had an affair with the man who was a taxi driver. He moved to Riyadh and asked her to join him. She took the bus and lived with the man in the city for two weeks. Their behavior, however, made the Hai’a suspicious and they questioned her. It didn’t take long for the girl to confess her affair and she was jailed.

The report of the girl’s arrest in one Saudi newspaper prompted nearly 400 comments from Saudis who nearly universally condemned the girl’s actions and pinned the blame on her family for their failure to control her. The number of comments to the newspaper is telling in that this case has touched a raw nerve among Saudis. As far as I’m concerned it’s a bonafide sampling of Saudi attitudes about runaway girls. And it doesn’t give Saudi women much hope for the future.

Not a single comment to newspaper editors addressed the central question about this teenager’s behavior. Why did she run away and take up residence with a much older man? The reaction was to punish the girl and hold the parents responsible for their lack of vigilance. It’s as if their sole role in raising their child is to act like prison guards with a lock and key instead of emotional support.

One person went so far as to acknowledge that the girl may have been abused at home, but it’s preferable to being abused by mom and dad instead of “wolves” in the big, bad city. What malarkey. If this person represents true Saudi attitudes, then he’s suggesting that our society wants the girl to exchange one hell for a lesser hell and take comfort that she knows her tormentors.

Girls run away for a reason. They are abused emotionally or physically. They are forced into marriage. They have their wages seized by their male guardians. Their brothers exert complete control over their lives. Parents often marry their daughters off to a “sugar daddy.” The girls live in a velvet prison of luxury and watch their parents reap the benefits of the marriage. Yes, some girls are idiots, but the vast majority of young females are victims of domestic abuse.

As a last resort they escape from the very people who should take care of them.

For Saudi Arabia, this is a very liberal article, saying that parents must act like normal parents act and not treat their children like slaves to be sold to the highest bidder. The English-language press in Saudi Arabia will often have self-critical articles like these, pointing out these sorts of problems in Saudi society.

Notice, however, what is missing, both from the letter-writing Saudi public and the outraged op-ed columnist.

Not a single person even considers that the older man did anything wrong.

He was not jailed. He is not blamed. He is peripheral to the story, as if it is perfectly natural for a middle-aged Arab man to have sex with any willing 15-year old girl. What would be considered statutory rape in most Western countries is not even worthy of being commented upon. For a society that claims that it is protecting women by its laws, it is beyond sickening that the women get punished when taken advantage of.

And Saudi society is so sick that even the feminists (this article was written by a woman) cannot conceive that men should act as anything but animals around young girls.

Wow.

In other news...

"Siege" news: Today, Israel is sending in window glass and refrigerators to Gaza.

Mortars continue, maybe: The Al Aqsa Brigades (Fatah) claim to have shot a mortar towards Israel yesterday. Israel says it wasn't aware of any such attack.

Fly the friendly skies: The PA announced its intentions to build an airport between Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. It knows that Israel is not keen on the idea, so

...the Authority is betting on U.S. intervention to force Israel to agree to the establishment of the airport.

Not so friendly skies: Speaking of airplanes, Lebanon claims to have shot anti-aircraft fire at Israeli jets in Lebanese airspace.

And Naharnet is also reporting that Al Qaeda is trying to infiltrate Lebanon via the Fatah al-Islam group, hiding in Palestinian Arab "refugee" camps and intending to attack UNIFIL forces and others.