Thursday, March 04, 2010

  • Thursday, March 04, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the New York Times last April:

Sulim B. Yamadayev was a former general in Chechnya and foe of the republic's Kremlin-backed president. He was killed in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai on March 30, 2009, in what appeared to be an assassination, the police said. He was 36.

The attack evoked others on Chechens, in Russia and abroad, who ran afoul of President Ramzan A. Kadyrov. The Kremlin has invested Mr. Kadyrov with almost unchecked authority in a bid to return stability to Chechnya after nearly a decade of bloody war and political turmoil. With Moscow's blessing, Mr. Kadyrov has created a personality cult and imposed his own interpretation of Islamic morality in Chechnya, whose population is predominately Muslim.

AFP adds:

The killer fired three bullets from a gold-plated gun at the victim's chest as Sulim Yamadayev climbed from his car in the private car park beneath his luxury residence in Dubai.

Yamadayev was the decorated commander of a famed Chechen battalion, loyal to Moscow. His brother had been gunned down in Moscow just months earlier. And the Yamadayev clan were sworn foes of Chechnya's strongman leader.

The March 28 murder was the latest apparent contract-killing in an extraordinary trail of blood leading from Chechnya that already stretched to Istanbul, Moscow and Vienna. And now the bustling emirate.

Yamadayev was the fifth person to be murdered in recent months seen as an opponent of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-appointed president of Chechnya, a mainly Muslim region of Russia's southern fringe that fought two wars with Moscow.

So an outside non-Arab power, known for assassinations, was suspected of carrying out a brutal assassination of a pretty famous public figure in Dubai. Yet there were no political repercussions, no public calls for sanctions, no daily circuses of press conferences, no talk about how the killers entered the country and if they used faked passports - nothing.

Wonder why?

(h/t LBS)

  • Thursday, March 04, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Al Arabiya mentions that the Egyptian football (soccer) team will be playing "Palestine"'s Olympic team in a friendly match at the end of the month, in the Faisal Al husseini Stadium in Ram, near Jerusalem.

The Egyptians are stressing that they are not going to go through Israel to get to the match and are not getting any Israeli visas. They want to help the morale of the Palestinian Arabs and make them feel less isolated.

The article mentions that this is the first meeting between the two teams since a match in Jerusalem in 1934, in a World Cup qualifying match, where Egypt beat Palestine 4-1.

Here is the Palestine Post account of that game. It seems that it wasn't in Jerusalem, but in Tel Aviv, at the stadium used by the Hapoel Zionist team. Could it be that the players in that earlier game were - gasp - Jewish?

In fact, it appears that there were other games between the Egyptians and the Zionists in the 1930s. In this game later that year, the Alexandria team lost to Hapoel (note the names of the players at the end of the article, click to enlarge:)And Hapoel met the Egyptian team in 1935 as well, as this article says that Egyptian football is what gave the impetus for Zionist teams to grow and compete. This article seems to imply that it these are the same teams that played in 1934:

There was even an earlier game, in 1933:


So, indeed, Egypt did play Palestine before in football. But the Palestine that they played has nothing to do with the "Palestine" team that they plan to meet later this month.

Now, why would Al Arabiya try to imply that Egypt played an Arab Palestinian team in 1934?
  • Thursday, March 04, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
The latest interview with the clown known as Lt. Gen Dahi Khalfan (Tamim) muddies the waters even more, as he attempts to portray an illusion of competence. Even so, he seems to disprove some of the rumors that have been bandied about by Arabs about the case:

Dubai police did not know in the beginning the identity of the victim as his identity papers did not include his last name and he was not one of Hamas's publically known faces, the police chief said.
Arab sources had earlier indicated that Mabhouh traveled to Dubai with a passport under his own name, and implied that this was how the (presumed) Mossad knew where he was.

"Had we known who he was, we would not have allowed him in to Dubai," he told Al Arabiya. "We do allow officials from Hamas’ political office, but not members involved in secretive work."
This is too funny.
Regarding how the details of the crime were unraveled, Khalfan denied reports that the perpetrators left evidence that made it easy to do so and that they intended to deliver a certain message through leaving traces.

"On the contrary, the murderers tried their best to mislead us. They left the hotel room neat and tidy to give the impression that it was a natural death."

In fact, he added, the Dubai police was about to declare it a natural death as the identity of the victim had not been known yet and there was no criminal suspicion.

"Things started to change when a Palestinian man who knows Mabhouh tried contacting him in Dubai several times and failed. After learning of his death, he called his family in Gaza and told them that he was murdered."

It was then that officials from Hamas contacted the Dubai police and informed them that the victim was a leader in the Islamic resistance organization.

"Revealing the victim's identity gave the case a whole new turn and an autopsy was immediately made."

The autopsy, Khalfan explained, revealed the Mabhouh was strangled after being injected with a drug that causes paralysis.

"Israeli media said he was subjected to electric shocks and this is not true."
Actually, it was Mabhouh's brother that made that claim.
"If Hamas has information, then let them look for the man who leaked information to Israel about Mabhouh's movements."

Mabhouh was betrayed from within, stressed Khalfan.

"Someone from inside Hamas and who was close to him leaked information about his whereabouts to the Israel."

As for a Palestinian man detained in Dubai for alleged links to the case, Khalfan refused to give information about his political affiliation.

"I personally do not care whether he is from Hamas or Fatah, but the U.A.E. is not a battlefield for warring factions."
Here's another example where Khalfan, basking in his newfound fame, is making stuff up so he can confidently claim that the case is closed.

But the person who ranted against Jews in Arabic leaves his best whopper for last:
Khalfan stressed that the Dubai Police possesses an "astounding" data base and that they have the ability to infiltrate of the office of the Mossad director, if necessary.
If the Dubai police are so good at espionage, maybe we should be pointing an accusing finger at them! Maybe Khalfan is responsible for the hit himself!

I just don't understand how such a world-class detective organization wouldn't notice a Hamas leader in their midst.

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

  • Wednesday, March 03, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the National Post (h/t Callie):

Next week, York University will once again open its halls and classrooms to "Israel Apartheid Week," so-called. This year as every year, militants and activists will use the taxpayer-funded facilities of York to vilify the Jewish state.

Well, that's free speech, isn't? Everybody gets to express his or her point of view, no matter how obnoxious, right?

No, not right. Not at York. At York, speech is free -- better than free, subsidized-- for anti-Israel haters. But for those who would defend Israel, York sets very different rules.

In advance of York's annual hate-Israel week, the campus group Christians United for Israel applied to use university space to host a program of pro-Israel speakers.

The university replied that this program could only proceed on certain conditions.

It insisted on heavy security, including both campus and Toronto police -- all of those costs to be paid by the program organizers. The organizers would also have to provide an advance list of all program attendees and advance summaries of all the speeches. No advertising for the program would be permitted -- not on the York campus, not on any of the other campuses participating by remote video.

These are radically different and much harsher terms than anything required from the hate-Israel program. The hate-Israel program is not required to pay for its own security. It is free to advertise. Its speakers are not pre-screened by the university.

The pro-Israel event, scheduled for this past Monday, Feb. 22, was cancelled when the organizers declined to comply with the terms. A university spokesman told the Jewish Tribune that it insisted on the more stringent requirements on pro-Israel groups "due to the participation of individuals who they claim invite the animus of anti-Israel campus agitators."

The logic is impressively brazen: Since the anti-Israel people might use violence, the speech of the pro-Israel people must be limited. On the other hand, since the pro-Israel people do not use violence, the speech of the anti-Israel people can proceed without restraint.

Read the whole thing.
  • Wednesday, March 03, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
UNRWA is doing something useful in Gaza, but it can't resist politicizing it.

Hassan al-Err is the head of a family of seven who are preparing to move into a mud house built by UNRWA in the Gaza Strip. UNRWA has resorted to building with mud because other building materials are not available.

The two-bedroom house in Jabalia, north of Gaza City, is an improvement on the tent in which the 67-year-old Hassan had been living with his family - next to the rubble of their former home. The family’s home was one of 4,036 houses in Gaza which were totally destroyed or damaged beyond repair last year in Israel’s 23-day military operation.

Since then, rebuilding has been almost impossible because Israel does not allow construction materials such as cement and steel into the Strip, saying they could be used for military purposes.

“I can’t forget how hard the past year has been for me and my family living in a tent in the cold winter and the hot summer,” Hassan explains. “Of course a mud house is much better than a tent, although it’s not a real solution because I can’t build another flat on top of it for my two married sons who live in a rented house in Jabalia town.”

UNRWA hopes to build around 120 mud brick houses for dozens of homeless families in the next few months in the Strip. Each house costs about US$10,000 and takes three months to build.

While not a long-term solution for homeless families, the mud houses offer better conditions than tents or partially destroyed buildings. They also provide employment for people UNRWA is training to make mud bricks and homes.

International donors pledged US$4.5 billion in aid for the Palestinian Authority, much of it specifically for Gaza, at a conference in Egypt in March 2009, but little has made its way to the Strip because of the continuing blockade and bitter Palestinian divisions between political parties Hamas and Fatah.

First of all, the last paragraph is an out-and-out lie. The majority of the PA budget is spent in Gaza, and Hamas' budget is considerable as well.

However, when reading this article, do you get the impression that these "mud houses" are miserable, temporary shelters that will disintegrate inthe first rainstorm and only marginally better than tents?

Check out what they look like, from the IRIN website:

The caption says that the houses can be used for more than 100 years with minimal maintenance! Why would UNRWA write that they are not a long-term solution?

The fact that one cannot build a two or three-story house out of mud bricks does not mean that the houses are not usable - in fact, they appear to be more durable than most houses constructed in the US, which are often made out of wood.

UNRWA, which is to be commended for this program, still can't resist reporting it with an anti-Israel spin. The house in the photo looks more than just utilitarian - it is a beautiful house, and many Westerners would love to live in such a building.
  • Wednesday, March 03, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Even though Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim hasn't revealed any substantive evidence in days concerning the Mabhouh hit, he still gets daily headlines.

While the world media still ignores his anti-semitism, he is still being quoted daily as if he had anything new to say. For example, from The National:
Gen Tamim described the methods used by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service suspected in the killing, as “primitive”.

“The majority of those working in Mossad are still stuck in a 1970s mentality,” he said, making reference to “basic disguises”.
Apparently, Tamim has succumbed to Judge Ito disease, where the constant presence of cameras and reporters makes one believe that he is far more important than he really is and that his statements are wiser than they really are.

He will also be the last to know that he has turned into a worldwide punch-line.
  • Wednesday, March 03, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the Independent:

British imams must do more to condemn terrorism without any "ifs or buts" and should pronounce suicide bombers as "unbelievers" who are destined for hell, a leading Islamic scholar declared yesterday.

The comments were made during a remarkable assault on the ideology of violent Islamist extremists by Pakistani-born Sheikh Tahir ul-Qadri, a prominent theologian who launched a seminal fatwa in London yesterday condemning terrorism in all its forms.

The 59-year-old scholar, who has written more than 400 books on Islamic jurisprudence, told fellow Muslims: "Terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it, or any kind of excuses of ifs and buts. The world needs an absolute, unconditional, unqualified and total condemnation of terrorism".


Although Sheikh Tahir ul-Qadri's fatwa against terrorism and suicide bombing is not yet online, from what I can see so far it does look comprehensive. The table of contents and preface are online.

Many of the previous such fatwas I've seen took pains to make sure that Palestinian Arab terrorism would fall into its own category and would not only be permitted but obligatory. So far, I have not seen any indication that Qadri's fatwa has the same shortcomings.

The reaction from more radical sheikhs will be interesting, as this is being presented as being solidly based on Islamic sources, and their answers would have to do the same.
  • Wednesday, March 03, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Gulf News:
The right-hand man of a Hamas leader assassinated in Dubai has confirmed Israeli claims that his boss supplied weapons to Palestinian fighters. Mohammed Nassar spoke to Hamas' Al Aqsa radio in Gaza from Damascus. A transcript was released on Tuesday.

Nassar was an aide to Mahmoud Al Mabhouh, who was assassinated January 19. Israel is widely suspected, but has not confirmed or denied involvement.

Al Mabhouh allegedly smuggled weapons from Iran to Gaza.

Nassar says Al Mabhouh "never stopped thinking about how to fight the occupation by supplying quality weapons to the Palestinian fighters."

The aide also describes how Al Mabhouh celebrated killing two Israeli soldiers in the mid-1980s by standing on one of the corpses.
  • Wednesday, March 03, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
The Arabic press is buzzing with two items about Israel and Syria.

The first is that Syria has said that it is willing to accept a gradual withdrawal of Israel from the Golan Heights. Ha'aretz had this story, quoting Gabrielle Rifkind of the Oxford Research Group who met with Syrian officials in December:
According to Rifkind, who met the minister along with a group of conflict resolution experts, Muallem suggested that Syria was prepared to consider a phased approach to the return of the Golan Heights.

"There could be stages of withdrawal, the timing of which could involve a form of normalization," he reportedly said. "Half of the Golan could lead to an end to enmity; three quarters of the Golan, to a special interest section in the U.S. embassy in Damascus: a full withdrawal would allow a Syrian embassy in Israel."
While this story did not get much play in the Western press it has been quoted extensively in the Arabic press.

Asharq al-Awsat called up Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu's office and asked him for a comment, and the reply was that Israel is "ready to meet with the Syrians immediately and without preconditions" and that Netanyahu is "ready to travel immediately to Damascus to meet Bashar al-Assad, or to invite him to Jerusalem, or to meet him in a third country for this purpose."

While this is really not a new position, there seems to be some excitement in the Arab press over the issue.

The Western press, meanwhile, finally noticed the apples being exported from Israel to Syria that I mentioned last week.

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

  • Tuesday, March 02, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Palestine Today, which is an Islamic Jihad newspaper based in Gaza, quotes a Hamas news site:
A dangerous precedent was set today when UNRWA forced Palestinian children to visit a monument in Amsterdam for the so-called Holocaust, Zionism, during a trip organized by the Agency to the Netherlands for outstanding students.

The sources said that the children refused this request, prompting officials on the trip to threaten the teachers accompanying the students with dismissal from their jobs unless they could persuade students to visit the site.

The sources added that this was a special request of an employee named "Hannah"; to implement a program of psychological support to put pressure on children and supervisors for the implementation of the visit to this site. Failing to do so, the organizers of the program instead gave a lecture on the so-called "Holocaust."

Whether the story is true or not, it shows exactly how terrible Palestinian Arabs think teaching their kids about the Holocaust would be.

Thinking of Jews as victims, or as human beings who could be felt sorry for? Absurd!

UPDATE: UNRWA is strongly denying the story.
  • Tuesday, March 02, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
One of the documents supporting the 13th session of the Human Rights Council that started yesterday is A/HRC/13/34, Report of the Secretary-General on the right to nationality.

It includes this interesting paragraph:

Birth on the territory of a State and birth to a national are the most important criteria used to establish the legal bond of nationality. Particularly in the context of migration, a child may therefore have a link to more than one State. In cases where States have adopted diverging rules on the acquisition of nationality, a conflict of laws between these States could leave the child stateless. In such cases, the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness contributes to resolve this type of conflict of norms by providing, in article 1, that contracting States must grant nationality to a person born on their territory who would otherwise be stateless. Article 4 also provides that contracting States must grant nationality if a person is born to one of their nationals outside of a contracting State and would otherwise be stateless. According to article 7 of the Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam, State parties should make every effort to resolve the issue of statelessness for any child born on their territories or to any of their citizens outside their territory. Obligations to grant nationality to children born in the territory of a State and that would otherwise be stateless are also contained in article 20 (2) of the American Convention on Human Rights, article 6 (4) of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and article 6 (2) of the European Convention on Nationality.
The UN has not been too successful in trying to push its agenda against statelessness but, given that Palestine is not and never has been a state, one can't help but notice the hypocrisy where the UN has never asked Arab nations to allow children of Palestinian descent born on their territory to become citizens.

The entire "Palestinian refugee" problem could be eliminated if the UN would just follow up on its own noble principles.
  • Tuesday, March 02, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Screen Daily:
Highly regarded Iranian auteur Majid Majidi is lining up the historical epic Mohammad, which at $30m is by far the most expensive and ambitious project ever to be assembled out of Iran.

Pre-production is under way and Majidi and producer Mehdi Heidarian are aiming for worldwide distribution by mid-2011.

Majidi, whose Children Of Heaven earned Iran’s first Oscar nomination in 1999 and who most recently directed the comedy The Song Of Sparrows, co-wrote the screenplay with Kabuzia Partouvi, the writer of Border Café and The Circle.

It is understood the focus will be on what sources describe as a “visually rich and sensitive” account of the childhood years of Mohammad up to the age of 12, well before he became the Prophet of Islam.

Majidi and Partouvi spent three years writing the first draft and pored over historical detail. Sources claim the project has the support of an extensive team of highly qualified international historians and researchers, although any visual depiction of Mohammed by an actor is likely to spark controversy.

The film-makers are targeting a wide multi-faith global audience.

Printfriendly

EoZTV Podcast

Podcast URL

Subscribe in podnovaSubscribe with FeedlyAdd to netvibes
addtomyyahoo4Subscribe with SubToMe

search eoz

comments

Speaking

Follow by Email

translate

E-Book

For $18 donation








Sample Text

EoZ's Most Popular Posts in recent years

Hasbys!

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

Donate!

Donate to fight for Israel!

Monthly subscription:
Payment options


One time donation:

subscribe via email

Follow EoZ on Twitter!

Interesting Blogs

Categories

#PayForSlay Abbas liar Academic fraud administrivia al-Qaeda algeria Alice Walker American Jews AmericanZionism Amnesty analysis anti-semitism anti-Zionism antisemitism apartheid Arab antisemitism arab refugees Arafat archaeology Ari Fuld art Ashrawi ASHREI B'tselem bahrain Balfour bbc BDS BDSFail Bedouin Beitunia beoz Bernie Sanders Biden history Birthright book review Brant Rosen breaking the silence Campus antisemitism Cardozo cartoon of the day Chakindas Chanukah Christians circumcision Clark Kent coexistence Community Standards conspiracy theories COVID-19 Cyprus Daled Amos Daphne Anson David Applebaum Davis report DCI-P Divest This double standards Egypt Elder gets results ElderToons Electronic Intifada Embassy EoZ Trump symposium eoz-symposium EoZNews eoztv Erekat Erekat lung transplant EU Euro-Mid Observer European antisemitism Facebook Facebook jail Fake Civilians 2014 Fake Civilians 2019 Farrakhan Fatah featured Features fisking flotilla Forest Rain Forward free gaza freedom of press palestinian style future martyr Gary Spedding gaza Gaza Platform George Galloway George Soros German Jewry Ghassan Daghlas gideon levy gilad shalit gisha Goldstone Report Good news Grapel Guardian guest post gunness Haaretz Hadassah hamas Hamas war crimes Hananya Naftali hasbara Hasby 2014 Hasby 2016 Hasby 2018 hate speech Hebron helen thomas hezbollah history Hizballah Holocaust Holocaust denial honor killing HRW Human Rights Humanitarian crisis humor huor Hypocrisy ICRC IDF IfNotNow Ilan Pappe Ilhan Omar impossible peace incitement indigenous Indonesia international law interview intransigence iran Iraq Islamic Judeophobia Islamism Israel Loves America Israeli culture Israeli high-tech J Street jabalya James Zogby jeremy bowen Jerusalem jewish fiction Jewish Voice for Peace jihad jimmy carter Joe Biden John Kerry jokes jonathan cook Jordan Joseph Massad Juan Cole Judaism Judea-Samaria Judean Rose Judith Butler Kairos Karl Vick Keith Ellison ken roth khalid amayreh Khaybar Know How to Answer Lebanon leftists Linda Sarsour Linkdump lumish mahmoud zahar Mairav Zonszein Malaysia Marc Lamont Hill Marjorie Taylor Greene max blumenthal Mazen Adi McGraw-Hill media bias Methodist Michael Lynk Michael Ross Miftah Missionaries moderate Islam Mohammed Assaf Mondoweiss moonbats Morocco Mudar Zahran music Muslim Brotherhood Naftali Bennett Nakba Nan Greer Nation of Islam Natural gas Nazi Netanyahu News nftp NGO Nick Cannon NIF Noah Phillips norpac NSU Matrix NYT Occupation offbeat olive oil Omar Barghouti Only in Israel Opinion Opinon oxfam PA corruption PalArab lies Palestine Papers pallywood pchr PCUSA Peace Now Peter Beinart Petra MB philosophy poetry Poland poll Poster Preoccupied Prisoners propaganda Proud to be Zionist Puar Purim purimshpiel Putin Qaradawi Qassam calendar Quora Rafah Ray Hanania real liberals RealJerusalemStreets reference Reuters Richard Falk Richard Landes Richard Silverstein Right of return Rivkah Lambert Adler Robert Werdine rogel alpher roger cohen roger waters Rutgers Saeb Erekat Sarah Schulman Saudi Arabia saudi vice self-death self-death palestinians Seth Rogen settlements sex crimes SFSU shechita sheikh tamimi Shelly Yachimovich Shujaiyeh Simchat Torah Simona Sharoni SodaStream South Africa Sovereignty Speech stamps Superman Syria Tarabin Temple Mount Terrorism This is Zionism Thomas Friedman TOI Tomer Ilan Trump Trump Lame Duck Test Tunisia Turkey UAE Accord UCI UK UN UNDP unesco unhrc UNICEF United Arab Emirates Unity unrwa UNRWA hate unrwa reports UNRWA-USA unwra Varda Vic Rosenthal Washington wikileaks work accident X-washing Y. Ben-David Yemen YMikarov zahran Ziesel zionist attack zoo Zionophobia Ziophobia Zvi

Blog Archive