Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Dore Gold on the "1967 borders"

[T]he 1967 lines are coming back as a common reference point when many officials and commentators talk about a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is increasingly assumed that there was a recognized international border between the West Bank and Israel in 1967 and what is necessary now is to restore it. Yet this entire discussion is based on a completely distorted understanding of the 1967 line, given the fact that in the West Bank it was not an international border at all.
In fact, Article II of the Armistice with the Jordanians explicitly specified that the agreement did not compromise any future territorial claims of the parties, since it had been "dictated by exclusively by military considerations." In other words, the old Armistice Line was not a recognized international border. It had no finality. As a result, the Jordanians reserved the right after 1949 to demand territories inside Israel, for the Arab side. It was noteworthy that on May 31, 1967, the Jordanian ambassador to the UN made this very point to the UN Security Council just days before the Six-Day War, by stressing that the old armistice agreement "did not fix boundaries."

Read the whole thing.

Ma'an Arabic says that the PA sent a high-level delegation to the funeral of Moshe Hirsch, the Neturei Karta leader who did everything he could to destroy Israel while claiming that the Torah demands it.

The delegation presented a telegram to Hirsch's son from Mahmoud Abbas.

Sorry for posting this during lunchtime.

Toolbar test open thread

I saw that Israellycool added a toolbar, and it looked interesting, so I added the same one. It includes a chat, a search function, links to my YouTube page and some site stats. I can add other tools as well, just checking it out.

This is only a test - if it starts getting obtrusive I'll pull it. But let me know what you think. I'll see what other apps it has....

UPDATE: Removed it after a complaint.

What a surprise!

As you all know, I spend a great deal of time reading the Arabic press. By definition, the press is more moderate and thoughtful than the Arabic message boards or social media. Even so, however, it truly is a different world out there - a different mindset, a different narrative, a different history - than how Westerners think.

There is some internal consistency in the narrative, although it is comical when it comes up against real facts, which the Arab media tends to dismiss as lies or as conspiracies.

The readers of that media know, for a fact, that terrorism is a Zionist attribute. There are some crazy Islamic extremists but they are a tiny minority. The major danger to the world at large is Israel. Yet when a Koran is allegedly desecrated, the billion peaceful Muslims who are exhorted to violently come to the defense of Islam in that same media. No contradiction there.

So we can expect to see massive amounts of cognitive dissonance in reaction to the news that the person who attempted to kill hundreds of people in Times Square, Faisal Shahzad, is a Muslim. It will end up, as always, being a Zionist plot.

Ha'aretz' top analysts catch up with the Elder

One of the better part of Ha'aretz is called "The MESS Report" where their senior reporters do some real reporting and analysis.

Today's report discusses Hamas' severe economic problems.

Only a couple of weeks since I started talking about it.

(Hey, sometimes I need to brag a little.)

PalArabs say Israeli media all in Israel's pocket

Palestine Today has an article that claims that the Israeli media is all part of the great Zionist conspiracy, reporting what its Israeli masters demand and an integral part of the huge worldwide Zionist Hasbara campaign run by Israel with help from Jews worldwide. The headline is: "Israeli media .. Deceit, cunning, deception, intelligence"

Yesterday, however, in the very same newspaper, there was an article that described the Arab journalists who were killed while covering Gaza fighting as being "martyrs" who heroically document their history and their cause. One of them, for example, was killed while he was filming terrorists launching rockets at Israel, and Israel retaliated.

Arab hip-hoppers freak over Israeli keffiyeh

I have mentioned that a couple of companies have made Zionist versions of the keffiyeh, causing much consternation from Arabs worldwide and gathering ridiculous amounts of publicity for what is essentially a Jewish novelty item.

Well, now the hip-hop world is joining the battle.

A female Arab hip-hop star, Shadia Mansour, has made an entire song protesting the Israeli keffiyeh, insisting that the keffiyeh is Arabic. Some of the translated lyrics:

The kuffiyeh is Arabic, and it will stay Arabic

The gear we rock, they want it; our culture, they want it

Our dignity, they want it; everything that’s ours, they want it
They imitatin us in what we wear, wear; from this land enough, what else do you want?
Before y’all ever rocked a kuffiyeh, we here to remind em who we are

And whether they like it or not, this is our clothing style

That’s why we rock the kuffiyeh, cuz it’s patriotic

The kuffiyeh, the kuffiyeh is Arabic

That’s why we rock the kuffiyeh, our essential identity

The kuffiyeh, the kuffiyeh is Arabic

Come on, throw up the kuffiyeh (throw that kuffiyeh up for me)

The kuffiyeh, the kuffiyeh is Arabic

Throw it up, come on “Bilad Al Sham” (Greater Syria)

The kuffiyeh is Arabic, and it will stay Arabic

I like the "Greater Syria" lyric. I also like the fact that the song pretty much admits that the keffiyeh is not historically "Palestinian" but Arab.

This is all giving much publicity to the Zionist version, which has its own short video.

Meanwhile, there was an Arab hip-hop concert called "The Arab League of Hip-Hop" in Brooklyn. The highlight was an emotional rap song called "Long Live Palestine." As one would expect from a "national" movement that is really based on the eradication of another nation, the lyrics of the song are not about Palestine but rather about how evil Israel is - and a call to boycott supposedly "Zionist" companies. Here are some of the lyrics:

While we listen to tunes, made by ignorant fools,
Israel blocked the UN from delivering food,
They'll bring in the troops and you won't even glimpse at the news,
They make money of the products that we are quick to consume,
It's not simply a question of differing views

Every coin is a bullet, if you're Mark's and Spencer,
And when your sipping Coca-Cola,
That's another pistol in the holster of a soulless soldier,
You say you know about the Zionist lobby,
But you put money in their pocket when you're buying their coffee,
Talking about revolution, sitting in Starbucks,
The fact is that's the type of thinking I can't trust,
Let alone even start to respect,
Before you talk learn the meaning of that scarf on your neck,
Forget Nestle,
Obama promised Israel 30 billion over the next decade,
They're trigger happy and they're crazy,
Think about that when you're putting Huggies nappies on your baby,

Israel is a terror state, there terrorists that terrorise,
I testify, my television televised them telling lies,
This is not a war, it is systematic genocide,
But whatever they try, Palestine will never die!!!

What a great example of Palestinian Arab nationalism! Very little good to say about their beloved mythical homeland - just calumnies against the Jewish state.

The only thing binding Palestinian Arabs is hate.

PalArabs claiming that prison guards tore Koran

Publicity-seeking Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi of Jerusalem seems to have a quota of how many outraged press conferences he needs to give per week. If nothing outrageous happens, he's duty bound to make it up. Today's non-story of outrage is the claim that an Israeli prison guard in Ashkelon's prison tore a Koran. As Tamimi said, "the Koran contains the Enshrined Word of God Almighty, revealed to His Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, a divine and sacred book, proving the biggest miracles of the Prophet peace be upon him, and any violation of the sanctity and holiness is an act contrary to the teachings of divine laws and international conventions that guarantee freedom of belief and worship and [desecrating it is] one of the biggest religious and moral vices." He seems to be very serious about his outrage that a Koran is torn in an Israeli prison. Yet the only English-language story I can find about a Koran being torn in an Israeli prison comes from 2005, and the circumstances were somewhat different:

A female Palestinian security prisoner in Ashkelon’s Shikma Prison tore up pages from a copy of the Quran and threw them toward the toilet during a routine search Sunday, the Israel Prison Service said. The 22-year-old detainee from a village near Hebron is an Islamic Jihad member who was arrested three months ago in suspicion of hostile terror activity. She resisted a routine search by a female guard, and then took out torn Quran pages from her skirt and hurled them toward the toilet. The guard handed the torn Quran pages to the prison’s director, and Prison Service officials said she showed heightened sensitivity to the holy Islamic book. A month ago Palestinian security prisoners detained in the Megiddo Prison claimed prison guards tore up pages from Quran copies during searches of their cells. However, a special investigative committee found the prisoners themselves had torn the Quran copies in an attempt to stir controversy. According to the Prison Service, prisoner representatives apologized for the incident, saying it was a Hamas-affiliated minority that carried out the act.

So in 2005, Korans were torn by both Islamic Jihad members and Hamas members in Israeli prisons. You will recall, of course, the outrage and riots that spontaneously broke out against those groups because of how much every believing Muslim loves the Koran and is uncontrollably outraged whenever it gets desecrated, no matter who does the vile act. You mean you don't remember those 2005 riots against Hamas and Islamic Jihad?

PalToday illustrates "European Jews" again today

Here is how Palestine Today illustrates today's news about Europe's version of J-Street:

I guess that they didn't want to use yesterday's image - too repetitive.

Al Quds University offers a course in blogging

Ma'an Arabic mentions that Al Quds Open University in Nablus offers a course on blogging.

The course includes "training concepts about the nature of blogging and its importance and prevalence in the world."

If they'd pay my airfare, I'd offer to be a guest lecturer.

Evil Jewish plot to indoctrinate Egyptian children

The Egyptian government and UNESCO has been working on a project for the past few years to reform and improve Egyptian education, called the "National Strategic Plan for Pre-University Education."

An opposition politician in Egypt is now warning about the dangers of this plan.

Ahmed Jebali, head of the People's Democratic Party of Egypt, has discovered a frightening fact - an American Jewish expert, from USAID, is involved in creating the new Egyptian school curriculum!

Now, Jebali says, a Jew is going to control the information that goes into the tender young heads of Muslims attending Islamic schools in Egypt - which is a huge disgrace.

In his words, "This is part of a major U.S. project that aims to provide entertaining and fun books for children, which will be introduced in three stages in 39,000 government schools in all governorates of Egypt, which requires the exclusion of any religious or Islamic history books, under the American plan to "dry up terrorism ", as the curriculum of Islamic education and Islamic history is a tributary of terrorism from the standpoint of America."

According to Jebali, the plan would reduce the amount of Quranic studies by 65% and the amount of education of Islamic conquests by 35%. (Exactly what percentage of time these schools spend on "Islamic conquests" as opposed to, say, arithmetic, is an open question.)

Jebali goes on to mention the shocking fact that in Jordan, the Ministry of Education has already approved the use of new textbooks that encourage students to distinguish between legitimate resistance to occupation and "terrorism."

This is an outrage!

Egyptian musician union bans "gay" Elton John

From the Hindustan Times:

Egypt's musician's union on Sunday rejected plans for British singer Elton John to perform a private concert scheduled for May 18, because of his "controversial remarks attacking religions".
"How do we allow a gay, who wants to ban religions, claimed that the prophet Eissa (Jesus) was gay and calls for Middle Eastern countries to allow gays to have sexual freedom," head of the Egyptian Musician Union, Mounir al-Wasimi told DPA.

The pop superstar, 63, stirred controversy after his remarks to US celebrity news magazine Parade in February, where he said "Try being a gay woman in the Middle East - you're as good as dead", after saying he believed Jesus was "gay".

Al-Wasimi said that he has begun coordinating with security bodies to ban John's concert, saying that the union is the only body "authorised to allow performances by foreign singers in Egypt".

Al Arabiya quotes al-Wasimi further, as saying "a concert in Cairo from Elton John sets a dangerous precedent..because he is a symbol for homosexuals in the world and his presence will open the doors to the rest of the homosexual artists to perform in Egypt."

Elton John is scheduled to perform in Israel on June 17.