Thursday, June 24, 2010

  • Thursday, June 24, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Firas Press reports that students at Hashemite University in Jordan were upset when they saw the words "Made in Israel" on the outside of their graduation gowns.

The university investigated and claims that maybe the plastic bags the gowns were in were made in Israel, but not the robes, as Israeli clothing is much more expensive than Jordanian. The investigation continues.

This is the second blow that the university has suffered vis a vis Israel in the past year. It was also accused of cooperating with Ben Gurion University on a water desalination project. University officials defended themselves, saying that it was really a Cornell University project and that they never met with their Ben Gurion counterparts, and it was merely a technical project and not political.
  • Thursday, June 24, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Today, the European Noorsat satellite will stop relaying programs from Hamas' Al Aqsa TV.

From the Al Qassam website:
Al-Aqsa Satellite channel has announced that it would stop broadcasting via the French Noorsat satellite as of 8 pm Thursday after failure of negotiations with the French government.

Samir Mohsen, director of programs in Al-Aqsa, told the PIC on Wednesday evening that the channel would continue to broadcast on the Arabsat satellite.

The bureau urged Egypt to host Al-Aqsa on Nilesat in its capacity as a committed national, Arab channel.
The decision was made last week, as AP reported:
A France-based satellite provider is halting broadcasts of the Hamas TV channel to Europe and parts of the Arab world because of concerns that it spreads incitement, a station official said Tuesday.

The decision will deprive Gaza-based al-Aqsa TV of most of its viewers, said the channel's head, Hazem Sharawy.

The Hamas station — best known for its children's programs glorifying violence against Israel — is the centerpiece of a growing media operation of Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers. Losing the satellite provider will hamper the group's attempts to spread its message and raise funds abroad.

The decision to cut off the Hamas station came six years after a similar move by France and the U.S. against al-Manar, the channel of Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah.

In Paris, Eutelsat spokeswoman Vanessa O'Connor said that last week the French broadcasting regulator CSA ordered it to stop beaming the Hamas channel into Europe by June 26. Al-Aqsa TV is part of a package of channels transmitted by Bahrain-based satellite operator Noorsat, which passes them in a single signal to Eutelsat, O'Connor said.
Since this was written by AP's Ibrahim Barzak, you can expect that the story would downplay how bad Al Aqsa TV is:
In the past, Israel and others have repeatedly accused al-Aqsa TV of inciting against Israel, especially in children's programs.

One of its most criticized programs, Tomorrow's Pioneers, once featured a high-pitched Mickey Mouse rip-off called "Farfour" who encouraged children to fight against the occupiers of Muslim countries, while taking calls from kids who were praised for singing about fighting Israel.

After a wave of criticism, the station killed off Farfour with mock-Israeli soldiers beating him to death. But it has not toned down the message of its children's programs.
Al Aqsa TV was more than just inciting against Israel - it was blatantly anti-semitic, as it broadcasted many Friday sermons talking about how evil Jews were.

And the children's Pioneers of Tomorrow show also had no compunction about talking about Jews. I made a satirical video about it once, which showed some of the things broadcast:


AP goes on:
Hamas sees media outreach as a vital part of the movement's success.

It has another television channel that broadcasts from Lebanon, several affiliated Web sites, a radio station, a glossy magazine for its military wing and two newspapers printed in Gaza. The militant group has also produced a movie glorifying one their militants and created animations boasting about their capture of an Israeli soldier held for the last four years in Gaza.
Why does Israel not have a satellite channel that broadcasts to Europe and the US?
UNRWA's first report on its progress, A/1451/Rev.1, is a fascinating document on many levels. It describes its progress in the first six months of its existence.

Here are some excerpts:
HISTORY

6. When UNRPR was set up by the General Assembly, it was presumably with the idea that the problem would be resolved in a matter of months. During the summer of 1949 it became obvious that some other approach was needed, and the United Nations Economic Survey Mission for the Middle East was dispatched to study and report on conditions and to make recommendations concerning future activity. After three months of exhaustive study in the field, the Mission's interim report to the General Assembly in November 1949(1) recommended the creation of a new agency, which would not only carry out relief on a diminishing scale, but would inaugurate a works programme in which able-bodied refugees could become self-supporting and at the same time create works of lasting benefit to the refugees and the countries concerned. The recommendations of the report were embodied in resolution 302 (IV) which provided for the setting up of UNRWAPRNE. The final report signed in Paris in December covered the subject comprehensively and has been accepted by the Agency as its guide.2
UNRWA did not intend at first to be a permanent agency. It really tried to provide jobs for the Palestinian Arabs and to work with Arab governments to help integrate them. The Arabs' recalcitrance is the single major reason we still have so many "refugees" today, and after a few years UNRWA gave up and turned into a giant, self-perpetuating welfare system.
NUMBERS OF REFUGEES

16. The Agency has accepted as realistic the figures set forth in appendix B of the first interim report of the United Nations Economic Survey Mission, but recognizes that the numbers have increased in conformity with the extremely high birthrate of the refugees. There is reason to believe that births are always registered for ration purposes, but deaths are often, if not usually, concealed so that the family may continue to collect rations for the deceased.

17...The figures for Lebanon (128,000) are confused due to the fact that many Lebanese nationals along the Palestinian frontier habitually worked most of the year on the farms or in the citrus groves of Palestine. With the advent of war they came back across the border and claimed status as refugees. Only an exhaustive and expensive census, now under way although ardently opposed by those concerned, will divide worthy from false claimants.

18. The former Trans-Jordan and the portion of Palestine remaining in Arab hands and now annexed to the Hashimite Kingdom of the Jordan received the greatest influx of refugees of any of the countries adjacent to Israel -- probably more than half of all the refugees. For various reasons, the largest number of fictitious names on the ration lists pertain to refugees in this area. All earlier attempts at a close census of those entitled to relief have been frustrated, but a comprehensive survey, now under way, is achieving worthwhile results in casting up names of dead people for which rations are still drawn, fraudulent claims regarding numbers of dependents (it is alleged that it is a common practice for refugees to hire children from other families at census time), and in eliminating duplications where families have two or more ration cards. The census, though stubbornly resisted, will eliminate many thousands from the lists of refugees now in receipt of rations.

19. Unauthorized movement between camps, and sometimes across international boundaries, as well as deep-rooted reluctance of refugees to reveal personal information to census-takers, make it very difficult to obtain accurate statistics concerning them.
As far as I know, the census was never completed and the problems of exaggerated numbers of refugees remain, even today. A sense of entitlement will turn many people into lazy opportunists, and if they have no disincentive to act that way this behavior gets passed on to the next generation, and the following ones as well.


MORALE

26. Strangely enough the general morale of the refugees is higher than might be expected after spending more than two years in exile under most trying conditions. Real trouble-makers are confined to a very small proportion of the total number of refugees, and food strikes and work stoppages are generally considered to be the result of organized pressure groups.

27. During August, a campaign of bitter criticism of the Agency, its motives and personnel, was carried on in a large section of the Arab Press. The rather unvaried monotony of the charges gave indication of central inspiration. An organized series of work stoppages occurred in Lebanon in early September wherein small groups threatened the workers in such a manner that they declined to work for a time. The Syrian office of the Agency, located in Damascus, was destroyed by explosives and a bomb was thrown at a truckload of workers in Lebanon. Threats of violence have been made against individual employees of the Agency. It seems likely that the two campaigns--denunciations in certain sections of the Arab Press and violence--are closely related and spring from the same source which fostered the food strikes in the early days of the Agency.
Arab governments in general considered UNRWA the enemy, and they did everything possible to thwart any chance of solving the refugee crisis, instead wanting to use the refugees as pawns to pressure Israel. This attitude has not changed in sixty years.

REFUGEES IN ISRAEL

30. In Israel, the Agency has provided relief to two types of refugees, Jews who fled inside the borders of Israel during the fighting, and Arabs in most instances displaced from one area in Palestine to another. Jewish refugees at first numbered 17,000 but, during the current summer, all but 3,000 of these have been absorbed into the economic life of the new State. Arabs on relief were first numbered at 31,000 but many have been placed in circumstances in which they are self-supporting, so that it was possible to reduce the number to 24,000 at the end of August 1950.

31. Recent discussions with the Israel Government indicate that the idea of relief distribution is repugnant to it, and the Agency was informed that already many of the 24,000 remaining refugees were employed and that all able-bodied refugees desiring employment could be absorbed on works projects if they would register at the government registry offices for that purpose. It was stated that they all have status as citizens of Israel and are entitled to treatment as such. It was claimed that after cessation of relief, aged and infirm refugees would be cared for under the normal social welfare machinery of Israel. The Agency was requested to share financially in a programme of re-establishment of displaced Arabs now within the boundaries of Israel.
How great a contrast is there between how Israel treated its Arab refugees and how the Arab nations did! Within a short time after the war, Israel managed to fully integrate every single Arab refugee as citizens (and they eventually allowed tens of thousands more to come into Israel for family re-unification.) Not only did Israel inform the UNRWA that its services would not be needed for long, but said that the very idea of an outside agency taking responsibility for its Arab citizens is repugnant!

So while the number of Arab claimants for UNRWA services went down from 31,000 to zero in a relatively short time, in every Arab country those numbers only increased.

Fully half of the report deals with specific works projects that were attempted to allow the refugees to find jobs. As we now know, most of these projects went nowhere because of fears by Arab countries that their Palestinian Arab brethren would want to actually stay in their countries as equal citizens.

The appendix of charity organizations and NGOs that contributed to help the Palestinian Arabs does not mention a single Muslim charity.


UNRWA just had a meeting where they described their financial problems in providing services - works programs are now tiny initiatives run by UNRWA itself, and in many ways UNRWA itself is a Palestinian Arab work program as it employs many descendants of refugees. It has become rabidly anti-Israel and intensely political.Even though there are far more "refugees" today than could ever fit in a nascent "Palestine," UNRWA still refuses to request that Arab governments do their part to reduce the number of stateless Arabs.

Jordan hosts some 41% of all "refugees" today. Yet Jordan was the only Arab country to extend citizenship to non-Jewish Palestinians. One must wonder, why there are still refugee camps in Jordan 62 years after 1948? The vast majority of camp residents are full Jordanian citizens! Yet, because UNRWA is now a mere self-perpetuating technocracy, Jordan has no incentive to integrate these citizens into its population even today - 60 years after Israel did exactly that.

  • Thursday, June 24, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Check out this video that describes how Palestinian Arab leaders speak differently in English to Western audiences and in Arabic to their own people.

Richard Landes, of the Augean Stables blog and now also a correspondent for PJTV, interviews Itamar Marcus, director and founder of Palestinian Media Watch.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

  • Wednesday, June 23, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
The (Saudi) Arab News started up a new section called "Gaza Bleeds," where it throws all pretense of journalist objectivity out the window.

One article it reproduces is a list of "records" that Israel supposedly has broken. Included are some statistics that are complete fiction, like Israel had deported 4 million refugees, or that it was "established upon the ruins of another nation that it destroyed; Palestine," or that Israel uses depleted uranium bombs, or that Israel has developed "abortion efficient, infant killing tear gas"...you get the idea.

Since everyone knows what monsters Israelis are, then all of these "facts" must be true by definition.

Another fictional article on the page quotes Iran's PressTV  about a "secret CIA memo" that forecasts Israel's destruction that is equally fictitious.

It is important to read, though, because most Arab news sites try to pretend that they are objective and fact-based. Here, we see what Arabs really say to each other and to ignorant Westerners about Israel when no one is around to call them on it. These are the sorts of "statistics" and "facts" that we can expect are being bandied about in closed-door meetings on European and American college campuses; in private Free Gaza and Viva Palestina mailing lists, and on Arabic message boards and blogs. It is rare for the public face of English-language Arab journalism to be exposed this explicitly, but you can be sure that the anomaly is the exposure, not the dissemination.
  • Wednesday, June 23, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon


The Aish.com sweepstakes to win a trip to Israel is almost over.

Second prize is an Apple iPad, which is now legal to use in Israel.

Click here to enter.

Full disclosure: For every entry done through this blog, I get a chance to win as well.
  • Wednesday, June 23, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Suzanne mentioned the case of Khaled Said, the young Egyptian man who was abducted by police from a cafe and then beaten to death in front of witnesses.

Even though we have pictures of him that show he was beaten, the Egyptian coroner had initially pronounced that he died of "asphyxiation."

Well, human rights groups demanded an investigation, and guess what - the coroner agrees with the other coroner!
After performing a second autopsy on the body of 28-year-old Khaled Saeed, the young man from Alexandria allegedly beaten to death by police on 6 June, state coroners concluded that the victim had died of asphyxiation rather than as a result of police brutality, as is claimed by human rights activists.

According to a preliminary report, the second examination of the body--exhumed following demands by human rights watchdogs for a second autopsy--reconfirmed that Saeed had choked to death on a "foreign body." The report goes on to identify the "foreign body" in question as a packet of Marijuana, which had lodged in the victim's throat and prevented him from breathing. The report strongly suggests that the death had been accidental.

According to witnesses interviewed earlier by Al-Masry Al-Youm, Saeed had been forcefully searched by two police officers before being removed from a local Internet cafe in Alexandria. Witnesses say he was subsequently beaten to death on the sidewalk as passersby looked on.

Initial reports said the officers had demanded money from the victim. Members of Saeed's family, for their part, say the young man had been targeted because he possessed video footage of police officers engaging in drug deals.


Like the first examination, ordered by Attorney-General Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, the second autopsy brushed aside claims by human rights groups that the victim had been savagely beaten to death at the hands of police officers.

The second autopsy, performed by an independent, three-man committee appointed by official forensic authorities, "noted" the injuries, but concluded they had been sustained when police officers attempted to "control" the victim as he resisted arrest. "The injuries are light, and were not the cause of death," reads the report, which was sent to Alexandria prosecutors this afternoon. The report goes on to assert that examinations had revealed the presence of the drug Tramadol in Saeed's intestinal organs.

Leaked pictures of Saeed's dead body show his face bruised and badly shattered after the fatal encounter with police. His lips are cut and bloody, dangling over an obviously dislocated jaw. Eyewitnesses previously confirmed to Al-Masry Al-Youm that the beating Saeed received by police had been "excessive."

Last week, Muhammad Abdel Aziz, a lawyer with the Cairo-based El-Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, said that Saeed's head had hit a marble table during an initial assault inside the cafe, after which the young man was subject to an even more savage beating outside. “He screamed at them, saying, ‘I'm dying, leave me,' before falling to the floor,” said Abdel Aziz.
  • Wednesday, June 23, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
I quoted Earth Times on Monday saying that a UN drone strike in Pakistan killed a Hezbollah member, Mohammed Ali Hamadi.

It turns out that this person is a well-known terrorist. He is (or was) one of the hijackers  of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, along with, Imad Mugniyah, when a US Navy diver was killed. He is on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list.

His family is being quoted in Al Quds al-Arabi that he was not killed or that he was even in Pakistan but they are not saying where he is. Hezbollah has been silent on the matter.
  • Wednesday, June 23, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
The Algerian goaltender in the US/Algeria game being played right now is Raïs M'Bohli, who I mentioned last month was being slammed by Algerian fans for not being a real Algerian - because his Algerian mother is Jewish and he was raised in France.

So far, he has made some nice saves.

UPDATE:  The US won, no signs of any riots, M'Bohli did an excellent job, and he denies being Jewish.
(h/t research)
  • Wednesday, June 23, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
NPR interviews a Gaza expert, Lawrence Wright, about the easing of the closure and background info.

It is not nearly as bad an interview as it could be, but the bias and wishful thinking is typical and needs to be exposed:

In June 2006, a young Israeli solider named Gilad Shalit was abducted from a crossing called Kerem Shalom in southwestern Israel. And since then, he's been held captive. The Israelis surrounded the strip and sealed off the borders and went rummaging through the residential areas looking for him. Four hundred Gazans were killed in the next several months, and the Israelis said they weren't going to leave until they had recaptured Gilad Shalit. But by November [2006], it became pretty obvious that that wasn't going to happen.

Yes, about 400 Gazans were killed in Operation Summer Rains - and two thirds of them were militants.(Actually, another couple of hundred of Gazans were violently killed from mid-2006 - by other Gazans. This bit of context is missing.)

The funniest part of the interview, though,  is this one:
Right now I think we have a very ripe moment for change in the relationship between Israel and Gaza in particular. Suddenly the Israelis announce that they are easing the blockade. Well, it would be a good time for Hamas to respond and a great way to do that would be to release Gilad Shalit unconditionally. It would, I think, make a huge impression on the world community and I think it would provide face-saving for the Israeli authorities and also a powerful incentive to respond in kind. That would be the most ideal outcome of this entire flotilla episode.
Yeah, wouldn't that be swell? Wouldn't it be just keen if Israeli confidence-building measures were ever reciprocated by Arabs, rather than being used as a reason to harden their positions because of perceived Israeli weakness?

The fact that soneone who actually spent time in Gaza still believes that Western-style logic might be appealing to Hamas' leadership shows indicates how badly real analysis is being impacted by wishful thinking. Anyone who has spent a half hour looking at the history of the region knows that  goodwill gestures are never voluntarily reciprocated by Arabs. They make concessions when their backs are against the wall, not when they have just gained a victory.

But, just for fun, so a quick search to see if any Arab or Arab sympathizer has given the slightest indication hat Israel's announced easing of the blockade is appreciated or even desirable. On the contrary, every single statement I have seen is that it is meaningless, that without a full lifting of the closure it is a joke, that Gazans should have no restrictions whatoever on importing concrete or iron - or, if anyone would bother to ask these people, weapons.
  • Wednesday, June 23, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
I have been staying away from blogging about the interminable reconciliation negotiations between Fatah and Hamas, mostly because it has followed the same pattern for years: a spurt of rumors that an agreement is close and then the crushing realization that nothing has changed.

This pattern was repeated this week again, when there was a flurry of hope and rumors that an agreement was "thisclose" to being signed. Then, Hamas speaker Aziz Dweik publicly said that negotiations hit a "dead-end."

But never fear, because Ma'an's editor assures us that there are serious back-channel negotiations, but the window of opportunity is quickly closing...

Sorry, but it closed when Hamas took over Gaza. There is no way they will relinquish a de facto Islamic state to Fatah, and the only way there will be a "reconciliation" is if Hamas manages to take over the West Bank too.
Palestine Today again shows us its universal symbol for Israel - the one inspired by the Third Reich's propaganda.

  • Wednesday, June 23, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Asharq al-Awsat gives more details on the terror cell that Morocco discovered and dismantled this week.

The leader of the cell was a Palestinian Arab named Yahya al-Hindi. He completed his jihadist training, including weapons and explosives training, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He tried to enter Morocco five times. The first four times he was denied entry, but then he married a Moroccan woman to make it in successfully in May, 2009.

He managed to build a terror cell of eleven members from different areas of the country.

Authorities in Rabat believe that he thought that Morocco was a great place to recruit members of his cell because of its many anti-Israel rallies held there (euphemistically referred to as "Palestinian solidarity demonstrations.")

His Palestinian origins are not expected to hurt the relationship between Morocco and the PA.
  • Wednesday, June 23, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Asharq al-Awsat reports that the Lebanese Minister of Transportation says there is no ship named the "Maryam" registered in a port in Lebanon, although there is a ship called the Julia that is being renamed to the "Naji al-Ali."

The Maryam is supposed to be the ship that would take women towards Gaza, while the Naji al-Ali is the ship that was supposed to take "journalists." Both of them are really organized by Hezbollah with Iranian help, and the "journalists" were mostly members of Hezbollah as well.

The "Julia"  is docked at the Lebanese port of Tripoli. Yesterday, it sat in port with a couple of people performing repairs - no sign of activists and no sign of loading any aid. Lebanese army troops prevented people from getting closer.

According to a newspaper source, the Naji al Ali can only accommodate some 16 people, including 7 crew, not close to the 50 journalists that they claimed would be on board. The boat is registered in Bolivia.

Either way, it is certain that the boats' departures are not imminent, and that the organizers did not do all of the necessary groundwork for the voyages.

(UPDATE - I made a mistake in the original translation; I thought the Julia was the Maryam.)

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

  • Tuesday, June 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon




A young man in the town of Al Jouf, Saudi Arabia, apparently had some compromising pictures of a young lady. It is unclear how he came to gain these photos - at times, men cajole women to take pictures of themselves and send them over email; other times men take the pictures themselves during an illicit relationship.

As is often the case, the man attempted to blackmail this woman, threatening to expose these pictures unless she does what he wanted.

The courageous young woman called up our heroes at the Muttawa, also known as the Hai'a, otherwise known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, to take appropriate action against this blackmailer.

The Hai'a jumped into action, meeting the young man and interrogating him.

But instead of arresting him, they arranged a different kind of punishment: the young man and lady are now going to get married.

The article in the Saudi Gazette unfortunately doesn't mention how ecstatic the woman must be to have a chance to spend the rest of her life with a man who tried to blackmail her, nor whether he already has a wife or three. However, we can be sure that the Commission is very happy over its new role as a matchmaker, and will attempt to convince other young women of the advantages of marrying those who had heretofore just been using them.

Good job!
  • Tuesday, June 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Al Masry al-Youm:

Coinciding with the tenth anniversary of the death of former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad's and the nomination of his son Bashar for presidency, a number of Syrian human rights researchers backed by Freedom House have released a report on the situation of citizens forcibly disappeared within the country's prisons.


Around 17,000 were lost in the Tadmur Prison Massacre in 1980. Sixteen thousand others are thought to have been systematically killed, according to the report, which further details how more than a million Syrians have suffered government discrimination and penal measures due to their links with the missing persons. Women, the report says, became the main victims of the disappearances.

Among those targeted were members of the Muslim Brotherhood, communists, Palestinian organizations, Jordanians, Lebanese, and some Iraqis, the report says.
Quick! Call UNHRC-Man! He'll know what to do!

  • Tuesday, June 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Firas Press quotes the Jordanian Addustour newspaper about a soccer fan who asked to stay in prison for the duration of the World Cup.

Apparently, the tournament is being shown for free in Jordan's prisons, and he would have to pay to see it on the outside.

He asked his father not to do anything to help get him out of jail for the duration.
  • Tuesday, June 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Benny Morris has, unsurprisingly, trashed the Ephraim Karsh book "Palestine Betrayed" I reviewed recently.

Writing in The National Interest Online, Morris takes Karsh to task for getting a large number of facts wrong about he War of Independence, which Morris has written about extensively.

Morris' main objection, apart from the factual errors, is the  one-sidedness of Karsh's work. Reality is messy, and Karsh does not allow for nuance. This is a valid objection, especially in respect to Karsh's continuous citations of Zionists' benign intent towards Arabs in the land, something totally at odds with the standard new historian narrative where Israel is portrayed as the villain. From my perspective,  I looked at Karsh as a needed counterbalance to the new orthodoxy of Israel's history, an added dimension to the topic but not a comprehensive history on its own - which is clearly isn't.

Speaking for myself, admittedly from the single source of the Palestine Post archives, I think that Karsh accurately portrays the mindset of the mainstream Zionists. I've seen many contemporaneous editorials in the Palestine Post and none of them that I have seen showed the antipathy towards Arabs that the current conventional wisdom assumes. To be sure, the newspaper was not enamored of Arab terrorists - but it was equally scathing towards the Irgun. The general tone, which I think reflects liberal Zionist thinking at the time, was one of peaceful co-existence and of improving the Arabs' standards of living. 

Any historian can take outlier data and twist it to look like the norm, and readers must take the historians at their word that what they are writing reflect reality. The only way to get an idea of people's mindsets is by reading a lot of what they were writing - not just the cherry-picked quotes but the entire context as well as the seemingly unimportant and irrelevant writings. Morris is certainly more honest, and has less of an agenda, than most of the other "new historians."

I found this comment by Morris to be most interesting, though. After chiding Karsh on his unorthodox use of footnotes that make it near-impossible to check sources, something which bothered me as well, he writes:
But most historians probably won’t bother to work out these interminable referential puzzles if only because they will have been put off, long before, by the palpable one-sidedness of Karsh’s narrative. All too often it gives off the smell of shop-soiled propaganda. And, let me quickly note, I say this despite the fact that I am in almost complete agreement with Karsh’s political conclusions (which in some way emerge naturally and, I feel, irrefutably from the history) and in some measure with his history as well.
So while Morris feels compelled to point out Karsh's mistakes - and he should - he admits that Karsh's larger themes are accurate, even as they are biased. This is a striking comment given that Morris has been in Karsh's crosshairs for a long time.
  • Tuesday, June 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
IRIN, the UN's humanitarian news service, puts together a "factbox" on Palestinian "refugees."

It has the usual distortions that we are all used to (like saying that UN Resolution 194 gives Palestinian Arabs the right to return, without mentioning the important caveat there and all the other sections of that document that were vehemently rejected by the Arabs and accepted by Israel.) It also uncritically accepts the definition of "refugee" that is unique to Palestinian Arabs alone and no one else, that guarantees that the "refugee" population will grow in perpetuity.

One small part of the article shows how a lie can take hold. It says that "Estimates vary greatly on the annual rate of new displacements, but Palestinian sources cite up to 20,000 newly displaced persons per year. Reasons for new displacement include Israel’s construction of a separation barrier in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the construction of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, the revocation of residency rights and house demolitions.

20,000 people losing their homes every year? When a dozen people who built an illegal structure are forced to move out it generates international headlines for months. The idea that there are 20,000 cases like that every year is an insane fiction.  

Yet the UN has no problem citing it as an authoritative statistic, without mentioning any other source that might put the number at closer to, say, 200.
  • Tuesday, June 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Palestine Today quotes Russian news agency RIA Novosti as saying that Israel had the opportunity to assassinate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah twice in recent months and held off, for fears of igniting a wider conflict. (I couldn't find that story at RIA.)

PA president Abbas is incensed at Hamas' demand that he coordinate any visit to Gaza with them. He says thathe is the president and can visit his people any time he wants. Well, Hamas treated his loyalists with a little less than respect three years ago, by slaughtering them, but maybe he'd be treated better.

Iran is planning a blockade-busting ship to sail this Sunday. It will have 1100 tons of "aid." The world seems to have forgotten another recent Iranian ship, filled with the type of aid that Hamas desires. And another ship from Iran that was filled with "aid" going directly to Hamas.

Meanwhile, smugglers in Rafah are upset over Israeli plans to ease the closure, saying that they will go out of business. The prices of consumer goods have plummeted in the past couple of days because of Israel's announcement of easing the closure - Egyptian soda has gone down by 30%, and 40-inch flat screen TVs have been reduced from $2000 to about $1200. At the same time, factory owners are asking Hamas not to allow Israel to send in soda, biscuits and ice cream because that would undercut their own pricing and put them out of business as well.

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