Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 05, 2010

Saudi man almost married his "breast sister"

Firas Press reports on a man who was very close to marrying his own "sister."

A 30-year old man from the Asir region had already booked the banquet hall and sent out the invitations, when an aunt contacted him and told him that his late mother had nursed his fiancée many years before. According to Islam, that maker her his "breast sister" and he is therefore forbidden from marrying her.

The man said he'd be especially careful to make sure he doesn't make that mistake for his next bride.

In a related story, Saudi feminists threatened to take advantage of the recent fatwa that suggested that Saudi women should breastfeed their drivers in order to avoid them being illegally alone with their female passengers in the car by making the male drivers their "sons." They proposed that they would go through with the fatwa's recommendations and breastfeed these men, unless the Saudi authorities allow women to drive!

(h/t Ali for translation help)

Iran unveils robot for "sensitive jobs"

From Al Arabiya:

Iran has developed a new human-like walking robot to be used in "sensitive jobs," government newspaper Iran reported on Sunday.

Soorena-2, named after an ancient Persian warrior, was unveiled by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday. It is 1.45 metres (4.7 feet) tall and weighs 45 kilograms (99 pounds), the report said.

"Walking slowly like human beings with regular arm and leg movements are among its characteristics," it said. "Such robots are designed and developed to be used in sensitive and difficult jobs on behalf of a person or as help."

Now, what sort of "sensitive jobs" might such a robot be meant for? Perhaps something - radioactive?

And doesn't the robot that Iran claims to have developed strongly resemble the Honda Asimo robot?

Saudis teaching parrots the Koran

Al Arabiya talks about a phenomenon in Saudi Arabia where people are teaching parrots to repeat long stretches of the Koran.

Some parrots can do multiple chapters.

Which brings up the question: can a parrot win a Koran-memorization competition?

Rocking the Casbah (The Muqata)

You just know that this will end up as fodder for Israel bashers, and leftists will be outraged, and there's an outside chance that the UN will hold a special session to denounce it, but it is funny nonetheless.

From JoeSettler at The Muqata, soldiers in Hebron show off their moves:

Lebanon mourns a terrorist leader

From Naharnet:

The Lebanese government declared Tuesday a national day of mourning over the death of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah.

A government statement also announced a one-day countrywide shutdown on Tuesday.

Fadlallah, former spiritual mentor of Hizbullah and branded a "terrorist" by Washington, died in hospital on Sunday. He was 75.

Fadlallah's funeral will take place at 1:30pm Tuesday in Beirut's southern suburbs of Haret Hreik.

Note that this day of mourning was not declared by Hezbollah, or even Lebanon's Shiites. It was declared by Lebanon's government.

Kristof visits Gaza, leaves without a clue

Nicholas Kristof, who we have just seen taking a guided tour of the West Bank and uncritically parroting the words of his tour guide, writes an equally clueless dispatch from Gaza.

The problem with closing off Gaza, quite aside from the injustice of collective punishment, is that it tends to foster just the extremism that most threatens Israel and the entire Middle East.

How many times must this idiotic truism be demolished? Israel has made concessions to Arabs and those concessions have stoked extremism (withdrawal from Gaza, withdrawal from Lebanon, a peace treaty with Jordan....) Hatred of Israel is independent of Israel's actions, and very dependent on Israel's continued audacity to exist. History has shown again and again that the quietest Israeli borders come after Israel fights to secure them. Arabs do not think like Westerners do, and Kristof's projection of his liberal ideas onto a completely different people with a completely different mindset is representative of everything wrong with Western efforts at diplomacy.

One can argue as to the effectiveness of the closure, but the idea that it has somehow made Hamas more extremist is beyond stupid. In fact, Hamas is now in a position where it is actively trying to stop rockets from being shot towards Israeli citizens daily - and those rockets were being sent by the thousands before the closure and before Cast Lead. This is an obvious counterproof to Kristof's thesis, yet it escapes him.

It’s very hard to gauge how popular Hamas is, but my vague sense is that Hamas may have lost popularity since the election in 2006 and since my last visit (2008). This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Israeli policies, but rather with weariness with Hamas’s Islamism, nuttiness and intolerance. Antics like Hamas’s attacks on summer camps for kids are emblematic of how the group antagonizes ordinary people.

Hamas is a bloodthirsty regime that routinely tortures and murders its political opponents. Yet Kristof minimizes this reality by using words such as "antics" and "nuttiness."

People are just tired of Hamas, and if Israel would stay out of the picture there’s some hope Hamas could eventually be displaced.

Kristof implies that they are just like some outlying political party who managed to get into office by a fluke and will be gone by the next election, if only Israel doesn't interfere.

He has no idea of how much Hamas has solidified its grip on Gaza.

Hamas has ruthlessly removed any opposition from teachers' unions, student leadership, doctors' associations, mosques, and the news media. They have used supposedly democratic elections to become an autocracy. They have spent the past two years solidifying and entrenching their political and military hold on Gaza. How can Kristof visit Gaza and not know these basic facts? How can he even conceive that, even if Gazans are unhappy with Hamas (and they are), that they are not powerless?

Once again, we see that the most prestigious newspaper in the United States will happily publish nonsense from one of its senior columnists, and this received wisdom will now trickle down into the consciousness of ordinary Americans either from their reading it directly or from the moronic mindset influencing wire service agencies and countless local news outlets. Kristof is not merely wrong - he is mind-bogglingly wrong. Yet because he managed to visit Gaza - where he apparently did not speak to a single ordinary Gazan citizen and where his itinerary was vetted by Hamas itself - he is now regarded as an expert on the matter.

He is nothing of the sort. He is a dupe who didn't do even basic research and didn't ask a single hard question from his hosts.

Today's PalArab news (7/5/2010)

A Jordanian included a symbolic wooden key with his wedding invitations to remind party guests of how they really don't want to forget their homes in Palestine. One reminder of his status came from Mahmoud Abbas himself, who stressed that "Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians," in a speech that could one day result in Jordan revoking citizenship from many more of its citizens of Palestinian Arab ancestry.

All for their own good, of course.

Last week there was a war of words between Hamas' Mahmoud Zahar and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit concerning Hamas. This week, Egypt is attempting to mend fences, sending delegations to Gaza and Damascus. Egypt wants to make sure that its influence in negotiations between Hamas and Fatah is not damaged.

One way that Fatah and Hamas are battling is via issuing passports. The PA sends a limited number of (blank) passports to Gaza every month, far less than Hamas demands, and Fatah is now accusing Hamas of giving all of the passports to terrorists from the Al Qassam Brigades. Hamas is demanding another hundred thousand passports, presumably for Gazans to travel through Rafah.

Now, what could the Qassamis be doing with the passports?

The World Health Organization is warning that many of Gaza's beaches are contaminated with sewage, and that Gaza's dumping of raw or partially-treated sewage in the Mediterranean is a major health problem. It could start affecting Gaza's vegetables, fish, milk and meat. The mayor of Ashkelon is also complaining that the contamination is reaching his beach, and warns that it could ruin affect Cyprus and Turkey if not addressed. In the past, Hamas has used pipes meant for sewage treatment to build Qassam rockets.

Egypt intercepted another half ton of TNT, as well as mortar shells and old anti-aircraft missiles, on their way to Gaza.

Firas Press reports that a senior Al Qassam member used some of his thugs to torture his brother's wife, who is now being treated for her wounds. The torture included beating her with sticks and pouring olive oil into her nose. Nice to know that Hamas has ways to keep olive oil manufacturers in Gaza in business.

Islamic Jihad is awaiting the release of some of its members from prison. They say that some of the prisoners were tortured. The prisoners may be released this week - by Egypt.

Gaza economic news

Gaza manufacturers of sodas and other beverages are appealing to the Hamas government to intervene and not allow Israel to ship competing items into Gaza, warning that it will cause the loss of hundreds of direct jobs in their industries. They say that the traders who profit from these imports are only a handful of people and that Israel is using this as an opportunity to destroy the Gaza economy. They also point out that while the consumer goods are getting through, the raw materials they require to stay competitive are not, as of yet.

Meanwhile, prices on consumer goods in Gaza continue to plummet. Canned food prices have gone down by 50% in the past two months, and the clothing market is saturated from the combination of tunnel smuggling and goods from Israel. Window-shoppers are expressing astonishment at how inexpensive goods are. Consumers are not yet buying, though, as they wait for the PA salaries which are due by the end of the week. (The EU just sent millions of euros to pay this month's PA salaries, one third of whose employees are in Gaza.)

The retailers also expect to do much better next month at the beginning of Ramadan, which begins around August 11th.

Overnight open thread

I went on a day trip with the family and am a bit too tired to blog.

So....open thread time!

Egyptian columnist prays - can we have a siege too?

MEMRI translates an article in Egyptian daily Rooz al-Yousuf:

After the [Hamas] movement abandoned the real resistance and turned to resistance online and in the media, one of Hamas's many websites published an important report comparing prices of goods and produce in Egypt and in Gaza.

The report states: A kilo of watermelon in Gaza costs less than one Egyptian lira, while in Egypt it costs over two lira; a kilo of tomatoes in Gaza costs less than half a lira, while in Egypt it costs 1.5 lira; a kilo of potatoes in Gaza costs half a lira, while in Egypt it costs two lira; a kilo of onions in Gaza is one lira, while in Egypt a kilo of onions is 1.5 lira; a kilo of garlic in Gaza is 10 lira, while in Egypt it is 15 lira.

A kilo of chicken in Egypt is 20 lira, and in Gaza it goes for only 10 lira. The average price of a kilo of beef in Egypt is 60 lira – while in besieged Gaza it goes for five lira. A tray of eggs in Egypt is 19 lira, while in Gaza it is only 10 lira."

This comparison of prices between Egypt and Gaza, which has been under siege for three years, as they say, shows that life under siege is cheaper, more convenient, and easier...

So what siege are they talking about? Does the siege cause prices to drop? And how are goods flowing into Gaza despite the siege? ...

These questions are not being raised [here] in expectation of an answer from Hamas, but they are directed at all Hamas supporters in Egypt who see nothing wrong with accusing their own country of betraying the Palestinian cause and of starving the helpless Palestinian people with the oppressive siege on Gaza.

If this is what it's like in Gaza under siege, then the Egyptian people, who have been burned by the fire of prices and who peel off part of their limited income to save the besieged Gaza residents, [should] pray to Allah to smite them with [such a] siege, if the siege will lead to lower prices and make it possible for every common citizen to buy eggs, meat, and poultry like the Gaza residents do.

(h/t Islamo-Nazism blog)

Gaza homes destroyed by - Hamas

From Al Jazeerah:

The reporter still manages to blame Israel in the end....

(h/t Jed)

Amazing article by a Muslim woman physician

Qanta Ahmed writes a long piece in the HuffPo about the flotilla and how hatred of Israel in the Muslim world - and beyond - warps perceptions. Excerpts:

For a long time, the portrayal of Israelis has been universally monolithic: oppressive, brutal, inhuman and heartless. The parallels between Israeli and Jew; military engagement with national identity; state policy with individual responsibility are conveniently blurred into one homogeneous, maligned, dislikeable edifice. Evidently we, the viewers, the invisible media auteurs, have lost all powers of nuance and discernment. In every report, Israeli brutality, whether on the ship, or in Gaza has been emphasized, both implicitly and explicitly.

At no point have I heard a sane discussion on the complex reasons why a blockade was in place or indeed why Egypt had for years cooperated in maintaining the blockade through the closure of Rafah. Rafah remained firmly shut throughout the entirety of Operation Cast Lead, immutably so, even in the face of pleas from the Arab world. Egypt's collusion in Operation Cast Lead was an acutely felt betrayal which resonated globally.

I was in Riyadh in those first days of what would become known as Operation Cast Lead, watching the episode unfurl from within the region. Within the first week, Saudi Arabia had gathered massive humanitarian aid at the behest of apical leadership. Despite the military incursion on Gaza, passage of aid was categorically and absolutely obstructed. It wasn't the Israelis refusing access to regional Arab aid - no the deniers of the Saudi appeals were not Jews, they were Muslims. It was Muslim-majority Egypt which refused to allow Saudi Arabia access to an open border even to deliver medical aid and supplies. Quite uncomfortable for Muslims to think about, wouldn't you agree?

And was Egyptian denial due to fear of Israeli retaliation? Perhaps -indeed that is a convenient construct, which does likely contain kernels of reality. However, more significant, the borders remained closed because, simply put, Egypt doesn't want to face a mass migration of Gazans.

These and other such details are irritating distractions, messy deviations, from a chiseled, binary portrayal which both the media, its bipolar audience and master media manipulators seek to display when we think about Israel and Palestine, Muslim and Jew. As world media becomes ever more comfortable with the portrayal of Israel as monolithic villain devoid of conscience, anti-Israeli criticism begins to ascend in volume, and commentary further deteriorates. This is a frightening descent and should concern all of us, irrespective of one's politics, faith or relationships.

At one stage, a spokesperson for Hamas appeared on the BBC citing that Gazans have no need for aid, adding " we do not need to fill our bellies". Well, the world thinks otherwise. In his astonishing defiance revealed by a casual, throwaway comment, the spokesperson revealed the prime goal of the Flotilla's mission, as he perceived it: to run the gauntlet against the blockade, not to alleviate material needs of his suffering electorate. The Flotilla was a bald and blatant political move designed to humiliate and provoke.

His remarks reveal the extent to which Palestinians are now objectified political pawns, rather than a people. While we are comfortable with the longstanding objectification of Palestinians by Israelis as the 'other' in the form of a security threat (after all Israel must balance a constant struggle to determine the needs of a terrorized Israeli citizenship over the needs of an exploding ever-younger ever impoverished, increasingly radicalized Gaza population) we fail to encounter our own sinister objectification of the Palestinians which we accomplish so effectively all by ourselves. This objectification is not only held by their revolving, corrupt leadership, but also by an objectifying Muslim world. We the Muslims need the Palestinians to remain locked in their plight so that they might continue to serve as the Ummah's scotoma (a blindspot) which literally prevents us from seeing our own more immediate distresses, distresses which might demand our attention and perhaps even require societal interventions . We would be lost, disarmed, and stunned without an external locus for our rage which is so piercingly trained on Gaza and the West Bank, so piercing in fact that Darfur barely warrants a sidelong glance.

Does this exonerate Israel? No. Does this implicate Muslims? You bet.

It gets better. Read the whole thing.