Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Journalist hospitalized after Hamas detains him

In yet another story of Hamas repression that flies under the radar, a Gazan journalist Hossam al-Mughany was detained by Hamas and placed in solitary confinement for six hours. Since he has back problems, he had to go to Shifa hospital afterwards for treatment.

But Hamas arresting and intimidating journalists is a dog-bites-man story, and the media doesn't even bother to protect their own - because they are scared of Hamas as well.

Will the PA cabinet resign next week?

I've seen a couple of Arabic articles now saying that the PA ministers will resign next week and there will be a major re-shuffle.

A Fatah spokesman was quoted a couple of days ago as saying that "Next week we will form a new government representing the aspirations and ambitions of the Fatah movement."

It is unclear what Salam Fayyad's role will be in the new government, although everyone seems to agree that he would maintain his Finance Minister portfolio.

But from all appearances, it will involve a strengthening of Fatah's already serious grip on power - and Fayyad is not a member of Fatah.

How much agricultural Gaza land does Israel's buffer zone take?

One of the oft-repeated claims about Gaza is that about 30% of its farmland is eaten up by Israel's buffer zone. This claim has been made by many, including the UN, as in this quote from 2009:

"Bear in mind that 30% of Gaza's most productive land is within that buffer zone."

More often, the figure given is as a percentage of "arable land" - for example, this UN document says that "The area inside the Buffer Zone along the northern and eastern borders with Israel contains nearly a third (29%) of the Gaza Strip's arable land, and is inaccessible to farmers."

However, a recent conference in Gaza by the hardly impartial "Palestinian International Campaign To End The Siege On Gaza" claims that Israel's buffer zone takes up 22.5 km2, or 6.25% of Gaza's total land, and that it takes up 20% of Gaza's arable land.

Both these claims are absurd.

The second, smaller claim is easy to demolish. According to the CIA World Factbook, Gaza has 29% arable land, or 104.4 km2. Gaza's total area is 360 km2. If the buffer zone takes up 22.5 km2 - a debatable point itself - then that means that 100% of Israel's buffer zone is arable land, and zero percent is desert or unusable.

A quick glance at Google Satellite images shows that while there are many strips of green land at the border,

much of the southern half of Gaza has no such usable land (here is near the Gaza airport:)

Similarly, much of the northern border with Israel does not appear to be usable for agriculture, as parts are urban.

So even the claim that Israel takes up 20% of the arable land is nonsense, according to their own figures.

Now, how about the claim that Israel's buffer zone is 22.5 km2 to begin with?

Israel officially sets the buffer zone at 300 meters. Israel's border with Gaza is 51 km, so that multiplied by the 300 meters comes out to 15.3 km2, not 22.5. This is a little harder to argue because Israel's attackers claim that the buffer zone in reality extends as much as a full kilometer into Gaza at certain points, but without bringing too much hard evidence for this claim. Without seeing a map of the supposed real buffer zone I cannot check those claims.

There is another important fact to point out, however: Most people don't know what "arable land" means, and think that it is identical with "farmland." However, that is not the definition at all. The UN defines two important terms:

Arable land is the land under temporary crops, temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (for less than five years).

Land under permanent crops is the land cultivated with crops that occupy the land for long periods and need not be replanted after each harvest.

For the purposes of calculating the amount of land available for agriculture, both those types of land must be included.

Guess what? While Gaza has 104 km2 of arable land, it also has over 75 km2 of land under permanent crops!

So, contrary to the UN quote above, Israel isn't taking up 30% of Gaza's "most productive land". It is, at most, using up loser to 12% - even assuming that 100% of that buffer zone land is arable. In fact, the percentage is probably one third less, from eyeballing the map, or perhaps 9% assuming the figure of 22.5 km2 is accurate.

If Israel's figures of 15.3 km2 is closer to the truth, again assuming that one third of that land is unusable, then Israel's buffer zone might be taking up closer to 5% of Gaza's potential and real agricultural land.

There is a big gap between the 30% quoted by the UN above and the reality of 5%-10%.

Oldie but goodie: IDF pilot lands F-15 with one wing

Fascinating video from The History Channel:

I looked up this incident. It happened in May, 1983, so I doubt that much of the video of the plane flying with one wing is real.

It's a great story, though.

(h/t Yerushalimey)

New battle: Hamas versus lingerie

From Ma'an:

Gaza police announced Wednesday restrictions on women's lingerie and dress stores across the Strip.

Among the prohibitions include displaying lingerie or pajamas in store windows, having fitting rooms or cubicles inside shops, and using tinted glass for store windows. Security cameras inside women's stores will also be banned.

Gaza police spokesman Brigadier Ayman Al-Batniji said the new restrictions will "protect morals and allow people to feel comfortable as they walk down the street."

They won't even allow the display of PaHamas Pajamas? Now, I'm upset!

Mecca bid to replace Greenwich as center of world time zones

Two years ago, Al Arabiya reported:

Muslim scientists and scholars have called for the world to replace Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) with Mecca time, press reports said Thursday.

Prominent scholar, Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawy, said modern science had provided evidence that Mecca was the true center of the Earth, the BBC reported.

One scientist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca's was in perfect alignment to the magnetic north, it added.

The scientist further went on to argue that GMT was imposed on the rest of the world by force during the times of the British Empire and said it was about time that changed.

The scholars were speaking at a conference held in Qatar titled 'Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice'.

It seems that a new skyscraper being built in Mecca is intended to further that claim.

The Abraj Al Bait Towers, which are due to be completed this year, will be 601 meters (1,972 ft) high. At the top will be four giant clocks facing each direction - the world's largest, and highest.

A new Al Arabiya article, in Arabic, is a light piece about a reporter visiting the British National Maritime Museum and Royal Observatory in Greenwich and asking workers there whether they had ever heard of Mecca Time or of the Abraj Al Bait clock tower, which is challenging Greenwich to claim the title of the center of the world's time. None of them did.

One interesting vignette from the article:

On the actual meridian line is a long concrete strip which contains the names of major world cities, that tourists can stand upon. The Al Arabiya reporters was offended for two reasons. One was that the only Arab cities listed were Riyadh and Cairo; the other was that Jerusalem was listed there:

At the edges of the strip they etched the names of some famous capitals in every continent, including only two Arab capitals, namely Riyadh and Cairo, and in between there was a "capital" of other Middle East nation in Asia, which is Jerusalem capital of Israel.

I told an employee who was nearby that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel, and Britain does not recognize it as such. He said: "I am not responsible for this section, but it seems that the name of the cities are there without any mention that they are capitals of Israel or any other nation, and as you can see there are cities such as Sydney, New York and Rio de Janeiro and others, that are not capitals. They seem to select the names of cities they consider famous asexamples. "

I said: "Mecca is also famous - its name is mentioned by more than a quarter of the world's population almost every day, is it not there?

I requested telephone contact information for the employee in charge of the names on the concrete strip, and I received a tactful and respectful answer:

They do not put the name of Mecca so it would not to be trampled underfoot.

A couple of observations from this story:

The Arab Muslim reporter saw the word "Jerusalem" and automatically assumed that this was a legitimization of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, when it could have been easily interpreted as capital of Palestine, had he really had such a bizarre notion. In other words, decades of Muslim indoctrination about "Al Quds" and "Palestine" has not made a dent in the fact that everyone knows that Jerusalem is the real capital of Israel!

And doesn't it look like this reporter is looking for reasons to seethe? He sees only two Arab cities listed, and is upset; he sees Mecca not listed, and he is upset; he sees Jerusalem, and he is upset; and only when he is told that Mecca's absence is for reasons of respect does he calm down.

By the way, the National Maritime Museum that the reporter was trying so hard to find offense at has a Ramadan webpage, a page on the Islamic calendar, and pictures of a number of Islamic timepieces and astronomy tools (such as a compass to find Mecca.) It does not have a separate page about the Jewish calendar.

Three idiots; three critics

Three prominent people recently said some very stupid things. Three wonderful critics ripped them to shreds.

Melanie Phillips on David Cameron
Jennifer Rubin on Oliver Stone
Evelyn Gordon on Roger Cohen

German anti-semitism on the increase

From Der Spiegel, an article I missed from two weeks ago:

It was supposed to be a carefree festival in Sahlkamp on the outskirts of the northern German city of Hanover. Billed as an "International Day" to celebrate social diversity and togetherness, the June celebration included performances by a multicultural children's choir called "Happy Rainbow" and the German-Turkish rap duo 3-K. Music from Afghanistan was also on the program.

But then the mood suddenly shifted.

When Hajo Arnds, the organizer of the neighborhood festival, stepped onto the stage at about 6:45 p.m. to announce the next performance, by the Jewish dance group Chaverim, he was greeted with catcalls. "Jews out!" some of the roughly 30 young people standing in front of the stage began shouting. "Gone with the Jews!"

The voices were those of children -- voices full of hate, shouted in unison and amplified by a toy megaphone. Arnds, the organizer, was shocked. He knew many of the children, most of them from Arab immigrant families in the neighborhood.

A social worker, Arnds tried using the tools of his profession -- words -- to save the situation. But his words were met with stones, thrown at the stage by people taking cover in the crowd. One of the stones hit a female Chaverim dancer in the leg, resulting in an angry bruise.

...Until now, attacks on Jews, Jewish institutions and Jewish symbols have almost always been committed by right-wing extremist groups. In the first quarter of 2010 alone, the German Interior Ministry documented 183 anti-Semitic offences committed by right-wing radicals, including graffiti, inflammatory propaganda and physical violence.

The stone-throwing incident in Hanover, however, has finally forced the authorities to take a closer look at a group of offenders that, though largely overlooked until now, is no less motivated by anti-Zionist sentiments: adolescents and young adults from an immigrant community who are influenced by Islamist ideas and are prepared to commit acts of violence.

An informal and accidental alliance has been developing for some time between neo-Nazis and some members of a group they would normally despise: Muslim immigrants. The two groups seem to share vaguely similar anti-Semitic ideologies.

Anti-Semitism from the two groups shows itself in different ways in Germany. On the one hand, there are the efforts of extremist right-wing groups, which tend to follow a certain pattern. During a football match in April, for example, supporters of SV Mügeln-Ablass 09, a district-league football club in the eastern state of Saxony, chanted "a tree, a noose, a Jew's neck" and "we're building a subway, from Jerusalem to Auschwitz," until the match was stopped.

According to the German government's response to a parliament inquiry by Left Party politician Petra Pau, Jewish cemeteries in Germany are defaced, vandalized or destroyed about once every 10 days. Memorial sites are also frequently targeted. Last month, for example, extremists defaced a memorial plaque in the western city of Bochum, a Jewish cemetery in Babenhausen in the state of Hesse and a memorial in Beckum in the Münsterland region.

TV productions like the Iranian series "Zahra's Blue Eyes," broadcast into the living rooms of immigrant families in Germany, only add to the problem. The program is based on a horror story in which a fictitious Israeli general has doctors remove the eyes of a Palestinian girl so that they can be transplanted into his blind son.

Such propaganda apparently serves as a breeding ground for anti-Jewish sentiments among poorly integrated members of the immigrant community -- sentiments which can quickly explode into violence. In late June, for example, two Israeli tourists made the mistake of conversing in Hebrew at a Berlin nightclub. Another guest, apparently of Palestinian descent, asked them where they were from. When one of the tourists, a 22-year-old man, replied, "from Israel," the man attacked him and his companion.

The situation escalated when a Turkish-born bouncer intervened and attacked the Israelis with pepper spray. The tourists were able to flee and required medical treatment. Law enforcement officials assume that the attack was the result of "anti-Semitic sentiment." The bouncer and the man who attacked the Israelis, whose identity is still unknown, are being investigated for aggravated assault and battery.

The Jewish community in Worms, located in the southwestern state of Rhineland-Palatinate, was also the target of a recent attack. In mid-May, unknown assailants tried to set the city's historic synagogue on fire. Forensics experts later identified eight sources of fire at the crime scene. In addition, a Molotov cocktail was thrown through the window of the synagogue's library.

The community was lucky; the building did not go up in flames. Nearby, the police found letters claiming responsibility, written in broken German: "As long as you don't leave the Palestinians alone, we won't leave you alone."

Since "Islamophobia" is considered so rampant, can anyone name a single place in Europe where people are safer showing their Jewishness in public than people showing their affiliation with Islam?

(h/t Legal Insurrection from Soccer Dad)

Today's PalArab news (7/28/2010)

PA president Mahmoud Abbas, in an interview where he was emphasizing how much he wants peace, mentioned how he feels that Tzfat (Safed) is the most beautiful city in the world. He was born there in 1935. Abbas was on a trip to Africa to shore up his support there.

Two people were seriously wounded from an apparent "work accident" in central Gaza.

An Iranian delegation is expected to arrive in Gaza in the next few days. They will be bringing in aid (and, in all probability, cash for Hamas) via Egypt, and Egypt says it has no problems with any nation wanting to go through proper channels to deliver aid. This may mean that a threatened Iranian ship to Gaza has been canceled. - However, Al Arabiya quotes Iran's PressTV that a political delegation from Iran is not being allowed into Gaza from Egypt. I am not sure if these are the same people.

UNRWA is planning to distribute some 20,000 laptops to Gaza schoolchildren this coming year.

In another case of a multinational company pushing a single religion, Nokia is expanding its line of Ramadan software that runs on its mobile phones.

Scathing attack on Fayyad

Palestine Times, a pro-Hamas newspaper, published a scathing attack on PA prime minister Salam Fayyad.

The article compares Fayyad with the hedonistic Roman emperor Nero, as a "parasite sitting at the head of parasites in the West Bank." The author is particularly upset at the proliferation of nightclubs in the territories, which it claims is being done under American orders.

The PA, referred to as "lice," is castigated for pretending to defend Palestinian Arab heritage - but, the author asks, "What heritage are they talking about!!?? Are there traditions that intertwine the hands of women and men together?? Is there a tradition of mixed dancing and lack of decency?!"

This supporter of Hamas, which recently opened up the Gaza Mall as well as tourist spots for Gazans, asks rhetorically how the PA could countenance these sorts of clubs while so many Palestinian Arabs are suffering from Zionist crimes.

He says that "nightclubs and bars were encouraged by America to spread immorality in the streets of the West Bank, as a number of press agencies and news channels file reports on life in the streets of Ramallah and publish images of nightlife in the bars in the city as if to say, 'look at what we have achieved, we liberated Israel from terrorism, and America's dream of a Palestinian state is closer than ever before!!'"

He concludes by saying that Nero created an army of prostitutes, and that the head of prostitutes must be a prostitute and the leader of a pack of dogs must be a dog. He sarcastically blesses Fayyad, "carrying the banner of immorality in Palestine," but reminding him in an oblique threat that the "top of the pyramid may be removed by force."

The epic battle between Ahmadinejad and Paul the Octopus

From YNet:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Paul the Octopus, the sea creature that correctly predicted the outcome of World Cup games in South Africa, is a symbol of all that is wrong with the western world.

During a speech he delivered in Tehran over the weekend, Ahmadinejad said the octopus is a symbol of decadence and decay among "his enemies", and accused the octopus of spreading "western propaganda and superstition."

"Those who believe in this type of thing cannot be the leaders of the global nations that aspire, like Iran, to human perfection, basing themselves in the love of all sacred values," Ahmadinejad said.

Mahmoud the Madman's problem with Paul is probably because of Islam's dislike for black magic.

But perhaps some of that visceral hate is because of the long tradition of anti-semites comparing the Jewish community (and, more recently, Israel) to that very creature.

From 1938:

to just last month:

Google News links to incomprehensible gibberish

Once upon a time, I aspired to have my blog be indexed as a news site in Google News.

After reading this article from a "news" source called International.To News, I am quite happy not to be in that crowd.

Here are only two paragraphs that indicate a deep psychosis on the part of the writer:

WikiLeaks is a CIA front organization. WikiLeaks releases High Security Military Documents. "The White House is screaming like a stuck pig. What nonsense. Obama’s war puts the lives of American soldiers at risk, and the craven puppet state behavior of "our partners" in serving as US mercenaries is what puts their troops at risk."Posted by Paul Craig Roberts. WikiLeaks’ release of the Afghan War Documents "puts the lives of our soldiers and our coalition partners at risk." New information on U.S. military manufactured illegal war and death struggle with itself. 91,000 pages of high security military documents is not new information, merely a deception for very old toxic barbarism. The entire global masses of citizenry are now witness to this hyper self destruction and in fact are the main recipients of this systematic double speak. An extreme toxic and pervasive odor of genocide filtered in the Zionist controlled media as a pretext to invade all of Asia through Pakistan. So in effect everything streaming from wikileaks is filtered to the mainstream media American press prohibiting Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Expression. http://wikileaks.org/

Oliver Stone article on Sunday relating to Zionist control of America. Oliver Stone: "Jewish control of the media is preventing free Holocaust debate." Outspoken Hollywood director says new film aims to put Adolf Hitler, who he has called an ‘easy scapegoat’ in the past, in his due historical context.....Everyone is cognizant, that lazy intellect Hollywood repeats this particular senario operating "a worn out a three day old shirt collar" methodology. Looking for big money investors for his next film. What better way than to create controversy to bring in welfare taxpayer big money from the supreme Wall Street leeches and parasites. Reptitive and extremely boring methodology, to bankroll and have Mr. Stone grovel apology. Read Stone's apology and groveling less than 24 hours of his statement go here. Zionist media control through the deception that Hitler killed 30 million Russians and deflect historic fact thatBolshevik Wall Street revolution was responsible. Posted by Oliver Stone: Jewish Lobby has distorted United States foreign policy for years

What is this guy on?

Speaking of gibberish in the supposed news media, check out Roger Cohen's latest in the NYT. Evelyn Gordon showed how wrong Cohen's assumptions are, and Fresno Zionism pointed out some other major mistakes Cohen makes.