Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, December 31, 2010

Happy New Year!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year (and a Shabbat Shalom :) )

Let's hope for a great 2011!

I want to thank the people who generously gave me donations through my new PayPal button on the right, as well as those who managed to donate through the old Google Checkout button in the few hours before Google pulled it. I also want to thank those who viewed the Hasbara 2.0 video I made (also available on the right sidebar), those who bought items from my Printfection and CafePress stores and those who bought their Amazon items through the sidebar item as well. I really do appreciate it!

See you next year!

Weekend links

Bat Ye'or on Delegitimizing the Jewish State.

Lauren Booth is bankrupt - not only morally, but financially too. (via Israellycool)

WSJ on the Leviathan gas field in Israeli territorial waters and the problems being created by greed.

Wikileaks: US frustrated with Egypt's military (that gets $1.3 billion a year.)

A bit of a conflict of interest by J-Street's leader.

A White House clueless about Syria.

A 16% increase in aliyah this year.

A prominent Saudi sheikh says that Islamic terrorists (against Muslims) are working for the Zionists, Americans, Orientals and Europeans. Of course, he loves terrorists that kill Jews.

(Orientals?)

Abbas to celebrate Fatah's first terror attack

Mahmoud Abbas, that so-called moderate leader of the Palestinian Arabs, is set to make a major televised speech tonight to commemorate the 46th anniversary of the start of the "revolution."

What happened 46 years ago?

On January 1, 1965, Fatah attempted its first terror attack, trying to blow up part of Israel's water infrastructure.

Note that this is not the anniversary of the founding of Fatah - which happened in 1957. No, Abbas chooses to commemorate the anniversary of the first Fatah terror attack. That, to him, was the start of the "revolution."

Which indicates exactly how much Abbas values peace as a goal.

Christians flooding out of Iraq

Another day, another attack:

One week after an Islamic extremist group vowed to kill Christians in Iraq, a cluster of 10 bomb attacks rattled Baghdad on Thursday night and sent additional tremors of fear through the country’s already shaken Christian minority.

Two people were killed and 20 wounded, all of them Christians, according to the Ministry of the Interior. The bombs were placed near the homes of at least 14 Christian families around the city, and four bombs were defused before they could explode.

Christians have been flooding out of the country since the siege of Our Lady of Salvation, a Syrian Catholic church, in October that left nearly 60 people dead, including two priests. Many Muslim clerics and worshipers offered support to Christians after the siege. The Islamic State of Iraq, an extremist group affiliated with Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack, and on Dec. 22 it promised more on its Web site.

For some Christians here, the latest attacks represented the last straw.

“We will love Iraq forever, but we have to leave it immediately to survive,” said Noor Isam, 30. “I would ask the government, ‘Where is the promised security for Christians?’ ”

Even before the coordinated assault, Baghdad had come to resemble a battle zone for Christians, who have come increasingly under attack since the American-led invasion in 2003. Before Christmas, several churches fortified their buildings with blast walls and razor wire, and many canceled or curtailed Christmas observances.

For some reason we aren't seeing any extremist Christians bombing mosques. But I thought that all religions spawn extremism equally!

Of course, Christians are also fleeing the Palestinian territories, and Lebanon, and they are harassed in Egypt. But for the life of me I cannot figure out that these instances of persecution have in common. Must be the economy. Or the Zionists.

See also Daled Amos.

Hamas praises press freedoms - as long as the media do Hamas' bidding

Hamas held a ceremony to celebrate journalists in Gaza yesterday, especially those who received international awards this year.

Hamas' prime minister Ismail Haniyeh accused the Israeli media of engaging in psychological warfare against Gazans, presumably for doing some actual reporting.

He said that Hamas does not suppress media freedoms in Gaza, and then he described exactly what their role is by praising the "role of media in the Palestinian liberation struggle against the occupation."

Haniyeh also complimented the Palestinian Arab media on not doing the "occupation's" bidding.

Meanwhile, PCHR noted that Hamas confiscated the camera and mobile phone of a correspondent for the Chinese News Agency just last week.

Wikileaks: State Department is not always so big on free speech

A new Wikileaks cable reproduced by Aftenposten shows that the US was worried about the potential republication of the Mohammed cartoons on the first anniversary of the cartoon crisis.

While the US diplomats did not pressure the newspaper to desist from running the cartoons, they were clearly worried that it might happen and they - understandably - wanted at least some warning so they could inform US interests worldwide to be on alert for possible violent riots. The Danish government made it very clear that they felt that freedom of the press was a priority and told the US that what would happen if they tried to pressure the newspaper Jyllands-Posten:

In a subsequent conversation with the Ambassador September 26, [Prime Minister Rasmussen´s national security advisor, Bo] Lidegaard confirmed that "Jyllands-Posten" was weighing a second run of the cartoons but indicated that the government did not want to get directly involved in the matter. So sensitive was the issue, Lidegaard told the Ambassador confidentially, that the prime minister´s office had made a conscious decision not to alert the foreign ministry or the intelligence services. (RAO´s sounding of a senior intelligence official days earlier suggested that the service was not paying any attention to the looming anniversary.) Furthermore, Lidegaard explicitly warned against any attempt by us to openly influence the paper´s decision, which, if made public, the prime minister would have to condemn, he said. Lidegaard agreed, however, that no harm would come from a straightforward query from us to "Jyllands-Posten" about their plans.

But the conclusion of the cable has a phrase that indicates that official US policy states that freedom of the press is not as high a priority as it is in Denmark:

This episode illustrates that the Danes have drawn mixed lessons from their experience in the cartoon crisis. These lessons have positive and negative implications for the U.S. On the good side, the Danes have stepped up engagement in promotion of democracy and reform abroad, especially in the Middle East. They now recognize the need to improve integration and outreach to the country´s immigrant communities. Since the cartoon crisis, they have extended troop mandates in Iraq and Afghanistan. On the negative side, though, this popular center-right government has hardened its views on the absolute primacy of free speech. The prime minister appeared willing to let Jyllands-Posten dictate the timing of the next Islam vs. West confrontation without question or open discussion within the government. While this particularly vulnerable moment of the cartoon anniversary may pass without violence, our discussions this past week remind us that the Danish front in what they see as a clash of civilizations could reopen at any time.

Again, I can understand why the State Department would want to have input on events that could have worldwide ramifications, such as a new cartoon crisis. But it is jarring to see a State Department cable say that free speech is considered a "negative."

(h/t Zach via Facebook)

Hamas destroys a building. No one cares.

Azmi Desouki wanted to start a business in Gaza, and since people are always getting married, he decided to build a wedding hall in Khan Younis.

He received all the necessary licenses and completed all the paperwork needed, and built it. The hall was nearly ready to be opened.

Yesterday, according to Palestine Press Agency, Hamas destroyed it.

The reason? None was given, but it is assumed that it was political, as Desouki identifies with Fatah.

However, there are not armies of international journalists, living in comfortable hotels, ready to pounce on Hamas' demolition of buildings of political opponents, especially in an area where it is difficult to get building material to begin with.

No "Imams for Human Rights" putting out press releases, no "Gaza Committee Against Demolitions" demanding justice, nothing.

Apparently, having a totalitarian government that suppresses the press and NGOs pays off in spades.

Florida Arab woman arrested in Rafah with pen-cameras

From Ma'an:

Egyptian authorities on the Rafah crossing said Thursday that officers detained a Palestinian woman with a US passport for failing to explain why she carried six camera-pens with her.

Each recorder, Egyptian officials said, had an eight gigabyte memory, three cameras and high-grade voice recorder. The click-device at the top of each pen act as the on'of switch, officials said.

The woman, a resident of the American state of Florida, was said to have "not given a clear reason" for why she was carrying the pens, and transferred to the public prosecution by Egyptian state security.

One official told Ma'an that he believed the pens could be used for spying, adding that the sites of Gaza militant groups were a prime target for spy operations. The official, who preferred to remain unnamed, would not explain why he believed the woman was involved in a spy operation.

8 GB spy pen cameras, only $39.95 each.

So who hired her? A lot of parties could use such devices in Gaza, from Hamas to the PA to the US and Israel.

Wikileaks: Ahmadinejad gets slapped in the face

From Naharnet:

The chief of the Revolutionary Guard heatedly slapped Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in early 2010, a leaked U.S. cable revealed.

According to the February 2009 diplomatic cable, Revolutionary Guard Chief of Staff Mohammed Ali Jafari held Ahmadinejad responsible for the post-election "mess" in 2009.
It quotes an Iranian watcher in Baku, Azerbaijan, who connected that Ahmadinejad felt that in the aftermath of the post-election street protests "people feel suffocated."

The source said that in a gathering with his national security council, Ahmadinejad "mused that to defuse the situation it may be obligatory to allow more personal and social freedoms, including more freedom of the press."

This provoked a fiery response from Jafari, according to the cable:

"You are wrong! (In fact) it is You who created this mess! And now you say give more autonomy to the press?!," he said.

Jafari, according to the cable, then slapped Ahmadinejad in the face "causing chaos and an immediate call for a smash in the meeting."

It took the intervention of Ayatollah Ahmad Janati to get Jafari and Ahmadinejad back to the table, the report said.

I can't wait for the YouTube video leaked from the Mossad cameras that witnessed this....

Update: Commenter Gerrit points out that the article's timing doesn't make sense. Chances are that the cable was written in February 2010, not 2009. Unfortunately the cable is not available on the Wikileaks site and some newspapers are getting the cables from other sources, making it difficult to check the facts.

(h/t Noah Pollak via Twitter)

Is a Jordanian writer about to be killed? (UPDATED)

(UPDATED

Mudar Zahran is a Jordanian writer of Palestinian descent who has written some articles that have raised the eyebrows of many Arabs.

One of his more controversial articles was this excellent op-ed in the Jerusalem Post from last August.

MANY OTHER Arab countries are no different than Lebanon in their ill-treatment and discrimination against the Palestinians. Why do the media choose to ignore those and focus only on Israel? While the security wall being built by Israel has become a symbol of “apartheid” in the global media, they almost never address the actual walls and separation barriers that have been isolating Palestinian refugee camps in Arab countries for decades.

While Palestinians targeted by the IDF are mostly fighters pledging war on Israel, the world swiftly overlooked the Sabra and Shatila massacre in which Lebanese Christian and Shi’ite militiamen butchered thousands of Palestinian women and children. Unsurprisingly, the international media accused Israel of being responsible for the massacre, despite the fact that live testimonies aired by Al-Jazeera satellite television a few years ago show massacre survivors confirming that IDF commanders and soldiers had nothing to do with the killing.

The demonization of Israel by the global media has greatly harmed the Palestinians’ interests for decades and covered up Arab atrocities against them. Furthermore, demonizing Israel has been well-exploited by several Arab dictatorships to direct citizens’ rage against Israel instead of their regimes and also to justify any atrocities they commit in the name of protecting their nations from “the evil Zionists.”

This game has served some of the most notorious Arab dictatorships, and still does today, as any opposition is immediately labelled “a Zionist plot.”

An earlier JPost article more directly attacked his country's discrimination against Palestinian Arabs:

This lack of political and legislative representation of Jordanians of Palestinian heritage has been enforced by decades of systematic exclusion in all aspects of life expanding into their disenfranchisement in education, employment, housing, state benefits and even business potential, all developing into an existing apartheid no different than that formerly adopted in South Africa, except for the official acknowledgement of it.

The well-established apartheid system has created substantial advantages for East Bankers who dominate all senior government and military jobs, along with tight control of security agencies, particularly the influential Jordanian General Intelligence Department, all resulting in tribal Jordanians gaining superiority over their fellow citizens of Palestinian heritage.

The fact that East Bankers have done very well under the current situation provides motive for Jordanian officials to maintain the status quo and work on extending it; especially as the helpless Palestinian majority has no say and very little it can do against such conditions.

That article got Zahran into trouble. From Ammon News (Jordan):

An uproar of criticism against Mudar Zahran's op-ed entitled "Jordan, Dr. Peace and Mr. Apartheid" published in the Israeli "Jerusalem Post" newspaper on Sunday led the writer to contact 'Ammon News' editor-in-chief to relay his "apologies" to the Jordanian people over claims he made in the op-ed describing Jordan as an "apartheid state" in its treatment of Jordanians of Palestinian heritage.

In a letter sent to 'Ammon News,' Zahran relayed his apologies to the Jordanian people and stressed that he will not repeat this 'mistake.'

"I would like to inform you of the following decision: I have decided to announce today, and after my latest article in The Jerusalem Post, that I will not publish any articles or reports in any language related to Jordanian domestic or foreign affairs," he wrote in his letter.

Now, he might be in serious trouble. His new Facebook status is:

Here I am, with the possibility of getting killed by the Jordanians, possibly living my last hours or days, with not many interested people in my case... if I get killed, just please all be informed, it has happened on the orders of King Abdullah II of Jordan and nobody else.

I will be away for some time, if you do not hear from me again guys, please be assured...I was sincere and I cared for all.

Mudar

A screenshot of his Facebook status:

I can't find any details on any threats or arrests, but this is very frightening news coming from Jordan.

(h/t Folderol)

UPDATE: Here is what Mudar wrote on Facebook answering a question:

Ahoovah, following an appreance last week on Aljazeera, in which I said we ARabs can only wish our secuirty agencies can treat us like the Mossad does to the Palestinians, and that the Mossad does not hurt or beat up its own citizens like Arab counterparts do, and that the Jordanian intellogence opressed the Palestinians, threats ame in the form of articles: "Mudar, security agencies know your secrets and even where you have coffee in London" Ammon News, "Mudar, a man gets assasinated from where he thinks is safe, death follows you wherever you go". Al-Maenhah News....keep in mind, countless threats were made on my life including one made to my directly on offical media in Jordan by a Jordanian Intelligence major, calling for my head to be chopped off in the UK.