Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

AP joins the "Gaza isn't so bad but it is really bad" meme

Last week I mentioned how the New York Times resurrected the meme that started last year, saying that while Gaza is not in such bad shape it is still a really horrible place.

And then, like an obedient son, Reuters followed suit.

Today, little brother AP joins the party:

Maher Khoudari boasts that his Gaza grocery has a wide assortment of chocolates for sale — even some you couldn't find in the cosmopolitan Israeli city of Tel Aviv. The problem is, there is no one to buy them.

So AP actually believes that Gaza shopkeepers are so ignorant of basic economics that they import rare and expensive chocolates that no one in their market could buy???

Israel eased its blockade of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory a year ago and now allows virtually all consumer goods in, meaning there are no longer acute shortages of foods or basic household items. Tiny construction projects have begun sprouting up, and Gaza is awash in big ticket items such as cars and refrigerators.

But deep troubles remain....

"Israel has made much of the fact that there is no starvation in Gaza," said Gaza economist Omar Shaban. "But the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is not about food," he added. "The humanitarian crisis is about education, it's about development, about imprisonment."

Funny...everyone in Gaza gets a free education.

Amjad Shawwa, a development worker and anti-blockade activist, says the blockade has deprived nearly 7,000 Gaza fishermen of a living, and water, sanitation, electricity and road projects remain stalled.

"You probably won't find hungry people, but the feeling of injustice and frustration is pervasive in all homes," Shawwa said.

Of course, neither AP nor the other media have the imagination to go across the border to Rafah or El Arish and ask average Egyptians there what their lives are like - whether fancy chocolates and expensive cars are for sale there, whether they are getting free education and medical care, and whether they feel "frustrated." Because, apparently "frustration" is now the scourge that must be eradicated from people's lives.

Or is that only from some people's lives?

Thomas Friedman, trusting dead men (David G)

From David G:

At the Aspen Ideas Festival, Thomas Friedman was quoted:

"...Every one of the Arab leaders is a dead man walking. It’s about dignity.”

Friedman's belief is that eventually technology will bring about the downfall of all current Arab despots (even, apparently, the benevolent ones.)

Nearly ten years ago Friedman had a different view of Arab leaders.

One Friedman's most famous columns, An Intriguing signal from a Saudi Prince began:

Earlier this month, I wrote a column suggesting that the 22 members of the Arab League, at their summit in Beirut on March 27 and 28, make a simple, clear-cut proposal to Israel to break the Israeli-Palestinian impasse: In return for a total withdrawal by Israel to the June 4, 1967, lines, and the establishment of a Palestinian state, the 22 members of the Arab League would offer Israel full diplomatic relations, normalized trade and security guarantees. Full withdrawal, in accord with U.N. Resolution 242, for full peace between Israel and the entire Arab world. Why not?

This is interesting on a number of levels:
a) These leaders, most of whom are still in power, are now dismissed by Friedman as yesterday's news, are precisely the ones he was telling Israel to trust and make peace with.

b) In a recent column Friedman wrote:

For the last 30 years, Israel enjoyed peace with Egypt wholesale — by having peace with just one man, Hosni Mubarak. That sale is over. Today, post-Mubarak, to sustain the peace treaty with Egypt in any kind of stable manner, Israel is going to have to pay retail. It is going to have to make peace with 85 million Egyptians.

That same "logic" would have applied with every single other Arab regime; if the people of the newly free regimes opposed peace with Israel, Israel would have to adjust its expectations.

c) Though right now Friedman poses as a supporter of freedom and democracy, in 2002 he didn't care how Arab regimes treated their citizens. If they made (an insincere) offer of peace to Israel, he would let them off easy.

How the Dutch flotilla backfired and gained Israel sympathy

From Yochanan Visser at Pajamas Media:

A Dutch ship was organized as part of the Gaza flotilla in order to help Hamas, portray that effort as humanitarian, and create anti-Israel sentiment. The story of how this effort backfired is a fascinating tale of contemporary political warfare. Indeed, the end result has been to make the Dutch debate more pro-Israel and anti-Islamist.

Many articles — often with Dutch Internet media taking the lead — exposed alliances between Dutch far leftists and local Islamists who, together with some Christian groups, formed the organization Nederland-Gaza organizing Dutch participation in the second Gaza flotilla. The result has been a serious public debate and an actual increase in pro-Israel activity and support in the country.

The Dutch blog KeesjeMaduraatje was one of the first to publish material about extremist elements in the second Gaza flotilla, revealing that Free Gaza Holland’s chairman, Rob Groenhuizen, was a convicted communist extremist who used to be a member of Dutch groups affiliated with the German terrorist Rote Armee Fraktion.

Groenhuizen’s group also had ties with the Palestinian terrorist organization PLFP and members participated in a terrorist training camp in Yemen in 1976.

In an e-mail exchange, Groenhuizen’s wrote about the second flotilla’s real goal:

This game about humanitarian aid is part of a tremendous plot — something that Israel tries to postpone as long as possible — but with every uprising in the Arab world and each mistake Israel makes, the end is coming nearer. … Everybody knows Israel is not sustainable.

Other Internet media reports about ties between Dutch NGOs and extremist Palestinian groups caused the Dutch government to change the guidelines on government subsidies for NGOs that fund anti-Israel groups. There is now a debate in the country over cutting back sharply on such funding.

While these developments have exposed the Gaza flotilla as an operation of Hamas and radical left groups seeking to delegitimize and discredit Israel, they also have much broader significance. What has happened in Holland is a case study showing how Internet publications and research on the hidden radicalism and extremist ties of purportedly humanitarian and moderate groups can change government policy, media attitudes, and public opinion.

Read the whole thing.

Speaking of the Dutch, here is an update on the amazing disappearing Dutch flotidiots from Radio Netherlands:

The Netherlands-Gaza Foundation www.nederland-gaza.nl had reserved 32 places on board the Stefano Chiarani. Prominent Dutch citizens had been invited. In the end, 15 people expressed an interest. Now there are only seven people left, and one or two might still jump ship before the boat actually sets sail. All the Dutch journalists, including myself, withdrew last week after we lost confidence in the organisation.

The floatards think that they are winning, though:

Another day has passed. And yet another delay. One of the latest press releases from the Netherlands-Gaza Foundation quotes 19-year-old Chris Verweij, the youngest of the Dutch participants: "Whatever happens with our flotilla, Israel will not stop us. We might not sail today or tomorrow or next week or next month. As Mahatma Gandhi said: first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

He has it exactly backwards: Last year they fought, now the world is laughing at them, and next year they will be ignored.

Israeli group launches "counter-flotilla"

From Ma'ariv:

Right-wing group Im Tirtzu has in the past few hours participated in an act of protest at the port of Piraeus in Greece against the flotilla ships trying to leave to Gaza.

Im Tirtzu leaders Erez Tadmor and Ronen Shoval accompanied by four other activists arrived at the shores of Greece, where they hired a yacht to pass by the ships of the pro-Palestinian flotilla protesterss the ships of the pro-Palestinians in the port of Piraeus. Activists sailed between the ships with their yachts covered in posters with the picture of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. Activists also distributed information materials in English, which states that "freedom flotilla" of leftist activists "must sail towards the oppressed cities in Syria - and not Gaza." In light of the extraordinary act of right-wingers, there was much media interest among the journalists who came to Greece to cover the international flotilla.

(h/t Joel)

Latest setbacks for flotidiots (updated)

From AFP:

A small French pleasure craft with eight protesters on board left Greek waters overnight and set off for Gaza in an attempt to break an Israeli naval blockade, organisers said Tuesday.

The "Dignite al Karama" is so far the only boat in a planned flotilla organised by pro-Palestinian activists to set sail from Greece, after the authorities there blocked other vessels from taking part in the protest.

The 19-metre (63-foot) motor cruiser is carrying, among others, the former French far-left presidential candidate Olivier Besancenot, Green Party Euro-MP Nicole Kiil-Nielsen and trade unionist Annick Coupe.

They expect to be off Gaza within an day or two, the group told AFP.

But the latest tweet from the floatard camp seems to indicate otherwise:

I am getting reports that the French boat in #freedomflotilla2 that left from corseca and has been in intl waters is turning back

(UPDATE: Confirmed.)

Another tweet indicates that the "Stefano Chiarini" boat, which is registered in Togo, is being de-registered by that country - causing much consternation among the anti-Israel flotidiots:

Togo threatening to deregister our boat (Togo flagged) due to pressure from Israel. #flotilla2

Our vessel the Stefano Chiarini is registered in Lome togo. Togo now wants to de-register our ship. #freedomflotilla2

Oh Togo! Now you're controlled by Israel too?! You've lost your mind, Togo... Please God, they're lost..

It's like watching a slow-motion train wreck, without the fear of any injuries outside the very sensitive feelings of the hypocritical anti-Israel flotilosers.

UPDATE: New tweets say that Togo did not de-register the boat.

Hamas using flotilla to incite against Mahmoud Abbas

That fabled Palestinian Arab "unity" continues to unravel, as Hamas activists are trying to characterize Mahmoud Abbas as being an Israeli stooge in the flotilla follies.

Dutch Hamas leader - and leader of the flotillas in 2010 and 2011 - Amin Abou Rashed's Facebook page quotes a story in Safa.ps and picked up elsewhere, claiming that the Greek offer to transfer flotilla aid to Gaza was not negotiated by Israel, but by Mahmoud Abbas together with Greece's foreign minister.

The source for this rumor seems to be simply the flotilla fools themselves, who are now calling it a "stab in the back" by Abbas who had in 2008 characterized such actions as a "silly game."

Who knew that the flotilla flop would be yet another wedge issue between Hamas and Fatah?

Flotilla Follies keep on going. Comedy gold!

From AFP:

Thirty pro-Palestinian activists on a Canadian boat bound for Gaza that was stopped out of a Greek port Monday for breaking a ban, defied authorities by claiming they had all captained the ship.

Greek coastguards halted the Canadian vessel Tahrir about 10 minutes after it left port on the island of Crete Monday afternoon with some 40 people on board, organisers said.

"We have been boarded by about 15 armed special forces," David Heap of the Canadian Boat to Gaza organization said by phone from the vessel.

"I'm being blocked by a man with a machine gun," he said over the noise of shouting from passengers he said were being pushed around. "We are not using force back," he added.

The Tahrir, which was carrying activists from Canada, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Turkey, was forced to turn back to Aghios Nikolaos port in Crete, as Heap and others shouted, "We have to go to Gaza. Let us pass!"

It had sailed without a captain in the hope of avoiding a severe legal repercussions.

Passenger Joseph Dube, a former Belgium senator with an expired captain's licence, had sailed the ship and agreed to take full legal responsibility, according to the Tahrir's spokesperson Huwaida Arraf.

When authorities boarded the boat and demanded to speak to the captain, some 30 passengers "claimed they were the captain," she said.

"Everyone took part in manning the boat in one way or another -- they all had a go at sailing it. The idea is that it will be difficult to arrest 30 people," she said.

It is not yet clear what will happen to the passengers on the Tahrir.

"We left as a volunteer crew. It was legal for us to do so under international law, they had no right to stop us," Heap said, adding: "Our destination is still Gaza."

Earlier on Monday, French activists had been joined by their American counterparts to stage a "symbolic departure," on the Louise Michel boat in defiance of the Greek ban.

"And we're off!" shouted the passengers, cheering and waving as the captain of the Louise Michele unfurled the sails and wildly beeped the boat's horn, chanting "One, two, three four, Occupation No More!"

Activists from the impounded Audacity had begun a hunger-strike in front of the US embassy on Sunday to protest against the arrest of their captain, who was allegedly being held in "shocking conditions".

They were quickly moved on by police.

French Captain Alain Connan said he had decided not to set sail because he risked being slapped with a long prison sentence.

Head of the Palestinian National Initiative (PNI) Moustafa Barghouti said the demonstration was an "exciting moment" and that people in Gaza had "already called to say how grateful they are for such a devoted show of solidarity".

Standing out on deck wrapped in a Palestinian flag, he said the protest was helping "expose not only Israel's blockade and occupation but also the complicity of the European and American governments".

Fatah-oriented Palestinian Arab media are pretty much ignoring the entire flotilla story. Hamas prime minister Haniyeh saluted the would-be seafarers.

The US Boat to Gaza website adds:

Two boats from France – a cargo ship and a smaller passenger boat – are in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. (They did not set sail from Greece.) We are not sure what they are planning on doing.

The Irish boat was sabotaged beyond repair last week and the Greek boat was also sabotaged but we do not have an update on their status.

Free Gaza called for a protest today in front of the Greek embassy in London.

I couldn't find any footage of this massive London protest - for some reason none was uploaded to the Free Gaza site - so we will have to make due with footage of the Dublin protest, where a huge crowd of eight people or so got to listen to other people shouting unintelligible slogans with bullhorns:

Montreal managed to scrounge about a dozen lethargic protesters in support of the floptilla:

The flotidiot's tweets are also hilarious, as they compare the Greeks stopping them from sailing to Nazis "following orders." Their smug sense of self-righteousness - where they are now "fasting" for their flotilla - is classic. You can get a taste of their holier-than-thou attitudes in this report from Euronews:

Of course, Israel is the source for all evil, and now the Greeks are guilty by proxy.

And here are the poor, starving children that they are trying to help so badly:

Grapel still in custody

Last week Yediot Aharonot published a rumor that Ilan Grapel would be released in by the weekend.

Obviously, that didn't happen.

Palestine Today says that Egypt rejected a US plea to release Grapel, saying it is a matter for the Egyptian judiciary.

"Freedom Flotilla" - look closer

Doesn't "freedom" sound wonderful?

Unfortunately, sometimes people use that word but they mean something completely different - or even the opposite. In those cases, you have to look closer.

Click to enlarge.

Boat people (Hitchens)

From Christopher Hitchens in Slate:

The tale of the Gaza "flotilla" seems set to become a regular summer feature, bobbing along happily on the inside pages with an occasional update....

However, given the luxury of time, might it not be possible to ask the "activists" on board just a few questions? (Activist is a good neutral word, isn't it, with largely positive connotations?) Most of the speculation so far has been to do with methods and intentions, allowing for many avowals about peaceful tactics and so forth, but this is soft-centered coverage. I would like to know a little more about the political ambitions and implications of the enterprise.

Only a few weeks ago, the Hamas regime in Gaza became the only governing authority in the world—by my count—to express outrage and sympathy at the death of Osama Bin Laden. As the wavelets lap in the Greek harbors, and the sunshine beats down, doesn't any journalist want to know whether the "activists" have discussed this element in their partners' world outlook? Does Alice Walker seriously have no comment?

Hamas is listed by various governments and international organizations as a terrorist group. I don't mind conceding that that particular word has been used in arbitrary ways in the past. But what concerns me much more is the official programmatic adoption, by Hamas, of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This disgusting fabrication is a key foundational document of 20th-century racism and totalitarianism, indelibly linked to the Hitler regime in theory and practice. It seems extraordinary to me that any "activist" claiming allegiance to human rights could cooperate at any level with the propagation of such evil material. But I have never seen any of them invited to comment on this matter, either.

The little boats cannot make much difference to the welfare of Gaza either way, since the materials being shipped are in such negligible quantity. The chief significance of the enterprise is therefore symbolic. And the symbolism, when examined even cursorily, doesn't seem too adorable. The intended beneficiary of the stunt is a ruling group with close ties to two of the most retrograde dictatorships in the Middle East, each of which has recently been up to its elbows in the blood of its own civilians. The same group also manages to maintain warm relations with, or at the very least to make cordial remarks about, both Hezbollah and al-Qaida. Meanwhile, a document that was once accurately described as a "warrant for genocide" forms part of the declared political platform of the aforesaid group. There is something about this that fails to pass a smell test. I wonder if any reporter on the scene will now take me up on this.

Read the whole thing.

(h/t D)

Hello Rafah, hello Gaza (video)

Don't know who made this, but it is pretty good.

And since this gives me a reason to post it again, here was my version of that song from a couple of years ago:

(h/t Omri)

Did Abbas retract his Holocaust denial?

In an interview with Dutch media, PA president Mahmoud Abbas was asked about his views of the Holocaust:

Is it true that you deny the extent of the Holocaust in which six million Jews were killed?

"No, I do not deny the Holocaust. I know that the Holocaust took place during WWII. I have studied and written a book about. I believe that many Jews were murdered and that other peoples of other nationalities were murdered . So I agree, I admit there were pogroms, that genocide was committed during the war against the Jews by the Nazi regime. "

How many Jews were killed according to you?

"I've heard from the Israelis that there were six million. I can accept that."

So are you yourself convinced of that number?

"I accept what they say. If they say six million, six million I say. It is up to them to decide, because they know better than e."

In Abbas' doctoral thesis, he wrote, "the Zionist fantasy, the fantastic lie that six million Jews were killed." In the book he wrote based on the thesis, he wrote, "It seems that the interest of the Zionist movement, however, is to inflate this figure [of Holocaust deaths] so that their gains will be greater. This led them to emphasize this figure [six million] in order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions — fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand...Following the war, word was spread that six million Jews were amongst the victims and that a war of extermination was aimed primarily at the Jews . . . The truth is that no one can either confirm or deny this figure. In other words, it is possible that the number of Jewish victims reached six million, but at the same time it is possible that the figure is much smaller, below one million."

He also claimed that the Jews who were killed were victims of a Zionist-Nazi plot.

So how can we reconcile Abbas from 1983 and Abbas today? Simple - he is a liar.

When Israeli media asked him about his thesis and book, Abbas told Maariv, "When I wrote `The Other Side,' we were at war with Israel. Today I would not have made such remarks."

Which means that he is willing to lie about his beliefs if the lies are politically expedient.

So which is more likely - that he lied about his beliefs in a doctoral thesis and subsequent book that took hundreds of hours to write, or that he is lying now because he does not want to appear to be a Holocaust denier to the Europeans and Americans?

(h/t jzaik)

First person video of Syrian sniper shooting cameraman

From Ha'aretz:

Syrian opposition released footage Sunday that it says was filmed in the restive city of Homs, in which a civilian cameraman is fired upon by troops dispatched by President Bashar Assad.

In the video, the photographer documents the security forces firing indiscriminately at citizens and homes in the Karm a-Shami neighborhood. As the photographer narrates what is happening around him, the camera focuses on a uniformed man hiding near a house below.

After a few seconds the soldier is seen pointing his gun at the photographer and firing, apparently hitting him as the camera drops. Media outlets outside of Syria have yet to verify the events documented.

No idea if the cameraman survived.

Three million hits

On Sunday, EoZ registered its 3,000,000th hit since the blog started.

So that's why I've been hearing so many fireworks outside!

Other shoe to drop from Special Tribunal for Lebanon?

From Ya Libnan:

The day the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) team delivered the indictment to Lebanon , several reports from Beirut indicated that the delegation will head to Syria to deliver the Syrian portion of the indictment in the 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s former PM Rafik Hariri .
An STL delegation met June 30 with Lebanon’s state prosecutor Said Mirza and handed him a copy of the Lebanon portion of the indictment and the arrest warrants. Two of the suspects Mustafa Badreddine and Salim Ayyash are reportedly senior members of the Iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollah while the other two Hassan Aneissy, also known as Hassan Issa, and Assad Sabra played a supporting role in the execution of the assassination.

According to a report by Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot handing the indictment to Damascus was postponed due to the Syrian unrest.

According to the paper at least two prominent members of President Bashar Assad’s family will be on the list, his younger brother Maher (Assad ) who has been commanding the crackdown against the protesters and his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat ( married to Assad’s sister Bushra) , former head of Military Intelligence and current deputy chief-of-staff of the armed forces.”

Der Spiegel magazine which was the first to leak details ( May2009) about Hezbollah’s involvement in Hariri murder has reportedly leaked that “new indictments in the STL will include Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian suspects.”

Things might get very interesting if the STL hands down indictments for Assad's family. And the existence of Palestinian Arab complicity is intriguing as well.

Meanwhile, if anyone had the slightest idea that Hezbollah worked for Lebanese interests instead of its Iranian masters, this reaction from Iran should show otherwise:

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani ( right) rejected the indictments against Hezbollah members in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

“We know that the United States was opposed to the establishment of a government led by Najib Mikati, but they failed due to the vigilance of Lebanon’s leaders. Now they created the tribunal, which they use as a tool to express their dissatisfaction with the new government,” Larijani said during an official visit to Azerbaijan.

“The Americans feel they have been slapped in the face and they are seeking to make up a story” by indicting Hezbollah members, Larijani added.

According to observers Larijani’s reaction was expected because if Hezbollah did in fact execute the murder , it could not have done so without the knowledge of the top Iranian leadership. When Hariri was assassinated Larijani was the security adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s ultimate authority. Larijani also is a former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the group that created Hezbollah in 1982.