Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Kent State professor yells "Death to Israel"

Ismail Khaldi

Ishmael Khaldi, Former Deputy Consul General at the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco, spoke at Bowman Hall on Tuesday, Oct. 25. Khaldi wrote "A Shepherd's Journey", his autobiography about becoming Israel's first Bedouin diplomat.

Former Israeli diplomat Ishmael Khaldi’s lecture was going smoothly until an altercation with a Kent State professor threatened to derail Tuesday night’s event.

After the speech at Bowman Hall ended, Khaldi opened the floor to a Q-and-A session. The first person to ask a question was history professor Julio Pino.

Julio Pino

Standing at the back of the auditorium, Pino asked Khaldi how he and his government could justify providing aid to countries like Turkey with blood money that came from the deaths of Palestinian children and babies.

This is not Pino’s first brush with controversy. In 2002 he wrote an opinion column for the Daily Kent Stater praising a suicide bomber. In 2007 he made national headlines when the The Drudge Report featured a story accusing him of contributing to a blog called Global War, which refers to itself as a “jihadist news service.”

The crowd fell into an awkward silence as the two continued to exchange words from across the auditorium.

“It is not respectful to me here,” Khaldi said.

Pino responded by saying “your government killed people” and claimed Khaldi was not being respectful to him.

“I do respect you, but you are wrong,” Khaldi said. “It’s a lie.”

The exchange ended as Pino stormed out of the auditorium shouting “Death to Israel!”

One person in the crowd retaliated by shouting “Shame on you!”

Khaldi came to Kent State to talk about his journey from a Muslim Bedouin minority living in a tent to a respected diplomat in the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Khaldi discussed the current state of the Middle East and the many misconceptions he said American citizens have concerning Israel and its people.

After the altercation with Pino, Khaldi moved on to more questions, but he still referred back to his thoughts on the heckler.

“Is this what that professor is telling you?” Khaldi said. “It is my responsibility to tell you the truth and build relationships.”

After the speech ended, the remaining students in the auditorium could be heard admonishing the professor’s behavior.

One student in attendance said, “I get it’s freedom of speech and all that, but that guy just makes us [the university] look bad.”

You can see a copy of Pino's 2002 piece praising a female suicide bomber along with a critique here. Lots more about him here.

(h/t anonymous)

Abbas says he'll reveal something "important and dangerous" soon

Palestinian Arab media are buzzing about a dark hint that Mahmoud Abbas gave in an interview with an Egyptian newspaper that he will reveal something "important and dangerous" that is happening soon.

There is some speculation that when the UN Security Council bid for statehood is defeated, and because of the inability of Fatah to successfully negotiate any elections with Hamas, together with Abbas' repeated promises not to run in any new elections for president of the PA, that Abbas may dissolve the PA altogether.

In fact, Saeb Erekat hinted at this yesterday, telling Palestine Radio "Either there is power to the movement of Palestinians from occupation to independence, or Netanyahu has to assume [Israel's] responsibilities seriously from the river to the sea."

Isn't that how people who crave independence act - by dissolving all the existing autonomy they have?

A move like this would have a number of benefits for Abbas. He would remain the leader of the PLO, which would remain the only recognized representative of Palestinian Arabs. Also, he wouldn't have to worry about a Hamas takeover in any election, something he is clearly worried about since he is avoiding the elections that he promised for "after September."

But the downside is pretty bad for Abbas as well. It is hard to imagine the world pressuring Israel to fully take over Areas A and B, let alone Gaza. There could be a serious backlash against the entire Palestinian Arab cause if they are so willing to throw away their gains that the West supported and pushed for in the past twenty years.

Abbas has made promises of major announcements before that didn't pan out, but this is something to keep an eye on.

Morning links (updated)

Turkey finally accepts Israeli offers for earthquake aid; temporary structures and equipment for field hospitals on their way.

Meanwhile, Turks complain that their leaders are more interested in helping Palestinian Arabs than their own people.

The IDF rescues an elderly Lebanese woman caught in the border fence. (UPDATE: It happened a year ago. Sorry!)

In the wake of the Grapel deal, Netanyahu says on his Facebook page that he "has instructed the relevant authorities to do their utmost in order to bring about the release of Israeli citizen Ouda Tarabin, who has been imprisoned in Egypt for over 11 years." That is a bit vague.

A StandWithUs video on the two sides of the Shalit deal:

Condi Rice was amazed at how much Olmert planned to concede to reach a peace deal - and Mahmoud Abbas rejected it outright. But other reports say that Livni killed the offer. (UPDATE: Full article here.)

A sukkah was vandalized in Jerusalem by Swedish "pro-Palestinian" activists.

44% of Italians have negative impressions of Jews.

Yisrael Medad uncovers some interesting history: Jewish stamp impressions from as early as the sixth century BCE throughout Israel.

Students from India can apply for scholarships to study in Israel!

And here's a video from a couple of years ago, showing someone that obviously doesn't exist if you read the media - an Israeli Arab who is very happy to live in Israel:

(h/t Daled Amos, Onion Tears News, jzaik, silke, Israel Awareness, CHA, Yoel, Yaaqov)

20 Gazans were shot during the celebrations last week

Celebrate good times, come on!

On Tuesday, 18 October 2011, 20 Palestinians, including 6 children and 3 women, were injured due to shooting in celebration of the release of Palestinian prisoners. These incidents constitute a form of misuse of weapons and assaults on the rule of law prevailing in the Occupied Palestinian civilians.

According to information available to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), on Tuesday, 18 October 2011, 11 Palestinians, including 4 children and two women, were admitted into Shifa Hospital as they were injured by bullets and shrapnel during celebrations of the release of prisoners:

1) ‘Awni Zuhair Salah, 24, from al-Boreij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, seriously injured by a bullet to the head;
2) ‘Alaa’ Abu Salem, 14, injured by shrapnel to the left shoulder;
3) Hilal Samara, 24, injured by shrapnel to the hands;
4) ‘Abdul Rahman Sa’id Silmi, 28, injured by shrapnel to the right shoulder;
5) Sahar Mohammed ‘Amara, 41, injured by shrapnel to the right shoulder;
6) Saifuallah Fares Salama, 5, injured by shrapnel to the thigh;
7) Mohammed Khalifa, 24, injured by shrapnel to the right hand;
8) Shahd Nahidh Abu al-Kas, 7, injured by a bullet to the neck;
9) Karam Mahmoud Hammouda, 19, injured by shrapnel to the right hand;
10) Einas Ahmed Shahin, 23, injured by shrapnel to the shoulder; and
11) Rimas Hassan al-Jadba, 2, injured by shrapnel to the hand.

In Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, 3 Palestinians, including a child, were injured due to shooting in celebration of the release of prisoners:

1) Nader Hassan Abu Khousa, 24, seriously injured by a bullet to the neck;
2) ‘Ata Mohammed Khalil, 28, injured by a bullet to the right thigh; and
3) Du’a’ Wa’el Enmash, 2, injured by a bullet to the right foot.

In the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, 6 Palestinians, including a child and a woman, were injured due to shooting in celebration of the release of prisoners:

1) Ibrahim ‘Awad Qishta, 21, injured by a bullet to the right shoulder;
2) Ghadeer Suleiman al-Nahhal, 17, injured by a bullet to the face;
3) Mohammed Mohammed Salha, 21, injured by a bullet to the left leg;
4) Tariq Ibrahim al-Masri, 34, injured by a bullet to the left leg;
5) Rasga Sameer Kabaja, 27, injured by a bullet to the head; and
6) Khaled Hamdan al-Buhdari, 33, injured by a bullet to the back, and was transferred to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for additional medical treatment.

One could almost come to the conclusion that human life is not as valuable for Palestinian Arabs as for Israelis.

(h/t Mike)

Released terrorists quite proud of their murders

Ahlam Tamimi, one of those behind the Sbarro pizza attack and who was released in the Shalit deal, has no regrets:

And Muhammad Abu Attayah is anxious to get back to the business of killing Jews:

When they talk about "jihad" I'm sure they mean the contemplative, peaceful kind.

(h/t jzaik, Benjamin)

Ahmadinejad reiterates: There are only 10,000 Zionists

In an interview with Fareed Zakaria for CNN, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeats a bizarre claim he made last week:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: People everywhere, ordinary people, what problems do they have? From the very beginning, we're against Zionists. Zionists are neither Christians nor Jewish. They have no religion. Religion is wealth and money.

Fareed Zakaria: But what do you mean by that? Every person in Israel is by definition a Zionist because they believe in a state for the Jewish people.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (through translator): No, no. Zionism is a complicated and terrible party. And to most they have 10,000 members, and 2,000 main members.

Fareed Zakaria: What does it mean to you? So what does Zionism mean? The rest – you say only 10,000 people in Israel are Zionists?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (through translator): No, I don't say they are all there. Some of them are in Europe, some of them are in the United States, and it constitutes a racist group and they consider themselves superior to others.

When he said it last week, the implication was that there are 10,000 Zionist Americans. Now we see that the number is a count of Zionists worldwide!

So it isn't, as I thought, that 0.003% of the US population controls the country. It is that 0.00014% of the world's population controls the world!

BWA-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Nominations now open for the Second Annual Hasby Awards

It is time to solicit nominations for the Second Annual Hasby Awards!

As with last year, the Hasby Awards are given for the best specific examples of Hasbara (Israel advocacy) that occurred in 2011.

You can see last year's winners here.

Good Hasbara, in my opinion, has two components: It is effective in changing people's perceptions of Israel and it reaches a large audience.

So think about the best videos, events, speeches, articles, graphics, or any other items that would qualify and write your nominations in the comments.

Last year I announced the winners live at Yeshiva University during my Hasbara 2.0 talk. If you have a venue to offer for this year's awards ceremony, let me know!

Media has lots on the prisoners, little on the terror

From the Washington Post:

A week ago, Yahya Dabassa Ibrahim was on a hunger strike, rotting away in an Israeli prison where he expected to spend the rest of his life.

But the Oct. 18 prisoner swap between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas landed the Bethlehem native in a surreal place: the Gaza Strip’s brand-new luxury hotel.

The eight-story Al-Mashtal Hotel, which opened in late July, is an oasis of fluffy white duvets, stunning ocean views, steaks cooked to perfection and sparkling swimming pools. Its splendor is startling in this blockaded territory where dozens of bombed buildings lie in ruin, heaps of garbage dot nearly every street and the Mediterranean shoreline is speckled by evidence of the tons of raw sewage dumped into the ocean every day.

As he sat in the hotel’s dimly lighted courtyard on a recent evening, Ibrahim, a convicted bombmaker, struggled to describe how dramatically his luck had changed.

Ibrahim, 50, served roughly 10 years of a life sentence. He was among the prisoners who went on a hunger strike in recent months after Israel took away certain perks, including access to television, and limited visits by relatives.

He was accused of manufacturing explosives that were used in attacks in Israeli cities, according to news reports. Ibrahim said he didn’t want to discuss the incidents that led to his incarceration, but he made it clear that he didn’t regret participating in militancy.

“We sacrificed part of our lives not to stay in hotels like these, but to liberate Palestine,” he said.

This terrorist is Yihya Ibrahim Abd al-Hafez Daamsah, who helped coordinate the Cafe Moment bombing of 2002. He was serving a life sentence. Since the Washington Post doesn't want to delve into the details of exactly why he was in prison, I will.

From Israel's MFA:

11 people were killed and 54 injured, 10 of them seriously, when a suicide bomber exploded at 22:30 PM Saturday night, March 9, 2002, in a crowded Moment cafe at the corner of Aza and Ben-Maimon streets in the Rehavia neighborhood in the center of Jerusalem. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

The bomber walked into the cafe, located at the corner of Aza and Ben-Maimon streets about 100 meters from the prime minister's residence, and detonated a powerful explosive charge that completely gutted the restaurant.

The names of the victims:

- Limor Ben-Shoham, 27, of Jerusalem;
- Nir Rahamim Borochov, 22, of Givat Ze'ev;
- Danit Dagan, 25, of Tel-Aviv;
- Livnat Dvash, 28, of Jerusalem;
- Tali Eliyahu, 26, of Jerusalem;
- Uri Felix, 25, of Givat Ze'ev;
- Dan Imani, 23, of Jerusalem;
- Natanel Kochavi, 31, of Kiryat Ata;
- Baruch Lerner-Naor, 28, of Eli;
- Orit Ozarov, 28, of Jerusalem;
- Avraham Haim Rahamim, 29, of Jerusalem

Limor Ben Shoham	Nir Borochov	Danit Dagan	Livnat Dvash
Tali Eliyahu	Uri Felix	Dan Imani	Natanel Kochavi
Baruch Lerner-Naor	Orit Ozerov	Avraham Rahamim

(h/t Allan)

Intransigent Abbas keeps on adding preconditions to talks

From The Telegraph:

The Quartet – which comprises the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia – will hold separate talks with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators on Wednesday, the first contact of any kind that the two sides have had in 10 months.

But hopes for a breakthrough, never high to begin with, suffered a further setback as it emerged that Mr Abbas intended to hold Israel to a pledge made three years ago to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners as a gesture to his moderate Fatah party.

Desperate to wring concessions of his own, Mr Abbas has reminded Israel of a promise made by its former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, to follow up any prisoner swap with Hamas by a similar deal with Fatah. Ahmad Tibi, an Israeli Arab MP with close links to Palestinian officials, said that Mr Abbas would now have no choice but to make fulfilment of the Olmert agreement a condition for renewing talks.

Or, as Ha'aretz wrote:

At the Knesset on Monday, MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al ) said that Israel should not be surprised if the two current conditions the Palestinians have set for restarting talks - a halt to construction in the settlements and recognition of the 1967 borders as a basis for negotiations - become three, the third being the prisoner release.

Of course, Olmert's conditional promises in the context of 2008 negotiations that Abbas himself broke off are meaningless today, as they were not an official Israeli offer (and from the context it sounds like it was meant to help Abbas give incentives to Hamas to release Shalit, something he didn't do.)

Over the summer, Abbas had three other preconditions that may still be in force: that the EU supports for reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah, that the EU supports the UN stunt, and a statement from the EU that the statehood stunt is not a contradiction to negotiations.

The upshot is that Abbas and his cronies are continuing their strategy of saying "no" to Israel, in hopes that by doing so they will get everything they demand without compromising. And as long as Western governments and the media do not call them on this duplicity, they have no incentive to change this strategy.

(h/t CHA, David G; see also Seth Mandel)

Iraq floated swapping 100,000 Jews for Palestinian Arabs in 1949

An amazing article in The Palestine Post from October 1949:

Jews in Iraq had been persecuted throughout the 1930s and they suffered a major pogrom in 1941, known as the Farhud.

This persecution continued throughout the decade, as this 1961 Israeli MFA article (that skeptically mentions the swap offer) notes:

How the Jews of Iraq Became Refugees

An eye-witness account, written by a visitor from overseas early in 1949 shortly after the conclusion of the Arab war against Israel, presents a graphic picture of the position of Iraqi Jewry at that time: “The Jews of Iraq” it stated, “are in a state of panic. They have been attacked in the streets, have had their businesses broken into and an alarming number have been murdered in cold blood. They have been dismissed from all branches of public and civil service, must submit to a curfew every evening and have been barred from most of the general amenities available to the ordinary citizen. Many have made desperate attempts to escape, but without success.”

When the United Nations Economic Survey Commission for the Middle East visited Baghdad in October 1949, the then Iraqi Premier was reported to have proposed that 100,000 Iraqi Jews out of some 160,000 to 180,000 be sent to Israel in exchange for 100,000 Palestine Arab refugees. The Jews were to leave their property in Iraq and take over the property in Israel of 100,000 Arabs. If this suggestion of a population transfer and mutual financial compensation was really made, it was soon dropped by the Iraqi Government. It was apparently found easier to terrorize the Jews into leaving by fixing a time limit for their departure and enacting legislation to seize their possessions for the benefit of the Iraqi exchequer.

In the third week of December 1949, a second wave of anti-Jewish pogroms began. Thousands were imprisoned on charges of “Zionism” or taken into “protective custody.” When, as expected, large numbers thereupon applied for exit permits to Israel, legislation was rushed through freezing Jewish accounts in the banks and forbidding the sale of property without special permit. Jews were permitted to leave with only 50 kgs of luggage per person. On 10 March, 1950, the Iraqi Government issued a decree blocking the property of all Jews who, on leaving the country, “had relinquished their nationality.” A special custodian of Jewish property was appointed, who began immediately to sell it by public auction.

To speed up the departure of the Jewish community, the Iraqi Government set a time limit for it, fixing 21 June as the final date. As a further incentive a series of laws was enacted designed to make the position of the Jews in the country untenable. Restrictions were imposed on their movements. They were barred from schools, hospitals and other public institutions. They were refused import and export licences for carrying on their business. At the same time the arrests continued. So effective were these oppressive measures that by mid-July 1950 over 110,000 Iraqi Jews had registered for emigration and by June 1951 had left for Israel. By the end of 1951, the number of Iraqi Jews transferred to Israel amounted approximately to 125,000. Most of them were brought over by chartered aircraft. They arrived utterly destitute, carrying small bags which held all their belongings. Such was the end of what had been for centuries the most prosperous and cultured Jewish community of the East--a community which could trace its history back for more than 2,000 years, centuries before the Arabs had come to Iraq.

And, no, the anti-semitic slander that Jews were behind some of the anti-Jewish attacks in Iraq at the time has been proven a lie.

Anyway, the offer itself is most intriguing. Chances are that the Arab League at the time forced Iraq to withdraw the offer in order to keep the refugee issue festering, the way that Arab leaders had been doing for decades.

But imagine if Iraq's initial 1949 offer had been matched by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and the Gulf states.

The refugee issue would have been solved sixty years ago.

"Foul Palestinian recipe" - by Durra

From The Telegraph, in their continuing series of amusing signs and labels found by their readers:

Since the entire second intifada was fueled by the Al Dura hoax, calling it a "foul Palestinian recipe" seems about right.

Durra is a Syrian food company. This product isn't on their website, but you can find their foul Lebanese recipe there if you want as well as all of their foul products.

(h/t ploni)

Hamas earthquake article an object lesson in Arab paranoia

The Hamas-run Palestine Times newspaper has an article praising Tayyip Erdogan for refusing Israel's offer to help after Sunday's earthquake. This article is a perfect example of Arab paranoia, of seeing schemes and conspiracy theories everywhere.

Although Recep Tayyip Erdogan is long known for his courage against Israel, what Netanyahu did not expect was for the Prime Minister of Turkey to be smarter when he rushed to abort his plan to exploit the earthquake to achieve political gains at the expense of the blood of "freedom flotilla" martyrs.

Israeli President Shimon Peres held a telephone conversation with his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul during which he expressed his condolences t the deaths of citizens in the Turkish earthquake. Not only did he offer condolences, but Israel also offered to provide assistance. Yet it received a blow when Ankara strongly refused, and thus Netanyahu missed an early opportunity to to exploit the tragedy of the earthquake to end the isolation of the Zionist entity and to circumvent the demands of Erdogan regarding the flotilla massacre , which includes an apology and compensation for victims.

Given that Turkey was among the first countries that provided assistance to Israel to extinguish a massive fire that broke out in the forest of the Carmel Mountains near Haifa in December, and also Tel Aviv provided aid to Turkey in the aftermath of an earthquake several years ago, many interpret Erdogan's decision in the earthquake disaster as a new message to Netanyahu that the relations between them will not return to normal at all without an apology for the massacre of Freedom Flotilla.

Some also see a link between Erdogan's new anti-Israel position and mention in some Turkish media about the involvement of the Mossad in simultaneous attacks waged by the PKK on October 18 on the eight sites of the Turkish army in the province of Hakkari, near the Iraqi border, which resulted in 24 Turkish soldiers killed and wounded about 20 others. The PKK did not resume its attacks on Turkish forces until after Erdogan's challenge to Israel.