Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, February 03, 2012

Answering a typical slur in 500 characters

Ramzy Baroud, in Ma'an, goes over some well-worn ground:

It goes without saying there should be no room for any racist discourse -- Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, or any other -- in the Palestine solidarity movement, which aims at achieving long-denied justice and rights for the Palestinian people.

A racist discourse is predicated on racial supremacy, which is exactly what Palestinians are resisting in Israel and the occupied territories.

But the "Jewish and democratic state" of Israel is riddled with so many contradictions, the kind that no straightforward narrative can possibly capture.

Many scholars and rights groups have discussed the way in which irreconcilable values defined the very character of Israel from the onset.

According to Adalah (meaning 'justice' in Arabic), the legal center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel: "Israel's Declaration of Independence (1948) states two principles important for understanding the legal status of Palestinian citizens of Israel. First, the Declaration refers specifically to Israel as a 'Jewish state' committed to the 'ingathering of the exiles.' (Second)…it contains only one reference to the maintenance of complete equality of political and social rights for all its citizens, irrespective of race, religion, or sex."

...The controversy is embedded in the purposeful intellectual and political elasticity by which Israel defines, or refuses to define itself. It claims to be Jewish as well as democratic. It claims to embody religious ideals but also to be secular. It claims to be liberal, while it is militarily oppressive. It claims to uphold 'equality' for all, while it is racially exclusive.

And if you dare to challenge these irreconcilable contradictions, you are termed an anti-Semite or a traitor -- or both.

Ma'an only allows 500 character responses. So here is mine:

This is a straw man argument.

The tension between being a Jewish and democratic state is well known, but it is not a contradiction. It is certainly no more racist than every single Arab state declaring themselves as such (implying discrimination against non-Arabs), and most saying they are Muslim, in their constitutions. Including Palestine's.

It is anti-semitic to deny the Jewish people, and only Jews, the right to self determination. That is where Israel's critics sometimes cross the line.

Of course, those points can be expanded considerably. Maybe Ma'an will ask me to write my own op-ed.....

Sinai Egyptians rioting because butane cylinders smuggled to Gaza

From Al Masry Al Youm:

Minya residents protesting the shortage of butane gas cylinders blocked train traffic in Upper Egypt Thursday.

“Resident gathered at 9:50 am on Thursday on railways of Malateya station, located between Maghagha and Bani Mazar stations,” head of the Egypt Railways Authority Hani Hegab said in a statement.

Hegab called on citizens to end the protests, saying they hinder other people’s interests and cause the authority huge losses. Demonstrators in various towns have repeatedly disrupted rail traffic over the past year to call attention to various problems.

Hundreds of Gerga City residents in Assiut blocked the rails on Wednesday for almost seven hours, saying that gas cylinders are being sold for eight times their actual value of around LE6.50.

What the newspaper doesn't say is the reason for the shortage - because the cylinders are being smuggled to Gaza.

As Al Wafd reported earlier this week, there isn't so much a butane shortage as a cylinder shortage. Gangs have been forcibly taking the cylinders and smuggling them to Gaza, where the price is higher than even the Egyptian black market.

This is not a new problem. Here is a report from last June, where Assistant Secretary General for North Sinai Governorate Maj. Gen. Jaber Al-Arabi said that the reason for the continuing crisis of butane gas cylinders is due to the their smuggling through the tunnels into the Gaza Strip, which leads to shortages and increased demand.

The funniest thing out of Iran - Cardboard Khomeini

From the NYT blog:

To celebrate the 33rd anniversary on Wednesday of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s triumphant return from exile, Iran re-enacted his arrival at a Tehran airport, using a cardboard cutout to stand in for the late Iranian leader.

Photographs of the ceremony published on Tuesday by Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency seemed to lend themselves to parody, with Farsi and English Internet satirists treating them as bizarre authoritarian kitsch.

The photos showed a band playing welcome music as dozens of men in dress uniforms clutched roses and lined up on a tarmac for the staged arrival of the cardboard Ayatollah Khomeini.

The Twitter account for the English-language Iranian blog Pedestrian was characteristic of the reaction:

Haven’t laughed this hard in SO long. Iranian blogistan is on comedy fire with the cardboard Imam: baztab.net/fa/news/1787/%… #Iran #Khomeini

— Sidewalk Lyrics (@pedestrian) February 1, 2012
The anonymous creator of Cardboard Khomeini has taken part of one of the photographs, the ayatollah’s oversize likeness being carried by two security officers in sunglasses, and pasted it into a variety of iconic images like the Beatles “Abbey Road” album cover, the moon landing and Ronald Reagan’s 1980 inauguration.

Shortly after the airport arrival, another cardboard cutout made an appearance in southern Tehran at Refah School, which served as Ayatollah Khomeini’s base of operations. There, it was joined by officials, including the education minister, who sat in a large circle with the silent version of the revered leader and awkwardly drank tea.

In [one parody,] the cardboard Khomeini complains that he was not served a glass of tea. "I'm the Supreme Leader! Where is my tea???"

Here's my contribution:

(h/t CHA@Israellycool)

Iran blocks nuclear inspectors from visiting key site

From AOL Defense:

A dramatic visit by UN inspectors to Iran amid rising international tension failed to get answers about whether Iran seeks the bomb.

Iran tried to draw maximum publicity through a show of cooperation with inspectors from the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency who visited Tehran this week. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Iran was "prepared to make arrangements for inspection" of nuclear sites but that the IAEA team had not asked to go.

But IAEA chief inspector Herman Nackaerts and the agency number two Rafael Gross, who headed the inspectors, did not want to visit nuclear sites, which are already monitored by the IAEA. They wanted to see Parchin, a weapons testing ground, and also to see crucial documents and scientists who work there or are connected to such work, diplomats said. The IAEA had published in November an extensive report about alleged atomic weapons research by Iran, and Parchin was a key link in this. The IAEA has also been seeking for years to interview the man believed to head Iran's alleged covert military nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and once again did not get to him.

The Iranians refused access to Parchin, saying it was not a site where there is nuclear material and so the IAEA which verifies use of such material had no business there. This, however, goes to the crux of what the IAEA is now trying to do, which is to verify possible nuclear weapons research that may have been carried out without nuclear material. This can include learning how to make the trigger which sets of atomic bombs or the neutron initiator which speeds up the explosive chain reaction. The IAEA needs to investigate such matters, grouped under the heading "possible military dimensions" of Iran's nuclear work, before it can say whether the Iranian program is a peaceful or military one.

Iran continues to play games, knowing that appearing to cooperate will take some of the pressure off from powers like Russia.

An email from a grieving father and grandfather

I received this email from Michael Craig Palmer:

Greetings!

On Friday, September 23 last year, two Arabs motivated by hatred for Jews murdered my son Asher and his son Yonatan. Asher was driving from his home in Kiryat Arba to spend Shabbat with his wife, Puah, and her parents in Jerusalem. Puah was five months pregnant when her husband and son were murdered.

Last week, Puah gave birth to Orit. Asher had chosen the name Orit before he died.

The two Arabs who murdered Asher and Yonatan didn't know them. They targeted cars driven by Jews on the eve of Shabbat. Their motivation was anti-Semitic hatred. They wanted to kill Jews, any Jews and had been trying along with a gang of accomplices to kill Jews for several weeks. Asher and Yonatan were their first and only success. Several days after the murders, the Israeli security forces arrested them and the rest of their gang and they are now in jail awaiting trial.

The hate-motivated murders of Asher and Yonatan and birth of Orit have been significant news in Israel. Here are a couple of links to recent coverage. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/152173
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4180871,00.html

The deaths of Asher and Yonatan at the hands of Arab terrorists and the birth of Orit hold, in my opinion, a lesson of struggle and survival for Jews worldwide.

I'm contacting you about this so that more people can hear this story, consider the lessons, and find a point of connection and hope between Jews in Israel and outside Israel. Ideas that you may have on how Asher and Yonatan's short lives can be honored by discussing them in public would be very appreciated. Thanks.

Regards,
Michael

Next week, on Tu B'Shvat at 1:00 PM, the family will dedicate and start planting a new vineyard in Kiryat Arba in memory of the martyrs. They plan to turn it into a park and playground to be dedicated to the baby Yonatan.

You might have noticed an advertisement on the right sidebar for the Honest Reporting Mission to Israel taking place May 30-June 5.

As I wrote in an advertorial last year, the Mission always has first-rate speakers and tours. The Honest Reporting Mission is a fantastic way to actually meet and ask questions of newsmakers and policymakers in Israel. I would love to go and interview all of them for the blog!

Which brings up a point. The Honest Reporting folks told me that if a certain number of my readers join the Mission, they will let me tag along for free.

Therefore, I have a vested interest in getting as many of my readers to go to the Mission as I can! And if I get to go, this blog will have a great week filled with video and exclusive interviews.

So if you have some vacation time coming up at the beginning of June, you should consider spending an unforgettable week in Israel. Just sign up and tell them that you head about the Mission from me. Who knows - you may get to hang out with me for a week!

Groundhog Day moment - 30 years of the same threats from Iran

From JTA, November 15, 1982:

A monthly periodical called "Imam" which is published by the information department of the Iranian Foreign Office has been sent to the United Nations correspondents in Geneva. The title on the cover reads, "Israel Must be Destroyed."

The editorial states: "The deliverance of the Islamic countries from the international imperialism headed by the United States of America is dependent upon the destruction of Israel which is the symbol of that superpower in the region."

It adds: "It is sad to be reminded of the fact that had the war with the aggressive regime of Iraq not been forced on Iran, our brave people would have directed their struggle and resources towards the achievement of that objective."

French Jewish mother wins custody battle with Saudi prince who kidnapped child

Bittersweet:

The Paris criminal court ordered Prince Sattam al-Saud from the kingdom’s founding royal family, to hand over custody of his daughter Aya to her French mother, Candice Cohen-Ahnine, and provide child support of €10,000 (£8,300) a month.

For the past three-and-a-half years, the prince has kept Aya in a Riyadh palace despite efforts by the French foreign ministry and President Nicolas Sarkozy's office to resolve the issue.

But the French court ruling appears to have had no effect on the prince. “What do I care of Sarkozy?” he is cited as telling Nouvel Observateur magazine. “If need be, I’ll go like [Osama] bin Laden and hide in the mountains with Aya.”

Miss Cohen-Ahnin, 34, and the prince met in London 14 years ago at Brown’s nightclub and their daughter was born in November 2001.

Their relationship continued until 2006 when he allegedly announced that he was obliged to marry a cousin, but that she could be a second wife. She refused and they separated.

Miss Cohen-Ahnine claimed that her daughter was taken from her during a visit to Saudi Arabia in 2008 and that she was held in the prince’s palace where she had only fleeting meetings with her daughter.

She said she managed to leave when a maid left her door open and she sought refuge in the French embassy.

Miss Cohen-Ahnin was eventually spirited out of the country after the prince allegedly produced a document purporting that she had been Muslim but had converted to Judaism — a crime punishable by death.

She said she was concerned about her daughter’s upbringing when she discovered Facebook photos of her in a niqab and playing with her father’s firearms.

Despairing at the lack of diplomatic progress, she published Give My Daughter Back, a book recounting her ordeal, in October.

Since the court ruling, the prince faces an international arrest warrant for ignoring the custody sentence.

Mrs Cohen-Ahnine said the court ruling was a “great victory for me and vindicates everything I have said … but I’m still very worried for my child’s future.”

The prince denied ever having kidnapped the child or the mother.

The prince said he would send lawyers to France to challenge the court decision but not his daughter.

“France hasn’t got the right to take her back. She is a Saudi citizen and a princess. They cannot oblige a princess to leave this country,” he said.

Digital Journal adds:

International Family Law states that under Saudi law "A foreign parent cannot take her or his children out of Saudi Arabia if the other parent is a Saudi national even if the foreigner has been granted custody rights." This position is reiterated by the U.S. State Department which advises "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction." Saudi law always favors a Muslim parent over a non-Muslim parent, and the family members of the father have more rights than a childs mother.

So there is at least one Jewish princess in Saudi Arabia - who can never leave.

Tech-washing!

From WSJ:

Who is going to be Europe's main technology hub? While London and Berlin both see themselves as claimants to the title, if you look at the numbers (and you take a Eurovision Song Contest view of the Continent) arguably neither can challenge Tel Aviv.

It was Ron Huldai, Tel Aviv's 13-year mayor and a former combat pilot, who, while London's Tech City was not even the subject of an interdepartmental memo, had got on with building a tech center second only to Silicon Valley. He did it not by installing high-speed fiber or hosting conferences. His approach, as he said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, was much simpler.

"Tel Aviv had become a city that people used, not a city they lived in," he said. "We are creating a good place for hi-tech people to live in—I am doing it for the people working in hi-tech," he said.

It is the ''Field of Dreams'' model. If you build it, they will come. It is no coincidence that Tel Aviv was recently named the world¹s best gay city.

"It is about building an environment that is supportive," he said. Young digital entrepreneurs tend to be counter-cultural— attracted to cities that are vibrant, diverse and international. One third of the city is under the age of 35, and there is one bar for every 200 residents.

His bottom-up model—worry about the people—has proved successful.

According to a report commissioned by the city, Tel Aviv and its surrounding area, hosts more than 600 early stage companies. Access to venture capital is, per capita, 20-fold greater in Israel than in the rest of Europe. "If you take the amount of VC per capita, in Europe, it is $7. In the U.S. it is $72. In Israel it is double that," Jan Müehlfeit, Microsoft's European chairman asserted last year.

Those damn Zionists, going through an elaborate charade to make Tel Aviv a tech-friendly city in order to cover up their crimes!

Hamas leader calls for re-evaluation of "unity" saying Fatah is not serious

Khalil al-Hayya, head of Hamas' political party "Change and Reform," has called on Hamas to re-evaluate the unity agreement with Fatah in light of Fatah's postponement of a meeting meant to create a framework for negotiations.

He said in a statement, "Unfortunately, the reconciliation track needs a re-evaluation. None of the agreements that have been made on 20 December have been implemented. Reconciliation is not a media or political slogan, it benefits us and the Fatah movement, and to get those benefits one must be prepared to pay. We want to truly end the state of division without equivocation and without the disappearance behind the media or political slogans to reach the stage of full partnership in the PLO or the Authority or otherwise, and without this conviction, the reconciliation concept will remain elusive."

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that Fatah's postponement of the meeting indicates that Fatah is not serious about reconciliation.

And this meeting wasn't even to do anything concrete.

Egyptian MP blames soccer deaths on - well, you know who.

From MEMRI:

Mustafa Bakri: Our country is entering a state of anarchy. This anarchy is caused by America, Israel and the former regime. Look at the New Middle East scheme. Don't talk about all the minute details. What happened in Port Said is a continuation of what happened in Muhammad Mahmoud Street, in Al-Qasr Al-Ayni Street, across from the government, across from Maspero, and in the soccer match against Tunisia. They are all connected. It is an attempt to bring this country down.

How predictable was this?

Gazans attack Ban Ki Moon's vehicle

From Ma'an:

Dozens of people threw shoes and stones at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's convoy as it entered the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Ma'an's correspondent said.

No one was injured during the hostile welcome and the vehicles, which crossed into the Hamas-ruled territory from southern Israel, pushed through the crowd and sped away.

Ban is visiting the region to try to restart long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Many of those who protested as the UN convoy passed were family members of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons. They hit the vehicles with signs bearing slogans accusing Ban of bias towards Israel and of refusing to meet the relatives of Palestinian prisoners.

Who is Moon meeting in Gaza?

From WaPo:

In Gaza, he met with U.N. relief officials, aid groups and human rights organizations.

He also visited a U.N.-funded housing project in southern Gaza, where protesters held up signs saying, “We want to lift the siege on Gaza” — referring to Israeli restrictions on the entry and exit to and from Gaza of people and goods.

Ban’s visit was being heavily secured by Hamas security forces, but he will not be meeting with members of the Hamas government, who are widely shunned internationally over their refusal to renounce violence.

Islamic Jihad came out with a statement criticizing Moon, saying that Gazans don't need financial assistance or food, but rather someone to stand besides them. Given that UNRWA is a dedicated UN agency with a huge budget dedicated to only Palestinian Arabs, and that the UN has dedicated more time and resources to their problems than to any other people on Earth, this is a curious claim.

There is a long history of Palestinian Arabs attacking UN personnel; the first UNRWA report in 1950 mentions a few of them.

The Syrian office of the Agency, located in Damascus, was destroyed by explosives and a bomb was thrown at a truckload of workers in Lebanon. Threats of violence have been made against individual employees of the Agency.

The UN's criticism of these attacks has always been muted.

(h/t Ian)