Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Palestinian Arab hysteria increases as Jews visit Temple Mount

The amount of incitement (and bigotry) in Palestinian Arab media about Jews visiting the Temple Mount has reached new heights in recent days.

Today, Rosh Chodesh Adar, a group of Jews peacefully went up to the Mount to visit. It was described in Palestine Today this way:

Zionist extremist groups on Thursday morning stormed the courtyards of Al Aqsa Mosque from the Mughrabi Gate, with the occupation forces protecting them.

Our correspondent in Jerusalem said that the first batch of 12 extremists stormed the mosque, under police protection of the occupation, as occupation forces arrested four young men and took guard Samer Abu Qwaider out of the Haram al Sharif courtyard.

Also another group of settlers entered into the courtyards of Haram, 9 women and 8 men, as their numbers rose to 36. The "Israel" police restricted [Muslim] worshipers entering to be 45 years old or older.

Our correspondent reports that groups of settlers are walking around in the Old City of Jerusalem and in the vicinity of the Haram, joyfully singing to bring in the Hebrew month.

Palestine Times has photos of the "usurpers" walking around:

Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh charged Israel with calling on Jews to "storm" the Mount with the goal of Judaizing Judaism's holiest site and performing religious rituals there. For some reason he also mentioned that Zionist women were allowed there; apparently this is an especially grievous sin.

What does that moderate Mahmoud Abbas, who supposedly supports full access to holy sites by everyone, have to say? Why, he implicitly threatened violence, like always!

The President condemned intrusions ongoing Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said in a press statement on Thursday, "This is a serious escalation and provocation, and completes a series of attacks by extremists on the sanctuaries of the mosques and churches, and will have serious and ominous consequences '.

Abu Rdainah said Israelis are responsible for this escalation, and demanded that the international community intervene to force the Israeli authorities to stop such provocative actions that affect the freedom of worship.

Well, the freedom for Jews to worship there is still pretty much zero.

Is today's group visit a huge provocation on the part of Israel?

Not at all.

Makor Rishon reported some statistics. In January, 1,119 Jews visited the Temple Mount. In 2011, some 9,000 Jews visited, among 370,000 tourists.

In other words, if thirty Jews visited today, that is pretty much the average number of Jews who visited every day for the past year (excluding Shabbat.)

This is a manufactured hysteria that is meant to incite Muslim Arabs against Jews and to try to pressure Israel to ban Jews from their holiest spot.

Thankfully, the Israeli police allowed Jews to visit anyway despite the rhetoric and threats.

PLO celebrates the wedding of a murderer

Marwan Abu Rumaila, 41, is one of the murderers released during the Shalit deal. He was serving two life sentences for murder and attempted murder.

Walid Aqel, 49, is another released murderer. He was serving 16 life sentences for his part in fatal terror attacks.

Aqel and Rumalia, were deported to Turkey, along with a few other of the worst terrorists.

Rumalia just married Aqel's niece in Ankara.

Here is the wedding invitation, taken from Rumaila's Facebook page.

The wedding was a must-attend event for everyone who loves terror and terrorists.

Among the attendees was the PLO ambassador to Turkey, along with community leaders and officials.

A popular resistance brick harmlessly hurled at evil Zionist woman

From YNet:

A teacher was on her way home to the West Bank settlement of Karmei Tzur on Tuesday when she found herself the target of a rock salvo that smashed her windshield.

Zehava Weiss, the driver, came out unscathed from an incident that has become a daily experience for residents in the region. An AFP photographer who was standing nearby captured the instance when a Palestinian boy hurled a boulder at her car.

Weiss told Ynet that she saw the car in front of her getting hit, but did not think the salvo would continue. She had no choice but to continue driving into Beit Ummar, a Palestinian town, even after she bcame the target.

"I saw crowds on my left and on my right," Weiss recalled. "I knew that something was happening, but I had to continue driving because I didn't see any cops of soldiers in the area."

Luckily, Weiss said, her car is armored, but even so "the windshield was shattered and the exterior was dented in several places. They were throwing bricks, not stones."

This wasn't Weiss' first time in an incident of this kind.

"The Palestinians love to throw stones near that spot, and at two other sites near the village," she said. "I have lived in Karmei Tzur for eight years and I can tell you that they hurl stones almost every day.

This is what Mahmoud Abbas calls "non-violent, popular resistance."

Here's my guess at the ways that the usual gang of anti-Israel idiots will use to justify or deflect from this attempted murder, if forced to comment on it at all:

She's a settler, so she deserves it. She's probably from Brooklyn.
If she wouldn't live on stolen land, she wouldn't have to worry about being attacked every day. (At least not for a couple of years, until the next phase.)
It's only a stone. That's nothing compared to Israeli F-15s.
It's only a stone. That's nothing compared to the suicide bombings that Palestinians used to do. Would you prefer those? You should be thanking the stone thrower.
A Jew threw the stone and the photographer was a Zionist, trying to make Palestinians look bad.
The occupation drives people to do something like this. End the occupation and things will be peaceful, just like they were before 1967.
Come on, millions of Palestinians are treated worse every day!
She was dressed provocatively.
Boys will be boys.
Look how settlers drive through Arab villages with bullet-proof cars, like they are better than the residents.
She was on her way to defile the Al Aqsa mosque.
This is the traditional way that Palestinians celebrate the end of hunger strikes.
If Palestinian Sesame Street was still being produced, kids would learn not to throw stones.
The UN didn't condemn it, proving this is not a big deal.
Of course he had to throw a brick. Her car is armored!
Headline: "Israeli occupation forces arrest Palestinians in Beit Ummar for no reason"
She deserved it. She was out alone.*
She deserved it. She was driving!* (Without her guardian!)

*(h/t Jewess)

Eeeek! A Zionist! Beirut billboard bothers bozos

From The Algemeiner:

A 50 foot billboard of Academy Award winning actress Natalie Portman marketing Dior cosmetics has gone up in Lebanon’s capital city of Beirut, and anti-Israel Lebanese bloggers are not thrilled.

Portman, who is a dual American and Israeli citizen, was born in Jerusalem and grew up in New York.

“Since each contact or with an Israeli occupation in Lebanon is considered a crime, you do not think hanging a poster size of 15 meters with the Zionist Jerusalem is illegal?,” wrote one Lebanese blogger.

“Portman, who was born in Jerusalem and whose real last name is Hershlag, has spoken at length about her love for her home country and how she wants to move back there once there is peace. She is very active in Zionist groups, though she is also a human rights activist—as long as those humans aren’t Palestinians,” wrote another.

See how ugly her face becomes once you know that she is one of those - *spit* - Zionists?

The original blog post at Now Lebanon has been taken down. Pity.

Crossing the Line: The Intifada Comes to Campus (Video)

This is a very good video, by Step Up for Israel:

A fight erupted between two competing rallies in Ramallah this evening, as supporters and opponents of the Assad regime came to blows.

A pro-Assad demonstration, with dozens of participants, went through Ramallah with the theme of supporting him in the face of "arrogance."

The demo was interrupted by youths who were upset at the participants carrying posters and banners praising Bashir Assad.

Now the Gaza bakeries are going to shut down

Even though some fuel somehow managed to make its way into Gaza, the problem is not over - and now the bakers are warning that they may shut down.

Abdel Nasser, president of an association of bakery owners in Gaza, says that the severe shortage of fuel may result in some of the bakeries in the sector closing in the next few days.

He said the crisis began almost two months ago since Egypt started cracking down on smuggled fuel. The quantities of diesel fuel going through the tunnels are limited and not sufficient, and bakery owners have been forced to use their own fuel which is now running out.

He added that some bakeries were forced to purchase diesel fuel on the black market.

Or, as GazaBYO tweeted,

Gaza bakeries may stop working due to the fuel crisis. So #NoElectricity #NoFuel #NoWater and Now #NoBread. #WelcomeToGaza

Fisking Leila Hilal in The Atlantic (David G)

This was part of David G.'s daily Middle East Media Sampler:

The Atlantic once was a highly thought of publication. Now seemingly anyone can write for it with no requirement of being truthful. Leila Hilal wrote Israeli Leader Wrongly Blames UN and Arab States for Palestinian Refugees and claims:

Ayalon is a former Israeli ambassador to the United States and currently a Knesset member representing Yisrael Beitenieu, an ultra-nationalist party that advocates the transfer of Palestinian citizens of Israel as part of a political settlement. An avid user of social media -- recognized by Foreign Policy in their who's who of 100 Tweeters in 2011 -- he maintains a personal website in Hebrew and English, including links to his widely viewed and frequently reposted Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts. The refugee video alone garnered 37,000 hits within the first two weeks of its release, and currently has over 140,000 views. Ayalon reportedly plans to promote the clips, available in eight languages, globally for use in regular school curricula. The deputy foreign minister has particularly strong appeal among some Christian evangelicals and conservative members of U.S. Congress, with whom he and his party have long cultivated ties and to whom much of his communications appears geared. In short, his effort to influence the narrative on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can have consequences.

To call Yisrael Beiteinu an ultra-nationalist party "that advocates transfer of Palestinian citizens of Israel," is deceptive. In its own website, the party describes its policy like this:

The responsibility for primarily Arab areas such as Umm Al-Fahm and the “triangle” will be transferred to the Palestinian Authority. In parallel, Israel will officially annex Jewish areas in Judea and Samaria. Israel is our home; Palestine is theirs.

That is unclear, however the Jewish Virtual Library explains further:

Yisrael Beiteinu is in favor of a peace settlement with the Palestinians but advocates replacing the land-for-peace approach with a mutual exchange of territories and populations under the principle of peace for peace, land for land. The party's manifesto states that "The end result [of a peace settlement with the Palestinians] must not be a state and a half for Palestinians and half a state for the Jews… It would be unjustifiable to create a Palestinian state that would exclude Jews while Israel became a bi-national state with an Arab minority of more than 20 percent of its citizens." The party states that Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel.

In other words, both Jews and Arabs who find themselves on the wrong side of the border will be transferred. Only half of that equation is objectionable to Hilal. Of course as we saw at Yamit and Gaza, Israel has transferred Jews in the name of peace.

I suppose there's a little truth in this argument:

In criticizing UNRWA, Ayalon ignores the fact that the agency is not mandated to find solutions for Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's authority, given to it by the UN General Assembly, is limited to providing humanitarian and development assistance. It is true that UNRWA has delivered this assistance for multiple decades, but it is precisely because of UNRWA's role that the refugees have been able to achieve varied degrees of normalization pending a political resolution of their rights. It is for this reason that the Israeli government annually supports the renewal of the agency's mandate at the UN and has opposed the cutting of aid to its general fund.
In the video, Ayalon implicitly portrays UNRWA as a resource drain compared to UNHCR -- again ignoring their differences. As a direct service provider for millions of beneficiaries, UNRWA needs staff and money to fulfill its internationally mandated role. UNHCR, on the other hand, typically contracts out service provision for refugees or negotiates socio-economic access with hosting governments. (Frequently unsuccessful in this endeavor, many refugees under UNHCR's authority face extremely dire circumstances, exacerbating protracted conflicts.)

No UNRWA is not mandated to find solutions for Palestinian refugees, it is, however, designed to perpetuate them. As Asaf Romirowsky and Jonathan Spyer observed in 2007:

Instead, UNRWA finds a hundred and one ways to perpetuate Palestinian dependency. The interests of the refugees and UNRWA are fatally intertwined; UNRWA is staffed mainly by local Palestinians — more than 23,000 of them — with only about 100 international United Nations professionals. Tellingly, while the U.N. High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) avoid employing locals who are also recipients of agency services, UNRWA does not make this distinction. Terrorism does not exclude one from being a part of UNRWA. In fact, quite the opposite is true: UNRWA-overseen hospitals and clinics routinely employ members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Employing Palestinians for decade after decade and providing them with subsistence-level food aid and rudimentary education are a far cry from giving them usable skills and a positive attitude about creating their own independent economy and viable civic institutions.

More recently, Daniel Pipes added:

These changes had dramatic results. In contrast to all other refugee populations, which diminish in number as people settle down or die, the Palestine refugee population has grown over time. UNRWA acknowledges this bizarre phenomenon: "When the Agency started working in 1950, it was responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, 5 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services." Further, according to James G. Lindsay, a former UNRWA general counsel, under UNRWA's definition, that 5 million figure represents only half of those potentially eligible for Palestine refugee status.
In other words, rather than diminish 5-fold over six decades, UNRWA has the population of refugees increase almost 7-fold. That number could grow faster yet due to the growing sentiment that female refugees should also pass on their refugee status. Even when, in about 40 years, the last actual refugee from mandatory Palestine dies, pseudo-refugees will continue to proliferate. Thus is the "Palestine refugee" status set to swell indefinitely. Put differently, as Steven J. Rosen of the Middle East Forum notes, "given UNRWA's standards, eventually all humans will be Palestine refugees."

Hilal also writes:

Ayalon's claim that Arab states deny refugees basic rights as demographic warfare against the Jewish state is also out of context. All Arab refugee-hosting countries endorsed the Arab Peace Initiative (API) in 2002 and again in 2007. The API contains an implicit compromise proposal to implement the right of return in a manner sensitive to Israel's demographic interests following Israeli recognition of international principles. As political landscapes shift in the Middle East, so may Arab foreign policies. Ayalon, however, relies on archaic public statements from former pan-Arabist Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser and long-passed UNRWA commissioners. Rather than quoting Arab leaders in 1969 or UN officials from the 1950s, Israeli officials should be honest about where the political conflict on the refugee question lies today.

Hilal apparently realizes the weakness of her argument when she writes that the Arab Peace Initiative contains "an implicit compromise" with Israel. There is nothing explicit about the API except for Israel's obligations. In short it is a recipe for the Arab League to keep changing its demands of Israel in return for ill defined promises. Furthermore, anyone who reads MEMRI knows that the official anti-Israel vitriol of the Arab world is not a thing of the past.

Finally we get to the most offensive part of Hilal's argument:

This leads to the other major assertion advanced in the clip equating Jewish and Palestinian refugees. In 2008, American historian Michael Fischbach published a ground-breaking study on Jewish Property Claims against Arab Governments. Fischbach mined American, Israeli, and British archives to understand the circumstances surrounding the movement of 800,000 Jews from Arab countries across the Middle East and North Africa over a 20-year period following Israel's establishment. His research revealed that Jews left Arab countries for a variety of reasons, with many leaving behind valuable assets that in some cases were seized by Arab governments. Ayalon reminds us of these claims but wrongly suggests that they fit within the rubric of Palestinian-Israeli relations. Jewish property claims should be resolved as a matter of priority, but bi-laterally with responsible Arab governments and according to the same universal norms applicable to Palestinians.

Funny, earlier, when it suited her, Hilal acknowledged the "archaic public statements" of Arab leaders, but she ignores it in this case:

On May 16, 1948, a New York Times Headline read “Jews in Grave Danger in all Muslim Lands: Nine Hundred Thousand in Africa and Asia face wrath of their foes.“ The story reported of a law drafted by the Arab League Political Committee “which was intended to govern the legal status of Jewish residents of Arab League countries. Their bank accounts would be frozen and used to finance resistance to 'Zionist ambitions in Palestine.' Jews believed to be active Zionists would be interned and their assets confiscated.“ Pogroms and persecutions, and grave fears for their future, regularly preceded the mass expulsions and exoduses of the Jews, whose ancestors had inhabited these regions from time immemorial. Beginning in 1948, more than 650,000 Jews left their homes in the Arab world to become refugees, and were eventually integrated into Israel, even as the country was being threatened with annihilation by neighboring Arab League states. Since their belongings were confiscated as the price of leaving from their repressive homelands, they arrived in Israel penniless, but they were welcomed and quickly absorbed into Israeli society. Approximately 300,000 more Jews found refuge, and a new homeland, in Europe and the Americas.

In a sense, then, Hilal ignores the Nakba. The Jewish one. If her misstatements and misdirections were not enough, she leaves us with one last one:

Ayalon argues in his video that the Palestinian refugees were encouraged to flee by Arab countries, who refused to accept the Jewish state. Though this view is still advanced by Israeli officials, it conflicts with mainstream Israeli understandings. According to a new study from Hebrew University profiled by Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar, "virtually all newspaper articles and research studies from the end of the 1980s to 2004", as well as all history textbooks authorized by the Israel's Ministry of Education since 2000, acknowledge that Palestinian refugees were subject to forcible expulsion. As Eldar noted, "It's a rejection of the [...] narrative that 'there was no expulsion in 1948.'"

This is not a mainstream view. It is the fashionable view of the anti-Israel left.

In order to set the record straight, Efraim Karsh wrote Palestine Betrayed, reviewed here:

Karsh sets the record straight by drawing on Western, United Nations, Israeli, and Soviet documents declassified over the last decade, providing the correct context often missing in the selective focus of the "new historians" and altogether absent in the Palestinian narrative. His detailed examination of the historical records reveals that Israel's establishment was not the main cause of the Palestinian refugee problem and the hardships that the population has faced thereafter. Instead, it was the result of actions taken by the Palestinian Arabs and their leaders.
Anger instigated by Arab leaders is the foremost recurring theme in Palestine Betrayed, and Karsh holds the mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin Husseini, responsible for the deterioration of neighborly relations between the Arabs and Jews during the Mandate period, and for the eventual "collapse and dispersion of Palestinian Arab society."

Hajj Amin, known for his pan-Arab ambitions, "viewed the Palestinians not as a distinct people deserving statehood but as an integral part of a single Arab nation"—with himself as leader, and clean of Jews. To this end, Hajj Amin, an admirer and supporter of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, launched a campaign to demolish the Jewish national revival by enraging his constituents with all the anti-Jewish rhetoric he could find, from verses in the Quran to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Given the sloppiness of Hilal's article, one wonders what the standards of the Atlantic are now. Or if it has any.

I would add that UNRWA did in fact work towards resettling refugees, not just giving them aid. The W or UNRWA stands for "Works" and UNRWA's mandate was to create works programs so that refugees could support themselves and (implicitly) eventually integrate into their host countries. While it was not explicit in its mandate, the words "resettlement" were used often in early UN resolutions and documents regarding the refugees.

For example, UNGA Resolution 393 from 1950, entitled "Assistance to Palestine Refugees":

The General Assembly,
Recalling its resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December 1949,
Having examined the report 2/ of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and the report 3/ of the Secretary-General concerning United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees,

4. Considers that, without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, the reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement, is essential in preparation for the time when international assistance is no longer available, and for the realization of conditions of peace and stability in the area;
5. Instructs the Agency to establish a reintegration fund which shall be utilized for projects requested by any government in the Near East and approved by the Agency for the permanent re-establishment of refugees and their removal from relief;

All this was obvious in early UN documents. Only at the end of the 1950s did UNRWA give up on the idea of re-integration and turn itself into a wholly anti-Israel organization. UNRWA teachers taught generations of Palestinian Arabs that "return" was the only acceptable option. This was documented in a monograph that noted that in Lebanon in the late 1950s:

Children in the physical education classes at the UNRWA schools exercised to the chant of a-w-d-a (return)

A UNRWA principal in 1961 described his school's curriculum to journalist Martha Gellhorn:

In our school, we teach the children from their first year about their country and how it was stolen from them. I tell my son of seven. You will see: one day a man of eighty and a child so high, all, all will go home with arms in their hands and take back their country by force.

The difference between UNRWA in 1950 and in 1960 is astonishing, and deserves its own study. But what was once a well-meaning refugee agency that did try to solve the refugee problem - including through resettlement - turned in only a few years into a hateful, inciting and bloated bureaucracy whose only purpose was to perpetuate and increase the refugee problem in perpetuity.

Egyptian cleric: Jews use soccer to distract Muslims

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from a religious program featuring Egyptian cleric Mahmoud Al-Masri, which aired on Al-Nas TV on February 7, 2012:

Mahmoud Al-Masri: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which were written in order to corrupt the Islamic people, included corruption by distracting Muslims through soccer. They use soccer to distract the Islamic peoples.

I always knew that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was a Zionist!

Beyond the humor, though, is the interesting fact that some Muslims are so self-centered that even a century-old European anti-semitic forgery is considered an attack on Islam.

(h/t Michal)

PA accuses Hamas of politicizing Gaza fuel crisis

From Ma'an:

The chair of the Palestinian Authority energy authority Omar Kittana says the Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip is politicizing the electricity crisis in an attempt to score political points.

Asked about accusations that he threatened employees at the energy authority in Gaza, Kittana said, “I refuse to comment on this as we have reached an impermissible point. I was afraid of politicization of this issue.

"We have been exerting efforts with the Egyptians for the sake of serving our people in the Gaza Strip, to provide them with electricity rather than serving the interests of any party."

He added that his department’s efforts were focused only on solving the electricity crisis regardless of any political considerations and bickering.

Kittana says he expects the crisis in Gaza to come to an end very soon, and he highlighted that a joint committee of Egyptians and Palestinians has been appointed to discuss the possible mechanisms for shipping fuel from Egypt to the strip.

A draft agreement has been put forward according to which Gaza’s power plant will receive fuel. Shipment will be from Suez “through official crossings.”

The only "official" crossings would be Kerem Shalom or a revamped commercial Rafah crossing that doesn't exist yet. I don't know how difficult it would be to transfer that amount of fuel through trucks every day at Rafah; my guess is that it would impact on civilian traffic through the crossing.

A Palestine Today article says that the fuel could be transferred either through Rafah or through Kerem Shalom.

Hamas had already rejected having the fuel go through Israel - something Egypt originally proposed - but there is really little choice at the moment.

Reading between the lines, it looks like Hamas caved and will allow the fuel to go through Israel.

A couple of hours after I wrote this, I see that Ma'an's article was revised to verify what I wrote:

Currently the only terminals designated for fuel are via Israel, but the Hamas government in Gaza has been bypassing them for over a year by pumping gas through tunnels from the Sinai. The draft agreement would resume transferring fuel through the Israeli crossings, which are more stable than the tunnels.

Iranian scientist's goal was "the annihilation of Israel": wife

From Iran's official FARS News, all but admitting that there is a nuclear weapons program:

The wife of Martyr Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan Behdast, who was assassinated by Mossad agents in Tehran in January, reiterated on Tuesday that her husband sought the annihilation of the Zionist regime wholeheartedly.

"Mostafa's ultimate goal was the annihilation of Israel," Fatemeh Bolouri Kashani told FNA on Tuesday.

Bolouri Kashani also underlined that her spouse loved any resistance figure in his life who was willing to fight the Zionist regime and supported the rights of the oppressed Palestinian nation.

Iran's 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan Behdast, a chemistry professor and a deputy director of commerce at Natanz uranium enrichment facility, was assassinated during the morning rush-hour in the capital early January. His driver was also killed in the terrorist attack.

Ahmadi-Roshan was officially the deputy director at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility.

So an Iranian nuclear scientist had a life goal of destroying Israel. He seemed to know quite well why he was enriching uranium, and he enthusiastically shared this information with his wife.

And Iran is proud enough to share this little tidbit on an official news site.

(h/t Andreas and others)

Azerbaijan terrorists were targeting Israeli ambassador (UPDATED)

A followup on yesterday's report on Iranian and Hezbollah terrorists caught in Azerbaijan:

Azerbaijan has arrested two men suspected of plotting to attack prominent foreigners in the former Soviet republic.

It is alleged they were aided by a third individual, an Iranian who had links with Iran’s intelligence.

It is reported he helped smuggle in weapons including sniper rifles, handguns and explosive devices.

Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry said the men’s targets included Israel’s ambassador.

Although Azerbaijan is a secular Muslim country its home to 9,000 Jews and has friendly ties with Israel and America.

In the past the Azeri authorities say they’ve prevented car bomb attacks near the Israeli, US and British embassies – all allegedly involving agents from neighbouring Iran.

So this was the fourth Iranian attempt to murder Israeli diplomats we know of in the past couple of weeks.

For its part, Iran has ramped up its own rhetoric against Azerbaijan, claiming that it is a haven for Mossad agents.

Meanwhile, new news from attempt #3 in Thailand:

The Iranian terrorists targeting Israeli facilities in Bangkok planned to use $27 portable radios to hide their explosives, ABC News reported Tuesday.

Airing exclusive photos of one of the bombs discovered, the network showed the inside of the radio, packed with tiny ball bearings and six magnets. According to explosive experts, the device's design indicates that the bomb was meant to be attached to the side of a vehicle.

According to the report, a surveillance photo of one of the suspects in the case, an Iranian national named Saeid Moradi, shows him holding a radio in each hand.

(h/t Yoel, Ian)

UPDATE: The Azerbaijan article and video above was actually from before the other three incidents. In fact, it foreshadowed them. Yesterday's arrest was a different set of terrorists.

From NZ Herald:

Piece by piece, the tools for an alleged Iranian-directed murder team were smuggled into Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea. A sniper rifle with silencer. Pistols. Sixteen pieces of plastic explosives and detonators.

Finally came a dossier with photos, names and exacting details down to workplace drawings for Israeli targets in the capital of Azerbaijan.

Each step, according to authorities in Baku, was overseen by Iran's intelligence services for what could have been a stunning attack weeks before the suspected shadow war between Jerusalem and Tehran flared in Azerbaijan's neighbour Georgia and the megacities New Delhi and Bangkok.

The shadow war is picking up as concerns are growing over Iran's alleged weapons experiments.

The allegedly unravelled Baku plot in January, recounted through interviews and police records, has been largely overshadowed by this month's arrests and attacks that suggest Iranian payback after the slayings of at least five Iranian scientists in the past two years, all with some links to Tehran's nuclear programme.

But the Baku claims offer a wider portrait of Iran's alleged clandestine operations, and how they appear tailored to different locales.

In Bangkok, the three Iranian suspects in custody took advantage of Thailand's foreigner-friendly culture to party with bar girls while allegedly organising a bomb cache whose targets, police say, included the Israeli Embassy. In New Delhi, the wife of an Israeli diplomat and three others were wounded by attackers using magnetic bombs - the same tactic used to kill a senior nuclear official in Tehran last month in an attack that Iran claims was masterminded by Israel. The same day as the New Delhi blast, a similar "sticky bomb" was found on the car of a driver for the Israeli Embassy in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.

(h/t/ CHA)