Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 04, 2012

Anti-semitic acts in France have increased since Toulouse

The vicious attack over the weekend by mob of apparent Arabs against three Jews in Lyon is not anomalous:

Jewish communal leaders in France say an attack on three Jewish men Saturday night was just the latest in a line of anti-Semitic incidents against the country’s Jews.

“There has been a series of acts like the one in in Villeurbanne,” said Richard Prasquier, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), according to Le Figaro.

Police are still searching for the culprits behind the incident Saturday night near the southern city of Lyon, in which 10 attackers assaulted three 18-year-old Jewish men outside a Jewish center in Villeurbanne. Two of the victims were taken to the hospital after being beaten with a hammer and metal rod.

Police believe the attackers are of North African extraction.

Joël Mergui, president of the Central Consistory, an umbrella organization working to coordinate local Jewish communities, said the country’s Jews were under constant attack. “Not a week passes without anti-Semitic assaults in France. I refuse to believe Jews will be forced to choose between security and their Jewish identity.”

The chief rabbi of the Grand Synagogue in Lyon, Richard Wertenschlag, called the atmosphere “unbearable.”

“These incidents are becoming more and more frequent, so much so, alas, as to make one take them for granted,” he said.

In March, a rabbi, his two children, and an 8-year-old girl were killed outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, by Algerian-French terrorist Mohamed Merah. Following the attack, French authorities vowed to crack down on Muslim extremism and anti-Semitic incidents.

But CRIF Vice President Ariel Goldman told Le Figaro that incidents had in fact ramped up.

“In the month following the Merah terror attack we counted 140 such acts,” said Goldman. “This amounts to a third of the violent incidents we had in 2011.”

Work accident!

From the Hamas Al Qassam Brigades English website:

Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades (E.Q.B) the military wing of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, mourned on Monday morning, June 4th, 2012, the death of the Qassam member Ahmed Mohammad Qalajah ,25, from Al Yarmouk district in Gaza city.

The brigades confirmed in a press statement released on Monday morning, that the martyr Ahmed has died while in a special Jihadist mission in the Strip, adding that he was martyred after a long bright path of Jihad, hard work, struggle and sacrifice

Al Qassam Brigades mourn the death of the Mujahed, reaffirms the commitment and determination to continue the resistance against the belligerent occupation forces.

The Arabic version includes the desire that he enters Paradise, because they are afraid that perhaps that is not the fate of the "martyrs" who never managed to kill any Jews.

Recently there have been some isolated attacks by Israelis against African would-be immigrants into Israel.

While the problem of these illegal immigrants is a serious one, nothing justifies racism, and nothing justifies physical attacks against these people.

The irony is that the Arab media is essentially celebrating these attacks as "proof" of Israeli racism. An op-ed in Al Quds today even says:

Palestinian people who have been the brunt of these racist practices for sixty-odd years have an affinity with these Africans and solidarity with their plight, just as they had sympathy with the Jewish immigrants who fled the persecution of Europe early last century, and, they were rewarded with expulsion and deportation and mass killings, ethnic cleansing; here are innocent African migrants who are tasting some of this Israeli racism...

The idea that Palestinian Arabs feel an affinity for Africans of any type is almost as laughable as the idea that they felt sympathy for Jewish Holocaust victims (they did everything they could to keep millions of Jews in Europe to be slaughtered.)

I noted an Economist article last week that detailed systematic racism against blacks and Asians in the Arab world (an article that was completely ignored by the Left that claims to care so much about this very issue.) There were few anguished op-eds in Arab newspapers about this clear, institutionalized racism. (Here is one exception.) No articles by such luminous moderates like Hussein Ibish calling for an end to Arab racism. Nothing.

To his credit, Robert Fisk was even more outspoken about the problem.

Arab societies are dependent on servants. Twenty-five per cent of Lebanese families have a live-in migrant worker, according to Professor Ray Jureidini of the Lebanese American University in Beirut. They are essential not only for the social lives of their employers (housework and caring for children) but for the broader Lebanese economy.

Yet in the Arab Gulf, the treatment of migrant labour – male as well as female – has long been a scandal. Men from the subcontinent often live eight to a room in slums – even in the billionaires' paradise of Kuwait – and are consistently harassed, treated as third-class citizens, and arrested on the meanest of charges.

But sometimes the truth about Arab racism against blacks can be seen in a much more personal way.

In an advice column for the (Hamas-oriented) Palestine Times, an 18 year old Palestinian Arab girl writes:

I am an 18-year old girl, and my skin is brown. I believe I am beautiful to some extent, but people close to me don't, because they see me as "black." I often wish my mother would bleach my skin in order to whiten my skin, therefore, I am sparing no effort to buy creams to lighten my skin color. Unfortunately, members of my family like my younger sister, as her skin is white and beautiful. What's worse, the mother said this to my sister but not to me, which makes me jealous of my sister. My parents favor her even to the point that my father and my mother always argue as to which of them my sister resembles. I even thought about suicide. Please Help me I am broken and too pre-occupied...

The racism is so deep that even within a family there is preference for the daughter with whiter skin!

Arabs of course were instrumental in the slave trade, kidnapping tens of millions of Africans throughout the centuries, something that still exists (especially in Gulf countries) with African domestic workers who are effectively indentured servants.

Their glee at seeing some isolated and condemned acts of Israeli racism is more than a bit hypocritical.

An Israeli artist calls for 3.3 million Israelis to move to Poland

And Arabs are overjoyed.

From the JRMiP homepage:

‘3.3 million Jews can change the life of 40 million Poles’

The founding wish of the JRMiP is to write new pages into a history that never quite took the course we wanted. We call for the return of 3.300.000 Jews to Poland to symbolize the possibility of our collective imagination – to right the wrongs history has imposed and to reclaim the promise of a utopian future that all citizens deserve. Our destiny is not tied to the fate of Jews – or Poles – we welcome into our ranks all those who believe in the strength of dreams and political will to achieve more. Members of the movement are migrants, intellectuals, workers, artists, out-casts and thinkers: People who recognize that the Europe of today needs to be re-thought, that Israel must change to be part of the Middle East and that as citizens we have the ability and responsibility to imagine the world differently. Now, the movement needs you. Together, we can be strong in our weakness.

In the words of the JRMiP manifesto: ‘This is the response we propose for these times of crisis, when faith has been exhausted and old utopias have failed. Optimism is dying out. The promised paradise has been privatized. The Kibbutz apples and water melons are no longer as ripe. We direct our appeal not only to Jews. We accept into our ranks all those for whom there is no place in their homelands – the expelled and the persecuted. There will be no discrimination in our movement. We shall not ask about your life stories, check your residence cards or question your refugee status.’

Join us and Europe will be stunned.

The JRMiP was initiated by Israeli-born artist Yael Bartana in 2007 and since then has garnered international recognition and support. In May 2012 the JRMiP will meet for the first time in Berlin to formulate their future agenda.

The desire seems to be that if Jews of Polish ancestry would return to a country that always treated them as second-class citizens, then the remaining (mostly Sephardic) Jews in Israel could melt into a Middle East and return to becoming second-class citizens as well.

This is considered "utopian."

The heralded JRMiP Congress was apparently held three weekends ago - yes, on Shabbat - and perhaps three dozen "delegates" were scheduled to attend.

I can find no news stories about it.

In fact, the entire idea may have been a publicity stunt for the Israeli artist Yael Bartana, who created a trilogy of films about a fictional JRMiP in faux documentary style.

However tenuous the idea's relationship is with reality, Israeli Arab newspaper Elaph loves the idea. What's not for Arabs to love? It pushes their idea that Jews properly belong elsewhere.

The script could have been written by Helen Thomas!

UPDATE: Simon points me to a Forward review of the film trilogy that makes it clear that the entire idea is a hoax, but a hoax for the sake of art, so instead of calling it a hoax it is an invitation to have the audience join in the irony. The trilogy equates Israel with the Nazis, but subtly, thus elevating it from hateful rhetoric to a wonderful example of post-Zionist art, according to the Forward.

Egypt's imminent fuel crisis

From Egypt Independent:

Egypt has struggled to obtain bank payments for its fuel purchases, trade sources said, delaying diesel supplies for transport, industry and agriculture ahead of the second round of an election vote.

The payment problems have caused shipping delays and prompted some suppliers to think again before offering oil into a forthcoming US$1 billion import tender, half a dozen trade sources, including current suppliers, told Reuters.

They said delays of up to two weeks in deliveries were a regular occurrence ahead of peak summer demand for diesel, blaming Egypt's difficulties in obtaining letters of credit from banks.

An official at the Egyptian General Petroleum Corp (EGPC) denied this.

A trader involved in the transactions said banks were increasingly nervous with loans and required additional assurances as Egypt's stretched finances made it harder to pay for its heavy fuel subsidies bill.

"There has been a queue of (oil) product vessels in Egypt that are waiting for letters of credit," said a second trader working for a Swiss-based trading house.

Fuel shortages have already caused anger this year and have delayed the harvest. Long lines at fuel stations in central Cairo were forming on Thursday, causing large traffic jams in some main thoroughfares.

Shipping delays can cut or eliminate oil traders' profit margins through additional waiting fees — "demurrage" costs.

Traders said these amounted to between $15,000-$25,000 a day depending on the size of the vessel.

The recent delays could further shrink Egypt's pool of suppliers participating in tenders, which has already fallen since the revolution, the traders said.

"Taking into consideration extra demurrage for sure there are some companies not offering anymore," said a trade source. Another source said that those able to continue supplying Egypt are likely to ask for premiums on fuel sales.

Things are going to get much, much worse in Egypt. And it is going to happen sooner rather than later, since peak energy usage is in the summer.

Rainbow open thread

This evening I saw the most stunning rainbow of my life - a full 180 degrees. I captured part of it in two photos at a parking lot.

Phone cameras cannot do justice to a rainbow, but you work with what you have...

And until this very minute I didn't even realize that it was a double rainbow!

This is as good an excuse as any for an open thread....

Sunday Links (Ian, plus)

From Ian:

Israel A Country Fenced In (video)

from Daphne Anson
Why Israel Should Not Return To The 1967 Borders

Democratic House primary turns into ethnic proxy war over Israel

Pascrell in recent weeks has waged a charm offensive in the Arab community, campaigning alongside a Hamas-sympathizer and many who have expressed hostility towards Israel.
James Zogby, president of the American Arab Institute, recently helped Pascrell collect more than $50,000; Zogby is a longtime critic of Israel who has accused the U.S. of “being the coat holder and cheerleader” for the Jewish state.
Pascrell also has embraced Imam Mohammad Qatanani, a controversial Passaic spiritual leader who stands accused by the State Department of hiding a conviction in Israel for having ties to the terror group Hamas.
Last Friday, Pascrell held a high profile event at a local mosque where he was joined by Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn), a prominent ally of the fringe group J Street and the first Muslim member of Congress.

German controversy over Israel boycott

Politicians reject German mayor’s Israel boycott. Schröter: goal is to label goods from ‘illegal’ settlements.
“Critics accused Schroter, 57, the Social Democratic mayor of Jena in Thuringia state, of fostering modern anti-Semitism with his support for a call by the German branch of Pax Christi, an international Catholic “peace movement,” to not buy Israeli goods.”

President Obama Shuns Lech Walesa

According to the Wall Street Journal, Polish officials requested that Walesa accept the Medal of Freedom on behalf of Jan Karski, a member of the Polish Underground during World War II who was being honored posthumously this week. The request makes sense. Walesa and Karski shared a burning desire to rid Poland of tyrannical subjugation. But President Obama said no.
Administration officials told the Journal that Walesa is too “political.” A man who was arrested by Soviet officials for dissenting against the government for being “political” is being shunned by the United States of America for the same reason 30 years later.
Meanwhile, one of the recipients of the Medal was Dolores Huerta, the honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. So socialist politics are acceptable, but not the politics of a man who stood up and fought socialism.

Australian hi-tech investor unveils audacious 30-year Jerusalem master plan

Greg Sheridan in The Australian on some of the wasteful exercises of diplomacy being carried out in your name

According to Gillard government officials in devastating Senate estimates committee testimony this week, one Bashir al-Kheiri* was president of UAWC from 2008 to last year. He is closely associated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a proscribed terrorist organisation, and has served substantial jail time for terrorist offences. There are many other connections between UAWC figures and the PFLP.
The government's entire defence on this matter has rested on the narrow legal argument that in funding the UAWC it is not breaching laws against funding terrorists because there is no formal organisational connection between UAWC and PFLP, and there is no diversion of funds.
No doubt the government is right that it is not breaking the law. But what possible reason is there for Australian taxpayers to labour so that they can provide resources to individuals associated with the PFLP? It is complete madness, morally repugnant and against common sense.
*alt spelling - al-Khairi
(unfortunately the full Sheridan article is paywalled, his broader point was that money is being recklessly spent on aid rather than on diplomatic staff who could supervise aid spending, advise the government and build relationships.)

Bonus
Best Israeli English Class Ad Ever - NSFW

Also:

Israeli subs from Germany can carry nuclear weapons

JE Dyer: Just a reminder: Iran still closing in on bomb

Racism in Poland and Ukraine football (BBC, video seems only available in UK)
...But the British team is visiting Auschwitz before the tournament

Another warning from Iran. Yawn.

A scene in a Saudi mall

Ben Dror Yemini on the African refugee problem (Hebrew)

(h/t Ben, O., Alan S., Yoel)

Gas off Gaza coast sitting while Hamas/Fatah bicker

From Xinhua:

Under Gaza's glittering waters of the Mediterranean, a strategic gas reservoir that is capable of ending the crippling power crisis in this Palestinian enclave has been lying out of commission since it was discovered 12 years ago.

Now, electricity outage in Gaza is suffered up to 12 hours per day, as the only power plant lacks enough diesel to run its turbines. Cars stop in long queues for hours at petrol stations, hospitals warning that fuel for generators is running up and cooking gas suffers sporadic shortages.

In 2000, the U.K.-based energy firm BG Group plc and its partners -- the Lebanese Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA)'s Investment Fund -- announced the discovery of a gas field 36 km off the Gaza coast. Later in the year, the consortium said it drilled two wells (Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2), with estimated resources of around 1 trillion cubic feet.

"There are no real obstacles preventing us from extracting the gas," said a source from BG group. "The only problem is that we are still searching for a market." The source says that despite talking to several regional and foreign potential buyers, no agreement was reached. No explanation for this was offered from the source.

BG Group spent seven years in negotiations with Israel as a possible purchaser of Gaza gas, but the negotiations stopped in 2007 and the company closed its Tel Aviv office. Sources from the company say Israel wanted to get the gas for two U.S. dollars per cubic feet, below the market's seven-dollar price.

Also in 2007, Islamic Hamas movement wrested control of the Gaza Strip, leaving the PNA's rule confined to the West Bank. As Al-Khatib and the BG Group source downplayed the partial responsibility of the Palestinian split for not extracting gas, another BG Group source did not. "If there was no split, the gas field might have been developed."

Of course, the article can't resist false Israel-bashing:

As part of the Israeli sanctions against Hamas, shipments of diesel to the station from Israel were limited. For a year, Hamas managed to smuggle the fuel from Egypt, but the process was interrupted by the beginning of 2012.

Um, no. Israel was sending all the fuel it was being paid for through Kerem Shalom. Hamas stopped the shipments for over a year and refused to resume them for months as Gaza went dark.

Observers believe that Israel's monopoly on the Palestinian energy resources aim at preventing any unilateral step of independence by the Palestinian leadership.

Those "observers" wouldn't happen to be rabid Israel haters, would they?

(h/t Meryl Yourish)

One of the "martyrs" whose body Israel returned last week

Israel's unilateral return of the bodies of the most heinous terrorists last week is most perplexing, as the only consequence from that act has been a huge amount of praise given to these terrorists by the Palestinian Arabs.

One of those whose bodies were returned was Reem Riyashi. From Wikipedia:

Riyashi detonated a 2 kg bomb inside a building where the thousands of Palestinians who cross each day from Gaza to work in a neighbouring industrial zone are processed.[2]
The Israeli army reported that when she reached the metal detector at the terminal, Riyashi pretended to be crippled and claimed to have metal plates in her leg which would sound the alarm. She asked to have a body search instead. After being taken to an area where a group of soldiers and policemen were checking bags, she was told to wait for a woman to come and search her in a cubicle. It was then that she detonated the explosive device.

Two Israeli soldiers, a policeman and a civilian security worker were killed. Seven other Israelis and four Palestinians were injured.

Riyashi posed with her two small children, one who was 3 years old and the other 18 months old:

Most Arabic media in Egypt and Lebanon praised her at the time. Typical was the reaction of Lebanese MP Walid Jumblatt:

"Yesterday, the Palestinian mother Reem Al-Riyashi sacrificed herself, and by so doing joined the columns of the brave Jihad warriors and broke the atrocious and troublesome Arab silence, the helplessness, and the retreat that precede failure and disintegration. She offered hope in a sea of complacency, indecisiveness, and fear. It is a new Intifada. It is the Intifada of the revolutionary Palestinian woman and of the land, opposing the 'Jewification' [of Palestine], the Jewish reality, and the Arab regimes. Did it come out of despair?

"No, and again no. It is an act of belief and it is the correct path, because the fall of one Jew, whether soldier or civilian, is a great accomplishment in times of decline, subservience, and submissiveness, as a way to undermine the plan to 'Jewify' all of Palestine."

Hamas loves photos of grieving Israelis

Every time an Israeli is killed, terrorist media love to show photos of grieving Israelis. And the killing of Netanel Moshiashvili on Friday morning near Gaza is no different.

Hamas' Palestine Times features a photo essay with some 15 photos from Moshiashvili's funeral.

The title of the story is "Zionists crying and bemoaning the dead."

The reason? To them, seeing Jews crying shows their supposed weakness.

Beyond that, it shows that Arab terrorists aren't irrelevant - which is their biggest fear. They are proud to know that they have the ability to affect people's lives in Israel! (They have similar photo essays of Jews running to bomb shelters whenever they shoot rockets towards Israel.)

Significantly, Palestine Times showed no photos from the funeral of the Arab who infiltrated Israel and was killed. Usually when they do, the prevalent emotion is not sadness but anger; in this Reuters photo we see one of the "mourners" with a rifle.

While wire services will show mourning Arabs, the Arab media is much more reluctant to do so - again, because they regard sadness as weakness, and they want to channel all emotions into anger and terror.

Egypt again delays fuel shipment from Qatar to Gaza

From AFP:

A delivery of 30 million liters of Qatari fuel, which was to have entered Gaza on Sunday, has been delayed yet again, officials said, prompting an angry reaction from the Palestinian energy authority.

The Hamas-run Gaza Strip has been living through its worst electricity crisis in living memory, with the Qatari shipment expected to help ease the situation.

But Raed Fatuh, head coordinator for the Palestinian Authority at the Kerem Shalom crossing between southern Gaza and Israel, told AFP the delay was the result of “technical issues” on the Egyptian side.

He said delivery of the fuel, which is to be transported through Egypt’s Al-Awja crossing and into southern Israel, then into Gaza through Kerem Shalom, would take place on Tuesday.

It was the third such delay in less than three weeks and prompted an angry outburst by the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority (PENRA), which said the shipment had been sitting in the dock at the Egyptian port of Suez “for a month and a half.”

“There has been a change of roles between the Israelis and the Egyptians in suffocating the Palestinian people and continuing the siege on Gaza,” a statement posted on the PENRA website said.

“This continued delay in the arrival of the Qatari fuel will extend the electricity crisis in Gaza, especially with summer approaching.”

Last month, Israel gave the green light for the fuel to be transferred through its territory after receiving a request from the Egyptians, an Israeli security official said.

The fuel was in Egypt two months ago, but Egypt only requested to transfer it through Israel last month, and Israel approved the shipment.

Proving yet again that Gaza is being blockaded - by (post-revolution) Egypt.

Notice that AFP still cannot figure out that Hamas created the fuel crisis by refusing for months to accept fuel from Israel. Qatar's two month supply is free, showing that Hamas' cynical abuse of its citizens in Gaza pays off.

New evidence revealed that PFLP-GC behind Lockerbie

From CNN last week:

Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the only person convicted in connection with the Lockerbie airline bombing that killed 259 people on board Pan Am Flight 103 and 11 on the ground, went to his grave protesting his innocence.

And there are others who believe that Megrahi, who died on Sunday from cancer, was not responsible for bringing down the jet over Scotland in 1988, including some of the victims' families.

...TV producer and author John Ashton has spent many years studying the case, and worked as a researcher with al Megrahi's defense team between 2006 and 2009. He believes al Megrahi was innocent and presents his reasons in his book "Megrahi: You are my jury - the Lockerbie evidence.'"

He believes that Iran is the likely suspect behind the bombing, using the Palestinian group The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) to carry out the attack.

He told CNN he believed the group operated from Damascus but had a cell inside Germany, and alleges the attack was in revenge for the accidental shooting down of an Iranian passenger jet by the Americans in July 1988 with the loss of 290 lives. Missiles from USS Vincennes hit the plane as it flew over the Persian Gulf.

Now, the Herald Scotland says it is going to publish evidence that the British government tried to suppress:

It has been hidden, blocked and kept secret by the UK Government for more than 20 years, but The Herald can reveal for the first time the contents of the top-secret Lockerbie document that the UK tried to prevent us from publishing.

The highly classified document, which has never even been aired in public or shared with the courts, originally came from Jordan and indicates that a Palestinian terrorist group was involved in the bombing that killed 270 people – something the UK Government has vehemently denied.

The UK Government has gone to considerable lengths to prevent details of the document – which casts further doubt on the safety of the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi – being published by The Herald.

It has threatened legal action to stop publication of the newspaper and asked the paper to sign up to a court-approved gagging order.

Our decision to publish details of the document, which was obtained by the Crown Office but never shown to the defence team, will prove highly embarrassing to the Crown, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Office of the Advocate General, whose lawyers have worked tirelessly to prevent it ever being even discussed in public.

The document incriminates the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) in the Lockerbie bombing.

The PFLP-GC were the original suspects in the investigation into the biggest terrorist atrocity ever to have been committed in mainland Britain. However, by 1991 police and prosecutors were entirely focused on Libya. Since then politicians and the investigating authorities have denied the possibility of their involvement, instead blaming the whole atrocity on Libya.

Repeated, high-level attempts to block the report indicate it is vital to unearthing the truth about the Lockerbie bombing. The UK Government arranged for the document to be covered by Public Interest Immunity on national security grounds. This prevented it from being shared with the defence but does not prevent publication by a newspaper.

There are no details in this article. But many others have pieced together evidence that the PFLP-GC was behind the bombing, as this 2007 London Review of Books article details.

The PFLP-GC works closely with Hezbollah in Lebanon. It had been responsible for a number of bomb attacks on airlines in the 1970s, as well as a number oof high-profile attacks in Israel including Kiryat Shmona and the Avivim School Bus Massacre.

(h/t Akusia)