Monday, October 21, 2013

  • Monday, October 21, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
I admit I am having problems parsing this article from Iran's Ahlul Bayt News Agency:
Ayatollah Sadr el Din Ghabanchi, Iraqi prayer leader in Najaf referred to the efforts of the Zionist regime to promote hostility between Islamic denominations with Shia Muslims stressing that regional allies of the Zionist regime have turned into enemies of Shia.
Zionists are promoting hostility between Sunnis and Shia, so therefore Shia is obligated to be hostile to Sunni. I think.
He warned against talks on prevention of Shia Islam in Algiers denouncing Salafi groups for the effort.
Salafi groups denouncing Shia groups are bad, but rules to stop Shia groups from denouncing Salafis are also bad.
Orator of Najaf city in Iraq added that Shia Islam, in the light of domestic crisis in the region has turned to the central issue when regional states, having accepted their failure against the Zionist regime, have risen against Shia Muslims.
It sounds like he is saying thatsince Sunni regimes have admitted defeat against Zionists, they have become pro-Zionist puppets.
Iraqi cleric added,” While efforts to spread intrigues among Muslims and fueling civil war continues in Islamic countries to secure interests of the Zionist regime, Israel is in in a situation of relative security.” And added,” This is while Zionist regime authorities announce Al Qaeda a minor threat but Shia Islam a major one.”

He said,” This is quite right because Al Qaeda is the brainchild of world arrogant powers and is supported by great powers of the world.”
I'm sure there is a logic there, but I think it ends at "Shia good. Everyone else bad. Unity good as long as it supports Shiites."
  • Monday, October 21, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Times of London:
Pregnant women in Syria are being picked off by snipers in a sickening war game in which their unborn babies appear to be used for target practice, according to a British surgeon.

David Nott, who has just spent five weeks volunteering in a Syrian hospital, said that he and his despairing colleagues started to notice a disturbing pattern among the women and children who were being shot as they ran the daily gauntlet across a divided zone to buy food and supplies in a major city.

"One day it would be shots to the groin. The next, it would only be the left chest. The day after, we would see no chest wounds; they were all neck [wounds]," he said in an interview with The Times. "From the first patients that came in in the morning, you could almost tell what you would see for the rest of the day. It was a game. We heard the snipers were winning packets of cigarettes for hitting the correct number of targets."

He said local rumours suggested that the snipers were mercenaries from China and Azerbaijan, working for the Assad regime. This cannot be verified.

Mr Nott has been volunteering as an emergency surgeon in war zones in countries such as Bosnia, Libya, Chad, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo for the past 20 years. However, he said that Syria was the only place in which he had witnessed civilians, and in particular pregnant women, being targeted.

On one day, more than half a dozen pregnant women were caught in sniper fire. On another day, two consecutive patients were heavily pregnant women. Both survived but their babies were dead on arrival.

In one case, a baby had a bullet in its brain. "The women were all shot through the uterus, so that must have been where they were aiming for. I can't even begin to tell you how awful it was. Usually, civilians are caught in the crossfire. This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this. This was deliberate. It was hell beyond hell."

Speaking between operations at his day job as a vascular surgeon at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Mr Nott estimated that up to 90 per cent of the people he treated were civilians. "I saw very few fighters." The surgeon, who also works at the Royal Marsden and St Mary's Hospital, London, spends at least a month a year volunteering in a conflict zone.


(h/t Yoel)
  • Monday, October 21, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
An Israeli TV reporter got into the Za'atari Syrian refugee camp in Jordan and discovered that older Saudi men are taking advantage of girls as young as ten years old and their families.



The video shows a female "marriage broker" extolling the beauty of her virgin girls - the men only want virgins, and they want them young.

According to Palestine Press Agency's reporting of the story, for as little as $3000 the Saudis are "marrying" young girls, having their twisted ideas of "fun," and then divorcing the girls.

A 70 year old Saudi man married a 13 year old girl for a week. A ten year old girl complained on camera about marrying a 60 year old Saudi who beat her during their short "marriage."

The Za'atari camp has around 120,000residents, making it the fourth largest city in Jordan. Roughly half the residents are children.

The UNHCR head of the camp readily admits that the camp is filled with organized crime.

(h/t Yoel)

  • Monday, October 21, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
Save a Child's Heart is one of those organizations whose very existence completely and thoroughly debunks the lies about Israel that haters make up and then parrot.

I didn't note this on the video, but keep in mind while you are watching it that the Wolfson Medical Center is not state of the art. It is actually pretty run down. It serves a poorer section of Israel around Holon. It didn't even have an MRI. Rooms were hurriedly converted to allow relatives of the children to stay overnight.

Yet even with all these limitations, the dedicated doctors and administration have built up an amazing organization that not only treats children from around the world for free (including from many Arab countries,) but also sends doctors all over the world to teach other doctors how to save lives.

It is remarkable.



By the way, SACH is one of the very few worthwhile causes in Israel that the EU Commission donates to.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

From the Times of Oman:
This week, a Jordanian band went on a tour that included the Golan Heights, Nazareth, Haifa, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jerusalem. But the popular music group which is rated as one of the top five in the region faced a concerted social media and online attack as having participated in a politically unacceptable act.

The attack focused on the fact that the band members received visas from the Israeli embassy in Amman. They are accused of normalising with the Israelis. Entry into Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Nazareth or Haifa is not possible without a visa.

The permits issues by the Palestinian Authority in coordination with and after the approval of the Israelis are valid only in West Bank cities like Bethlehem and Ramallah.

The band, Autostrad, identifies itself as "an Ammani world, reggae, funk band from Jordan". Fronted by lead singer Yazan Alrousan, Autostrad was formed in 2007 with guitarist Hamza Arnaout, keyboardist Wisam Qatawneh, bassist Avo Demerjian, saxophonist Bashar Abdelghani and drummer Burhan Ali.

The online and social media campaign was launched by a number of young Jordanians and Palestinians, including some who are citizens of Israel.

In an article published on a number of progressive sites, the writer says the band is welcome to Palestine only after it is liberated. A hashtag with "come after it is liberated" also went viral as attacks against the music group mushroomed.

Autostrad members reject the accusation of normalisation and insist that they are visiting their country upon invitation from credible Palestinian organisations and will sing to Palestinians and Syrians living under Israeli rule.
It's not like Autostrad loves Israel. Quite the contrary:
Arnaout was quoted on a website that getting a visa was the only option available.

"We are Jordanians and Palestinians and this is the only way we have to enter our homeland Palestine and no one can stop us from doing our work."
But this is a big loss for the "Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel" which defined this trip as breaking their rules for normalization.

Even the author of the piece, Daoud Kuttab, criticized PACBI:
After 65 years of Nakbeh and 46 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights, having a group of unelected individuals decide who is a patriot and who is a traitor does not serve the overall cause.
Ray Hanania made a similar point in Saudi Gazette, slamming the haters:
The extremists, who are a minority faction in our Arab community, step in and bully the mainstream Arabs into silence. Arabs are afraid to stand up to the extremists who often direct their hate and anger against Arabs even more than they do against Israel. So the mainstream Arabs remain silent. It’s better to not say anything, the moderates mistakenly conclude, than to stand up to the fanatics.
This story completely flew under the radar, and it wasn't covered at all by Jordan's state media.

From Ammon News, October 9:

Last Thursday, October 3rd, at approximately 7:00 p.m., a conflict occurred in Gaza Camp, eight kilometers outside of Jerash, between several residents of the camp and the adjacent Al Hadada neighborhood to the west.

The tribal altercation between the two parties escalated into a full lockdown of the area by Jordanian police in order to control the combatants. Eyewitnesses reported that Jordanian residents of Al Hadada vacated the area, the violence shifted between Jordanian police forces and Palestinian residents of Gaza Camp.

Camp residents threw rocks at the police and demanded that they cease their occupation of the main street, to which the police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. A number of stores and cars were looted and burned as a result of the initial clash. Fighting continued between police and residents, with the Jordanian Police forces employing tear gas and rubber bullets both on the main street and within residential areas until 4:00 a.m.

The police presence intensified on Friday morning with the addition of armed trucks and armed personal carriers. Local businesses were not permitted to open, and checkpoints were set up at the camp entrances, where officers did not allow those without ID cards to enter the camp.

Skirmishes between anti-riots police and residents of Gaza Camp resumed again at 12:15 p.m., nearly twelve hours after the original conflict between residents of Al Hadada and Gaza Camp had ended. An eyewitness said that the afternoon prayer at Abu Bakir mosque was interrupted by tear gas, and worshippers were driven the main street. At several times, police entered the residential streets with tear gas launchers, riot shields, and rubber bullets, engaging those who refused to go indoors.

By 10:30 p.m. Friday evening, the fighting mostly ceased. Eyewitnesses reported that the police limited their presence to the easternmost section of the camp, but continued to arrest those found out on the streets.

Police cordoned Gaza Camp by this past weekend lasted approximately forty hours. No casualties were confirmed, but many residents were injured by the officers' fire. The tear gas also caused a significant amount of discomfort as it spread inside residential homes throughout the day and a half long conflict. Spent canisters of tear gas found in the camp indicate that they were deployed after their expiration date.

Fire and damage was also inflicted upon the infrastructure and properties within the camp.
“Police cars have returned to the camp every day this week,” a source within the camp stated today. “They are still arresting more people.”

While only 14 arrests have been confirmed, residents have claimed at least 20 have been detained, with some estimates as high as 100. The current charges include assault of police officers and the destruction of property.
Here's video:



Apparently, no "pro-Palestinian human rights" groups bothered to go to the camp to act as human shields against the Jordanian occupiers.

Residents of the Gaza/Jerash camp are not citizens of Jordan. Although they have lived within Jordan's borders for over 45 years, they cannot become citizens, they cannot freely travel, and they are not tried in civilian but in military court, from which nine of them were released today after being held for over two weeks in custody.

There are two separate double standards here, both on how Jordan treats its Palestinian Arabs who originated from Gaza as well as how Jordanian police are not criticized by groups that pretend to be pro-Palestinian for their riot control methods.

But, as Meryl Yourish likes to say, it is Israel Double Standard Time, which occurs every day of the week that ends in a "y."


  • Sunday, October 20, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
Because they are in Lebanon.


From Now Lebanon:

A security forces unit is preparing to raid the Dbayeh Palestinian refugee camp and destroy around 20 illegal buildings, NOW learned on Saturday.

According to the report, the security forces are surrounding the camp with a number of bulldozers to destroy the two-story buildings.

Hamas’ representative in Lebanon Ali Baraka condemned the news, and warned that such a step could escalate the tension between security forces and the refugees in all camps in Lebanon.

“The camp’s residents called [Hamas] at midnight and asked for help,” Baraka told NOW.

“The Lebanese state does not ban buildings inside the camp. We can find two-story buildings in all camps, so why is the camp that is inhabited by Christian Palestinians targeted?”

Baraka also noted that the targeted buildings in the Dbayeh camp are located on land that belongs to the UNRWA.
From Ian:

JPost Edtorial: Tall tales
Fatah co-founder Farouk Kaddoumi – who brands the two-state solution “just a temporary phase” – showed Al Jazeera TV in 2009 what he insisted were protocols of a three-way collusion by Abbas, Arafat’s longtime sidekick Muhammad Dahlan and then-prime minister Ariel Sharon to assassinate Arafat.
Unfortunately such slander is not the exception. It is a Palestinian norm. Fantastic convolutions of cloak and dagger canards do not bolster the cause of peace. Falsehoods negate peace.
Where the culture of mendacity reigns, trustworthy accords cannot grow. That is why recurrent twists in the Arafat assassination tale matter.
The Saudis are sulking
Despite its candid anger, Saudi Arabia cannot forgo its military partnership with the U.S. After seeing how the U.S. recently froze military aid to Egypt, the Saudis realized that, with Obama in power, anything is possible. It is preferable for Saudi Arabia to not publicly confront the U.S. on the U.N. stage. Rather, it should do so indirectly. There is much more Saudi Arabia can do to thwart the Iranian nuclear project. It may be that Saudi Arabia's open refusal of a Security Council seat is masking other behind-the-scenes moves, such as building a discrete and unnatural coalition. It is best that such things are done as far away from the spotlight as possible.
France suggests reforming veto power on Security Council
In light of the Security Council’s stalemate on Syria — Russia and China have repeatedly blocked resolutions calling for the use of force against the Bashar Assad regime — France has suggested reforming the mighty veto power of the body’s five permanent members: the US, UK, France, Russia, and China.
The world from here: Why Jordan relies on Israel to secure the Jordan Valley
Both the king and his closest advisers are also keenly aware that in the event of an Israeli withdrawal, the Jordan Valley could easily be transformed into the “Philadelphi Corridor” of the West Bank.
With the West Bank under prospective Palestinian control, jihadi groups from Iraq and Syria would be attracted to cross into Jordan and then to Palestinian territory. A common Palestinian-Jordanian border would also likely increase Palestinian irredentism towards the East Bank, which has been a major Jordanian concern since “Black September” in 1970, when Syrian-backed Palestinian insurgents threatened the Hashemite Kingdom.
CAMERA Prompts Ha'aretz Correction on Gaza Imports
CAMERA's Israel office has prompted a correction on an article in the Sept. 23 English print edition of Ha'aretz which had wrongly reported that Israel allowed concrete and steel to enter the Gaza Strip legally for the first time in six years.
Gili Cohen's inaccurate article, with the erroneous headline stating that "Cement enters Gaza Strip legally for first time in six years," appears below:
BBC’s “Obstacles to Peace” erases pre-1967 Jewish history in Jerusalem
It is, of course, bad enough that this one-sided political polemic has been allowed to stand on the website of an organization supposedly committed to accuracy and impartiality for well over six years. It is even worse that this misleading article and its accompanying ones in the same series are now being promoted by the BBC as additional reading for audience members seeking to learn more about the issues surrounding the talks between Israel and the PLO. That promotion comes in direct conflict with the constitutional basis according to which the BBC’s defined public purposes include building “a global understanding on international issues”.
Israel 'Knew about Terror Tunnel for a Year'
Daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot wrote Friday that Israel had known for over a year about the terror tunnel that Hamas was digging into its territory, but let Hamas leaders continue to pour resources into it.
"Sometimes, as part of the war of minds, [Israel] lets them invest money, wrack their brains, waste human resources, and only towards the end of the digging, does it hold up a stop sign," the paper's defence correspondent Alex Fishman wrote.
Sraya Ofer Met his Killers 2 Weeks before Murder
According to new information reported by Channel 2, the man brutally murdered outside his home in the Jordan Valley last week, Sraya Ofer, had encountered his Arab murderers two weeks earlier, when they approached his home. They aroused his suspicion in that encounter and he reported the license number of their car to police.
IDF wounds Palestinian attempting to infiltrate Negev town of Meitar
IDF forces opened fire on and wounded a Palestinian who was attempting to infiltrate into the village of Meitar in the Negev. The man was found sabotaging the fence in an apparent attempt to enter the community, the IDF said.
The forces fired warning shots at the suspect who was ultimately shot in the leg.
Socialist MEP from Belgium hold anti-Israel event over Beduin policy
The Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament on Thursday prevented an Israeli official from participating in panel discussion on the Israeli Beduin community, which degenerated into a anti-Israel hate festival, Israeli diplomats said.
Véronique De Keyser, a socialist MEP from Belgium, led the seminar sponsored by the group titled “Beduin in the Naqab/Negev: Dreams and Nightmare.”
Abbas: Reports are wrong — peace talks not at a dead end
Notwithstanding recent Israeli media reports, the Middle East peace talks are not at an impasse, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday.
“The negotiations are difficult, but they haven’t reached a dead end. They are still in the initial stage and we have enough time to further deal with the main issues that turn out to be difficult,” Abbas told German Deutsche Welle television. “Such things are being claimed, but we have not gotten into a dead end.”
PMW: Fatah - “All means of struggle until statehood”
Another Fatah posting also illustrated the use of violence as one of Fatah's "means." A picture showed a member of Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, taking aim with a rifle, accompanied by the following text:
"The Al-Aqsa [Martyrs'] Brigades:
When they speak - they act;
When they promise - they fulfill;
and when they strike - they cause pain."
PA TV teaches children not to trust Jews


Archbishop Gets Award for Arming Terrorists
Melkite Archbishop Hillarion Capucci ran guns for the PLO in the 1970s. He got caught and was sentenced to 12 years in jail. He was released after serving a few years of his sentence. The Vatican, embarrassed by the presence of an Archbishop in an Israeli jail, secured his early release by promising that the Archbishop would not engage in any anti-Israel activism once he was out of jail. Capucci violated the terms of his release on a number of occasions, most recently participating in the so-called humanitarian flotilla into the Gaza Strip.
Again: Arabs Fly Nazi Flag Near Road
For at least the second time in five months, Arab residents of Beit Umar in the Palestinian Authority (PA) have placed a Nazi flag over a major thoroughfare where Jews pass in their vehicles.
Beit Umar is located between Halhoul and the Etzion Bloc, not far from Hevron.
Kidnapped Lebanese Pilgrims Released in Exchange for Pilots
Nine Lebanese pilgrims who were kidnapped by rebels in Syria 17 months ago arrived on Saturday in Beirut, after being freed in exchange for two Turkish pilots seized in Lebanon in August, reports Al Arabiya.
Let’s stop deluding ourselves about Turkey, says Liberman
Responding to Turkey’s accusation that Israel was behind a “media campaign” against Ankara over the exposure of an Israeli spy ring in Iran, as well as past accusations, Liberman said the claims were “baseless” and served as proof that Turkey under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would never warm to Israel, despite the formal apology issued to Erdogan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March over the 2010 Mavi Marmara affair.
“My opposition to apologizing to Turkey is nothing new. I expressed it clearly before and after the fact,” Liberman said. “I thought, and explained, that it would not bring about improved relations between the two countries, but would only hurt Israel’s standing in the region and play into the hands of extremists in the Middle East — among them Turkey under the Islamist extremist Erdogan.”
State officials: Talks with Turkey 'stuck'
The Washington Post's report about Turkey's disclosure to Iran of an Israeli spy network might have failed to elicit an official Israeli response, but state officials admit that security relations with Ankara are extremely limited and went as far as saying that reconciliation talks surrounding the Marmara raid are "stuck."
"The Turks are destroying any attempt to reach understandings," an Israeli official close to the talks said. "They don't want to resolve this thing. It's completely stuck and despite President Obama's efforts, they don't want to move ahead at this point."
Nevertheless, he stressed that Ankara might decide to resolve the matter if it suited its interests.
MEMRI: Egyptian Poet Fatima Naoot: Egypt Was Conquered by the Arabs, Coptic Language Changed By Force


US quietly releasing $1.6B in Pakistan assistance
The U.S. has quietly decided to release more than $1.6 billion in military and economic aid to Pakistan that was suspended when relations between the two countries disintegrated over the covert raid that killed Usama bin Laden and deadly U.S. airstrikes against Pakistani soldiers.
Officials and congressional aides said ties have improved enough to allow the money to flow again.
Israel Defense Forces to Develop Drone Submarines, Market Expected to Reach $2 Billion
The department within Israel’s Ministry of Defense, tasked with developing next generation weaponry, MAFAT, is working on developing unmanned underwater vehicles, the market for which could exceed $2 billion by 2020, Israel’s Globes business daily reported, citing MAFAT aeronautics director Dr. Yuval Cohen.
UUVs include ROVs - remotely operated underwater vehicles that are operated by remote control – and AUVs - autonomous underwater vehicles which are fully robotic, submarine drones, where Israel’s ingenuity could add the most value. As with Israel’s leadership in developing flying drones, the Jewish state could be very successful in this industry as well, but operating in the deep sea adds another level of complexity.
Kennedy Was a Friend to American and Soviet Jews
The conventional community memory of Kennedy would be enough by itself. JFK overcame the legacy of his father, Joseph Kennedy, FDR’s notoriously appeasement-minded ambassador to Britain, to build a warm relationship with American Jews. As Warren Bass recounted a decade ago in his book Support Any Friend, the U.S.-Israel alliance took a big step forward with Kennedy’s approval of the sale of Hawk missiles to Israel.
  • Sunday, October 20, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the Qassam Brigades English site:
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haneyya said “The Palestinian prisoners’ file will remain open and will not close until all of the prisoners are released”, calling on the Islamic peoples "from Tangiers to Jakarta to participate in the Great Aqsa Intifada.”

In a speech on Saturday marking the two-year anniversary of Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange deal, Haneyya vowed to liberate all the prisoners from Israeli prisons, saying that their release is on the top of his government's priorities.

Haneyya renewed the Palestinian adherence to the national constants and fundamental rights despite all difficulties and plights, saying that resistance is the strategic option to the conflict in the region.

The Palestinian Prime Minister in Gaza Strip affirmed that thousands of resistance elements above the ground and under the ground are preparing for the liberation battle of Palestine.

PM Haneyya stressed his trust in the Arab peoples who broke the silence and refused the injustice and supported al-Aqsa mosque and Jerusalem. “Our greetings to the activists all over the world who support the Palestinian people, especially Rachel Corrie”, he said.

Haneyya called for intensifying the Palestinian presence in al-Aqsa mosque, praising the Palestinian popular and armed resistance in the West Bank.

He strongly condemned all forms of security coordination and the persecution of resistance elements in West Bank, praising the latest resistance activities in West Bank.

“There will be no security or stability in the region as long as Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger," he affirmed.
The ISM movement that Corrie was a part of has not distanced itself from this speech, even though they claim that they are against violence.

  • Sunday, October 20, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
Arab media is quoting AP as saying that the family of Dr. Mohammed Helmy, who was recently recognized by Yad Vashem as a "righteous among nations" for saving a Jewish woman in Berlin and helping three others hide from the Nazis, is refusing the award.

The reason? Because Yad Vashem is in Israel.

From  AP:
A member of the family of the first Arab honoured by Israel for risking his life to save Jews during the Holocaust says the family isn't interested in the recognition.

The Egyptian doctor Mohamed Helmy was honoured posthumously last month by Israel's Holocaust memorial for hiding Jews in Berlin during the Nazis' genocide, but a family member tracked down by The Associated Press this week in Cairo said her relatives wouldn't accept the award, one of Israel's most prestigious.

"If any other country offered to honor Helmy, we would have been happy with it," Mervat Hassan, the wife of Helmy's great-nephew, told The Associated Press during an interview at her home in Cairo this week.

Typically, the museum tries to track down living family members to present the award in a ceremony, but in the case of Helmy, who died in 1982 in Berlin, Yad Vashem said it had not been able to find any living relatives.

With the help of a German historian, the AP obtained the certificate of inheritance of Helmy's wife Emmi, who died in 1998. The document contained the names of three relatives in Cairo and when contacted by the AP, Ms Hassan agreed to share her memories of Helmy.

Ms Hassan said the family wasn't interested in the award from Israel because relations between Egypt and Israel remain hostile, despite a peace treaty signed more than three decades ago. But, she cautioned, "I respect Judaism as a religion and I respect Jews. Islam recognises Judaism as a heavenly religion."




Karl Vick in Time does what he always does:

Two decades ago, the word Oslo evoked everything the Middle East normally refuses to provide: hope, trust and compromise. Israelis and Palestinians, two peoples claiming the same biblical lands, had rarely talked peace with each other before in a serious way. Then, in the space of four months, their leaders secretly agreed upon a set of plans — the Oslo accords — that promised an end, once and for all, to the violent conflict between them. The diplomatic achievement was sealed on the White House lawn on Sept. 13, 1993, with a signing ceremony and a handshake between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The reality came home nine months later, in July 1994, when Palestinian guerrillas led by Arafat ended 27 years of exile by rolling into the Gaza Strip escorted by Israeli soldiers. "From the moment we entered Gaza, it looked like, my God, really peace has come," says Nabil Shaath, one of Arafat's lieutenants. "We were doing things fast."

The momentum ended on Nov. 4, 1995, when a radical right-wing Jewish settler shot Rabin dead at a peace rally in Tel Aviv. In that moment, many historians have argued, the Oslo accords suffered a fatal blow. Without Rabin to reassure a nervous Israel that Oslo was a genuine path to peace, extremists quickly began to drive events on both sides.
Were things wonderful and peaceful and hopeful between July 1994 and November 1995?

During that time there were dozens of drive-by shootings of Jews on the roads, as well as stabbings. On August 26, 1994 - Shlomo Kapach, age 22, and Gil Revah, age 21, were killed at a Ramle building site, and the PA protected their killers.

On October 19, 1994, a Hamas bomb killed 22 people on a bus in Tel Aviv.

On January 22, 1995, a double suicide bombing at the Beit Lid junction near Netanya killed 21 others.

On April 13, 1995, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the Hadera Central Bus Station, killing 5 and injuring 30.

On July 24, 1995, 6 civilians were killed when a terrorist blew himself up on a bus in Ramat Gan.

On August 21, 1995, three Israelis and one American were killed when a terrorist blew himself up in an attack on a Jerusalem bus.

But none of those deadly attacks - and these are only a few of scores of them - are considered by Vick to have harmed the Oslo process. No, Arab violence is never the problem. Only Jews are responsible for ruining "peace." The dozens of Israelis killed before Rabin's assassination weren't killed by Arab extremists, according to Vick - their extremism only started after Rabin's assassination.

Beyond that, Vick is clearly unaware that Rabin never advocated a Palestinian Arab state. He never advocated dividing Jerusalem. His last speech in Knesset before his assassination described his red lines:
We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.

...First and foremost, united Jerusalem, which will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev -- as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty, while preserving the rights of the members of the other faiths, Christianity and Islam, to freedom of access and freedom of worship in their holy places, according to the customs of their faiths.

The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term...

(UPDATE): Moreover, as Soccer Dad reminds me, within two months after Rabin's assassination Israel left every single major Palestinian city except for Hebron. In other words the peace process accelerated after the assassination. It was only after the terror attacks of Feb-March 1996 that the peace process went off track.

So who are these anonymous historians that Vick confidently quotes, and what are their credentials?

Vick goes on:
Violence erupted in 2000, and Israel's peace camp was destroyed in the face of the ensuing wave of Palestinian suicide bombings. The center of Israeli politics shifted firmly to the right.
"Violence erupted" as journalists have done hundreds of times, Arab terror is something that simply happens by itself, without any responsibility.

Most outrageously, to Vick, the tragedy of the second intifada wasn't that Arabs were slaughtering Jews by the hundreds - it was that their deaths killed the Israeli peace camp.

Vick, of course, doesn't mention that prime minister Olmert went way beyond the Israeli offer in 2000, showing that even with so many murdered killed during the PLO's and Hamas' terror spree, Israel still wanted peace. That narrative doesn't make it into the mainstream media which is wedded to the lie that Jews are the only people responsible for setbacks to peace.

Then Vick just makes things up:
Two decades after the White House signing, Palestinians have less income, less land and much less freedom than they did in 1993.
The implication is that this is all Israel's fault. They may have less income and less freedom - but that is because of the terrorism that forced Israel to separate Arabs from Jews. Does Vick think that an international border between Israel and "Palestine" would allow workers to freely enter Israel?

But how can Vick say they have "less land"? There was no Palestinian Arab autonomy before Oslo, but now 100% of Gazans and about 97% of West Bank Palestinian Arabs live under Arab rule, with Arab security forces, Arab infrastructure and in what are virtually two separate Arab states, one of which is recognized by most of the world's nations.

Vick's bias is once again obvious. Yet these lies are the accepted conventional wisdom, and Time doesn't even bother to fact check it.

Accompanying the story is a photo essay that is even more biased than this piece, if that is possible. It portrays Arabs as eternal victims does not show a single Jew living in Judea and Samaria who is not represented as an aggressive interloper on Arab and Muslim land. Muslims work fields or are victims of Jewish terror; Jews are not shown as normal human beings.

(h/t Phyllis, AR)

Saturday, October 19, 2013

  • Saturday, October 19, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
Al Sumaria TV reports that the last remaining synagogue in Basra, Iraq, is in danger of collapse.

The synagogue was looted in 2003 with the fall of the former regime, and it had been converted into a warehouse for construction materials.



However, but there are still some indications of its former use.


The walls are cracking and the owners of surrounding shops are alarmed that its collapse will affect the structural integrity of their stores.

The synagogue was built in 1915 when this was a Jewish neighborhood.

The last Jew in Basra, an elderly woman who lived in an apartment adjacent to the synagogue, left in 2003.

As of 2009, there eight Jews left in Baghdad.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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