Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

The small stories illustrate the Arab obsession with Israel

Egypt's West and Central Delta Writers Association held its 15th annual conference this week.

In its final session, this unimportant regional association released its list of resolutions.

One of them was to declare that "Israel is our primary and biggest enemy. All intellectuals must reject all forms of normalization and expose all dealings with the Zionist entity whether the purpose is trade or religion or politics."

There are plenty of NGOs and Western agencies in Egypt that supposedly help to foster human rights and other worthy causes. But when it comes to relations between Arabs and Israel, they don't even bother, because they know that the hate is a constant.

But they will spend millions of euros in Israel to fight supposed anti-Arab racism there.

And those NGOs put out a steady stream of reports to justify their existence about how horrible Israelis are.

And those reports get publicized in the media.

And causal consumers of the media don't even have the possibility of knowing what these NGOs know very well but won't ever report: that the hate that the Arabs have for Israel and Jews is orders of magnitude worse than the worst that you can say about Israeli opinions of Arabs.

Even people who want to research the truth about Israel and the Arab world do not have the means to find out about the crazed derangement that this small story illustrates, because the data is simply not out there for them. If there are no reports, then there is no evidence of a problem.

The entire system is rigged to make Israel look as bad as possible and to ignore endemic Arab hate.

04/09 Links Pt1: Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame?; Iran admits it deceived the IAEA

From Ian:

Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame?

As the New York Times reports:
"Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that Israel’s announcement of 700 new apartments for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem precipitated the bitter impasse in peace negotiations last week between Israel and the Palestinians.
While Mr. Kerry said both sides bore responsibility for “unhelpful” actions, he noted that the publication of tenders for housing units came four days after a deadline passed for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners and complicated Israel’s own deliberations over whether to extend the talks.
“Poof, that was the moment,” Mr. Kerry said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."
Poof? To say that this evaluation of the situation is disingenuous would be the understatement of the century. Kerry knows very well that the negotiations were doomed once the Palestinians refused to sign on to the framework for future talks he suggested even though it centered them on the 1967 lines that they demand as the basis for borders. Why? Because Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas wouldn’t say the two little words —“Jewish state”—that would make it clear he intended to end the conflict. Since the talks began last year after Abbas insisted on the release of terrorist murderers in order to get them back to the table, the Palestinians haven’t budged an inch on a single issue. (h/t Norman F)

Welcome to Pallywood. Land Day Edition

Welcome to Pallywood.
The star of our show, filmed on "Land day", March 30, is a rather large Palestinian woman. While the men surround her, cameras ready, she attacks an Israeli officer. There is nothing spontaneous about this- its completely planned and staged.
She tries to steal a weapon from the young officer
Eventually, she provokes a reaction, and is pepper sprayed. This was her goal.
This photo, by AP photographer Sebastian Scheiner was captioned " A Palestinian woman reacts after Israeli border police officers sprayed pepper spray during a demonstration marking the Land Day at the Damascus gate in Jerusalem's old city, Sunday, March 30, 2014"
Deliberately, or through negligence AP missed a whole lot of context there, giving free reign for the propagandists to talk about the brutality of Israel

Elliott Abrams: U.S.: The Great Problem That Needs to be Solved

At the White House the U.S. Administration still says "All options are on the table, and don't underestimate the president."
The only thing I can reply is, "I travel in the Middle East a fair amount, and talk to Arabs as well as Israelis. I think it's fair to say that from Morocco to Iran, there is not one single person who believes that." I don't think he has any real allies abroad. If you asked that question a year ago the White House used to say, "Erdogan." They don't say, "Erdogan" any more.
There are so many intractable problems and no intimation that Hamas is prepared to move on any of those. What do Kerry and his friends really see that gives them any optimism in this area? I think the only variable in his view is "me". "I'm John Kerry. I can do this," which is ludicrous.
And there is a lot more to be said about Iran. What is clear is that they are revving up. They are moving from the first generation to second generation centrifuges, which are much more efficient and productive. They are moving more materiel underground. They are attempting the plutonium route as well as the uranium route. And presumably they are working on a warhead. Of course, they can have a bomb without making the announcement and they can make the announcement without having a bomb.
Reagan came on the scene and with peace through strength -- three words, clarified and explained to Americans what American foreign policy stands for.

Anti-Israel hackers get PWNed by Israeli hackers

An Israeli hacker team managed to take over the PCs of at least 16 of the "#OpIsrael" hackers who targeted Israeli sites earlier this week.

The "Israeli Elite Force" remotely controlled the pseudo-hackers' machines and even took photos of them with their own webcams!

Many of their other social media accounts and passwords were revealed in a document the Israeli team published.

The #Opisrael hackers apparently are more than happy to click on links that allowed the Israeli hackers to take over their machines.

Too funny.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

From Ma'an:

Gaza families who lost members in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Tuesday shut down the PLO's main office in Gaza City protesting unpaid allowances.

A spokesman of the Martyrs’ Families in the Gaza Strip group told Ma’an that angry families closed a PLO-affiliated office in charge of allowances and donations for families of Palestinians killed or injured in the course of the conflict.

Additionally, offices of Fatah-affiliated lawmakers as well as senior Fatah leader Zakariyya al-Agha were also shut down by the protesters. Some protesters attempted to break into the office of member of Fatah central committee Nabil Shaath.

“We have been asking for our rights in a civilized manner for 13 months, but nobody in the leadership has replied and now we became impatient,” Alaa al-Barawi, the spokesman, said.

He urged President Mahmoud Abbas, members of Fatah's central committee and members of the movement’s revolutionary council to work out a solution for the families who haven’t received their allowances for five years.

A significant portion of the PA budget is to pay families of terrorists, both alive and dead. In 2012 it was estimated to take up 6% of the PA budget, and tens of millions of dollars more were added this year.

I don't know the details of why the Gaza families are apparently not getting paid. Perhaps they are families of those killed by Hamas which puts their "martyrdom" credentials in doubt.

Anti-BDS hero of the day: Saul Zabar

Anti-Israel group Adalah-NY writes:

On Sunday, April 6, our first day of flyering outside Zabar's, 94 people signed our petition asking Zabar's to deshelve SodaStream, including at least one Israeli who signed in Hebrew. Many were familiar with SodaStream's operations in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories, and thanked us for being there and standing up for human rights. Others were less supportive, and the disagreement sparked spirited discussion among shoppers and passersby alike. We handed out almost 500 postcards with information about the boycott of SodaStream, and encouraged people to mail them to Zabar's.

At one point, owner Saul Zabar came out of the store. When asked why he did not respond to our request for a meeting, he responded, "I didn't think you were worth it." He informed us that he will not be de-shelving SodaStream.

All the more reason for us to go out there again!

Sure, if you like to waste all your weekends on a lost cause, go for it!

I believe this is Saul Zabar telling the BDSers that they are worthless (UPDATE: This isn't Saul.)

Zabar's, while not an exclusively kosher store, does sell a number of kosher gift baskets for Jewish holidays. They have been selling Sodastream since 2010.

Saul is about 85 years old now, gives to Jewish charities, and knows how to run his business. The likelihood that he would cave to a bunch of Israel haters handing out postcards filled with lies is pretty much zero.

(h/t Avi Mayer)

Combat cameramen disprove PalArab propaganda (Globes)

From Globes:

Last August, First Sergeant Naor Blanco joined a Netzah Yehuda battalion (Kfir brigade) nighttime operation to arrest a wanted man suspected of terrorist activity in the Jenin refugee camp. Blanco, a combat cameraman working for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesperson’s Unit, arrived ready for the mission, however, as is often the case on the battlefield, things got complicated. “Shortly after we went in, they started shooting at us from different directions,” he recounts. “We acted according to regulations, and our forces returned fire when they had identified the sources of the shooting. While advancing in one of the alleyways, a large brick hurtled towards me and fell a short distance from me. That whole time, I held the camera and documented the battle and the exchanges of fire. I turned towards the direction from which the brick was thrown at me, and I identified a terrorist standing on a nearby rooftop. He was about to throw another brick at me. I realized I was in a life-threatening situation.”

Blanco didn’t hesitate: “I had no doubt about what I needed to do in the situation, and I acted swiftly. I put the camera in my vest, and I raised my rifle. The clip was already loaded. The terrorist was about 30 or 40 meters away from me. I aimed, pulled the trigger, and shot a single bullet, which hit him precisely, below his knee. He was injured, and neutralized, and no longer a threat to me or my fellow force members.

The operation ended with the suspect killed, and two Palestinians injured in the confrontation with IDF forces. But even after the forces left Jenin, Sergeant Blanco’s work continued. “When we finished at the refugee camp, I immediately made contact with the chief IDF Spokesperson representative in Central Command Major Ran Baroz and brigade representatives in Judea and Samaria. I understood from them that according to reports that had already been released by Palestinian sources, the IDF had purportedly perpetrated crimes in the nighttime operation, and a 14 year old youth had been injured. I took out my playback equipment, and sent the video documenting the development of the event. The material had been through preliminary editing, the images were distributed to all the communications networks, and within a short time, the tone of the reports cooled down.

“The visual material proved that it was a planned operation to capture a terrorist, and there was clear documentation of the fact that it was the terrorists who opened fire on us. The footage left no doubt that the forces that operated in the field acted with restraint, and the soldiers only fired when a life-threatening situation arose. The footage included cries of “Kill the Jews,” which could be heard constantly in the background. There is nothing better than seeing something with your own eyes, so headlines saying “The IDF invaded Jenin” were switched within minutes and updated to say “The IDF carried out an anti-terrorist operation in Jenin.”

“This is the pinnacle, from every perspective, on every level,” he admits with a glint in his eyes. “I know that the communication networks hate to retract reports they have published. And here, my footage from the field changed the entire thrust of the event’s coverage.”

...The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit is planning to continue the program and train more such documenters, so it will be possible to send fighters armed with cameras even to the complex operations of Squadron 13 other elite units. “It will happen. No one has any doubt of that,” said an IDF Spokesperson. “Today, we can only imagine how the Muhammad al-Durrah incident (during the Second Intifada) would have unfolded had we had a combat documenter at the scene.

This is great....but I wish they would release more footage! The leftists who film riots often edit out the parts where the Arabs are throwing stones or to make it appear that the IDF shot tear-gas before any rioting, and we need more of the IDF videos to show the truth.

(h/t Yerushalimey)

04/08 Links Pt2: UNHRC: When Palestinian Men Beat Their Wives, It’s Israel’s Fault

From Ian:

UN: When Palestinian Men Beat Their Wives, It’s Israel’s Fault

In her recent report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay revives the bizarre charge, made by one of her colleagues in 2005, that when Palestinian men beat their wives, it’s Israel’s fault:
By Navi Pillay regurgitating Erturk’s 2005 canard, the UN is once again telling Palestinian men that they have no moral agency, and bear little or no responsibility for their inhumane actions against women.
What the UN is doing, once again, is to displace moral responsibility and prime agency. Palestinian men are not primarily to blame for their violence against women, says the UN. Israel is.

Australia opposition chief: ‘Some’ settlement activity illegal

The question of the legality of Israeli settlements is once again stirring debate in Australia, after the head of the opposition and Labor Party chairman Bill Shorten said that “some settlement activity in the West Bank is illegal,” leading even members of his own party to protest that he should have left off the word “some.”
The Jewish community, however, welcomed Shorten’s stance, suggesting that the government in Canberra is growing increasingly aware of Palestinian efforts to “deliberately distort the realities of the settlement question for political purposes.”
Shorten’s comments came about four months after the country’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, caused a controversy when she indicated in a Times of Israel interview that settlements might not be illegal under international law.

Anti-Zionist MK Hanin Zoabi's Relative: A Proud Zionist Arab

Muhammad Zoabi, 16, an Arab Muslim from Nazareth, is causing anger in Muslim circles, and considerable joy in Jewish ones, by stating in a unique interview that he is a Zionist and loves the state of Israel.
"I really believe that I'm a lucky Arab and a lucky human being and a lucky Middle Eastern[er] that I was born in this little tiny piece of land!”, he stated. Pointing to the Golan Heights from the window of his interviewer's home, in the Israeli community of Massad, he noted how bad life is beyond the border, for Syrians.
Muhammad's enthusiastic Zionism is made all the more intriguing by the fact that he is related to notorious anti-Zionist MK Hanin Zoabi, of the Arab-nationalist Balad party.

Gaza newlyweds forced to divorce over Fatah song at wedding

Palestine Press Agency reports that a song played at a wedding caused the newlyweds to get a divorce.

It's the old story: the Montagues and the Capulets, the Jets and the Sharks, Fatah and Hamas.

The bride's family are Hamas members while the groom comes from a Fatah family.

Despite family pressures, the couple decided to get married anyway. But it was the groom's music choice that caused the problem.

The groom's family asked the DJ to play a Fatah-linked song called "Ali Keffiyeh" which was famously sung by Arab Idol winner Mohammed Assaf.

The brother of the bride became very upset and pulled her out of the wedding reception. A scuffle between the two families ensued and police had to be called, where they separated the families including the couple.

The news media is now saying that there is no solution to this impasse except for divorce, which the humiliated bride's family is insisting on.

Incidentally, the fact that a song about the keffiyeh causes such tension between Hamas and Fatah proves pretty conclusively that it is not merely a decorative scarf but a political symbol.

A Turkey-Gaza "waterway"?

Palestine Today quotes the head of the Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights, Rami Abdo, saying that NGOs from Europe are asking Turkey to demand a ferry of sorts between Turkey and Gaza in the context of its negotiations with Israel.

Goods would be imported and exported between Gaza and Turkey exclusively, and from there to the rest of the world.

Abdo says that he will present the plan to Turkey in the next two days.

He says that it could be considered another border crossing like Rafah, and that EU observers could be there the way they used to be at Rafah to ensure that no weapons get transferred.

Turkey would likely be enthusiastic about such a plan, since they have made "lifting the siege of Gaza" one of their conditions for resuming diplomatic relations with Israel and this could qualify.

Israel would seem certain to reject this outright, because its naval blockade was carefully and legally set up and (as far as I can tell) one cannot legally have a partial blockade - if Israel allows Turkish ships into Gaza then it would have to allow al ships.

Chances are this will not see the light of day, but it seems likely that anti-Israel NGOs will try to use this as a PR weapon against Israel.

04/08 Links Pt1: The Retrograde Israeli Left; Carter Backs PA's UN Move; US Bans Iranian UN Amb.

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: What's Behind Abbas's Renewed Courtship of Hamas?

Abbas is now waging a battle aimed at extracting as many concessions as possible from Israel and the US. He has used the decision to apply for membership in 15 international organizations and treaties as a means to intensify pressure on the Israeli government and US Administration to accept his demands for pursuing the peace talks.
Abbas may not be sincere about achieving reconciliation with Hamas. He knows that such a move would be counterproductive and that Hamas would take advantage of the reconciliation to advance its goal of seizing control over the West Bank.
But for Abbas, the issue of reconciliation with Hamas is yet another legitimate weapon to scare the Israelis and Americans into submitting to his demands and pre-conditions. It now remains to be seen whether the US Administration will take the bait.

Re-evaluate basic assumptions

As the prominent Palestinian advisor Professor Ahmad Khalidi has said: "The concept of Palestinian statehood is nothing but a punitive construct devised by our worst enemies -- the United States and Israel -- to constrain Palestinian aspirations and territorial ambitions."
Or as Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas made clear to U.S. President Barack Obama last month, the Palestinian liberation movement will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state or agree to forgo the so-called "right" of refugee return. He wants his state, but without an end to the conflict. He wants a state, rather, in order to continue the conflict.
In fact, there is no internal Palestinian constituency whatsoever pressing Abbas to compromise now and cut an end-of-conflict deal with Israel. Instead, the Palestinians really think they can pressure Israel by recourse to international institutions, in order to push Israel back from its red lines.

The Retrograde Israeli Left

Listening to Israel’s “progressives” you might think it was still 1994, as if two decades of failed peace efforts, Palestinian intransigence, and unrelenting incitement and terrorism had simply never happened. They speak as if they’re still living in some heyday of the Oslo peace accords. Naturally, it is the role of the political opposition in any democracy to find fault with the actions of governing political rivals, but what Israel’s left-wing politicians are saying goes far beyond normal critique of government policy despite the fact that, although they would never admit it, the current government’s strategy for peace talks is not fundamentally different from what they themselves propose. (h/t Norman F)

Australia bans cattle exports to Gaza due to animal cruelty

From The West Australian:

Commonwealth authorities have effectively banned live cattle exports to the Gaza while they investigate shocking images of animal cruelty in the streets of the Palestinian territory.
...

DAFF revealed that it had not approved consignments of cattle for Gaza since November when it began investigating allegations raised in the Israeli media.

"The allegations are serious and information obtained during the investigation is considered when assessing any application from any exporter to send livestock to Gaza," a DAFF spokesman said. "Currently, all exporters to Israel are required to comply with additional conditions to ensure livestock are unloaded in accordance with international animal welfare standards."

LSS said last week that a ship bound for Israel with 10,000 cattle had been stopped at Fremantle because of an alleged breach of the Commonwealth's exporter supply chain assurance system.

LSS general manager Garry Robinson suggested the delay was linked to the leakage of the handful of cattle from the approved supply chain in Gaza.

He warned a zero-tolerance approach to leakage could cost lucrative live trade markets.

The Bader III eventually left Fremantle on Friday.

The footage from Gaza shows a bull being "knee-capped" by a man armed with an assault rifle, another stabbed in the eye and others having their throats hacked open.

LSS, owned by Jordanian company Hijazi and Ghosheh Group, self-reported a possible ESCAS breach in November when it became aware of the footage.

Its own investigation found a discrepancy involving nine cattle it sent to Gaza. Two of the cattle shown in the footage could be identified by their ear tags. LSS said then that the release of nine cattle from the supply chain was "unacceptable" and it suspended exports to the Gaza facility.

Here's the video that apparently caused the ban:

Gaza authorities denied the report, sort of. They deny that any cattle comes from Australia directly to Gaza, but they get their cattle from Israel. This story says that, though.

From Reuters:

The Palestinian ambassador to Prague who died in a blast in January was most likely killed by a decades-old charge of Semtex plastic explosive concealed in a book, a newspaper reported on Tuesday citing a police investigator.

Police had decided Jamal al-Jamal was not assassinated, but had simply unwittingly opening a book booby-trapped years earlier, the source told daily newspaper Mlada Fronta Dnes.

"It was an unfortunate accident. The ambassador was a thorough man who wanted to put some old things in order, and among them there were two books with explosives," the paper quoted the source as saying.

It did not explain why such a book might have been left at the embassy in Prague.

Officers investigating the explosion found other explosives and firearms at the mission dating back to the Cold War.

The Palestinians had said they were old gifts from officials of Communist Czechoslovakia, which has friendly relations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation of the late Yasser Arafat.

The explosion took place as the Palestinian mission was moving its embassy and residence in the capital. Al-Jamal died of his wounds in hospital.

"We are awaiting another expert opinion, but it was Semtex with 99.9 percent probability. The explosive was roughly from the 1970s. It was at least 30 years old," the police source told the newspaper.

Ah,that explains it. Exploding books are of course a standard item at all embassies.

I mean, no one would make a big deal out of a Norwegian embassy being found to have deadly espionage items like that, right? So anyone who thinks this is newsworthy is clearly an anti-Palestinian racist.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)