Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

The Muslim basketball star and the chief rabbi
Surfing in Gaza II
Three good articles
Terrorist fan Vittorio was in bed with Amnesty. Literally.
Abbas' newest threat: "PA will collapse!"
Chag Sameach!
Hamas proud over the death of 16-year old Daniel Viflic
Mer-Khamis' "Freedom Theatre" spawned terrorists
Muslim intimidation of Christians in Nazareth before Easter

The Muslim basketball star and the chief rabbi

Posted: 18 Apr 2011 03:30 PM PDT

From YNet:

American basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will visit Israel in July and meet with Rabbi Israel Meir Lau to discuss a film that he is making about World War II, the rabbi said recently.

The film is based on the book "Brothers in Arms", which Abdul-Jabbar co-authored and deals with the American troops who liberated Nazi concentration camps in the end of World War II. Abdul-Jabbar's own father served on the 761st Tank Battalion, which liberated the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany.

Among the Jews rescued from the camp were two children: Rabbi Lau and his brother, Naftali Lavie. Abdul-Jabbar and Lau met for the first time 14 years ago, during the former's first visit to Israel.

"The fact that such a famous basketball player, and a Muslim, is about to attach himself to the Holocaust issue is very exciting," he said. "I will certainly give my blessing to this initiative."

The retired athlete will arrive early in July as a guest of the Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Consulate in New York, and will participate in the Jerusalem Film Festival, where he will present the basketball documentary that he produced, "On the Shoulders of Giants."

Lau said that Abdul-Jabbar's father, Ferdinand L. Alcindor, had a dying wish: "That his son visit Israel, and meet the little boy that he rescued from Buchenwald and turned into a prominent rabbi."

Lau said he clearly remembers how an African American solider came up to him during the liberation, picked him up, and told the residents of the German city of Weimer: "Look at this sweet kid, he isn't even eight yet. This was your enemy, he threatened the Third Reich. He is the one against whom you waged war, and murdered millions like him."

Decades later, Lau said, his rescuer's son found him.

Rabbi Lau was the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1993-2003.

(h/t JB)

Surfing in Gaza II

Posted: 18 Apr 2011 01:04 PM PDT

From the Hamas mouthpiece Palestine Times, a photo-essay on people surfing in ~~prison~~ Gaza.

They had a similar photo-essay in December.

Three good articles

Posted: 18 Apr 2011 11:27 AM PDT

Mudar Zahran in Hudson-NY:

The UN general assembly's vote could also bring terrifying complications and hardships to the Palestinians. The establishment of a Palestinian state in such a manner would give Israel the cause to absolutely sever its ties with the Palestinians; this act would deprive the Palestinians from working with Israel, the only country in the region where they are allowed to take employment, and the country that provides them with water, electricity, fuel and transportation outlets. Of course, such deprivation would be merely a technicality for Abbas and his colleagues in the Palestinian Authority. It would just bring them even more prominence and legitimacy to cover their corruption and abuse of their own people, while at the same time enabling them to delegitimize Israel even further by portraying themselves as Palestinian freedom fighters under siege by the "inhumane Israelis."

David Harris in HuffPo:

Over a span of two decades, hundreds of thousands of Jews were compelled to leave their ancestral lands because of violence and discrimination, yet there was hardly a peep from the international community.

The UN kept silent. Most governments looked the other way. Editorial writers and news reporters wasted little time on the subject. And few scholars rushed to their usual intellectual outlets to speak out.

But it should have been clear that this mass exodus was not just about the Jews. In fact, it was about the intolerance of societies that rejected basic notions of pluralism and respect for minorities.

Well, no one said anything and then what happened? Without Jews to target, those very same societies began to focus on other communities, especially Christians, but also minority Muslim sects.

But again, the very same universe that looked the other way when it came to the Jews didn't acquit itself any better when it came to Copts in Egypt or Chaldeans in Iraq.

After all, if it couldn't be pinned on Israel, why bother?

Yair Rosenberg in The Harvard Crimson:

In early 2010, the disruption of talks by major officials was all the rage on university campuses, even as these outbursts inspired greater measures of outrage amongst the broader student body. In January, General David H. Petraeus was repeatedly shouted down by student anti-war protesters during a speech to a packed Gaston Hall at Georgetown University. In response, organizations across campus—from the Georgetown University Student Union to the Georgetown Democrats—condemned the conduct. The next month, Israeli Ambassador Michael B. Oren was similarly assailed, this time by 11 members of the Muslim Student Union at UC-Irvine. The interruptions of "war criminal" and "mass murderer," which prevented the ambassador from addressing an assembled audience of hundreds, were harshly condemned by the university administration, and the MSU was subsequently suspended as a campus organization.

But what seemed like a typical story of an overheated campus culture clash took an unusual turn after emails among the MSU's membership surfaced indicating that the Irvine disruptions were carefully coordinated by the group to prevent the ambassador from speaking—a premeditated plan that involved staggered disruptions by predetermined individuals with cue cards, all directed via text messages. In light of this evidence, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas convened an investigatory grand jury and then leveled charges against the so-called "Irvine 11," bringing the campus controversy into the California courts. Arraigned this past Friday, the students each pled not guilty to misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to disturb a meeting and disturbance of a meeting.

To understand why this prosecution is justified, and indeed similar future prosecutions of campus disruptors are warranted, one must first understand what this prosecution is not.

Read them all.

And if you are looking for reading material over the next two days that I am not posting, check out the "Gleanings" linkdumps at The Augean Stables. Lots of great stuff there.

Terrorist fan Vittorio was in bed with Amnesty. Literally.

Posted: 18 Apr 2011 10:10 AM PDT

We've already blogged a bit about Vittori Arrigoni, the terrorist supporter who was killed on Friday.

Well, it turns out that he had a girlfriend, Claudia Milani:

Claudia Milani (R), girlfriend of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni, visits his mourning tent in Gaza City April 17, 2011.

And it turns out that she is the "coordinator of Israel/Occupied Territories section of Amnesty International/Italy," and as such she gave a talk at an "Israel Apartheid Week" event advertised by Amnesty last month.

Her Facebook page shows that she is "friends" with such illustrious Israel haters as Greta Berlin, Adam Shapiro, Max Ajl and Ken O'Keefe.

Isn't it interesting that Amnesty (and HRW's*) activists are so much more friendly with people who want to destroy Israel than they are with people who love Israel?

And, given that Amnesty is supposed to be concerned with human rights issues that are totally antithetical to the daily actions of Hamas, are there any Amnesty members who are bothered the least bit by this?

*Before she closed off her Facebook page, I saw that Sarah Leah Whitson from HRW's "friends" were very similar. I regret never doing a screen capture.

Abbas' newest threat: "PA will collapse!"

Posted: 18 Apr 2011 08:39 AM PDT

Mahmoud Abbas continues his long-standing strategy of making the world do what he wants: by threatening them.

His latest is reported in Palestine Today but seemingly based on this article in The Daily World Buzz, not sure where is was originally published:

The Palestinian Authority "will collapse" if Israel persists in its need to maintain a military presence in the territory of a future Palestinian state, estimated the organization's president, Mahmoud Abbas, in an exclusive interview. Abbas explained that during the peace negotiations in September 2010, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told of his desire to hold "for 40 years," a military presence in the border zone along the Jordan Valley in the West Bank.

"If you stay 40 years, that means it is an occupation that he will maintain the occupation. I reply: 'If you insist on it, let your troops here and continue its occupation forever,'" said Abbas, pointing out that Netanyahu rejected the proposed deployment of international forces, especially NATO, on the border.

On the assumption that Israel will be realized, "there will be no Palestinian Authority," warned Abbas, who on many occasions expressed his opposition to the continuance of any Jewish soldier in a future Palestinian state. It is the first time that Abbas spoke out loud about the disappearance of the Palestinian Authority if Israel's permanence in Palestinian territory.

The PA was built while Israeli troops were deployed throughout the West Bank. Its economy is thriving while Israeli troops are there. It is getting praise for its supposed state-building from the World Bank and the UN while Israel is there.

Now, if Israel stays there, it will collapse?

I fully expect that an independent Palestinian Arab state, should it ever come about, would not last 40 years. Or even 20.

Chag Sameach!

Posted: 18 Apr 2011 07:59 AM PDT

I wish all of my readers who celebrate Passover to have a happy and healthy holiday!

I'll still be posting for a few more hours, but I wanted to make sure that my readers in Israel and Europe get the message. I will not be posting anything during the first two days of the holiday, until at least Wednesday night.

Hamas proud over the death of 16-year old Daniel Viflic

Posted: 18 Apr 2011 07:33 AM PDT

Hamas' Al Qassam Martyrs Brigades website reports about the death of Daniel Viflic, the 16-year old schoolboy who was killed because Hamas shot a laser-guided anti-tank missile at a school bus.

The Hamas article doesn't acknowledge that Daniel was a minor. Instead, it says that Daniel was a "Zionist soldier" and even has the gall to pretend that it is quoting Ha'aretz to that effect!

The Haaretz newspaper reported that the slain Zionist was killed weeks east of Gaza City after the targeting of a bus he was traveling in by the Qassam Brigades.

The newspaper said that the dead man was a Zionist soldier who stayed in intensive care at Soroka Hospital in BeerSheva in the territories after a significant deterioration in his health.

The website then gleefully shows photos from the funeral as well as from the bus. And the commenters are uniform in their praise of this "heroic operation."

Mer-Khamis' "Freedom Theatre" spawned terrorists

Posted: 18 Apr 2011 06:25 AM PDT

Two weeks ago, a new martyr was created. Juliano Mer-Khamis, who ran a drama club and theater for the youth of Jenin, was murdered by the very people he was said to be trying to help.

Condolences came from all over the world talking about how Mer Khamis and his mother, Arna, who created the theater were a ray of hope in Jenin, where they were teaching the young people there about how peace is better than bullets.

In reality, the theater was not only a failure, but its original members spawned an almost unbelievable amount of terror.

From The Globe and Mail, April 20, 2009 in an article that is sympathetic to the theater (no longer online, a copy is here):

The scene is 1989, the second year of the Palestinian intifada. Stone- throwing protests against Israeli occupation have spread throughout Gaza and the West Bank. In Jenin, the youthful protesters are joined by older militants who carry out armed attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers. The Jenin camp´s schools are closed; its children have nowhere to turn.

Enter Arna Mer, a 59-year-old Jewish peace activist who had been born in a northern collective farm, fought as an 18-year-old to create the state of Israel, joined the Israeli Communist Party and married an Arab-Israeli activist. Since 1967 she had protested against the Israeli occupation and, by 1989, was determined to help the children of Jenin.

On the top floor of a house owned by a local widow name Samira Zubeidi, Ms. Mer opens a children´s drama school. Aided by her actor son, Juliano Mer Khamis, she forms a small troupe and provides an artistic and educational outlet for dozens of children, including Ms. Zubeidi´s sons, Zakariya and Daoud. For her efforts, Ms. Mer was awarded an alternative Nobel prize in 1993 and the prize money went to create a proper school facility.

The school would survive Ms. Mer´s death from cancer in 1996, and Mr. Mer Khamis´s departure – until 2002, that is, and the violence of the second intifada. It was destroyed when Israeli bulldozers levelled a section of the camp.

That´s when Mr. Mer Khamis would return and make an extraordinary film called Arna´s Children, using old and new video footage to show what had happened to those original young children his mother had nurtured.

Thirteen years after joining Ms. Mer´s company of children, all but one of the original troupe were dead: One had been so affected by the killing of a young girl, he launched a suicide attack on the Israeli town of Hadera; two had perished in the Battle of Jenin, killed in the theatre school´s rehearsal hall from where they had fired on advancing Israeli forces. One had become the Jenin leader of the al- Aqsa Martyrs´ Brigades militant group and was hunted down and killed.

Only Zakariya Zubeidi had survived. Imprisoned for throwing rocks, and again for throwing Molotov cocktails, he had been released after the 1993 Oslo Accords and joined the Palestinian police. He left the force, as a sergeant, disillusioned, he said, by the corruption he encountered.

In 2002, his mother and brother were killed when Israeli forces moved into Jenin camp. Once again, Mr. Zubeidi picked up a weapon.

He survived the intense battle in Jenin and, somewhat reluctantly, succeeded his friend as the leader of the al-Aqsa militants.

Mr. Zubeidi, his face still badly marked by a bomb of his own making, said in an interview last week that he did not approve of suicide missions, only military attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers. High on Israel´s most wanted list, however, he somehow survived several assassination attempts.

In 2006, Mr. Zubeidi approached Juliano Mer Khamis, his old drama tutor and, by that time, an award-winning filmmaker, and urged him to reopen the theatre school.

Mr. Zubeidi, by this time a husband and father, said he wanted the next generation to find a better way to express itself.

"I was fed up with the fighting," he said. "It didn´t get us [Palestinians] anywhere."

Arna's school had not resulted in a single original student supporting pacifism. Every single one of the original kids there became a militant.

It is hard to imagine that any random classroom of Palestinian Arab kids in the West Bank, or even in Gaza, would have such a stunning record of churning out terrorists.

Juliano's film, instead of castigating what was by any measure a catastrophic failure of the vision of his mother, romanticized it by claiming that Israeli measures are so bad that every single child was driven into terror, despite his mother's efforts.

From Mother Jones' tribute to Juliano and description of his film:

The film, shot over almost two decades, is set in the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin, a place where Israeli bombs and tanks are inescapable realities of childhood. In the first half of the film, we are introduced to Juliano's mother, Arna, a Jewish Israeli who set up the theater group in Jenin in the late 1980s. Arna is bald from chemotherapy, yet devotes her dying days to her playful and talented little actors, helping them express their anger and grief through art and drama.

Years pass. Arna succumbs to cancer, the 1994 Oslo peace accords unravel, the theater program shuts down, the Israeli occupation hardens, and the 2000 second intifada erupts. On April 3, 2002, the Israeli army invades Jenin, killing more than 50 Palestinians and destroying hundreds of homes.

And many of "Arna's children" have now become militiamen and suicide fighters.

In the second half of the film, Juliano returns to Jenin to find out how and why this has happened. We see that it's not mainly about anti-Semitic brainwashing—Jenin residents adore Arna and Juliano despite their Jewish background and Israeli nationality. Rather, Arna's children have chosen "martyrdom" because of the searing horrors they've witnessed with their own eyes.

How can a youth program, supposedly meant to foster "peace" but that has a 0% success rate of creating peaceful people, be considered so wonderful?

Arna Mer-Chamis, if she really was trying to teach peace, was a spectacular failure. It is not possible for her to have been more of a failure. The last person alive from her kids, who now claims to want peace, didn't say he learned the idea from the Mer-Chamises - he just says that he was simply "fed up with fighting."

Which brings up the question: did the theater really promote peace in any sense at all?

Now Juliano Mer-Chamis, who created an entire movie trying to soft-pedal the terrorism of his mother's proteges, has become victim to something the leftists pretend doesn't exist - Palestinian Arab hate. His film, rather than showing the inherent culture of violence and hate that laughs at the idea of words replacing bullets, was a prophetic view of what his own end would look like.

No one is asking the question - if Mer Chamis was murdered by Palestinian Arabs for no good reason, then perhaps the terrorism that he justified in his movie is also for no reason, and not because of anything Israel does?

Too bad that those who watch the film have no capacity to look beyond the rosy, romantic notion of Palestinian Arab peacefulness and see the simple facts: the Palestinian Arab kids who were exposed to Western values became terrorists anyway. The same kind of terrorists that killed Juliano himself.

(h/t Silke, Giulio Meotti)

Muslim intimidation of Christians in Nazareth before Easter

Posted: 18 Apr 2011 12:10 AM PDT

This is Easter week, so the media is doing their annual stories about how Israel is supposedly restricting some Christians from coming to Jerusalem. (I showed the bias on a similar Reuters story last year.)

I received an interesting email from commenter Womble last Tuesday. Here's what he wrote:

I've just returned from a trip to the north of Israel, focused mostly on Christian holy places, and I've taken some photos.

This photo was taken in Nazareth this morning. It shows the banner which greets any Christian pilgrim or tourist who wants to visit the Christian places of worship in the city.

If you want to get to the Church of the Annunciation or to the Synagogue Church, there's literally no way to get there without being confronted with this warning to embrace Islam or else. (The building on the right is the Church of the Annunciation; this way you can see the proximity). My guess is that it is the work of the local branch of the Islamic Movement, whose offices are located nearby.

However, I cannot identify the logo in the upper left corner of the banner, so I can't be absolutely sure if it's the Islamic Movement or some other, less known, organization doing it.

I think that Womble is right and this is the Islamic Movement of Nazareth:

Either way, here is a little seen side of how Muslims feel free to intimidate and bully Christians in the Middle East - and even in Israel.

It turns out that this is not the first time the Nazareth Islamists have done something like this. Here's a banner they erected before Christmas, 2008, also in front of the Church of the Annunciation: