Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Flotilla follies!
Sky News first Western outlet to film Syrian violence in protests (video)
Video: Illegal construction of a mosque by ancient Jewish cemetery
New posters: "Progressive," "Liberal" and "Humanitarian"
Egyptian woman lodges complaint over "virginity test"
After proving it is worthless, UNDOF mandate extended
Latest Latma
The week in the "world's largest prison"

Posted: 01 Jul 2011 10:39 AM PDT

Lots of fun happening in Greece today!

HuffPo is reasonably up to date:

Greece on Friday banned ships heading to the Gaza Strip from leaving Greek ports, and a vessel carrying several dozen American protesters which left port without permission was ordered to return.

A flotilla of nine Greek and foreign-flagged vessels and several hundred activists have said they want to break Israel's sea blockade and deliver aid to the Palestinian territory.

Greece's Civil Protection Ministry said coast guard authorities had been ordered to take "all appropriate measures" to implement the ban. It also said the "broader maritime area of the eastern Mediterranean will be continuously monitored by electronic means for tracking, where applicable, the movements of the ships allegedly participating" in the flotilla.

Protest organizers said one of the boats, dubbed the Audacity of Hope and carrying several dozen Americans, had left the port of Perama near Athens Friday afternoon, but had been intercepted by coast guards on inflatable speedboats about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) out at sea.

"We're not moving because they put one of the (boats) in front of us, so we are stationary," vessel spokesperson Jane Hirschmann told reporters in Athens.

The Merchant Marine Ministry refused to give any details of the incident, saying only that the protest boat had not left the "general port area."

Head protest organizer Vangelis Pissias angrily condemned the ban and argued Greece had no legal grounds to block a privately leased ship from leaving one of its ports.

"We condemn the policy of the Greek government and its last actions ... The efforts to sail will continue," Pissias said.

A Greek government official said the boat had set sail without the permission required of all boats to leave port, and that the Coast Guard had asked it to return. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the situation was still evolving.

The tweets from the flotidiots are priceless, as they pretend to be heroic by singing "We Shall Overcome" towards the Greek authorities (who, they never fail to point out, are armed!)

Their righteous indignation at being stopped from breaking maritime law is amusing, to say the least. For people who love to talk about "international law" they sure seem to be enamored of breaking laws themselves.

But, of course, they are pure and good and moral, so they are allowed to.

I tweeted to them a suggestion - perhaps they should sail from Syria next time, so as not to worry about pesky Westerners stopping their party. It would be considered an act of war, but that's a minor point - they want to destroy Israel anyway.

Sky News first Western outlet to film Syrian violence in protests (video)

Posted: 01 Jul 2011 09:59 AM PDT

Sometimes, one can find real reporting among the news sites:

Also they quote opposition claims:

These are more details the organisation have given us about the repression they face in their effort to bring about change in Syria.

They claim to have the names of 1450 dead civilians, among them 91 children, 41 women, and 193 soldiers who they claim were killed for refusing to obey orders to open fire on protestors.

They claim between 5000 and 16000 have been detained and 'tens were returned dead with torture marks on their bodies to their families, many are missing and we have no idea if they are alive or dead.'

Oppostion groups claim the regime returns the mutilated bodies of dead and tortured teenagers to instil fear in their opponents. A number of chilling videos of the bodies of dead children and youths have been posted on YouTube in recent months corroborating these claims.
And they have shocking claims about the injured.

'Most of them don't get proper medical care , because they're afraid of being arrested or mishandled by security forces in hospitals, some of the injured who went to public hospitals were killed there.'

Video: Illegal construction of a mosque by ancient Jewish cemetery

Posted: 01 Jul 2011 08:53 AM PDT

This past week I mentioned that Jewish graves at the Mount of Olives were vandalized by Arabs.

JTA also reported in that link, "At the same time, local Arabs began illegally expanding a mosque to within 15 feet of the grave of Menachem Begin."

Here is video of that mosque being built as the Arab workers ignoring the court order to stop:

The mainstream Israeli English language media is not reporting on this outrage; only Arutz-7.

(h/t Yerushalimey)

New posters: "Progressive," "Liberal" and "Humanitarian"

Posted: 01 Jul 2011 08:01 AM PDT

Commenter Don gave the idea for the first, thanks to another comment by Challah Hu Akbar, and I ran with it:

Egyptian woman lodges complaint over "virginity test"

Posted: 01 Jul 2011 07:10 AM PDT

From Al Masry al Youm:

Three months after news surfaced that military police conducted virginity tests on female prostesters, Samira Ibrahim, one of the victims, has lodged an official complaint with the military prosecution.

Following her complaint, Ibrahim was brought in on Tuesday by the military prosecution to give a detailed account of her experience. She shared some of her story with Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Seventeen girls were among the 173 protesters arrested on 9 March as the military police forcibly cleared protesters from Tahrir Square. Many detainees reported being tortured, but some women, who were released four days later, announced in the media that they were forced to undergo virginity tests during their incarceration.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), Egypt's de-facto rulers since the president resigned in February, denied the allegations, but a CNN report in May quoted a senior general, speaking on condition of anonymity, as admitting to the practice.

The general said that the tests aimed at protecting the military from rape accusations by the girls later by proving that they were not virgins when they were first brought in. "None of them were virgins," he added, according to CNN's report.

Infuriated by the claim, Ibrahim and many of the other girls who shared her ordeal say that they are willing to take another virginity test to prove the general wrong.

After being arrested in Tahrir Square, Ibrahim was taken to the Egyptian museum with other captured protesters.

"As they arrested us, they were saying that we are accused of prostitution, and when I tried to object I was electrocuted," Ibrahim told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

The women say that they were verbally abused by the military as they were held in the Egyptian museum for six hours. Military police insulted them and accused them of sexual activity inside Tahrir Square, the women say, though they say that the men arrested with them were tortured more severely.

The men were also electrocuted in "sensitive areas", according to Ibrahim.

Mohamed Adel, one of those arrested on 9 March, says that the girls were sexually harassed by officers in the military prosecution.

After hours of abuse, the virginity tests started.

Ibrahim's story goes like this. The girls were asked to separate into two rows: one for the virgins and one for the non-virgins. The girls who said they were virgins were then taken to a room one by one. All the windows and the doors of the room were open and there were officers watching inside and outside the room as a male, whom they suspect was a non-medical officer, conducted the virginity tests.

"When I asked for a female to conduct the test and for the other males in the room to leave, I was electrocuted," says Ibrahim.

Many of the girls say that they still haven't completely recovered from the emotional damage of the experience. They were then transferred to a center for military prosecution and most were released four days later.

"When I came out of prison, I was completely destroyed. I had to go see a psychiatrist," says Ibrahim.

Since her release, Ibrahim has kept the virginity test a secret from her friends and family, fearing that they might not believe her or that they would stop her engaging in political activity. However, she says that she was not afraid to issue the complaint, and is not afraid that her family will notice if she talks to the media.

"The worst that can happen already has," she says.

Ibrahim says that she has been receiving threatening phone calls since she made the complaint, telling her that if she goes through with it she will serve her suspended one-year sentence, which she received before her release in March.

The military government will investigate the military police. Sounds real encouraging.But you have to give her props; she's got guts.

After proving it is worthless, UNDOF mandate extended

Posted: 01 Jul 2011 06:10 AM PDT

From YNet:

The Security Council on Thursday extended the mandate of the United Nations force monitoring the ceasefire in the Golan Heights between Israel and Syria for another six months.

According to a UN press release, the resolution extending UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) mandate was adopted unanimously. The statement said the UN Security Council was "deeply concerned that recent events have put the long-held ceasefire in jeopardy."

UNDOF did nothing to stop Syria from sending their people to the Israeli border on May 15 and June 5, pretending that they were "Palestinians."

To their credit, the US and Germany noted this. From the UN press release:

Speaking in explanation of position after the vote, Council members noted that the renewal deviated from previous practice, with several stressing that the events of 15 May and 5 June were the most serious since UNDOF's creation and could not go unremarked. Representatives of the United States and Germany, among others, expressed concern that the Syrian Government had played a role in those demonstrations, and suggested that it seemed willing to risk an international conflict to divert attention from its own domestic demonstrations.

The UN being the UN, of course, those concerns were buried by Russia and China:

A number of speakers highlighted the Secretary-General's recent call for the Council to express itself on Syria, suggesting that such expression was long overdue. Stressing that the situation in Syria was not sustainable, the representative of the United Kingdom said delegation would continue to press for a resolution on the situation in Syria. However, the representative of the Russian Federation pointed out that Syria was not on the Council's agenda, while China's delegate said the Syria question was an internal affair and should be left to the parties concerned.

Ron Prosor, the new Israeli ambassador to the UN, spoke:

RON PROSOR ( Israel) stressed that the international community must continue to support UNDOF's mandate, underlining the need for all parties fully to respect the disengagement line. Indeed, given the regional instability, the need for doing so had never been clearer. As for recent events, he recalled that on 15 May a large organized group of protesters had torn through the defence wall and engaged with the Israel Defence Force near Majal Chams. On 5 June, hundreds had sought to breach the disengagement line with Israel, trying to break through the fence, he said, adding that they had also thrown Molotov cocktails and used other modes of violence.

Noting that the Syrian regime had not prevented demonstrators from reaching the line nor stopped their attempt to breach the defence walls, he said its actions were a blatant attempt to distract attention from its own internal actions. Indeed, the regime's fingerprints "are all over this process", he said, adding that one need not be a forensic detective to see them. He said Bashar al-Assad was the only ophthalmologist he knew who was incapable of ensuring the vision of his own people, adding that the Syrian regime should not be allowed to behave in such a way just because it did not want the cries of its own citizens to be heard.

Latest Latma

Posted: 01 Jul 2011 05:26 AM PDT

The week in the "world's largest prison"

Posted: 01 Jul 2011 03:34 AM PDT

Gazans enjoyed a weekend at the beach:

Nearly 8000 Gazans traveled between Gaza and Egypt.

342 Gazans (mostly patients and families) went into Israel.

Nearly 30,000 tons of goods were unloaded in Gaza from Israel.

UNRWA continued the "Summer Games" activities for children, which included bouncy castles, pools and trampolines: