יום חמישי, 28 ביולי 2011

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Avian Open Thread

Posted: 27 Jul 2011 05:17 PM PDT

Here's how birds play their version of King of the Hill:


Speaking of tweeters, the Disqus comment system has added a new feature that seems cool if a bit buggy. If you type in an @ with a Twitter name in a comment, it will automatically tweet that person with the URL of the comment thread. (I have found it doesn't work great in Chrome; seemed OK in Firefox.) 

I couldn't figure out why my most popular post of the day was the one about how to find images on the web. Maybe I need to turn this into a tech blog!

Anyway, here's an open thread to keep you guys busy overnight.

 And if you want some links, check out Barry Rubin and Now Lebanon. 

I am rooting for Iran to win a medal in the London 2012 Olympics

Posted: 27 Jul 2011 02:25 PM PDT

Remember in February and March when Iran complained that the London 2012 Olympics logo really spelled "Zion"? Here's how they broke that insidious Zionist code, in case you forgot:

Well, they now have a quandary.

Because the medals were revealed today, and they have that same super-evil-Illiminati-Freemason-Zionist symbol!


Iran has won medals in the last five summer Olympic games (weightlifting, wrestling and Taekwondo) so chances are one or more Iranians will be handed the hated symbol.

Will Iran ban its athletes from winning medals? Will they confiscate winning medals and melt them down, donating the proceeds to Hamas? Will they pretend that they didn't spend an entire month whining about the symbolism and grit their teeth if they win?  

I'm now rooting for Iran to win third place in some obscure sport, just to see how they deal with this. No matter how they handle it, it will be funny. 

Then again, there is a simple solution for Iranian athletes: Only enter competitions where Israel is also competing, and then they can come down with mysterious fictonal  illnesses, forfeit the competition and not have to worry about winning!

You can still order the EoZ exclusive London Zionist Games T-Shirts! I already sold a bunch, and they'll be worth a fortune when the summer of 2012 comes around!

PalArab politicians really are crybabies

Posted: 27 Jul 2011 12:10 PM PDT

Many have noted that the actions of the Palestinian Authority often resembles that of a spoiled child, throwing a tantrum because he does not get his way. I even wrote about it in 2006, an article that applies today (except for my underestimating Hezbollah's ability to take over Lebanon.) And while in that year, read this great piece from Treppenwitz.

Mahmoud Abbas has made a career of saying that if he doesn't get his way, he'll take the ball home so no one can play. He has threatened to resign over a dozen times in order to make his puerile point.

Whining, blaming, threatening, refusing to play by the rules - yes, there is a lot that 3-year olds have in common with Palestinian Arab politicians.

And now, we can add one more example, one that is literal: Crying.
A routine Security Council debate on the Middle East and Palestine became Israel's and the Palestinian Authority's dress rehearsal for September's General Assembly conference where the Palestinians will seek UN recognition.

Palestinian observer Riyad Mansour called on the UN to recognize a Palestinian state. It's time to end the occupation, he said before bursting into tears.
Aw, isn't life in Ramallah so vewy vewy hawd that it forces grown diplomats to tears? Must be. The delegates from the Congo might be able to hold it together, but their people's challenges are nothing compared to the lives of Arabs in Ramallah, where they sometimes have to choose which restaurant to go to and, increasingly rarely, they are forced to wait in airport-style lines at checkpoints.

The infantilization of the Palestinian Arabs is no longer symbolic.

(h/t Missing Peace)

Meanwhile, in Syria...

Posted: 27 Jul 2011 10:45 AM PDT

From AFP/Now Lebanon:
Syrian security forces shot dead at least 11 people, including a child aged seven, in a "vengeance" raid on the town of Kanaker near Damascus early Wednesday, a human rights activist said.

"The security forces entered homes at dawn on Wednesday and during the operation 11 people were shot dead and more than 250 arrested," said Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organization for Human Rights, reached by telephone from Nicosia.

He said the operation in Kanaker, a town of 25,000 people, was backed by "a bulldozer and army tanks" and targeted people aged between 15 and 40.

According to Qurabi, the raid was an "act of vengeance" because inhabitants had supplied provisions to anti-regime protesters in the southern city of Daraa, the main hub of protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's rule.
Assad may be betting that if a dozen or so people are killed every day, it will no longer remain news.

And he may be right. This story is not exactly on the front pages.

Get your very own pair of anti-Zionist "occupation" glasses!

Posted: 27 Jul 2011 09:36 AM PDT

One of the more interesting themes I have noticed among the twitterati of the anti-Israel left is that, no matter what the news story is, they have to relate it to "occupation."

People in Tel Aviv protesting high housing costs? Why aren't they mentioning the "occupation"?

A new publicity initiative from the Foreign Ministry? Well, it is propaganda because it doesn't talk about "occupation!"

Another group making videos about Israel that make Israels look like normal human beings? Feh! The country is defined by "occupation!"

So for those of you who are jealous of people whose worldview can be simplified to a single word, I have the solution for you:

Occupation glasses!

Any time you look at a map of Israel, or photos of Israelis helping out poor people in Africa or victims of disasters, or the latest numbers at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, or a live performance of the Israel Philharmonic simulcast at movie theatres across the US tomorrow night, or a potential better alternative to mammography for women made by Israelis  - just put these on, and all will make sense again.

Sure, it is a little difficult to discern reality when you are wearing these, but that isn't the point. Constantly reminding people how evil Israel is - now, there's a cause these guys can get behind!

A Gaza resort gets torched

Posted: 27 Jul 2011 08:36 AM PDT

Here is the Paris Gardens Resort - in Gaza:





Unlike many of the Gaza resorts we have highlighted in the past, this one is unpretentious and fairly small. It looks like the type of place for ordinary Gazans to hang out without spending too much money.

It was destroyed this morning:
Assailants burned a Gaza resort at dawn Wednesday, the manager said.

Imad Al-Wazeer told Ma'an a group of 30 armed and masked men arrived at the Rais resort in Gaza and threatened employees.

The resort was damaged in Israel's Operation Cast Lead but Al-Wazeer says he reopened the facility in order to show Israel that the people of Gaza would live their lives in spite of the attack.

"This time, unfortunately, my resort was damaged by Palestinian hands," he said.

The resort cost some $120,000 to establish and has swimming pools, restaurants and other facilities. After the attack, however, 13 employees have lost their jobs, Al-Wazeer says.

He held the police in Gaza responsible for the attack, saying they should provide security.
The Al Mezan Center adds that the armed mob tied up the guard, burned down four kitchens in the resort, trashed rooms, burned and smashed tables for about an hour and a half. One huard who escaped called police but they didn't arrive until over an hour later after the arsonists had left. The masked men had earlier warned the owners of the resort.

Previous similar attacks were done in the name of morality; presumably women swam at this resort, or maybe men and women ate together.

While this may be true,  I think that this really happened because of the occupation, which has replaced Satan as the ultimate source for all evil on the planet.

Hezbollah threatens belly dancer for appearing with Israelis

Posted: 27 Jul 2011 07:35 AM PDT

From Israel HaYom:
A Lebanese belly dancer is facing death threats and cannot return to her homeland after embracing an Israeli musician at an international festival in France.

On June 19, Israeli heavy metal band Orphaned Land performed alongside Lebanese belly dancer Johanna Fakhri at the Hellfest music festival in the western French town of Clisson. At the end of their performance, the Lebanese dancer held up her country's flag while Orphaned Land's singer, Kobi Fahri, held up an Israeli flag. The two then hugged and clasped each other's hands.

Israel and Lebanon are technically at war and it is illegal under Lebanese law for any citizen to have public interactions with an Israeli. Media outlets around the world carried the image of Fakhri and Fahri brandishing their national flags, prompting a seething Hezbollah to declare Fakhri a traitor and issue a death warrant for her. The dancer has since been hiding out in France, fearing for her life if she returns to her homeland.

The threats against Fakhri have now spread from Lebanon. Last week, the French Muslim party PMF, which is closely tied to Hezbollah, carried a quote from Hezbollah on its website, declaring Fakhri "a traitor who collaborates with the Zionist enemy."

In response, Fakhri released a statement calling her appearance with Fahri an act of peace.
Here's the performance:


That is not the limit of anti-Israel nuttiness, however. Dr. Azzaf Eshrat, an MD writing in the crazy-left Salem News, says that this entire show was orchestrated by the Israeli government in order to distract attention from the flotilla! (He also claims that Orphaned Land stole their song from an Egyptian pop song. And that there is no archaeological evidence that Jews ever lived in Israel.)

Which just goes to show that upper class Egyptians are not necessarily more sane than crazed Hezbollah terrorists.

A praying girl, and a quick lesson in photo research

Posted: 27 Jul 2011 06:56 AM PDT

Yisrael Medad, in My Right Word, noticed something interesting in a photo illustrating a Daily Mail story.

The story is titled "Christian girls who go to church are 'more tolerant of other faiths than their peers'" . Here is the photo that illustrates the story:

Yisrael noted that the girl looks quite Jewish, and she even looks like she is a Jewish resident of Yesha - a "settler." Which would be an interesting choice to illustrate a story about Christian girls!

So I found the original image, showing he was right:


The tool I used, and have used often for situations like this where I want to find an original photograph, is TinEye. It can find identical photographs (even if they are cropped, as here.)

Another good tool for researching photographs are Google Image Search, which now allow you to upload photos to find ones that are similar (but the results are often quite wrong, sometimes hilariously so.) Tineye finds results more accurately but it doesn't have the massive index of photos that Google has. (For example, I could not find the original Reuters photo, assuming that the Daily Mail caption is accurate.)

An essential way to research photographs is viewing the EXIF information on the photo, and the easiest on-line method is Jeffrey's EXIF Viewer. The information shown there can indicate if the photo was edited, when the picture was taken, and sometimes (especially with wire service photos) it will show the original caption and name of photographer actually embedded in the photo. Using this you can often see when news media uses old photos, for example, or identify edits. You do have to be careful with the EXIF information because sometimes cameras have not had their clocks set properly.

These tools can sometimes help create real news stories, especially in the area of media bias.

Time's Tony Karon relieved Breivik hates anti-Zionist Jews like him

Posted: 27 Jul 2011 05:38 AM PDT

Time magazine's Tony Karon looks at Anders Breivik's manifesto, and is happy that he isn't one of those Jews who Breivik admires:
Clearly, though, Breivik confines his philo-Semitism to Zionists, who he sees as fellow conservative nationalists in the war against Islam. As for the rest, adherents of multiculturalism, their fate should be the same as any other "traitors" to his Judeo-Christian Crusade.

"Never target a jew because he is a Jew," Breivik writes, "but rather because he is a ... traitor."

So Breivik doesn't hate all Jews. But he certainly hates most of us:

"So, are the current Jews in Europe and US disloyal? The multiculturalist (nation-wrecking) Jews ARE while the conservative Jews ARE NOT. Aprox. 75% of European/US Jews support multiculturalism while aprox. 50% of Israeli Jews does the same. This shows very clearly that we must embrace the remaining loyal Jews as brothers rather than repeating the mistake of the [Nazis]."

Of course, many right-wing Jews, while abhorring the terrorist violence used by the Breivik, nonetheless share his aversion to Islam and to multiculturalism....And some Zionist conservatives, while unreservedly condemning Breivik's action, were also concerned to prevent it from obscuring an underlying message they support....

Breivik and Bin Laden may seem like polar opposites, but in the end they're reading off the same "clash of cultures" script. It's a script in which, Breivik acknowledges, the majority of Jews -- and of Europeans -- want no part.
And conservative, Zionist Jews, Karon implies, share the same hateful ideology that Breivik and Bin Laden espouse.

This is a transparent attempt by Karon to paint Zionist Jews with the same brush as a mass murderer, and it is disgusting.

Karon of course is not alone - plenty of people are trying mightily to place Breivik among their enemies so they can feel better about themselves - but this is a particularly sickening essay that is meant to distinguish between the "good" anti-Zionist Jews (like Karon, naturally) and the abhorrent Zionists.

Indeed, Breivik wants to see liberal Jews destroyed, and that is disgusting. But Karon wants to see conservative Jews destroyed.

And if there is a cause-and-effect between articles written by right-wing conservative Jews and the actions of a madman, as Karon falsely implies, then Karon has just written justification for the next terror attack targeting Israeli or Zionist Jewish interests by the next madman.

His essay is at least as inciting as those he disparages.

Iranian swimmer suffers from pre-emptive Jew-cooties

Posted: 27 Jul 2011 03:00 AM PDT

From AP:

The Iranian swimmer who withdrew from a heat featuring an Israeli at the world championships maintains the move was not political.

"My flight was exactly the day before my race, so I was so tired and drowsy. Because I had to wait for my visa," Mohammed Alirezaei told The Associated Press two days after not starting a 100-meter breaststroke heat including Gal Nevo of Israel.

Speaking after completing his 50 breaststroke heat Tuesday, Alirezaei added that he had "no problem" competing against Israeli athletes, saying he did so at junior worlds.

However, Alirezaei also pulled out of an event against another Israeli, Tom Beeri, in the 100 breaststroke at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The International Olympic Committee accepted the explanation then that he was ill.

Alirezaei said the fact that both withdrawals came against Israelis was merely a coincidence.

Asked about the latest withdrawal, IOC president Jacques Rogge told the AP on Monday: "I'm sure knowing the rules of FINA, the athletes will have to explain why and that most likely the athletes will have to come up with very good reasons."
Is it merely a coincidence that Alirezaei always feels ill before competing against Israelis?

Or is this proof that time itself is an construct, and Israeli athletes can retroactively make him sick by planning to be in the room with him the next day?

Or perhaps the Mossad, fearful of losing face against the superior Iranian athletes, work overtime to shoot their patented Joo-Rays to their enemies ahead of time?

All of these are plausible, especially to the rules committee members. What certainly cannot be true is that Alirezaei withdrew for political reasons.

As was reported in the Iranian media:
A member of the Iranian swimming team at the Shanghai FINA World Championships refused to contest a heat because of the presence of an Israeli athlete.

Mohammed Alirezaei refused to compete in the 100-meter breaststroke race at the world swimming contest. Gal Nevo of Israel had been due to swim in the same race.

Alirezaei had also pulled out of an event against another Israeli, Tom Beeri, in the 100-meter breaststroke race at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Iranian athletes have on various occasions shown strong support for the oppressed Palestinians nation by withdrawing from matches and games where Israeli sportspeople are present as well.

Chairman of Iran's National Olympic Committee Mohammad Ali Abadi said in an interview last year that Iranian sports organizations follow the government's policy towards the 'Zionist regime (Israel) and boycott all competitions in which Israeli athletes are present.
Nah, that's just posturing. He really, really was sick.
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