יום חמישי, 11 באוגוסט 2011

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Hamas bans film because it shows a woman's hair for 4 seconds

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 07:15 PM PDT

From CBS:


(h/t Shraga)

Israeli company makes solar panel windows

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 12:15 PM PDT

Israel saving the world, again:
The dream of constructing a net zero-energy building has yet to become a reality, but now an Israeli company has come up with an idea that could make it possible.

The innovative product from Pythagoras Solar can be described as a solar window that combines energy efficiency, power generation and transparency.

The world's first transparent photovoltaic glass unit (PVGU) has been designed to be easily integrated into conventional building design and construction processes. This means that existing office blocks can be retrofitted with the new material instead of energy-seeping glass windows - a process that will pay itself back within five years.

"What we have today - this is what we hear from architects - is very unique," Pythagoras Solar CEO Gonen Fink tells ISRAEL21c. "The high transparency makes for esthetically pleasing building designs.

"There are many companies today doing energy-efficient windows or energy generators using photovoltaics such as skylights, but this is mostly to show you can produce energy from the building's envelope. This is the first time somebody has actually combined the advantages in one product."
Can you imagine the impact if every glass skyscraper replaced their windows with solar panels?

(h/t Mike)

A twitter thread with Hussein Ibish

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 10:45 AM PDT

Hussein Ibish's writings indicate that he is one of the more moderate Palestinian Arab voices. But his Twitter reaction to my piece on his article about a book on costumes in Palestine was anything but moderate:

This fool @elderofziyon complains before 20s no one called themselves "Palestinians." Who called themselves "Israelis" before 40s? Moronic!

We then had this exchange:
elderofziyon says:
@Ibishblog Apparently, you never heard of the Jewish people.

Ibishblog says:
@elderofziyon Are you deliberately obtuse? Jewish & Arab identities old, but the Israeli & Palestinian identity are both new. At same time.

elderofziyon says:
@Ibishblog You are claiming a centuries-old, specifically Palestinian culture in your article. Are you now backtracking and saying it's Arab?

Ibishblog says:
@elderofziyon You completely misread my article, which clearly says contemporary Palestinian national identity is 20th century phenomenon.
@elderofziyon In fact, I can only think you didn't really read my article carefully at all, or are incapable of reading nuances carefully.

elderofziyon says:
@Ibishblog How did I misread "an ancient and unbroken Palestinian history and culture really does exist."? Is 20th century "ancient"?

Ibishblog says:
@elderofziyon Yes, by pulling that sentence out of it's much broader, more nuanced context, you are misreading everything. Deliberately so.

elderofziyon says:
@Ibishblog Wow.Let's keep it simple:Do you claim there is an"ancient and unbroken Palestinian history and culture"? Not Arab - Palestinian.

Ibishblog says:
@elderofziyon There is an ancient & unbroken Palestinian history & culture, but like Israel's its particularist nationalism is 20th century.

elderofziyon says:
@Ibishblog You are, as you admit, putting a political patina on an artificially, arbitrarily defined South Syria culture after the fact.
Ibish is making a number of fundamental errors, and he seems to be doing it knowingly.

To claim, as he does, that "there is an ancient and unbroken Palestinian history and culture" that predates anyone self-identifying as "Palestinian" is akin to calling pre-Abrahamic culture of Ur "Jewish." Is Canaanite culture "Palestinian?" How about Philistine culture? Or Byzantine?

As I wrote, and as he he did not disprove, the idea that there was a pan-Palestinian Arab culture that somehow fits roughly along the boundaries of Mandate Palestine that were drawn by the British is simply not true. It is a retroactive, modern, political attempt to find commonality among Arabs who did not feel that commonality themselves.

It is also interesting that he did not admit that his quote of Golda Meir was wrong.

But perhaps the biggest lie Ibish is pushing is that modern Israeli nationalism is distinct from Jewish peoplehood. Of course Zionism is a relatively modern concept, as is nationalism altogether, but the Jewish people are a nation and have been identified as such - both from within and from without - for millennia. Jews have been "making aliya" for centuries. The Biblical term for the Jewish people is "the children of Israel." That's what the Koran calls them as well. Christian sources called Jews "Israelites" as recently as the early twentieth century. Ibish, like most Palestinian Arab historical revisionists, tries to make an artificial distinction between Herzlian Zionism and the proto-Zionism of Rabbi Judah HaLevi, the Shelah and the disciples of the Vilna Gaon, all who moved to Israel.

Ibish's attempt to distinguish between modern Zionism and the ancient aspiration of Jews to return to Zion and modern Zionism is, at its root, an attempt to deny Jewish history - something that he railed against in another tweet at the same time ("This negation of each other's histories and narratives is sick and disgusting!")

Denying history is indeed disgusting. Correcting a false narrative is, however, obligatory.

(h/t Noah Pollak for Azure link)

Tehran names street after Rachel Corrie. Family must be so proud!

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 09:32 AM PDT

From Iran's ABNA:
The Tehran City Council on Tuesday ratified a proposal calling for one of the streets in Tehran to be named after the American peace activist, Rachel Corrie, who is viewed as an icon by many for her resistance against the Zionist regime.

Rachel Aliene Corrie was an American member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and a peace activist who was brutally crushed to death in 2003 when run over by a U.S.-supplied Israeli army bulldozer while attempting to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home in Gaza.

The proposal to name a street after Corrie was first put forward by ten universities based in Tehran.

According to the ratification, the 27th street in District 6 of the Tehran Municipality will be named after her.
How wonderful! Maybe her parents will go to Iran to thank the regime personally!

There already is a street named after her in Ramallah, pictured here:


The ABNA site also tastefully includes a photo of her - dead.

(h/t Israel Muse)

Syria accuses Israel of setting forest fires in the Golan

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 08:25 AM PDT

From Syria's SANA agency:
Israeli occupation forces on Monday deliberately set fires to forests in the occupied Syrian Golan that expanded to 4 K.M opposite to the liberated towns of al-Rafid and al-Asha as part of its daily aggressive policy against citizens of the Golan.

"The Israeli occupation forces' deliberate act of setting fires in the Golan aims at destroying the environmental and vital diversity in the area, Governor of Quneitra Hussein Arnous said.

He called on the international legal organizations to assume responsibilities towards the Israeli flagrant violations of setting fires in the occupied Golan or along the cease-fire line.

Firas Samara, Head of fire fighting operations in al-Quneitra underlined that the Israeli forces set fire to the western side of al-Adnaniya and al-Asha towns inside the cease-fire line in the Golan along 4 K.M length which damaged forestry and plants for hundreds of dunums.
They even illustrate the fire:

The only problem is that there is no report from any other source of any fire in the Golan. Not to mention that the reason they give - that Israel just feels like destroying the environment - makes no sense.

One can think of reasons why Syria might want to distract the world with made-up stories of Israeli forest fires, however.

White House erases "Jerusalem, Israel" from its website

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 07:21 AM PDT

From Daniel Halper at The Weekly Standard:

Quick question: According to the State Department, what nation is the city of Jerusalem in? If you answered Israel, you'd be wrong. The State Department just issued the following press release:

QUESTION: What is the State Department's position regarding American persons born in Jerusalem who wish to have passports issued that indicate their place of birth as Israel?

ANSWER: Current U.S. Government policy is that U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem may not have "Israel" listed in their passports as their place of birth. See the U.S. Department of State's Foreign Affairs Manual 7 FAM 1300 Appendix D for further details.

Hmm. You kind of have to wonder why no one thought to inform the White House! When Vice President Biden visited Jerusalem, Israel last year, the White House helpfully provided the following caption: "Vice President Joe Biden laughs with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, Israel, March 9, 2010."



And then the author posted this a little later:

Within two hours of posting, the White House has apparently gone through its website, cleansing any reference to Jerusalem as being in Israel.

The caption now reads: "Vice President Joe Biden laughs with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, March 9, 2010."

Sure enough, according to Google's cache, at least 7 references to "Jerusalem, Israel" have been changed now to show "Jerusalem" alone.


is now:


The only remaining reference to "Jerusalem, Israel" that I can find on the White House site is in this announcement:

This is beyond outrageous.

Go to the White House website contact page and let them know.

(h/t Ron)

Egypt's granting citizenship to 600 PalArabs highlights Arab hypocrisy

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 06:25 AM PDT

After years of dragging its feet, Egypt finally implemented a 2006 court ruling and allowed 607 Palestinian Arabs with Egyptian mothers to become citizens of Egypt.

Tens of thousands of Gazans have applied for Egyptian citizenship, some paying huge sums to lawyers to help make their case.

In 1959, the Arab League resolution 1547 confirmed earlier resolutions calling on Arab countries to treat Palestinian Arabs well - but recommends that they "retain their Palestinian nationality." Meaning, that Palestinian Arabs should not obtain citizenship in their host countries.

Every time a loophole has emerged in various countries allowing Palestinian Arabs to become citizens, they eagerly flock to take advantage of it.

Yet the world human rights community is silent - or, in the case of Human Rights Watch, complicit - in this gross violation of not only the human rights of Palestinian Arabs, but of their very will to become naturalized in the countries in which they were born.

It is very simple. Palestinian Arabs have shown time and time again that they want to be citizens of their host countries. Their right to a nationality is being categorically denied. But the UN, HRW and other NGOs, instead of fighting for them, are parroting the lies of their so-called leaders that they prefer to remain stateless and part of the "Palestinian nation."

The human rights of millions of people are being systematically denied, and no one is standing up for them. Not only that, but the worst offenders are the very people who claim to be acting on their behalf!

The Gaza communications blackout

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 05:01 AM PDT

Ma'an reported last night:

Telecommunications in Gaza were severed late Tuesday, cutting off Internet, mobile phones and international landline connections for hours, a Ma'an correspondent reported.

Calls to Gaza were met with error messages or dial tones, and the blackout seemed to affect multiple platforms including regular landline services as well as mobile access including Israeli services.

Meanwhile, residents of Gaza near the border with Israel said army bulldozers were seen operating shortly before communications went offline. An army spokeswoman denied the account.
Tweeters were abuzz with the news, and many assumed that this was a deliberate act on Israel's part as preparation for some genocidal act. Ma'an's comments were typical:

yeah people here expecting big israeli assault on Gaza tonight. an from Gaza but can't state how i access in order not be interrupted by occupation(israeli entity)

israel is getting ready to attack,get ready
And on Twitter:
world focused on #londonriots , no one care about #GazaBlackout , have been for 12+ hour, israeli getting ready to attack

IMEMC darkly hinted that this was in preparation for an attack.

Max Blumenthal went further,asserting that this was a deliberate attack by Israel on Gaza:
Does #J14 have anything to say on Israel's terror attack on Gaza's civilian infrastructure? #GazaBlackout
He then realized he went a teeny bit too far:
Qualification: -alleged- terror attack on Gaza's civilian infrastructure. Still awaiting official gloating.
Alas, his deep knowledge of evil Israeli psychology was again off the mark. The IDF spokesperson tweeted this morning:
Contrary 2inaccurate rumors, IDF has no conectn to #GazaBlackout. last nght #IDF bulldozer didn't dig @ Nahal Oz. #transparency
Indeed, there were no bulldozers cutting cables, no massive invasion of Gaza, no airstrikes, and this morning after 12 hours the communications are slowly being restored - without Israel apparently doing anything to repair it. As usual, the Arab and anti-Israel rumor mill was way off base, not that anyone will admit it.

There can be only a few alternatives to explain this:

  • The IDF is lying.
  • There was a huge coincidence where landlines, cell phone lines and Internet all went down at the same time (there were some reports of electricity being shut off as well.)
  • Hamas has something to do with this.
I don't know if there is a single point of failure in Gaza's telecommunications lines; that information is important in determining whether it was a simple backhoe mistake or not. If there is a single point through which all of Gaza's communications flows, that is an astoundingly bad network architecture (although it is great for Israeli intelligence.) This article in Firas Press, if I am understanding it correctly, seems to say that there are three separate fiber-optic cables going into Gaza and that all of them were down.

I find it most interesting that people automatically assume that Israel is nefariously attempting to wage war under cover in Gaza, yet they cannot conceive that Hamas might be doing a dry run on how easily it can cut off Gaza from the world.

After all, Syria has been cutting the communications of towns that are being attacked, and the Arab world has a rich history of working overtime to censor and restrict freedom of expression. 

So how come practically no one is blaming Hamas?

The Islamic Jihad Cripple Corps

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 02:58 AM PDT

From YNet:

According to the Islamic Jihad's website, the military wing recently held maneuvers in which veteran members of the Jihad who had been injured over the years in battles with Israeli forces had a starring role.

The maneuvers included sights not usually seen on the battlefield, one-legged men carrying Kalashnikov rifles or RPG launchers while leaning on crutches or sitting in wheelchairs.

The Islamic Jihad has puffed up its position against Hamas as the group spearheading the struggle against Israel. The organization has gone all out on a PR campaign to glorify its fighters in the Gaza Strip – the height of the campaign is their latest exhibition maneuver.

"Bombing us and leaving us amputees will not stop the Jihad," the military wing's website quoted one militant, Abu Abdallah who lost both his legs in clashes near Khan Yunis. "We will continue to fight even when our bodies are torn to pieces."
In all seriousness, this really means that they will try to send disabled people through checkpoints and so forth with bomb belts.

Making life for truly sick people who need to be treated in Israel that much more arduous. And giving a propaganda victory to the anti-Israel crowd.
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