Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Pro-Israel, pro-Shalit rally at Trafalgar Square (plus EoZ poster sighting!)
Even Hezbollah is accused of being Zionist
Don't Strip! (updated)
PA accuses Israel of stealing organs from terrorists
The PA news agency scrubs a lie
Fatah/Hamas "unity" update: They can't agree on what time it is
BDS Fail in Brisbane
August rocket calendar
Syria "news" agency caught lying with photos again

Pro-Israel, pro-Shalit rally at Trafalgar Square (plus EoZ poster sighting!)

Posted: 28 Aug 2011 01:49 PM PDT

Israel's supporters came out in Trafalgar Square today to show sympathy with Israel as rockets continue to rain down from Gaza and to wish a happy 25th birthday to Gilad Schalit who is in his sixth year in isolation in Gaza having been kidnapped by Hamas from Israeli soil when he was 19.

There were some tremendous speeches.

Hasan Afzal, of British Muslims for Israel, said he supports Israel because it is "the only country in the Middle East where Muslims have freedom and democracy".

Jonathan Sacerdoti spoke movingly about Gilad Schalit spending his 25th birthday "in prison, in Gaza with no contact with the outside world, his family or even the International Red Cross to ensure that his health is adequate".

Joy Wolfe urged the crowd to ignore media lies about Israel and described Israel as a home for people of all religions.

She went on to call for an end to the double standards of the United Nations and some British MPs and said that Gilad Schalit probably doesn't even know that today is his birthday and probably feels as if he has been forgotten. But she said that no one will rest until the Red Cross gets access to him and every government in the world is calling for his release.

It was an excellent afternoon arranged at very short notice by the British Israel Coalition and supported by Stand With Us.

It made a change from the previous Sunday's terror rally at Trafalgar Square where the rhetoric called for war with Israel and signs called for Death to Israel. It's a shame there wasn't a similar pro-Israel rally at that time.

Read the whole thing; he has videos too.

The demonstration had some 500 people. I received this photo of the rally which shows one of my posters (click to enlarge):

Here's the poster:

Photo credit goes to StandWithUs UK official photographer Adrian Korsner Photography. H/t CiFWatch for letting me know.

Even Hezbollah is accused of being Zionist

Posted: 28 Aug 2011 12:30 PM PDT

The Lebanese March 14th movement is accusing Hezbollah of acting like Israel and of serving Israel's interests:

Several March 14 leaders attacked Hezbollah on Saturday and condemned the speech of its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah that he delivered via video link on Quds ( Jerusalem ) day last Friday night.

Phalange party MP Sami Gemayel compared Hezbollah to Israel in the way it has been expanding to take over Lebanon.

Gemayel said that Hezbollah is practicing "a unique policy of settlements" similar to Israel's.
"Hezbollah depended on military power to control a certain area, and the Jews depended on the same thing to take over Palestine," he told As-Sharq radio station.

March 14 MP Ahmad Fatfat said on Saturday that Hezbollah's Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is the one who serves Israel's interests.

"Didn't he assassinate leaders in the national resistance? Isn't he the one who pointed his weapons at the Lebanese people? Doesn't that serve Israel?," Fatfat questioned.

Don't Strip! (updated)

Posted: 28 Aug 2011 10:30 AM PDT

Yisrael Medad suggested a poster series to me, and how could I resist?

UPDATE: Wow, controversy! I'm getting emails as well as comments from people who are offended by these as well as those who love them.

I don't view the posters as tremendously sexist, although I see many women do. From my perspective they are using images that are quite tame nowadays to allude to an earlier era (hence my choice of fonts - although I think that the top one is Jane Russell from the 1940s, and she wasn't a stripper.) Yisrael chose the images and text, I did the layout.

Controversy is good in general when you want to get a message out, and that is what the aim is; I prefer messages that are more direct but there is a place for this approach (as in PETA's campaigns.) I have my doubts as to the effectiveness of the message, to be honest, as it is not obvious how to draw the line from the photo to the message. Maybe putting a leftist's head on a photo instead:

PA accuses Israel of stealing organs from terrorists

Posted: 28 Aug 2011 08:55 AM PDT

Palestine Today reports that PA Minister of Prisoners' Affairs, Issa Qaraqe, said that Israel is the largest global hub for trafficking in human organs, and is harvesting organs of "martyrs."

He said Israel is holding the bodies of the terrorists to "avenge" them and their families, as well as to hide the "crimes" Israel did to their bodies.

It is unlikely that anyone will denounce these outrageous and libelous claims.

In June, Israel refused to hand over the bodies of some 84 terrorists after initial reports to the contrary, instead keeping them as a bargaining chip in helping to get Gilad Shalit released.

The PA news agency scrubs a lie

Posted: 28 Aug 2011 07:33 AM PDT

From Ma'an on Friday:

Honduras has recognized the State of Palestine, the official Palestinian Authority news agency reported Friday.

The announcement came in a letter to President Mahmoud Abbas that Honduras recognized the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders and would back efforts to seek membership in the UN, WAFA reported.

The original WAFA announcement on Friday did say that Honduras recognized the mythical "1967 borders."

Here's the image of the autotranslated Arabic announcement:

However, the actual announcement from the Honduras did not mention any borders.

And WAFA has since removed that reference from its website. Here's the scrubbed version, again from the Arabic - with the exact same timestamp of 18:53:

It is a little unusual that WAFA scrubbed its original announcement, which may indicate some displeasure from the Honduran government on that point. It is more interesting that they tried to hide the change, which is not something that any legitimate news agency should do.

(h/t George Hale for helping find the cached Arabic announcement.)

Fatah/Hamas "unity" update: They can't agree on what time it is

Posted: 28 Aug 2011 05:59 AM PDT

From Ma'an:

For the first time in history, Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza will live in different time zones.

Clocks were pushed back an hour at the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on August 1 in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority cabinet decided Tuesday to revert to summer time (+3 hours GMT) at the end of Ramadan. The cabinet announced that the Eid Al-Fitr holiday which marks the end of Ramadan would begin Tuesday.

But the Hamas government's civil services bureau in Gaza announced Saturday that the government would continue to work on winter time (+2 hours GMT) after Eid Al-Fitr.

Unity!

BDS Fail in Brisbane

Posted: 28 Aug 2011 04:32 AM PDT

From Menzie's House:

Danielle Keys reports on the counter-protest against the Socialist Alliance anti-Semites:

On Saturday the 27th of August at 1pm, the Socialist Alliance and "Justice for Palestine" met at Merivale Street, Brisbane to march down to Southbank to bully and intimidate the customers and staff of popular chocolatier 'Max Brenner'.

I, Danielle Keys, organised the counter-protest movement a month ago after seeing the Socialist Alternative at UQ handing out flyers about their protest. The flyers said to boycott Max Brenner as an agent of apartheid Israel. I thought it was so disgusting that I organised a facebook event just to see if some friends were interested in counter-protesting.

Little did I know that in a matter of weeks I would have many different groups approaching me to help support the cause, over 90 facebook friends attending and be in contact with the corporate management of Max Brenner. Little did I truly foresee that I would be speaking to almost every single newspaper I can think of as well as television and radio opportunities. I would have been happy to stand alone but I am really glad I didn't have to! The reason that people stand behind counter-protest movements I think is because as just individual people we get bullied by the disgraceful agendas of the loudest most empty vessels of humanity - the Socialist Alliance. They are the unwashed aggressors who exist off the fringes of society prepared to violently demonise anyone who disagrees with them. I really had enough of it and I'm glad to see I was not the only one!

I guess the only way to properly describe the events of yesterday is like this...

THE COUNTER-PROTEST WAS AWESOME!!!

When the Socialist Alliance marched down to Southbank they were not counting on being outnumbered by ordinary Australians telling them to go home and that their intolerance was not welcome. They quite seriously didn't bank on it and were very upset about it (ha-ha!)....

Anyone who was there would have seen how much fun it was. Everyone there was laughing, chanting, getting stuck into the SA, drinking hot chocolates and dancing around. The Socialist Alliance eventually walked away. Shamed into oblivion. They went and stood in a park somewhere continuing their little rant, where no one could hear them and no one could call them to account. This is unsurprising and indicative of their cowardice.

All fun and exciting times aside, there was a really powerful and beautiful element to this counter-protest movement. I was really humbled and overwhelmed by people from the Jewish community voicing their thanks for the support. It sounds insane but I never really thought of the Brisbane Jewish community when it came to organising this. I was so busy thinking of the political and ideological principles that I didn't properly see how personally vilified and offended the Jewish community felt over this. They came out in force to stand up for Max Brenner and say no to Socialist Alliance abuses. I met so many wonderful Jewish people and I felt so touched when they said how surprised and happy they were to see non-Jewish people standing by them in an event like this.

Here's one video of the protest/counter protest.

(h/t Ian)

August rocket calendar

Posted: 28 Aug 2011 02:10 AM PDT

G=Grad
Q=Qassam
M=Mortar
P=Unidentified projectile (includes mortars)
R=Unidentified rocket
S=Fell short in Gaza
E=fell in Egypt
F=Fatality (Green-Gaza, Red-Israel)
[] - Palestinian claims

August 2011

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
	1 1Q	2	3 2G	4 1Q	5	6
7	8 3M	9	10	11	12	13
14 1Q	15 1G	16	17	18 4G	19 30R	20 64R F _F_
21 35R 5M 8RE 1GS	22 6Q 1G	23 [6M]	24 1RE 17R 2M	25 5R	26 2Q	27
28 1G	29	30	31

Syria "news" agency caught lying with photos again

Posted: 28 Aug 2011 12:47 AM PDT

Sometimes, you can't trust your own eyes.

From Syria's SANA agency:

SANA reporters on Saturday denied existence of any gatherings or demonstrations at al-Abbasiyyin, Umayyad and Kefr Souseh Squares contrary to what some provocative satellite channels have aired this morning.

Notice the photo they use to prove that things were normal at that town square on Saturday morning?

Here's that same photo - in a SANA article from April: