Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest |
- !Shana Tova u'Metuka שנה טובה ומתוקה!
- Most Israeli Arabs are "proud to be Israeli"
- Tutu seems to change his mind on boycotting Israel (video)
- Arabs threatening America, 1948
- Gazans are still firing rockets at Israel
- Funny Numbers part 2: Fatah member doubles number of PalArabs
- Funny Numbers: Avaaz cooks the books
- Gaza tourism trade worth $40 million in 2010
- Egypt kills three Gazans. No one cares.
- Jerusalem Arabs still prefer Israel to "Palestine" (updated)
- Those wily Israelis, supporting both sides of Syrian civil war
| !Shana Tova u'Metuka שנה טובה ומתוקה! Posted: 27 Sep 2011 05:18 PM PDT  My lunchtime activity Tuesday was to design this updated Rosh Hashanah graphic, using an obscure drawing tool that no graphic artist with any integrity would be caught dead using. But I did want to get my New Year's greetings posted in time for my readers in Israel (and further east) to read them. I wish all of you a happy and sweet New Year. May we all be written in the Book of Life, and enjoy a year of health, a year of prosperity, a year of joy, a year of peace, and a year of security. 
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| Most Israeli Arabs are "proud to be Israeli" Posted: 27 Sep 2011 01:00 PM PDT The Israel Democracy Index survey 2011, released their results a few days ago. One question they asked was intriguing: How proud are you to be an Israeli? Among Jews, the vast majority - nearly 88% - said they were either "very proud" or "quite proud" to be Israeli. But the Arab response was positive as well. 52.8% said they were proud, as opposed to 41.6% who said they were not. Nearly 64% of Israeli Arabs said they were "certain" they wanted to live in Israel for the long term, with another 18% saying they want to but are not certain. Not all the news is good, though. In response to the statement "It is never justified to use violence to achieve political ends" over half the Arabs (55%) strongly or somewhat disagreed. 
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| Tutu seems to change his mind on boycotting Israel (video) Posted: 27 Sep 2011 12:00 PM PDT Desmond Tutu has been the patron saint of the BDS movement, always available to promote any boycott of Israel. A video just released by the Is Rael students organization of their meeting with Desmond Tutu in Cape Town on August 8 seems to show that Tutu is saying the opposite, that "boycott is not the way." Not only that, but he says that Israel has the right to live as an "independent sovereign state, whose boundaries are secured and recognized." The impression I get is not so much that he changed his mind but that he is senile and more interested in playing to his audience than in worrying about anything like consistency. (h/t LK) 
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| Arabs threatening America, 1948 Posted: 27 Sep 2011 11:00 AM PDT The parallels between how Arabs are reacting to the US promise to veto the PLO statehood stunt and how they reacted to American support for a Jewish state in 1947-48 are remarkable. Here's another example, where Arabs threaten economic sanctions against the US. Note the final part, about how those undesirable Jews immigrating to the Middle East would become a permanent danger for peace from Turkey to East Africa. That attitude has never really changed.  
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| Gazans are still firing rockets at Israel Posted: 27 Sep 2011 10:01 AM PDT The Gaza NGO Safety Office (GANSO) has not updated their normal biweekly reports of rocket and other activity, but they do send out alerts when they find out about significant incidents that could affect the safety of NGO workers in Gaza. And that includes Gaza rockets. Even though there have been very few rockets reaching Israel in September, that doesn't mean that there weren't a lot more attempts: (HMR="Home Made Rockets") MU, 06 SEP: Overnight Pal. ops fired 1 HMR from Gaza.That's 17 Qassams and one Grad fired towards Israel, of which at least 6 and probably more landed in Gaza itself or exploded prematurely. But it isn't like the terrorists ever stopped firing rockets towards Israeli civilians. 
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| Funny Numbers part 2: Fatah member doubles number of PalArabs Posted: 27 Sep 2011 09:00 AM PDT This video from MEMRI is notable for a couple of reasons: For one thing, it is just another indication of how ticked off the Palestinian Arabs were from Obama's UN speech. But more interestingly is the astonishing ease by which Jibril Rajoub lies about the number of Palestinian Arabs there are. He claims that there are 18 million PalArabs, of whom some 8 million live in Israel and the territories and the other 10 million in "refugee camps." In reality, even the most generous (and questionable) statistics say there are 11 million Arabs of Palestinian descent worldwide. 2.5 million are in the West Bank and 1.5 million in Gaza according to Palestinian Arab estimates. Some 1.5 million live in Israel, which adds up to 6 million - 2 million less than Rajoub claims. But his "diaspora" numbers are really out of whack - he doubles that number. Even more ridiculous, he claims that all of the PalArabs outside "Palestine" are in "refugee" camps, when in fact only a small percentage - about one million - are in camps, according to UNRWA. We've seen Palestinian Arabs make stuff up before. And why shouldn't they? No one really challenges them. (h/t Dan) 
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| Funny Numbers: Avaaz cooks the books Posted: 27 Sep 2011 08:00 AM PDT In the run up to the Palestinian Arab UN stunt, an organization called Avaaz.org was all over the social media trying to get people to sign a petition in favor of statehood. They claim to have over 1.1 million signatures on their petition. There is no way to verify that number because they do not seem to list the signers. But they also claim that over a million people viewed their webpage calling for signatures. They even have a counter on the page that seems to increment every time someone views it. Now, every time the page is loaded, a propaganda video is automatically played. That video is on YouTube. And, according to YouTube, that video has been seen less than 35,000 times! Which means that they are inflating the number of pageviews by a factor of 30! Others have noticed this "astroturfing" by Avaaz as well, see this Jerusalem Post blog entry by Dr. Andre Oboler and the coverage by CiFWatch. 
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| Gaza tourism trade worth $40 million in 2010 Posted: 27 Sep 2011 07:00 AM PDT  Domestic tourism in 2010 reached $40 million in revenue. This is all, he says, despite Israel's strenuous attempts to destroy Gaza's tourism industry. I wonder why the Middle East Children's Alliance didn't display any drawings by Gaza children of them playing in water parks? 
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| Egypt kills three Gazans. No one cares. Posted: 27 Sep 2011 06:00 AM PDT From Ma'an: Three Palestinians were pronounced dead on Tuesday morning after Egyptian authorities pumped sewage inside a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza border on Sunday.Nothing on this story in Egyptian newspapers Al Masry al Youm or in Al Ahram. I cannot find any calls for apology or expressions of outrage against Egypt in the Palestinian Arabic media. 
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| Jerusalem Arabs still prefer Israel to "Palestine" (updated) Posted: 27 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT From Ha'aretz: A new opinion poll shows that despite hardships, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are relatively satisfied with their lives under Israeli rule. The survey, implemented by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in cooperation with Princeton University and the Beit Sahur-based Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, found that almost half of East Jerusalem Palestinian respondents said they prefered to remain under Israeli sovereignty.Apparently, these Arabs are not impressed with World Bank reports praising how well-positioned "Palestine" is to become a state. (h/t Anne) UPDATE: More details here: A comparison of results from last November shows a significant improvement in perceptions of other issues. For example, a majority (57 percent) are now satisfied with their standard of living, up from 44 percent in November. And just 43 percent now say they are dissatisfied on the issue of obtaining building permits -- down greatly from around 70 percent in the previous survey. Similarly, only 16 percent now report dissatisfaction with Jerusalem municipal officials, a significant improvement compared to 35 percent in November.(h/t Yoel) 
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| Those wily Israelis, supporting both sides of Syrian civil war Posted: 27 Sep 2011 02:59 AM PDT If you are an Arab and want to discredit your opponent, accuse them of collaborating with Israel. We've seen it between Hamas and Fatah, and now we are seeing it between Syria and its opposition. A couple of days ago a Lebanese newspaper wrote that Israel is working behind the scenes to keep Bashir Assad in power - over the objections of the French. But today the Syrian government news agency writes that they found Israeli weapons in Homs! It sounds like the entire Arab world is Zionist, if you ask the right people.... (Then again, some anti-Israel Jews like to accuse Arabs of being "collaborators" as well.) (h/t Yoel) 
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