יום שלישי, 11 באוקטובר 2011

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Work accident!

Posted: 10 Oct 2011 07:08 PM PDT

From the official Palestinian Arab Wafa news agency:
An Israeli Strike targeting the village of Umm Al-Nasser in the northern Gaza strip Monday killed a Palestinian, Ahmad Al-Azayzeh, from the town of Beit Hanoun, north of Gaza, according to local sources.

Sources said that Al-Azayzeh was killed while he was passing near the separation wall, of about 300 meters distance from the wall, adjacent to the Beit Hanoun crossing in northern Gaza.

And here is why you can never trust a word that Wafa tells you.

From the Washington Post:
The Israeli military said it was not involved. Army officials said they believed explosives detonated as militants tried to plant a bomb.

From Ma'an:
The military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed Ahmad al-Azazmeh, from the northern city of Beit Hanoun, as a fighter in their brigades, and said he was on a "jihad mission."
Yup, he exploded himself as he tried to plant a bomb at the Gaza border.

Give that man a Splodie Award!

Wire services: Only Palestinian Arabs grow olives

Posted: 10 Oct 2011 01:49 PM PDT

If you search for the word "olives" in wire service photos, you would get the impression that there is only one people on Earth who grow and harvest olives.


A Palestinian farmer empties a bucket of olives onto a pile, in a field outside the West Bank village of Al Araqah near Jenin, Monday, Oct. 10, 2011. Palestinians began to harvest olives in October, a staple for many local farmers that also use them to make oil.

A Palestinian woman picks olives during harvesting season in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza StripOctober 9, 2011.
A Palestinian man collects olives at the start of the annual harvest season in Khan Yunis in the southernGaza Strip on October 8, 2011.

Indeed, you will look in vain if you try to find any photos of people in Italy or Spain harvesting this year's olive crop from news agencies. 

Only one type of people, apparently, still harvest their own olives. By implication, only one set of people love their land so much as to still harvest olives the way that their ancestors did for centuries.

As I pointed out last year when this same phenomenon occurred, this is a subtle type of media bias that is pervasive, and no less pernicious than the more blatant types of bias we are used to.

It just so happens that Jews have been growing and harvesting olives for quite a long time in that area:
Olive press in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem

And they still do. 

So why are there no photos - and I mean zero - of Israeli Jews harvesting olives from wire services? 

Gaza farmers lose $1 million from Hamas lulav ban

Posted: 10 Oct 2011 11:40 AM PDT

Video report from Al Jazeera:


The report makes it clear that Hamas' reasons have nothing to do with any tree disease and everything to do with inconveniencing Jews.

By the way, if they are really losing $1 million and they planned to export 100-200,000 lulavim, that is quite a profit they would have been making! My understanding is that the usual wholesale price to farmers is closer to $3 each than $5-$10.

(h/t Allen L)

"Fatah hasn't thrown the rifle aside"

Posted: 10 Oct 2011 10:40 AM PDT

From JPost:
The US is the number one enemy of the Palestinians because it supports Israeli "oppression" against the Palestinians, Tawfik Tirawi, a senior member of the Fatah Central Committee, said on Sunday.

Tirawi, former commander of the Palestinian Authority's General Intelligence Force in the West Bank, also said that Fatah has not abandoned the armed struggle option against Israel.

"Fatah hasn't thrown the rifle aside," Tirawi told thousands of university students during a rally in Hebron.

Tirawi also criticized the PA leadership for refusing to allow Palestine TV to use the term "Israeli enemy" in its broadcasts.

"Those who prevent the use of the term 'Israeli enemy' are acting in violation of national awareness and the principles of people under occupation," he argued. "They must go away."
The #1 Middle East media rule is that if a high-ranking Palestinian Arab says something that espouses violence, it is just rhetoric and therefore meaningless. When they say something that can be barely interpreted as pragmatic or peaceful, even if those statements are outnumbered 100-1 by the violent ones, it reflects "reality."

Alan Dershowitz at Park Avenue Synagogue 10/3/11

Posted: 10 Oct 2011 09:50 AM PDT

I mentioned that I saw Alan Dershowitz speak last week in Manhattan (and managed to interview him afterwards.)

Here is video of his speech, and of the Q&A:

They lie, and lie, and lie....

Posted: 10 Oct 2011 08:55 AM PDT

ISM co-founder and Free Gaza leader Huwaida Araff tweeted:


Huwaida Arraf
Settlers from Itamar set 35 olive trees on fire in Palestinian village of Awarta, south of Nablus. Photo:


Here's the photo:


It was promptly retweeted by a couple of dozen people.

However, like many of these stories, it is a lie.

As AFP reports from Awarta:

Israeli soldiers also put out a fire in a nearby field lit by a number of Palestinians, a military spokesperson said. Palestinian witnesses confirmed there had been a fire but said it was started accidentally.

There was another bogue story from Awarta yesterday, but it was so absurd that AFP didn't bother mentioning it.

Palestinian Arabs accused Jews of releasing wild pigs again, injuring a woman harvesting olives.

I'm surprised Araff didn't tweet that as well.

(h/t Captain Barak Raz tweet)

31 killed in Syria today - but don't protest if you are in Lebanon

Posted: 10 Oct 2011 08:00 AM PDT

From Al Arabiya:

More than 30 people were killed in clashes across Syria, including 14 civilians and 17 soldiers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday, as army forces continued to pound the cities of Homs and Qamishli.

Seven of the 14 civilians killed on Sunday were gunned down by security forces in the central city of Homs, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that seven others were killed in other towns.

Seventeen security personnel died the same day in clashes with mutinous troops refusing orders to shoot on anti-regime protesters, the watchdog said.

"It was like a war scene in Homs, where blasts and sound bombs were heard all over town, with heavy machine guns also being fired," said officials with the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), which organizes protests on the ground.

"A lot of homes were destroyed. Nine people were killed and dozens wounded. Security agents and pro-regime militias prevented ambulances from evacuating the wounded," the officials said.

It said the regime "attacked the Homs region in yet another desperate effort to make its free residents bow and to snuff out the revolution."

Activists said Army forces pounded Qamishli through the night on Sunday. The city was the scene of a mass rally on Saturday against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad during the funeral of Mishaal Tammo.

Gunmen shot Tammo, a Kurdish opposition figure, dead on Friday in his home in the east of the country, activists said.
In Lebanon, Kurds protested the murder of Tammo - and learned their own lesson:
A group of Syrian Kurds decided to organize a small demonstration in front of the Syrian Embassy in Beirut on Sunday to protest the assassination of an opposition leader and key member of the Syrian National Council, Meshal Temmo, who was a Syrian Kurd himself.

Temmo's assassination came at a very critical time for the Syrians, immediately after the formation of the SNC, and the group of Syrian Kurds in Beirut wanted to express their resentment. According to activists at the scene, Lebanese security services erected extensive checkpoints that delayed and prohibited the arrival of seven buses carrying demonstrators to the embassy. The protest still took place, but not many could attend.

Surprisingly, this time Lebanese security protected the protesters who made it to the demonstration from a group of thugs who, as usual, went to break up the event.

But the incident did not end there. That night in the neighborhood of Dora, members of the Lebanese intelligence service brutally attacked and humiliated Syrian Kurd workers who participated in the demonstration.

They delivered the message that no one is allowed to demonstrate in support of freedom in Syria.
That same Now Lebanon article also talks about another example of the chilling of freedom of expression in Lebanon:

Three film directors were banned from travelling to Lebanon by the Iranian authorities. Iranian Nader Davoodi, Iranian Kurd Babak Amin and Iraqi Kurd Ibrahim Saeedi were not allowed to come to Lebanon to attend the screening of their films, "Red, White and Green," "I Wish Someone Was There Waiting for Me," and "Mandoo" at the Beirut Film Festival.

These directors are probably heading for a tough trial by the Iranian authorities, and that's probably why the festival's administration decided to pull the most controversial one, Davoodi's "Red, White and Green," after Lebanese censorship authorities requested to see the film before its screening. The film focuses on the violent events of the three weeks leading up to the disputed June 2009 re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Lebanese authorities did not even have to ban the film, but only made a simple call, which instilled enough fear among the festival's administration to pull it. This fear is based on previous incidents when the same authorities banned Lebanese, Arab and Iranian films from the BFF and other festivals. Because festivals rely heavily on the Lebanese authorities for licenses and passes, some believe it is safer not to challenge authorities; otherwise, the whole festival could be shut down.

That didn't take long: Egyptian leader blames Israel for violence

Posted: 10 Oct 2011 07:00 AM PDT

Egypt's Youm7 reports that an Egyptian former foreign minister and ambassador and current presidential candidate has blamed the deadly riots yesterday on Israel.

Abdallah al-Ashaal said that the Zionists were behind the rioting Copts. According to him, Israel is attempting to destroy Egypt from the inside by instigating these disturbances. He claims that at the urging of the Mossad, the Copts are inviting Americans and Zionists into Egypt to protect them and through that to burn and destroy the country.

He suggests that the police need to be more brutal to stop such acts.

(The death toll has reached 36.)

PLO declares Blair to be "unwelcome" as Quartet envoy

Posted: 10 Oct 2011 06:00 AM PDT

From the Financial Times last Wednesday:
Palestinian leaders are calling for Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister, to resign his post as the international community's envoy to the Middle East.
Top officials in the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the umbrella group that includes most Palestinian factions, charge that Mr Blair – who represents the so-called Mideast Quartet that includes the US, UN, European Union and Russia – prefers to look out for Israel's interests rather than acting as an honest broker.

Mohammad Ishtayeh, a top member of Fatah, which dominates the PLO, and a confidant of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said in an interview: "I call on him to resign. There is a consensus among the Palestinian leadership that people are dissatisfied with his performance."

Mr Ishtayeh added that Palestinian leaders plan to convey to the Quartet their demand to have Mr Blair removed from his post. "We will ask the Quartet in our own way. There are open channels between us and the Quartet." According to Mr Ishtayeh, Mr Blair has "been useless" to the Palestinians as Quartet envoy.

The debate over whether to make a formal request to the Quartet was conducted last week during separate meetings of the PLO's executive committee and the central committee of Fatah.

During the PLO meeting, some faction representatives called for a boycott of Mr Blair, according to Mr Ishtayeh.
It is now official:
The Department of International Relations of the PLO confirmed that the representative of the Quartet, Tony Blair, is not welcome as a representative of the Committee for the peace process as he is no longer neutral and has become clearly biased to Israel and its demands .

The department added that Blair went beyond his duties assigned by the Commission as a neutral intermediary and became a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which was evident in his attempt to formulate a statement of the international Quartet to adopt the Israeli demands only at the expense of the demands and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.

The department said that Blair has broken with diplomatic norms required in such sensitive positions.

How the PalArabs will use UNESCO to hurt Israel

Posted: 10 Oct 2011 03:53 AM PDT

From YNet:

The Palestinians will seek World Heritage status for the birthplace of Jesus once the UN cultural agency admits them as a full member, and will then nominate other sites in the West Bank for the same standing, an official said.

Hamdan Taha, a Palestinian Authority minister who deals with antiquities and culture, said UNESCO membership was the Palestinians' natural right. He described the objections of some governments to the move, including the United States, as "regrettable."

UNESCO's board decided last week to let member states vote on a Palestinian application for full membership, seen as part of a Palestinian drive opposed by Israel and the United States for recognition as a state in the UN system.

"UNESCO membership carries a message of justice and rights. Why must the Palestinians be left outside the international system?" Taha said. "I see it as crowning long efforts over the past 20 years."

He said that after gaining full UNESCO membership, the Palestinians will revive their bid to secure World Heritage status for Bethlehem and its Church of Nativity, revered as the birthplace of Jesus. The nomination was rejected this year because the Palestinians were not a full UNESCO member.

"This is a simple example of how Palestine has not been able to preserve its cultural heritage through the tools granted to every state in the world," Taha said.

"We will call on the World Heritage Committee to activate this application," said Taha. "We expect that after Bethlehem, other sites will follow."

Aside from Bethlehem, the Palestinian Authority has listed ancient pilgrimage routes and the West Bank towns of Nablus and Hebron among 20 cultural and natural heritage sites which Taha said could also be nominated as World Heritage Sites.

Taha described the Palestinians' motives as "purely cultural": "This will allow Palestine to actively participate in protecting cultural heritage in the Palestinian territories," he said

The vote on Palestinian membership is expected at UNESCO's General Conference, which runs from October 25 to November 10. The Palestinians have had observer status at UNESCO since 1974.
Declaring all of Bethlehem to be a UNESCO site would stop Israel from being able to maintain or protect Rachel's Tomb.

Similarly, declaring Hebron and Nablus (Shechem) to be UNESO sites would impact Jewish access to the Cave of the Patriarchs and the Tomb of Joseph.

Perhaps most pernicious is the threat to declare "ancient pilgrimage routes" to be UNESCO sites as well. These routes, which are not well known, would mean that some (or all) roads to Jerusalem and Bethlehem would become World Heritage Sites. (Other pilgrimage sites were to Nazareth and the Kinneret.)

And these routes are not only within areas controlled, annexed or disputed by Israel but even areas within Israel itself. For example, according to one source, here is the map of the Templar Trail to Jerusalem:

If parts of these routes are within "Palestine" then it hardly makes sense for UNESCO to stop at the Green Line.


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