Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

A released terrorist brags about how cheaply he killed Jews
"Hawkish" Netanyahu offers partial building freeze, "moderate" PLO rejects it
Egyptian Spring: Man jailed for insulting Islam on Facebook

A released terrorist brags about how cheaply he killed Jews

Posted: 23 Oct 2011 12:00 AM PDT

Palestine Today talked with one of the terrorists released in the Shalit deal, Khaled Gaidi.

Gaidi was sentenced to two life terms in Israel in 1986. (The article says he was sentenced to 4 life terms.)

He claims to have been behind the murders of three Israelis. I could only confirm two of the victims.

One was Haim Azran, 32, a resident of Ashkelon who was stabbed as he shopped in a market in Gaza in September 1986. Yasir Arafat's Force 17 took credit at the time for that attack.

Yisrael Kitaro was a 43-year old taxi driver also from Ashkelon, was similarly stabbed to death in Gaza in October 1986 as he took his car to a garage for repairs.

Gaidi, who is now a member of Islamic Jihad, claims to also have killed another man, Abraham Abu Ghosh.

Gaidi now brags that it only cost three shekels to buy the knife that killed three Israelis.

He called on Fatah to stop negotiations, saying the "the enemy only understands the language of force and Jihad."

"Hawkish" Netanyahu offers partial building freeze, "moderate" PLO rejects it

Posted: 22 Oct 2011 07:05 PM PDT

From Ma'an:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ready to partially freeze West Bank settlement building if it will bring the PLO back to direct talks, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.

But the PLO said it was unaware of any such offer, and said that anything short of a full freeze would not be acceptable.

According to Haaretz, Netanyahu's offer was made on Wednesday in talks with Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin.

During the meeting, which came a day after she held talks with President Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah, Holguin told Netanyahu that Abbas desperately needed a symbolic gesture on settlements if he was to return to negotiations, a senior Israeli official told the paper.

In response, Netanyahu said he would be "ready to make such a gesture if it would return Abbas to the negotiating table" and agreed to freeze all government-sponsored construction and all building on state land.

But he said he would not agree to freeze settlement activity by private developers on privately owned land -- which, according to a recent Palestinian study, constitutes around 80 percent of settlement activity.

The official said the offer would test whether or not Abbas was serious about returning to direct negotiations.

"Netanyahu said he was ready to test Abbas by making the gesture regarding settlements. 'If Abbas is serious about negotiations, he will renew direct talks,' Netanyahu said."

The Israeli official said the new proposal was relayed to Abbas on Wednesday, but PLO official Saeb Erekat on Friday said it was the first they had heard of it, and insisted that only a full halt to settlement, including in annexed East Jerusalem, would suffice.

"We want to hear officially from the Israeli government that they accept to stop settlement on all Palestinian lands, including in Jerusalem and natural growth, and to recognize the 1967 borders," Erekat told AFP.

Notice the precondition that has been added, almost unnoticed by the Western media, that Israel accept the so-called 1967 borders.

And, sure enough, Erekat showed his intransigence and unwillingless to compromise when the offer became official:

PLO official Saeb Erekat has rejected the distinction between government and private construction in Israeli settlements, the premise of Israel's "offer" for a partial building freeze reported by Israeli media on Friday.

Notice how Ma'an put the word "offer" iin scare quotes, as if Netanyahu isn't serious. Of course, there is an easy way to find out if he is - by accepting negotiations.

Will we be seeing any NYT editorials excoriating the PLO for their refusal to go back to the negotiating table?

Ha!

Egyptian Spring: Man jailed for insulting Islam on Facebook

Posted: 22 Oct 2011 05:00 PM PDT

From AFP:

An Egyptian court has sentenced a man to three years in jail with hard labour for insulting Islam in postings on Facebook, the official MENA news agency reported.

A Cairo court found that Ayman Yusef Mansur "intentionally insulted the dignity of the Islamic religion and attacked it with insults and ridicule online".

The court said his insults were "aimed at the Noble Koran, the true Islamic religion, the Prophet of Islam and his family and Muslims, in a scurrilous manner," the agency reported.

He was arrested in August after police tracked him down through his internet address.

Egyptian law bans insults to religion. The law has been used in the past to try Shiite Muslims.

The specific law states:

Whoever exploits religion in order to promote extremist ideologies by word of mouth, in writing or in any other manner, with a view to stirring up sedition, disparaging or holding in contempt any divine religion or its adherents, or endangering national unity, shall be punished with imprisonment for between six months and five years or a fine of at least LE500.

Do you think that any Egyptian has ever been prosecuted for anti-semitism. which this law would ostensibly make illegal?