יום שבת, 26 בנובמבר 2011

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Get Pinkwashed! "Palestinian Queer Parties" are held in - Tel Aviv!

Posted: 25 Nov 2011 10:30 AM PST

I have received a lot of feedback about my essay on the sheer hate that Sarah Schulman exhibited in the New York Times this week, where she downplayed Israel's gay rights achievements as mere "pinkwashing" of Israeli crimes, which she believes is the real reason Israelis are more accepting of gays than their neighbors.

One correspondent, Scott Piro, wrote another excellent response to her essay on Ray Cook's blog. He points out that one of the Palestinian Arab gay groups that Schulman extols, AlQaws, has held its parties in Tel Aviv.

Sure enough, a Google search of "AlQaws Palestinian Queer Party" finds that this is a bi-monthly event, and has been held for the past year at the Comfort 13 club in Tel Aviv. The next event is on December 2:



And they had the same party, at the same venue, in April,  June , July and October. 

In fact, alQaws' headquarters is in Jerusalem, on the western side of the Green Line. 

Even so, they also argue against so-called "pinkwashing" and support Sarah Schulman's organization, "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. "

The hypocrisy is stunning. They are against events such as "Out in Israel," a celebration of Israeli LGBT culture in San Francisco last year, because they dislike the politicization of their cause in ways that make Israel look good. But QuAIA's entire reason for existing is as a politicization of their cause to demonize Israel! Their hate trumps any desire they have for gays to be treated equally worldwide. 

Even their arguments are silly. This is the pinnacle of their logic, used by Schulman as well as at the alQaws site:
It doesn't matter what the sexual orientation of the Soldier at a checkpoint is, whether he can serve openly or not....The apartheid wall was not created to keep Palestinian homophobes out of Gay Israel, and there is no magic door for gay Palestinians to pass through.
In other words, Israelis, as opposed to Palestinian Arabs, have a concept of equal rights. Terrorists are treated the same whether they are straight or gay, and so are soldiers.

Would Al Qaws prefer that such a discriminatory magic door exists? Are they saying that they should be treated better by Israel than their straight neighbors?

Apparently, they want to be treated as special, to use their cause specifically to demonize Israel. (Al Qaws at least tries to work to fix Palestinian Arab society, QuAIA has no interest in that.)

In a perfectly equal society, gays would not be considered more or less special than any group of people, like stamp collectors or fans of Twilight. If people created an organization called, for example, Quilters Against Israeli Apartheid, it would be blatantly obvious that the group is not pro-quilter but simply haters of Israel. And that is what QuAIA is, as they hijack the very real issues that gays face and try (very unconvincingly) to shoehorn them into their own loathing of the Jewish State.

(By the way, the Goldstone Report used the exact same bizarre logic in accusing Israel of violating the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women during Cast Lead - as if Israel was specifically targeting and discriminating against Gaza's women! When one wants to attack Israel, apparently no argument is too crazy.)

Latest Latma

Posted: 25 Nov 2011 09:30 AM PST

Nice Dylan/Arab Spring parody.

Impressive Jerusalem flash mob dance

Posted: 25 Nov 2011 08:45 AM PST



More details on the event here.

(h/t CiFWatch)

ElderToons: Palestinian Arab Unity!

Posted: 25 Nov 2011 07:45 AM PST

Med-washing: Doctors worldwide, including Muslims, study for year in Israel

Posted: 25 Nov 2011 06:45 AM PST

From the Rambam Medical Center, not sure what date:
Last month, Rambam's Spencer Auditorium resembled the UN in New York. Fifteen doctors and scientists from throughout the world – graduates and participants in the hospital's International Fellowships and Training Program – came together, and were joined by Rambam department directors and administrators.

A Nablus doctor at Rambam
Operating for four years, this program has drawn some 20 doctors from different countries, who have come to reap Rambam's experience in orthopedics, pediatrics, oncology, neuro-surgery, surgery, anesthesiology, plastic surgery, gynecology and other areas. Participants stay at Rambam for roughly a year.

According to Dr. Zohar Keidar, deputy director of the Dept. of Nuclear Medicine and PET/CT, and Chairman of the International Fellowship Committee, Rambam's knowhow and experience will be disseminated by these doctors. "Despite the fact that they come from different cultures, religions and backgrounds and work in different departments, they are here for one reason: the desire to be better physicians," he says. "Rambam helps them acquire knowledge, which they apply in their home countries."

These activities also serve diplomatic purposes. After a year-long stay at Rambam, the doctors know Israel, far more than the average person who derives information from foreign news networks. "Project participants act as ambassadors of Israel," says Dr. Keidar.

Among those who take part are citizens from neighboring areas: from Hebron, Nablus and Jenin, as well as from Cyprus and Jordan. Others come from the European countries of Moldova, Bulgaria and Italy, from Ghana in Africa and from the Asian nations Vietnam and Nepal.
Arabic media is quoting the Israeli MFA site saying that there have been 28 doctors in the program so far, including Muslims from Indonesia. Israel gave the doctors tours of Yad Vashem and other places. They don't sound too happy about it.

In the wake of the "pinkwashing" charge, this must be a classic case of med-washing.

Look out also for examples of sand-washing, classical-music-washing, history-washing, religion-washing and bikini-washing as Israel keeps coming up with its evil schemes to distract the world from its single-minded determination of ethnically cleansing Arabs from the Middle East.

In fact, I think the Rambam hospital was built specifically to institute this one program just to act as a hasbara mouthpiece and to embarrass Muslims worldwide.

Those Zionist Jews stop at nothing to make themselves look human, and we need clear thinking progressives - Mearsheimer's "righteous Jews" -  to inform the world of the truth that they are nothing of the kind.

Heralded Cairo "unity" meeting was a dismal failure

Posted: 25 Nov 2011 05:45 AM PST

From the NYT:
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and the leader of the rival Islamic group Hamas met Thursday and the sides agreed to go ahead with elections in the Palestinian territories next year, according to officials, even as they failed to resolve differences over an interim unity government to prepare for the vote.

The meeting, in Cairo, was the first between Mr. Abbas, chief of the mainstream Fatah movement, and his rival, Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, since the two men signed a reconciliation accord in May. Even since then, the leadership of the Palestinian territories has remained divided, with Mr. Abbas's authority confined to the West Bank while Hamas controls the coastal enclave of Gaza.

It remained unclear even after the meeting on Thursday whether the two sides were indeed committed to a further narrowing of their differences, and whether they would take any tangible steps toward power sharing soon or at all.

The May accord, brokered by Egypt, called for a transitional unity cabinet of unaffiliated technocrats to prepare for presidential and parliamentary elections within a year. Despite rosy public statements after their meeting on Thursday, the two men remained deadlocked over the makeup of that government, according to officials.

Neither of the leaders directly addressed the deadlock over the appointment of a unity government.

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said by telephone from Cairo that the sides had agreed to continue the discussions in committees. Azzam al-Ahmad of Fatah said that consultations would continue and that Mr. Abbas and Mr. Meshal would meet again to determine the makeup of the government and other issues.

But differences between the sides clearly prevailed.
The Arabic media had trumpeted the meeting for weeks, and even afterwards it tried to spin it as wonderful. But when you actually read the details, it is all fluff and nothing concrete. They agreed on a date for elections and they pretended to agree to stop making political arrests.

As I tweeted yesterday, Hamas and Fatah are like a separated couple who hate each other but try to keep up appearances for the kids. They see the Arab uprisings and know that their division upsets Palestinian Arabs, so they make cosmetic changes to hold on to power but they do nothing to share it.

And within an hour of the meeting, Palestine Press Agency reports, Hamas police arrested three student leaders associated with Fatah. They also raided and took over the pharmacists' syndicate, which was pro-Fatah.

Unless there is a single security force with a single command structure across the West Bank and Gaza, the word "unity" is meaningless. And that is not going to happen.

The moderate sheikh of Hebron

Posted: 25 Nov 2011 04:20 AM PST

I posted about a proposed alternate to the PA that Israeli leaders are mulling if the PA continues to go down its path of intransigence and rapprochement with Hamas terrorists. This alternative is centered around moderate local leaders, particularly Sheikh Zaid al-Jabari of Hebron.

A week ago, thousands of religious Jews from all over Israel and elsewhere descended on Hebron to celebrate the Torah reading of Chayei Sarah, as is done every year.

These religious Zionists are the people the left-wing media love to portray as Islamophobic, machine-gun wielding  Jewish-supremacist fanatics who want to ethnically cleanse Hebron and all of the territories of Arabs. This hateful stereotype is also incessantly pushed by the Arab media.

Which makes this following story from last week's Hebron event all the more remarkable.

From David Wilder, leader of Hebron's Jewish community:
A number of years ago, a group of Arabs, together with Israeli leftists and anarchists, planned on burning down the Hazon David Synagogue, just outside the gates of Kiryat Arba, on the eve of Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year. The event was stopped at the last minute when it came to the attention of Sheikh Jabari, leader of Hebron's largest clan. He told Hebron Arabs that he didn't agree to destruction of a 'holy place,' especially on a Jewish holiday. He told them that this was a place of prayer, and prevented the destruction.

Following his intervention, a meeting was arranged between several Hebron leaders and the Sheikh, thanking him for his involvement. Since then, the Sheikh and Hebron-Kiryat Arba leaders meet relatively frequently, discussing relevant issues. He has publicly declared his opposition to unilateral declaration of a 'palestinian state' in the UN and also acknowledged the right of Jews to live in Hebron. Last summer he met at his Hebron home with Rabbi Shlomo Riskin and Pastor John Hagee.

This past Friday afternoon he met with almost 70 Americans and a few Hebron residents in a large tent, just outside Hebron. Welcoming the group, he asked those attending to be ambassadors to his message of peace 'in the land of peace.' He also spoke of Shabbat Chaye Sarah, Abraham and Ma'arat HaMachpela, saying that Machpela should unite all of us together, that we are one family, from one father, Abraham. He blessed the group 'from all his heart, on this holy Shabbat.' He thanked the group for visiting him, saying he appreciated that they came from so far away for this holy occasion.

Other members of the group addressed the Sheikh, expressing thanks for his hospitality, commenting and asking questions. The event concluded after the group was given a small cup of traditional Turkish coffee.

The significance of this meeting wasn't so much the words spoken, rather its actual happening. A decade ago, Jews in Hebron were being shot at by Arabs from the hills surrounding the Jewish community. Years ago meetings between Jews and Arabs were common; yet following Oslo, the Hebron Accords, and the Oslo War – 2nd intifada, such meetings became a thing of history.

I don't expect that all of us present agree on all issues. To the contrary, certainly we don't. But the Sheikh represents an alternative to the palestinian authority, a terrorist organization overtly backing the expulsion of Jews from all Judea and Samaria, while covertly working for the liberation of all 'palestine' aka the State of Israel.

I found the meeting with the Sheikh to be a refreshing change from the normal animosity displayed between Jews and Arabs. I'm not living under any illusions. The gaps are very wide and Sheikh Jabari is only one person. However, there aren't too many Arab leaders who would prevent destruction of a Jewish house of worship, who would publicly declare willingness to live with Jews in Hebron, and who would meet a large group of American Jews in his tent on a Friday.
Here's the video of the fanatic, tzitzit-wearing Jews happily chatting with the sheikh:



This is what real peace looks like.

The ironic thing is that so-called "peace activists" seethe when they see scenes like this, because it goes against everything they really want - a Judenrein "Palestine."

I don't know how anomalous Sheikh Jabari is, but this is the sort of thing that should be encouraged and pursued. I do know that other communities in Judea and Samaria have some friendly contact with their Arab neighbors, and that it was much more prevalent before the first intifada.

You can be sure that the "peace activists" do not want any such meetings between religious Zionist Jews and their Muslim neighbors - because they do not want real peace.  They prefer rock throwing and Molotov cocktails, so-called "non-violent resistance," to cooperation between proud Jews and Arabs who live side by side.  They prefer to post carefully edited videos of Israeli forces shooting tear gas at them without showing the violent attacks that immediately precede those events, and to write endless articles about how Jews are violent usurpers.

So who really wants peace?

Another recent article on Sheikh Jabari was written in Israel HaYom,

(h/t drk, Yoel)

The Jordanian "march to Jerusalem" is just an Islamist political rally

Posted: 25 Nov 2011 02:30 AM PST

I noted earlier this week that a Jordanian group planned a "million man march to Jerusalem" today.

But as the Jordan Times reports, the march is really just an Islamist rally:

The Islamist movement has called on citizens across the country to amass at the Jordanian-Israeli border this Friday to urge for the "liberation of Jerusalem".
Kathem Ayesh, who handles the Palestinian file at the Muslim Brotherhood, said the event aims to commemorate the partition of historical Palestine in 1947, a precursor to the Nakbeh, or catastrophe, in 1948.

"We want to show the world that the Jordanian people stand in solidarity with the Palestinians and we reject any attempts to Judaise Jerusalem," Ayesh told The Jordan Times.

According to organisers, they chose the Jordan Valley town of Sweimeh, 50 kilometres south of Amman and two kilometres from the Jordanian-Israeli border, as the venue of the rally as it represents the closest point in the Kingdom to Jerusalem.

The event, which will not feature any speeches, does not aim to incite any violence, Ayesh said. "This will be a peaceful march and we will not be going near the border."

The event comes one week after the Islamists returned to the streets, ending a six-week hiatus from the protest movement.

The march also marks a renewed focus on the Palestinian cause - long a staple issue for the movement - which Islamists have overlooked in recent months in favour of domestic issues as part of its reform drive.

Jamil Abu Baker, the Muslim Brotherhood spokesman, stressed that the march is not a departure from Islamists' reform demands but rather an extension of the "atmosphere" of the Arab Spring.

"Week after week, people have demanded political reforms, public freedoms and an end to corruption," Abu Baker said.

"Liberating Jerusalem is a basic part of these demands, and this Friday we will let the whole world hear them."

So it is just some muscle-flexing by Islamists, and Jerusalem is just an excuse to get people riled up.

Some Jordanian newspapers, like al-Rai, are openly supporting the rally.

And while it looks like there will not be violent clashes, that doesn't mean that the imagery on their posters don't advocate the military takeover of Jerusalem by brave Arab warriors.


Notice that for the purposes of this illustration, there are no Palestinian Arabs between Jordan and Jerusalem.

UNESCO elects Syria to "human rights" committees

Posted: 25 Nov 2011 12:13 AM PST

From UN Watch:
UNESCO's executive board, which includes the US, France, the UK and other Western democracies, unanimously elected Syria to a pair of committees – one dealing directly with human rights issues – even as the Bashar al-Assad regime maintains its campaign of violence against its own citizens.

The Arab group at UNESCO nominated Syria for the spots, and though the 58-member board approved the pick by consensus on Nov. 11, the agency has not yet posted the results on its website.

Syria's election came just a day before the League of Arab States moved to suspend Syrian membership of that body.

"The Arab League's suspension of Syria is stripped of any meaning when its member states elevate Syria to UN human rights committes," says Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch.

"It's shameful for the UN's prime agency on science, culture and education to take a country that is shooting its own people and empower it to decide human rights issues on a global scale. Regrettably, the pressure to bow to consensus – part of the go-along-to-get-along tradition at the UN – can drag everyone down to the will of the lowest common denominator."

Neuer highlights that the executive board's decision should not be all that surprising, given the body "recently welcomed serial human rights abusers as new members, like Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Pakistan and Russia." Syria was already on the executive board, noted Neuer, "as were other countries with poor human rights records, including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, China, Vietnam and Algeria."

The UN says Syria's crackdown on opposition protests has left more than 3,500 people dead over the past eight months.

Syria will serve a second two-year term on the 30-member Committee on Conventions and Recommendations, which examines "communications … relating to the exercise of human rights," according to UNESCO's Web site. Syria also joins the 23-member Committee on International Non-Governmental Organizations, which is mandated to encourage approved activist groups to help further UNESCO's overall goals.

In a bid to insulate UNESCO's administration from criticism, the agency's executive director, Irina Bokova, insists her hands were tied. She has even broken with protocol in commenting that the executive board's choice was not a good one.

"The director-general and secretariat are bound by the decisions of member states and are not supposed to comment on them," said Sue Williams, UNESCO chief spokesperson.

"Yet given the developments in Syria, the director-general does not see how this country can contribute to the work of the committees."
Israeli media had the story last week but the UNESCO website had nothing on it. And it still doesn't.

I've seen the same lack of transparency at UNRWA where it ignores many Palestinian Arab strikes and threats on its website.

(h/t many but Ian for reminding me....)
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