יום שלישי, 13 בדצמבר 2011

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Saudi woman executed for witchcraft

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 05:21 PM PST

From Arab News (Saudi Arabia):

A Saudi woman was executed in the northern Al-Jouf province on Monday after being convicted of practicing sorcery, the Interior Ministry announced.

Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar was arrested in the city of Qurayat for practicing witchcraft and sorcery, the ministry said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency. She was sentenced to death by a lower court and the verdict was upheld by the higher courts.
Amnesty adds:

The beheading of a woman convicted of "witchcraft and sorcery" is deeply shocking and highlights the urgent need for a halt in executions in Saudi Arabia, Amnesty International said today.

"The charges of 'witchcraft and sorcery' are not defined as crimes in Saudi Arabia and to use them to subject someone to the cruel and extreme penalty of execution is truly appalling," said Philip Luther Amnesty International's interim Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme.

"While we don't know the details of the acts which the authorities accused Amina of committing, the charge of sorcery has often been used in Saudi Arabia to punish people, generally after unfair trials, for exercising their right to freedom of speech or religion."
Somehow, I don't think that you can find re-runs of "Bewitched" on Saudi TV.

After the Fall - Egypt's revolution dissected (Tablet)

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 01:00 PM PST

This is the sort of sober analysis of Egypt that is almost completely missing in the Western media.

From Amr Bargisi and Samuel Tadros in Tablet:
Other than the fact that a few dozen human-rights activists were present in Tahrir, there was nothing remotely liberal about the uprising. But that didn't stop Western journalists from applying the term: Every Egyptian male without a beard was a John Stuart Mill, every female without a veil a Mary Wollstonecraft. Suddenly, Trotskyites were liberals, and hooligans nonviolent protesters.

The idea that there were no Islamists involved in the revolution is pure nonsense. The Muslim Brotherhood officially declared its decision to join the protests on Jan. 23, and its members were instrumental in the success of the revolution in the subsequent days and weeks. What's more, over the past decade Islamist groups, particularly the Salafists, have been taking advantage of Egypt's increasing media and Internet freedom to further influence the political discussion.

...These two tendencies—the Jacobin and the Islamist—are not mutually exclusive in Egypt. The average Egyptian easily bought into both arguments, believing that the reason for all their ills was the Mubarak regime's economic program, and that the only solution was a return to the golden age of Islam. Though institutionally immunized against Islamism through a strict system of surveillance, the military completely internalized the popular anti-capitalist discourse, hence its ultimate decision to offer its services to the revolutionaries, abandoning Mubarak in his time of need.

Into that mix comes anti-Semitism. Egyptian anti-Semitism is not simply a form of bigotry: It is the glue binding the otherwise incoherent ideological blend, the common denominator among disparate parties. The Zionist conspiracy theory was not merely a diversion applied by the Mubarak regime, as some suggest. It is a well-established social belief in Egypt, even among self-proclaimed liberals. Consider, for example, Yehya El-Gamal, a leading expert on constitutional law and chairman of the Democratic Front Party who was appointed deputy prime minister after the revolution. Though a staunch opponent of the Islamists, El-Gamal told Al-Ahram, the leading state-owned newspaper, that "Israel and the U.S. are behind flaming the sectarian conflict in Egypt" in the wake of the deadly clashes between Coptic demonstrators and military forces last October.

These facts, though hard to swallow, were clear well before the revolution. This is why, when we joined the Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth in 2009, we decided to focus our energy on a long-term program to build a genuine liberal movement from scratch. We realized early on that activism without serious, concrete ideas capable of winning the hearts and minds of our fellow Egyptians would be meaningless. Thus, we designed a platform of legal, economic, and social programs tackling all aspects of life in Egypt, from taxes to anti-Semitism. Our plan comprises research, lobbying, campaigning, and an effort to translate the great books of Western classical liberalism into Arabic. If Egypt was going to have any hope of becoming a liberal democracy, we had to face—and battle—the destructive totalitarian ideals that have taken hold of Egyptian society.

To begin a serious discussion on what can be done in our country, Egyptians must acknowledge that the Tahrir uprising was no liberal revolution. Western observers must realize that this is not a stark morality play, but political decision-making between alternatives that are all bad. As the government borders on bankruptcy and the security situation deteriorates (the natural-gas pipe line to Israel and Jordan was bombed nine times since February), the first priority should be defending the very existence of the Egyptian state, now solely represented by the military. This is certainly an awkward position for advocates of limited government, as we are. But if the military falls, nothing will stand between the Egyptians and absolute anarchy.

Western policy-makers and Egyptians who care about the country's future should not push too hard for a total face-off between the military and the Islamists, which may develop into a civil war, nor should they seek to weaken the military to the extent that it is totally subdued by the Islamists. Finally, as the Islamists try to transform the legal and economic infrastructure of the country to their benefit, true liberals must be prepared to tackle them on every move, with detailed and convincing programs, not merely rhetorical speeches and empty polemics on talk shows. Islamism offers a coherent worldview; if liberalism cannot rise up to the same level, it will always be doomed to fail.

The gravest danger is for us to fall prey to complacency and believe that an Islamist government will either moderate or fail to deliver, and that the Egyptians will vote for someone else in the next elections. The very possibility of next elections is dependent on our capacity to avoid the total anarchy scenario. And the Islamists are not going to moderate. No matter how pragmatic the Muslim Brotherhood is, they will face a constant challenge by Salafists from the right to adhere a strict standard of religious purity. If the Islamists, now hugely popular, do fail to deliver, genuine liberals must be at the ready to offer voters a clear alternative. The Mubarak regime was remarkably successful in steering the economy in its latter years, but its inability to justify its existence politically led to its demise. There is no reason why the exact opposite—a failing economy but successful politics—cannot come to the service of the Islamists.
Read the whole thing.

(h/t Spengler via T34)

Another nice Chanukah video (Fountainheads)

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 11:50 AM PST



Some really great quality videos coming out this year. This one is an original song, with the usual beautiful scenes from Israel.

(h/t Yerushalimey)

Report: Hamas member kidnapped in Sinai, now in Israeli prison

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 10:25 AM PST

Palestine Press Agency reports that a member of Hamas was abducted four days ago in the Sinai and is now being held in Israel.

Taher Atwa, a Gaza resident who works in the Hamas Ministry of Interior for minister Fathi Hammad, was kidnapped by unknown assailants in broad daylight in the Sinai Peninsula on Thursday.

Atwa is also a member of the terrorist Al Qassam Martyrs' Brigades.

Atwa's brother Mohammed told the newspaper that his family received a phone call saying Taher was being held by the IDF.

Nobody has explained exactly why Atwa was in the Sinai to begin with.



Israel's new ambassador to Egypt arrives in Cairo

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 09:18 AM PST

From Ha'aretz:
Israel's new ambassador to Egypt arrived in Cairo on Monday, Egyptian airport officials told the Associated Press, three months after rioters ransacked the Israeli Embassy in the Egyptian capital.

Amitai, the new envoy, replaces Yitzhak Levanon, who was ambassador when the embassy was stormed in August after six Egyptian guards were killed by Israeli troops pursuing militants responsible for the deaths of eight Israelis on the border.

Amitai, a fluent Arabic speaker who has previously served at the embassy in Cairo, will join the small Israeli diplomatic staff still on in the Egyptian capital.

Following the September incident in Cairo, Foreign Ministry officials and the Shin Bet security services decided that the building housing the embassy was unfit from a security point of view. Since then, efforts have been made to find an alternative location.

For now, Amitai is expected to work from his residence with the assistance of two Israeli diplomats.
Al Masry al Youm adds:
[Amitai] expressed the hope that peace between Egypt and Israel will continue in the future. He said, upon his arrival to Cairo on Monday afternoon, "The Egyptian revolution will succeed, God willing", expressing his pleasure to work in Egypt at this historic moment for Egypt and the Middle East, adding that he hoped that his time in Egypt in the service of peace between the two countries.

He added "The Egyptian-Israeli peace is a durable peace, because we have [strong] goals and common features, and I'm sure the peace process between the two countries will continue...My job is to consolidate the peace between Egypt and Israel."

UNRWA accidentally proves it hurts "refugees"

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 08:00 AM PST

From UNRWA:
According to a new report by UNRWA, despite modest economic good news in the West Bank, the number of unemployed refugees grew by nearly one per cent in the first half of the year, to over 50,000 people, as unemployment generally in the West Bank declined. At 27.4 per cent, the unemployment rate for refugees is about 5 percentage points above the average of the West Bank as a whole.

"These figures show once more that the refugees continue to bear the brunt of economic hardship in the West Bank," said UNRWA spokesman, Chris Gunness, "making the need for our emergency services greater than ever."

The report finds that "in the context of 3.7 per cent overall employment growth, refugees lost ground in the public sector, where their employment declined 2.9 per cent in the sequential period. Total employment growth of refugees was about 1.5 per cent year over year, well below the overall rate of job growth for non-refugees in the West Bank."
First, let's get beyond the absurdity of referring to Palestinian Arabs living in the Palestinian Arab territories "refugees." They aren't refugees by any definition of the term. They live in their own homeland!

But lets look at these numbers. Palestinian Arabs who do not live in these camps have been doing better economically and their unemployment rate has gone down; those who live in these camps and are dependent on UNRWA handouts saw their lives worsen as their own unemployment rate has gone up.

The logical conclusion is that these so-called "refugees" must, at long last, be fully integrated into PA society. It would help them and it would help the PA take the responsibility that any government is supposed to for their own people.  If the PA had any sense of pride, it should be insulted that some 15 years after they gained autonomy, they still allow an outside agency to take care of their people. The PA should have built permanent housing and communities for the camp residents and mainstreamed them into their society.

Why on Earth are these still "refugee" camps in the West Bank and Gaza? Moreover, why is there no plan to get rid of them?

UNRWA is not helping these people - it is crippling them. UNRWA's hollow excuse that they cannot get rid of any of their facilities before a comprehensive peace is found is absurd in this context. An agency that truly cared about these people would have put into place a plan to diminish its services years ago until they are no longer needed. The massive UNRWA budget should be transferred to the PA so that the government, so lavishly praised for its institution building, can take basic responsibility for its own people.

The fact that "refugees" are in such poor financial shape even after they take advantage of free education and health services is all the proof you need that UNRWA is hurting the people it pretends to help in the territories. it is not teaching self-sufficiency - instead, it has created a culture of laziness and entitlement.

While perhaps an argument can be made that UNRWA is necessary in Lebanon or Syria, there is no reason at all for it to exist in the Palestinian Arab territories. -

Unless, of course, it is meant to used not to help people but only to use them as a weapon against Israel.


By the way, the UNRWA report mentions that employment of Palestinian Arabs in Israel increased by 5.51% between the second half of 2010 and the first half of 2011 and 1.64% compared to the first half of 2010 (which accounts for seasonal jobs.)

And it also grudgingly admits that Palestinian Arabs enjoy "relatively high wage jobs in Israel."

Sorely needed facts about the Mughrabi ramp and gate

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 06:47 AM PST

It is a weekday, so that means that Muslims and Islamists are freaking out (the only other time they do that is on weekends):
A Hamas spokesman said Monday that the closure of Jerusalem's Mughrabi Bridge, which leads from the Western Wall Plaza to the Temple Mount, is an attack against Muslim holy sites, AFP reported.

"This is a serious step that shows the Zionist scheme of aggression again the Al Aqsa mosque," Fawzi Barhum told AFP.
Jordan's powerful Islamists on Monday denounced a decision by Israel to close a controversial access ramp to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem as "flagrant aggression."

"This is a very dangerous move," the head of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, Hammam Said, told AFP.

"The only solution against this entity [Israel] is resistance in order to protect the sanctity of the holy places against such flagrant aggression," he said.

"Jordan rejects any Israeli attempt to affect Jerusalem's holy sites, identity and heritage, including Al-Mughrabi Gate" that leads to the compound's Al-Buraq Wall, known to Jews as the Western Wall, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said.

So how ancient is the obviously sacred and venerable Mughrabi ramp/bridge? Was it built in the time of Mohammed, or during the Mamluk period? Did Yasir Arafat ever step foot on it?

Of course not. It was built in 2007, by Israel, after the earlier ramp collapsed in 2004 in a landslide due to an earthquake and snowstorms that year.

When the ramp collapsed in 2004, the Muslims blamed Israel, saying that Israel was attempting to destroy the entire Temple Mount.

When Israeli archaeologists, after three years of study, announced the collapse had revealed a heretofore unknown ancient Muslim prayer room, Muslims complained that Israel hid this information from them. (How that helps Judaize Jerusalem is an open question.)

And when the temporary ramp was being constructed in 2007, Muslims rioted 

Let's go back in time a little. When was the Mughrabi gate re-opened to begin with?

Before 1920, The Mughrabi Gate was closed. At the time the Western Wall was a small cul-de-sac where worshipers could gather in relative privacy. But then the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem opened up the Mughrabi Gate - specifically to turn the area into a thoroughfare so that the Jewish worshipers would be disturbed. They even drove mules through the prayer area.

A few days before the 1929 anti-Jewish pogrom broke out, "an incited Muslim mob rampaged through the opening torn by the Mufti in the south of the plaza, attacking the Jewish worshipers and destroying ritual objects."

(The Mughrabi Gate itself was built only around the 12th century - above what is known as Barclay's Gate, which is believed to be one of the original Second Temple gates. Barclay's Gate was closed off by Muslims in the 10th century and was rediscovered by James Barclay in 1848. It can be seen in the women's section of the Wall today.)

So the Muslims are upset when the ramp collapses, they are upset when Israel builds a temporary replacement, they are upset when Israel closes the temporary replacement ramp.

Keep in mind also that Mughrabi Gate is the only gate that non-Muslims may use to access the Temple Mount. Muslims are not at all inconvenienced by the closure of the ramp - but Jews and Christians are.

Rocket from Lebanon falls short, injures Lebanese woman

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 05:40 AM PST

From Naharnet/AFP:

A woman was injured after a rocket fired in southern Lebanon landed in a Lebanese village near the border with Israel, the National News Agency reported on Monday.

The Katyusha rocket, fired from al-Qaysiya valley in Majdal Selem, landed in the village of Houla near the border with Israel.

The rocket wounded Nasira Ali Abbas, 55, as the rocket hit her house, according to NNA.

The woman was transferred to Mais al-Jabal Hospital.

Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) reported on Monday that the Lebanese army informed UNIFIL about the incident and launched an investigation.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops were on very high alert along the southern border with the Lebanese town, according to the radio station.
It appears that Hezbollah was at least indirectly responsible for the rocket attack two weeks ago, as the initial claim of responsibility by an Al Qaeda-linked group was denied by that same group.

Speaking of...

The security unrest witnessed in Lebanon in recent weeks, most notably Friday's attack against the French unit in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, requires diligent governmental work that would prevent future instability, reported the daily An Nahar on Monday.

Security sources told the daily that the attack will likely increase tensions between France and Syria in light of French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe's accusation on Sunday that Syria was "undoubtedly" behind the assault.

He added however that he had no evidence to substantiate his claim.

Asked during an interview with TV5MONDE, Radio France Internationale and Le Monde whether he believed the attack was a "message" from Syria, he replied: "There's no doubt."

"We have strong reasons to think that this attack came from there," he said, noting that Damascus used Hizbullah for such attacks in the past.

Furthermore, informed sources said that Juppe's accusation was not only political, but it stemmed from initial international investigations that point to Syria's involvement in the UNIFIL attack.

A security official meanwhile revealed to Agence France Presse that investigations are focusing on two suspects who were spotted in a Mercedes near the area of the explosion about an hour before it took place.

He said that the bomb was loaded with four to five kilograms of TNT, adding that it was remotely detonated before the UNIFIL vehicle arrived to the exact location of the explosive, which resulted in damage to only its front section.

The official confirmed An Nahar's report on Sunday that estimated that the bomb was detonated by mistake, which consequently saved the lives of the French soldiers.
When people accuse Syria of doing something in Lebanon, they mean Hezbollah.

A couple of weeks ago Iran said explicitly that if it was attacked, they would strike Israel using Hezbollah rockets. No worries about UNIFIL or the Lebanese Armed Forces stopping them.

Hezbollah has turned Lebanon into a vassal state for Iran and Syria.

PalArabs plan to use UNESCO to bar Jews from holy sites

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 02:16 AM PST

From Karl Vick at the Time magazine blog:

Now that Palestine has been voted into UNESCO, the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, officials are preparing applications for the organization's marquee designation: a World Heritage Site. Candidates are abundant. Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity stands atop the cave where believers kneel to kiss the spot, confidently marked by a starburst, said to be where Jesus Christ was born. Jericho, which marked its 10,000th birthday last year, is among the oldest continuously inhabited cities on the planet. And Hebron boasts the final resting place of Abraham, whose covenant with the Almighty led to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Genesis 23 lays out the details of his grave in Deed Office detail, including the price (30 shekels)[sic - it was 400 shekels - EoZ]  paid for the cave and the adjoining field from Ephron the Hittite. There's not much about the site that's in doubt, including what Palestinian officials aim to do with the property if they get control of it — stop Jews from praying there.

The stated reason: The massive stone structure built atop the cave by King Herod, a Jew, and held for a time by Christian Crusaders, has since the 14th century been a Muslim house of worship. The Ibrahimi Mosque has minarets, rugs, washrooms for ablutions and anterooms lined with racks for storing shoes.

"It's a mosque!" says Khaled Osaily, the mayor of Hebron. "You don't have to be an architect to see it! Will you allow me to pray in a synagogue or a church?"

And as a practical matter, the vagaries of bureaucratic scheduling means no Palestinian site will be even considered until 2014 by UNESCO, which after all "was created to work for peace," notes an official speaking from the organization's Paris headquarters. "You'd be hard pressed to find a person at UNESCO who says, 'Yes, Christians should be banned from there or Muslims should from here.'"

So why frame the World Heritage application as a bid to restrict the use of a religious site, when the only practical effect will be to create bad feelings? For the same reason Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, in his September speech to the U.N. General Assembly, evoked the the Holy Land by name-checking Jesus Christ and the Prophet Mohammed but said nothing about the Jews: In a word, spite.
"Spite" is not an accurate description of the reason that they want to ban Jews from the site. It is Islamic supremacism.

Since the 14th century, Muslims banned Jews - and specifically Jews - from worshiping at Judaism's second holiest site. This is not "spite" against Zionism but an expression of Muslim supremacy over Judaism.

And the idea that UNESCO would not allow the site to revert to being Judenrein is not as ridiculous as Karl Vick makes it sound. After all, last year UNESCO declared that the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb were "Palestinian:"
The Palestinian sites of al-Haram al-Ibrahimi/Tomb of the Patriarchs in al-Khalil/Hebron and the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque/Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem: the Board voted 44 to one (12 abstentions) to reaffirm that the two sites are an integral part of the occupied Palestinian Territories and that any unilateral action by the Israeli authorities is to be considered a violation of international law, the UNESCO Conventions and the United Nations and Security Council resolutions.
Which means that under UNESCO's rules, Israel's allowing Jews to visit those sites after 1967 would have been considered a unilateral move and violated UNESCO guidelines.

And the idea of banning Jews from their holy sites in Judea and Samaria is mainstream in the Arab world. Here's part of an Arab League note to the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1994:

A statement issued by the Islamic Committee in the middle of the preceding month gave a clear indication of the intensive and repeated Israeli attempts to formulate specific arrangements aimed at imposing control over a number of Islamic mosques, including the Ibrahimi Shrine.

The statement referred to information that had recently been leaked by Israeli sources, to the effect that the occupation authorities were discussing the future supervision of some of those Islamic places of worship, through the establishment of special arrangements under which religious rites could be performed by both Muslims and Jews, after the settlers demanded the right to engage in acts of religious worship, like the Muslims, in a number of mosques, including the Ibrahimi Shrine, Joseph's Tomb at Nablus, Nabi Samwil at Jerusalem and Rachel's Tomb at Bethlehem.
Outrageous that the "settlers" would insist on the right to worship - like the Muslims!

Here we have enshrined the Arab insistence on Muslim supremacism over Judaism, in stark contrast to Israel's attempts to maintain open access by all to Jewish holy sites (except, of course, to its restriction on Jews from praying on the Temple Mount.)

And now we know exactly how the enlightened, moderate and culture-loving Palestinian Arab leaders intend to use their UNESCO membership.

(h/t Honest Reporting)
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