יום רביעי, 18 בינואר 2012

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Deceiving Palestinian Arabs for 63 years

Posted: 17 Jan 2012 07:51 PM PST

From a report from The [American] Consul at Jerusalem (Burdett) to the Secretary of State, marked "Secret," October 29, 1949 (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, Volume VI, page 1457:)
Better informed refugees now realize that repatriation in the sense contemplated by the December 11, 1949 [sic] resolution of the General Assembly is out of the question and they no longer think the United Nations will enforce the resolution. However, no one dares to say so openly for the great mass of the refugees has been nourished on this illusion and a frank statement of the extent of the deception might kindle an explosion. It would certainly eliminate the chances of leadership of the person making the first announcement. 


Nothing has changed. 

Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon, Syria and around the world are still told the lie that they will one day "return" to land they never lived in, and no one has the ability to tell them that they have been fooled for 63 years and to find another solution for their own children and grandchildren.

Which is why they will remain stateless for the next 63 years as well.

Recall that an outgoing UNRWA official stated the truth a while back, in an episode remarkable for its rarity. Andrew Whitley said
If one doesn't start a discussion soon with the refugees for them to consider what their own future might be – for them to start debating their own role in the societies where they are rather than being left in a state of limbo where they are helpless but preserve rather the cruel illusions that perhaps they will return one day to their homes – then we are storing up trouble for ourselves....We recognize, as I think most do, although it's not a position that we publicly articulate, that the right of return is unlikely to be exercised to the territory of Israel to any significant or meaningful extent...It's not a politically palatable issue, it's not one that UNRWA publicly advocates, but nevertheless it's a known contour to the issue.

Whitley was slammed for his statement by UNRWA, the PA and Jordan, forcing him to recant.

Sounds exactly like what the Consul predicted six decades before!

So many countries and leaders and organizations are wedded to the myth of Palestinian Arab "return."  Everyone knows it is a myth, and everyone has known this since 1949 - but no one is willing to stand up and say the plain truth out loud.

The misery of the Palestinian "refugees" will be prolonged for generations to come because their leaders, and those of the world community at large, are made up of cowards.

It's time for Iran's "Hollywoodism" conference!

Posted: 17 Jan 2012 04:40 PM PST

Last year, Iran held its first "Hollywoodism and Cinema" conference, where we learned lots of new things, such as the fact that Hollywood is the "most active section of the U.S. and Israel military industry."

Yes, somewhere buried in the Pentagon budget, is hundreds of millions of dollars to produce the next Transformers movie.

The conference was such a smashing success that another one is planned for this year:
Organizers of the 30th Fajr International Film Festival will be holding the second conference on "Hollywoodism and Cinema" to review the influence of the Zionist regime on Hollywood.

Over 40 foreign experts and cinema critics are invited to attend the second edition of the conference running from February 2 to 4, Culture Ministry official Gholamreza Montazemi said in a press conference held here on Monday. The names of the guests will be announced later.

The Foreign guests invited to the conference, which is being held on the sidelines of Fajr festival, are due to discuss the impact of Hollywood in the world of cinema and how to resist this impact, Montazemi added.

Cinema of Hollywood is trying to promote the idea of conciliation between Satan and man, this is while Iranian cinema is the cinema of awakening, he said at the conference.

He continued that several topics are to be discussed at the conference including the world awakening, the influence of Hollywood on public opinion, the destruction of family and humane values, and how to fight against this influence.

A seminar on Islamic Awakening is also to be held on the sideline, in which experts are to discuss the issue of Islamic Awakening.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's sister-in-law Lauren Booth, who has converted into Islam, is expected to attend the Islamic Awakening seminar.
One of the films to be screened at the festival is the very appropriately named "The Anti-Semite," a joint Iranian/French production.

See also Israellycool's take.

Hamas forces beat 20 Shi'ites in Gaza (updated)

Posted: 17 Jan 2012 12:45 PM PST

From PCHR:

[A]t around 18:30 on Monday, 14 January 2012, large numbers of security officers wearing military uniforms and helmets, and some being masked, stormed a house in Beit Lahiya, where about 20 Palestinians were performing Shiite rituals. The security officers used clubs to severely beat the persons in the house, and then transferred them to the main police station in the northern Gaza Strip. The detainees were placed under interrogation and they were questioned about personal information and the reason why they were in that house. Then the detainees were beaten again and a number of them sustained fractures and bruises as a result. Those who sustained injuries were transferred to Balsam Hospital and Kamal Odwan Hospital.
There have been reports that Iran had cut their funding of Hamas because of Hamas' reluctance to take the regime's side in Syria.

This story might mean that those reports are true. Hamas wouldn't dare anger its main sponsor by attacking Shi'ites unless it had nothing to lose.

UPDATE: Avi Issacharoff in Ha'aretz adds:

The Hamas-run government is convinced that Iran is expanding its influence in Gaza by means of Islamic Jihad.

Gazan sources told Haaretz that Islamic Jihad now contains a group of converts to Shia Islam. The group is led by Iyad al-Hosni, also a convert, who was ousted from Islamic Jihad but recently reinstated, probably under Iranian pressure: Islamic Jihad's leadership visited Iran two months ago, and afterward, al-Hosni was appointed a senior officer in its military wing.

Some of the men arrested on Friday issued a statement on Sunday urging Iran to stop funding Hamas due to its persecution of Shi'ites.

Tehran has already reduced its support for Hamas, among other things because Hamas has refused to support embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Becoming Shi'ite is a growing trend in the Gaza Strip: Hundreds of Sunnis, both Islamic Jihad activists and ordinary people, are known to have converted.
(h/t T34)

Hindustan Times calls on India to go public with Israel ties

Posted: 17 Jan 2012 11:25 AM PST

From the Hindustan Times:
India and Israel is the bilateral relationship that dare not speak its name. If one were to go by New Delhi's official rhetoric, nothing has changed between the two countries. India continues to casually denounce Israel on the Palestinian issue, keeps mum when Iran or others promise to destroy the Jewish State, and still tends to vote against Israel in the United Nations or other multilateral fora. If one were to go by substance - security, trade and technology - there are few bilateral relations to match it in the world. Israel can be counted on to be the first or second largest provider of arms to India every year. Bilateral trade and investment runs into several billions of dollars on the civilian side. Israel, one of the great tech hubs of the world, is a close partner of India in software, pharmaceuticals and renewable energy. It says something about the trust that exists between the two countries that their closest links are in the most sensitive of areas: intelligence, counterterrorism, defence technology and even nuclear weaponry.

Bringing the public and private relationship with Israel in sync has been a particularly tortuous business with the UPA government. The government's first term was hostage to the ideological demands of the leftwing parties - the political formation most hostile to Israel. Half of its second term had to pass before New Delhi sent the foreign minister on a State visit. A prime ministerial or presidential visit, in either direction, continues to be the stuff of dreams - and solely because New Delhi has political nightmares at the thought. This is unbecoming of India: a constant and running act of hypocrisy by a country that sees itself as deserving of global influence and emulation. Israel has repeatedly stepped up to the plate when India is under threat, most notably during the Kargil crisis.

Some will shrug that this is the reality of India. But the evidence says this 'reality' is actually a bouquet of illusions. The most common claim is that a more public relationship will cause an eruption among the Muslim population. The truth is that an Indian Muslim is as pragmatic as the next one and has better things to worry about than the historical conflicts of the Levant. When politicians have raised the Israel-Palestine issue, they have come up empty-handed. The other claim is that India will lose standing with the Arab world. The opposite has proven to be the case: countries like Saudi Arabia sought to strengthen relations with India in part because the latter normalised relations with Israel. India's relations with Israel are spreading into other areas of existential importance to the country. Israel is a key partner in agriculture, and being the world's most-efficient liquid recycler, in water as well. If Israel becomes a major natural gas exporter in a few years, there will almost no missing links in the relationship. And the present official stance will lose any semblance of pragmatism and be merely a veil of the absurd.
I had asked Danny Ayalon about Israel's relations with India last month; he said they were "very good" but unfortunately didn't elaborate.

(h/t P)

The Egyptian army's strangehold on Egypt's economy

Posted: 17 Jan 2012 10:00 AM PST

Two weeks ago I posted a very well researched article that revealed the depth of the Egyptian army's land and business holdings in Egypt, and the corruption that results.

The Media Line looks at the issue as well, not so much from the perspective of corruption but to show that the army is not likely to give up power any time soon:

Concrete information on the extent and holdings of the army's business operations is difficult to come by. The armed forces are secretive but have portrayed themselves and the government generally as poor and hemorrhaging money. In the case of the government, that is certainly the case, but in the case of the army that is less evident.

In one of the most unusual intra-government transactions of the year, the military loaned the central bank $1 billion to help support the sagging Egyptian pound last month. The transaction not only pointed up the relative wealth of the two institutions but also the extent to which the army has access to money beyond the reach of the civilian authorities to whom it is supposed to be reporting.

Amr Hamzawy, a political analyst and newly elected member of parliament, estimates that the military controls as much as a third of Egypt's economy. Paul Sullivan, a U.S. National Defense University professor and expert on Egypt's military, told Time magazine last year that the military accounts for some 10% to 15% of the economy.

Mohamed Kadry Said, a retired general and a military analyst for the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, puts the figure at 8% of gross domestic product, a seemingly small percentage but, in Egypt's $180 billion economy, one that puts the annual turnover of Egyptian Army Inc. at more than $14 billion.

As Egypt moves on its rocky road toward democracy, observers say the army's efforts to preserve its business interests are likely to be a major barrier. More democracy will almost certainly entail more accountability and perhaps a direct assault by the country's civilian politicians and economic reformers on the military's economic power and privileges.

Many doubt that the generals will relinquish power so quickly. Among those is Mohamed ElBaradei. who announced over the weekend that he had dropped out of the presidential race, saying he saw no hope that the election due by the end of June would bring a real end to the military's rule.

"They use their businesses to maintain their power now more than ever. They own restaurants and tourism companies, so for the leadership today, stability and crushing the opposition to their rule is paramount to maintaining their wealth," Ahmed, a former general who asked that his name not be used, told The Media Line.

...As an institution, the armed forces own and run much of the food industry, including plants manufacturing olive oil, milk. bread and bottled water – all of which are subsidized by the very government they are in charge of.

They also run a number of cement factories, gas stations and refineries, clothing and kitchen facilities, vehicle production – one local newspaper reported the military is in partnership with Jeep to produce Cherokees and Wranglers – as well as resorts and hotels.

Since February last year, the role of the military and business has become more visible and controversial. All these industries, says economic analyst Gamal Abdel-Salam of CS Securities in Cairo, lead to a conflict of interest.

"The military runs all these companies, factories and tourist destination spots, and now is in charge of the government, so it means they are giving money out and supporting industry that in essence they are already in charge of," he says.

Topping it off, military businesses are free from government oversight and are not required to pay taxes, which Abdel-Salam says means that as the government gets poorer, "the military and its leaders are getting wealthier, so why would they want to leave power if they are winning on all sides?"

Abdel-Salam contends that the generals "see an opportunity to push forward without fear of government oversight, because they are the oversight and that is why they are silent on their role in the economy."

....Overcoming wealth and power in Egypt may be difficult to achieve, even if a new constitution – which the military wants to ensure contains no oversight over its budget and income – is established in the next few months. Indeed, for the former general the revolution that toppled Mubarak is starting to look like the one that toppled King Farouk in 1952 and inaugurated nearly six decades of military rule.

"What we are seeing," he says, "is Egypt's military taking a very Soviet-style approach to things and one we have seen before, in the 1950s with Nasser and look how that turned out for the country."

(h/t Ian)

Hamas really wants unity - with Islamic Jihad

Posted: 17 Jan 2012 08:40 AM PST

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh today called for in-depth talks between Hamas and Islamic Jihad with an eye towards unifying the two terrorist movements.

Daoud Shihab, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad, confirmed that Hamas and Islamic Jihad actually begun in-depth dialogue at home and abroad, in order to achieve unity.

He said, "The unity of our movement with Hamas will form the nucleus of the unity of the Islamic movement in the world", indicating that the meetings "are at home and abroad, in Israeli prisons and are also conducted at the highest levels of leadership" of the two groups.

No doubt this is more evidence of Hamas' peace-loving and pragmatic ways that so many Western experts believe in.

Fatah is moving towards the positions of Hamas, and Hamas is embracing Islamic Jihad. All this is being studiously ignored by the wishful thinkers of the mainstream media who love to hang onto their memes of a pragmatic, compromising Hamas and a moderate, peace loving Palestinian Authority.

Gaza human rights advocate stabbed after article critical of Hamas

Posted: 17 Jan 2012 07:24 AM PST

A few weeks ago, a Gaza human rights advocate wrote an article where he said "It is safe to assume that neither the government nor the resistance is willing to step in to protect people who dare to criticize them."

It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A human rights advocate was stabbed by unknown assailants in Gaza City after receiving threats over his authorship of an article critical of Palestinian resistance movements.

Mahmoud Abu Rahma, international relations director at Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, was attacked by masked men and stabbed multiple times while walking back from his brother's house on Friday night, he told Ma'an on Tuesday.

He received 12 stitches in a Gaza hospital and is recovering from his wounds.

Since publishing an article calling for greater accountability of resistance groups to Palestinian citizens on Dec. 31, Abu Rahma received texts and phone calls threatening him because of his views.

"They said I am a collaborator and I should wait for my punishment, saying I must revoke what I said or else," he told Ma'an.

Abu Rahma was also assaulted by masked men on Jan. 3 in the building where he lives, but he escaped without injuries.

The article, published on Ma'an and other outlets, called for legal redress for victims of misfiring and other operational mistakes by resistance groups and violations by Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"Who will protect citizens from the mighty resistance and the powerful government when one, or both, of them harm them?," he wrote.
His article was critical of Fatah and the "resistance groups" as well, but clearly his focus in Gaza was on Hamas, even though he did not mention it by name once.

More Hamas/Fatah "unity" problems

Posted: 17 Jan 2012 06:00 AM PST

Ma'an reports:

A senior Hamas official has told Ma'an that ongoing talks to implement the party's reconciliation agreement with Fatah are undermined by low confidence between the factions.

Both parties want to achieve national unity but the reconciliation deal, signed in Cairo last May, is plagued by a lack of trust, the Hamas official told Ma'an on Monday on condition of anonymity.

The deal aimed to end four years of divided government by forming a joint administration that would pave the way for elections. When the parties failed to agree on a candidate to lead the unity cabinet, they decided to proceed to elections without joining the governments.

The Hamas leader told Ma'an the failure to form a joint administration has made implementing terms of the agreement difficult.

A united government would have been a turning point in the division, the Hamas official said.

Talks between the parties and the work of the reconciliation committees are mismanaged and lack follow-up, the Hamas official told Ma'an.

The official said Hamas would not offer a candidate for the presidential elections because of the ongoing occupation, the situation in the West Bank and the party's tense relations with the international community.

Despite the recent success of Islamist parties in some Arab countries, the situation is different in Palestine and Hamas is not in a position to run in presidential elections, he said. He said Hamas and Fatah would agree on a candidate for the presidency.

Asked about upcoming internal elections in the Hamas movement, the official said politburo chief Khalid Mashaal would step down and probably be replaced by his deputy Mousa Abu Marzouq.

Mashaal cannot run again to head the politburo as he has served the party's limit of two terms in office.

In other news, the Palestinian Authority strongly criticized Ismail Haniyeh's statements yesterday that the Hamas security apparatus in Gaza would remain in place even after "unity" is achieved. The PA says that there are only three security organizations - National Security, Homeland Security and General Intelligence - and there would not be any more.

Also, Fatah accused Hamas of attempting to take over the entire territory not through elections but by bidding to control the PLO, which would make elections moot since the PA reports to the PLO.

Meanwhile, Hamas released a list of its members arrested in the West Bank by the PA, even after the "unity" discussions started. Political arrests was one of the major areas that were supposed to be solved between the two parties months ago.

Although I cannot find the link now, yesterday Hamas also denied that the PA had fixed the passport situation, one of the easiest problems to be solved over the past eight months of "unity."

The Western media is still clueless about all of these issues that I have been documenting daily.

The next milestone was supposed to be the announcement of a temporary unified government in the next two weeks; I have not read anything about that lately.

Turkey warming up to Israel again?

Posted: 17 Jan 2012 03:18 AM PST

Al-Manar Jerusalem is reporting that Turkey and Israel recently formed a committee to help repair their relations and resolve outstanding problems, and to get back on the path of enhancing coordination and cooperation in various fields. Diplomatic sources told Al Manar that this committee would attempt to tackle all issues between Turkey and Israel, including Turkey waiving legal action against Israelis involved in the Mavi Marmara raid, and the resumption of military cooperation and the sale of Israeli arms shipments to Turkey, as well as to discuss other developments in the region.

The sources claimed that a high-level Israeli official will visit Turkey in the near future to help resolve differences between Ankara and Tel Aviv, and also claims that Turkey recently allowed Israeli security officials to visit a refugee camp in Turkey for Syrians fleeing their country.

I have no idea if Al Manar Jerusalem is a reliable paper, but certainly Turkey has become increasingly diplomatically and economically isolated in the past year - as illustrated in a biting article in Hurriyet Daily News today. A bold move for rapprochement with Israel would be a huge signal to Europe and the US that Turkey wants to change direction back towards the West.

(Last week, YNet reported that Turkey dropped all lawsuits against Israel regarding the Mavi Marmara, h/t Yoel.)
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