Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

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• Possible new natural gas discovery off Israel's coast
• Tunnel collapse!
• The UN rewrites its own history on how it refers to the territories
• "Nakba" didn't originally mean what Arabs say it means
• Egyptians bomb gas pipeline to Israel, Jordan yet again
• The LA Times slurs the IDF in article on the fake photo
• Amnesty's mendacious use of language to demonize Israel

Possible new natural gas discovery off Israel's coast Posted: 05 Feb 2012 10:00 PM PST From CRI: An American-Israeli drilling consortium on Sunday announced the discovery of a new Mediterranean natural gas field about 120 km northwest of the Haifa coast. The Noble Energy-Delek Group said in a statement that the find lies beneath 5,500 meters of sand and water, in 40-meter thick gas- bearing strata, according to the Globes business daily. The report said the field may contain between 34 billion to 37 billion cubic meters of gas. Noble's next step is to stabilize the borehole -- keeping it from collapsing -- in order to carry out a series of intensive seismic and electrical tests to further details the makeup of the rock and liquids in the strata, the report said. The site is adjacent to the significant Israeli-owned Tamar and Leviathan fields, discovered in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Tamar contains an estimated 240 billion cubic meters of natural gas, while Leviathan, 450 billion cubic meters. Officials told Globes that Israel's smaller Yam Tethys rig, located off the Ashkelon coast, is fast depleting as it is the country's sole source of natural gas. Israel decided to rely solely on the platform's flagging output, due to a dozen bombing attacks by saboteurs on the Egypt-Israel pipeline near el-Arish -- the latest overnight Sunday -- throughout 2011. Uzi Landau, who heads Israel's Water and Energy Ministry, has made switching over from the Egyptian gas -- whose export came as part of the peace deal between the countries -- to its own resources, a linchpin of the country's energy development policy. Together, the three finds could, potentially, change the strategic face of the region and turn Israel into an energy exporter. However, a visiting energy expert told The Jerusalem Post that the country would likely not see a revenue stream before 2020. "This is a developed economy," said Nick Butler, a former British Petroleum Group vice president of strategy, who was visiting here to attend last week's Herzliya Conference. "Israel is not a banana republic that has to export its natural resources. I don't see why Israel could not develop gas grids in major cities to bring it to every business and every home. That is what has worked in most European countries, and there is no physical reason that cannot be done here," Butler said. Meanwhile, the Israel Navy is preparing to significantly boost the security surrounding the country's natural gas rigs in the Mediterranean Sea due to growing threats of attack. The army's high command recently tasked the navy's missile boat flotilla with securing the Tamar, Leviathan and Yam Tethys drilling platforms off the Haifa coast, the Ha'aretz daily reported. The rigs are located some 22 km beyond Israel's territorial waters, but are within the country's "economic waters zone," an area that extends up to 130 km into the Mediterranean. The plan would deploy the missile boats, which have already held protective training maneuvers in the seas around the rigs, to conduct patrols and secure future drilling platforms. Israel's defense establishment is increasingly concerned about the dangers posed to the offshore rigs by militant groups or an armed conflict with neighboring states. Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem vowed last July that his organization would not allow Israel to encroach on what he said was Lebanon's maritime sovereignty and seize its oil, gas and water resources. Getting these fields working cannot happen soon enough.

Tunnel collapse! Posted: 05 Feb 2012 07:25 PM PST The Al Qassam website says: Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades (E.Q.B) the military wing of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, mourned on Sunday morning, February 5th, 2012, the death of the Qassam member Sameer Abdulrahman Al Ejlah,28, from Al Shujaeiah neighborhood east of the Gaza city. The brigades confirmed in a press statement released on Sunday morning, that the martyr Sameer has accidentlly died, adding that he was martyred after a long bright path of Jihad, hard work, struggle and sacrifice Al Qassam Brigades mourn the death of the Mujahed, reaffirms the commitment and determination to continue the resistance against the belligerent occupation forces. How exactly did he die? According to Palestine Today, he died when a "resistance tunnel" collapsed. Was this a smuggling tunnel? Actually, it doesn't seem to be. The tunnel wasn't in Rafah, but apparently in Gaza City. So this was most likely a bunker where Hamas keeps its weapons and explosives. Or, possibly, a tunnel meant to kidnap Israeli soldiers.

The UN rewrites its own history on how it refers to the territories Posted: 05 Feb 2012 11:40 AM PST I have previously noted that the UN habitually describes all of the land beyond the Green Line as "Occupied Palestinian Territory," and their absurd logic in doing so. When did the UN start to use that terminology? It appears that the term started being used, informally, around 1989, and formally in 1998. This memo from 1988 calls them "West Bank and Gaza" and "occupied territories." In 1989, we see simply "occupied territories." Even this 2000 Security Council resolution refers to "territories occupied by Israel." While many PLO letters to the UN refer to "occupied Palestinian territory" the UNGA did not seem to give it that proper name, using capital letters, until much later - in 1998. In December of that year: At its 81st plenary meeting, on 7 December 1998, the General Assembly, on the proposal of Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Mauritania, Oman, Tunisia, Yemen and Palestine, A/53/L.65 and Add.1. requested that the Secretary-General should continue to use the term Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, when appropriate, in accordance with General Assembly resolutions, in relevant reports to the Assembly, including the report under the item entitled Assistance to the Palestinian people, bearing in mind the need to take account of future relevant Assembly resolutions and progress in the Middle East peace process. So the term "Occupied Palestinian Territory," or "OPT," was only formalized in the UN in 1998 - well after Oslo. Here is where it gets interesting. The UNISPAL set of documents relating to Palestine gives titles to each memo that comes out of the UN. The titles in UNISPAL's index have nothing to do with the actual titles of the documents. And whoever gave these documents their titles deliberately uses the term "OPT" in documents that were written many years before the UN adopted that increasingly incorrect term! Some of them from 1980: 5/19/1980 S/13737/Add.18 Situation in OPT -summary statement - Secretary-General 5/14/1980 A/35/230 Situation in OPT - Letter from CEIRPP Acting Chairman 5/14/1980 S/13940 Illegal Israeli measures in the OPT/Deportation of Palestinian leaders - Letter from CEIRPP Acting Chairman 5/13/1980 S/13938 Situation in the OPT/Deportation of mayors, Sharia judge - SecGen report 5/12/1980 S/13936 Situation in the OPT/Deportation of mayors-Letter from Jordan 5/8/1980 A/35/206/Corr.1 Situation in the OPT - Letter from Yemen S/13922/Corr.1 5/7/1980 A/35/218 Situation in the OPT - PLO letter - Letter from Yemen S/13928 3/31/1980 S/13868 Situation in the OPT/Jerusalem - Letter from Jordan 3/26/1980 A/35/155 Situation in the OPT/Hebron - Letter from Egypt S/13861 3/25/1980 S/13859 Situation in the OPT/Hebron - Letter from Morocco 3/24/1980 S/13854 Situation in the OPT/Hebron - Letter from CEIRPP Chairman 3/10/1980 S/13737/Add.8 Situation in OPT -summary statement - Secretary-General 2/27/1980 S/13737/Add.7 Situation in OPT -summary statement - Secretary-General Clicking on any of those links will show that not once is the term "Occupied Palestinian Territory" used in the documents themselves. The UN is deliberately rewriting its own history to make it appear that the term "Occupied Palestinian Territory" has been used forever, when in fact it is of relatively recent vintage. This is most unethical and an insult to people who want to use the UN site for historical research. It shows a blatant disregard for facts and history. It is, effectively, a UN-sanctioned mass rewriting of its own records. Another interesting find. This 1983 resolution says: Bearing in mind the provisions of the Geneva Convention, Noting that Israel and those Arab States whose territories have been occupied by Israel since June 1967 are parties to that Convention, Taking into account that States parties to that Convention undertake, in accordance with article 1 thereof, not only to respect but also to ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances, 1. Reaffirms that the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, is applicable to Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem; The UN is saying here that the Geneva Conventions apply because the Arab states whose territories are occupied are parties to Geneva, and therefore Israel is considered to be occupying them. Geneva only applies when both parties are High Contracting Parties of the Convention itself. But if the territories are "Palestinian," and "Palestine" is not a party to the Convention, then that preamble makes no sense! Indeed, the UN no longer uses that argument anymore, simply declaring the territories to be "occupied" by assertion.

"Nakba" didn't originally mean what Arabs say it means Posted: 05 Feb 2012 09:15 AM PST The first time that the word "Nakba" was used by an Arab in the context of the 1948 war was by Lebanese Arab nationalist Constantine Zureiq. Barry Rubin notes: Constantine Zurayk was vice-president of the American University of Beirut. His book was entitled The Meaning of the Disaster. Here's the key passage: "Seven Arab states declare war on Zionism in Palestine, stop impotent before it and turn on their heels. The representatives of the Arabs deliver fiery speeches in the highest government forums, warning what the Arab states and peoples will do if this or that decision be enacted. Declarations fall like bombs from the mouths of officials at the meetings of the Arab League, but when action becomes necessary, the fire is still and quiet, and steel and iron are rusted and twisted, quick to bend and disintegrate." This is the old style of Arab discourse. Zurayk openly acknowledged the Arab states rejected all compromise, made ferocious threats, and invaded the new state of Israel to destroy it. For him, the "nakba" taught that they needed to modernize and democratize their system. Only thoroughgoing reform could fix the shortcomings of the Arabic-speaking world. What happened instead was another 55 years of the same thing, followed by this new era opening last year which will probably also bring a half-century of the same thing. Nakba has become the opposite of what Zurayk wanted it to be: Blaming your opponent rather than acknowledging your own shortcomings and fixing them. ...The nakba concept of which Zurayk wrote was much broader, the Arabic-speaking world's failure to embrace modernity, science, real democracy, an other such things. In that respect, every day is a nakba and 2011 was not the year of the "Arab Spring" but the year of renewing the nakba strategy. It is a self-inflicted nakba and the victims are the Arabic-speaking people themselves. What did Zurayk think about Zionism and its triumph? Here's what he wrote: "The reason for the victory of the Zionists was that the roots of Zionism are grounded in modern Western life while we for the most part are still distant from this life and hostile to it. They live in the present and for the future, while we continue to dream the dreams of the past and to stupefy ourselves with its fading glory." "To dream the dreams of the past and to stupefy ourselves with its fading glory." Isn't that precisely what the Nakba concept is used for today? To say: we cannot make a compromise peace because those horrible Israelis were so mean to us more than 60 years ago. We are victims. We want revenge. We dream of total victory. And those dreams and that stupefying guarantees failure for the Arabs, and most of all the Palestinians, today. If Zurayk were alive today he'd be an Arab liberal fighting radical Islamism. Zurayk wanted the Arabs to learn from their mistakes. As usual, Rubin is right. The coiner of the term "nakba" had an entirely different meaning in mind. To him, "nakba" doesn't mean Israel's victory in 1948, but Arabs' failure to solve their problems. Here's how Nissim Rejwan summarized Zurayk's book in 1988: Immediately following the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948-1949 a number of Arab writers and thinkers, profoundly shocked by the defeat the armies of five Arab states suffered at the hands of what the Arabs called "the Zionist bands," set out to analyze the causes and draw the lessons of the debacle. Foremost among these was Constantine Zureiq, a Lebanese professor of history and a prolific political writer with strong Arab nationalist leanings. His book on the subject, Ma'na al-Nakba (The Meaning of the Disaster), was published soon after the outbreak of the war— August 1948 — and was mainly a work of self-criticism. The battle against Israel, he wrote, will not be won "as long as the Arabs remain in their present condition." The road to final and complete victory, he added, "lies in a fundamental change of the situation of the Arabs, in a complete transformation in their modes of thought, action and life." Subsequently, writing in 1966. Zureiq was to observe that the Arabs still had a long way to go to attain their goals in Palestine. He also coined a new term, 'ilm al-nakba —the science of Catastrophe or, better still, catastrophology — adding that the Arabs must now approach their problems with Israel "in a scientific Way." The word had nothing to do with refugees. It meant that, just as today, Arabs blamed others for their own self-inflicted problems. I believe that the first time that the word "catastrophe" was used in reference to the refugee problem by Palestinian Arabs was in a letter from the Arab Higher Committee to the UN in May 1949, where they said: The Arabs believe that the United Nations Organization which is the author of the partition plan, is responsible for the catastrophe that has befallen the Palestinian refugees. As such it is the duty of the United Nations to remove the injustice done to the Arabs. We submit that by removing the cause of the problem of the refugees, the United Nations will have substantially solved their serious problem. Meaning that they wanted to UN to dissolve Israel, supposedly as a means to solve the refugee issue. This is how the word is used nowadays - as a means to destroy Israel, not the way the coiner of the term intended it, as criticism of the Arabs.

Egyptians bomb gas pipeline to Israel, Jordan yet again Posted: 05 Feb 2012 07:50 AM PST From Egypt Independent (formerly Al Masry al Youm): An explosion hit a gas pipeline running from Egypt to Israel Sunday, witnesses and state television reported. The pipeline, which also supplies gas to Jordan, has come under attack at least 12 times since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in 2011. The latest blast took place in the Massaeed area west of the Mediterranean coastal town of Arish. Gas pumping was stopped after the explosion. Residents in Arish told Reuters they could see flames from their town. Security forces and fire trucks raced to the scene, witnesses said. Previous explosions have sometimes led to weeks-long shutdowns along the pipeline, run by Egypt's gas transport company Gasco, a subsidiary of the national gas company EGAS. Egypt said in November it would tighten security measures along the pipeline by installing alarm devices and recruiting security patrols from Bedouin tribesmen in the area. Egypt doubled the gas price for Jordan in October. Jordan said Monday it would raise electricity prices as of February to cover the rising burden of imported fuel costs after loss of regular Egyptian gas supplies. The saboteurs are hurting Jordan more than Israel, but that doesn't matter - as always, they care far more about causing pain to Jews than to any collateral damage that might happen to their fellow Arabs. (The Al-Qaeda-affiliated group that took responsibility said it was in retaliation for the death of its leader in an Egyptian jail, meaning that they wanted to hurt - Egypt?) I wonder whether Jordan will allow any gas imports from Israel when the gas fields in the Mediterranean go on-line...

The LA Times slurs the IDF in article on the fake photo Posted: 05 Feb 2012 06:25 AM PST The good news is that the Los Angeles Times blog took note of the fake viral photo supposedly showing an IDF soldier stepping on the chest of a poor Palestinian Arab girl. But writer Batsheva Sobelman, while showing all the evidence that the photo was staged, still is not 100% sure that the photo isn't that of an Israeli soldier. Instead of accepting the clear proof that the soldier couldn't be Israeli, she writes "But the question remains: Is the soldier Syrian or Israeli?" But that's not the worst part. Sobelman actually says: There are some things in the photo -- other than the situation, which is not beyond the realm of possibility -- that are not quite right. Sobelman thinks that it is possible that an IDF soldier would step on a little girl's chest and point a machine gun at her? Would she ever, ever say that about any other army in the world? In that one sentence, the LA Times is showing that its regard for fairness in reporting is no better than the thousands of Facebook idiots that copied the photo as proof of Israeli crimes.

Amnesty's mendacious use of language to demonize Israel Posted: 05 Feb 2012 04:36 AM PST Amnesty International has published another broadside against Israel, this one in Huffington Post. It lists a long line of supposed Israeli crimes, without giving sources. Here is just the first sentence: As the Quartet celebrates the resumption of bilateral negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians in Jordan this month, a record number of Palestinians find themselves out in the cold this winter due to illegal home demolitions by Israeli authorities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Lets examine this sentence. Its main point - repeated in its press release from December, released along with some twenty other NGOs - is that "a record number of Palestinians " are displaced. What is this record number? The figures show that since the beginning of 2011 more than 500 Palestinian essential structures were destroyed in the OPT, with over 1,000 Palestinians displaced -- doubling the number displaced over the same period in 2010, and the highest figure since at least 2005. Amnesty's definition of a "record" is apparently "the most in the last seven years." That is not what the word "record" means. And note that they aren't saying 500 homes, but 500 "essential structures." These include illegally built wells - wells that threaten the entire region's water supply. Amnesty is claiming that Palestinian Arabs have the right to damage everyone's access to water, and Israel has no right to stop them in territory they define as "occupied." But if Israel is occupying the territory, as Amnesty claims, then Israel's responsibility is precisely to administer natural resources according to the Hague Convention - which presumably includes water. Certainly, under the laws of occupation, Israel would be obligated to continue applying Jordanian law that applied to the areas before 1967, and it seems difficult to believe that Jordan did not enforce any zoning laws in the territory it occupied or that it tolerated the wanton illegal construction of housing. Amnesty pointedly does not address that issue - can any (Arab) who desires build anywhere they want in occupied territory? Now, are the people who previously lived in these illegal structures out in the cold? Are they homeless? The NGOs give no evidence in that regard. This is Amnesty's hyperbole meant to demonize Israel and they have no basis in fact. The real fact is that in 2011, the Palestinian Authority built or was expected to build 33,822 dwelling units. In just that one year. Israeli "record demolitions" are less than one percent of the total new construction last year. (In fact, the PA constructed more new units than Israelis did -not in the territories, but in Israel itself!) And yet again, Amnesty - along with the UN and every other NGO - refers to the territories as "Occupied Palestinian Territories." When international law scholar Eugene Kontorovich spoke at NYU last month, I asked him a question afterwards about Jordanian and Palestinian Arab claims to the West Bank. He stated: If you think that the competing claims to the West Bank are Israel and its previous occupant, Jordan, then you would think that Israel would enjoy undisturbed title, and then this group of Palestinians organized themselves to challenge that title, it would have to be  a retroactive challenge, which is the difficulty of it. When Newt Gingrich said that the Palestinians were an "invented people," he was much criticized. Some people said, and I think quite rightly, that even if they are invented, it doesn't really matter, because you can invent a people - people can be invented. If a group of people decide to think of themselves as a nation, that can actually have real force. Who's to stop a people from inventing themselves? I completely agree with that. There is nothing wrong with being an invented people; every people is in some sense invented. The only question is: what's the date of that invention? If it is a post-'67 phenomenon, it seems hard to understand how that can make territory, whose status changed in 1967, "Palestinian Territory" retroactively. I have never seen any real legal opinion that describes exactly how Palestinian Arabs can be described as the presumed legal owners of the West Bank. As with the UN, Amnesty seems to be using the term "Occupied Palestinian Territories" as a catchphrase, without any legal basis. It has become part of the discourse based on repetition and wishful thinking, not based on fact. Calling Area C and perhaps Area B "occupied" is defensible from a legal standpoint, but not calling them "Occupied Palestinian Territory." This single sentence in the Huffington Post shows four separate examples of how Amnesty is less interested in truth than in demonizing Israel. For people who believe that Amnesty is the paragon of impartiality, this should be troubling indeed. (h/t Erik)

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