יום שלישי, 24 באפריל 2012

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Link to Elder of Ziyon

There are lots things in the world offensive to Jews. This is not one of them.

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 05:01 PM PDT

From Fox News:
The Anti-Defamation League is calling out retailer Urban Outfitters for a shirt the Jewish group claims bears a symbol strikingly similar to the one used by Nazis to identify Jews during the Holocaust.

The sale of the shirt, which comes on the heels of National Holocaust Remembrance Day, is just the latest in a long line of offensive products from Urban Outfitters, the ADL tells FoxNews.com.

The T-shirt, sold by the Philadelphia-based Urbn Inc. but manufactured by Dutch label Wood Wood, is a yellow and features a blue six-pointed star on a breast pocket. But the ADL tells FoxNews.com that it's far more sinister than just a simple tee -- and is reminiscent of the yellow badges that Jews were forced by the Nazis to wear during the Holocaust.

"It's a new low in Urban Outfitter's consistent use of various offensive messages in what appears to be a quest for attention," Barry Morrison, the Philadelphia regional director of the ADL, told FoxNews.com. "We are very troubled by it."

"The juxtaposition of the six-pointed star on a yellow shirt brings about associations with the yellow Star of David that the Jews were forced to wear. A symbol marking Jews as subhuman -- setting them apart and ultimately paving the way for their annihilation."
Here's the shirt:

What exactly is the problem? 

The star isn't yellow, it doesn't resemble the stars Jews were forced to wear, it doesn't evoke the Holocaust in any manner, and I would consider wearing it if it wasn't so damn ugly and if I could get past the fact that Urban Outfitters was going to charge $100 for this simple pocket T-shirt.  (Now, that's offensive.)

The ADL does some good stuff, but this is beyond ridiculous, and it makes the organization look like a joke.  Please, Abraham Foxman, don't look for offense when there clearly is none. There is real anti-semitism out there - and this isn't it. And if you weren't looking for offensive symbols everywhere, perhaps you could have noted this this could be considered a compliment to Jews, not an insult.

See also Jewlicious, who notes that Maccabi Tel Aviv's logo must also be offensive....

Today's Tweetlinks

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 02:45 PM PDT

Here are the links I tweeted today that I haven't posted about:

Netanyahu interview at  on Grass, Iran, German-Israel relations, history, more - worth reading http://t.co/wdHvlBKW


Egypt refuses licenses for Carter Center, Coptic Orphans, Seeds of Peace, other US NGOs  , says "violate sovereignty"


Holocaust Survivors Who Became Israeli Air Force Pilots 


 parliament demands mufti resign over  visit


The spoiled leftist radicals in Israel "So why not protest in Syria, Egypt?" "Are you insane? It's dangerous!"


UNRWA employees in Gaza strike, protest over ban on terrorist activity Apparently, terrorism is a human right.






Liberal values: Fatah censors websites it doesn't like

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 01:15 PM PDT

A must read article in Ma'an, reporting what Challah Hu Akbar has been talking about for months:

The Palestinian Authority has quietly instructed Internet providers to block access to news websites whose reporting is critical of President Mahmoud Abbas, according to senior government officials and data analyzed by network security experts.

As many as eight news outlets have been rendered unavailable to many Internet users in the West Bank, after technicians at thePalestinian Telecommunications Company, or PalTel, tweaked a US-developed software called Squid to return error pages, a detailed technical analysis indicates. Several small companies are using a similar setup. 

The decision this year to begin blocking websites marks a major expansion of the government's online powers. Experts say it is the biggest shift toward routine Internet censorship in the Palestinian Authority's history. Aside from one incident in 2008, Palestinians have generally been free to read whatever they wanted. 

"This is unprecedented for them," says Jillian York, director for international freedom of expression at theElectronic Frontier Foundation, a US digital rights group. "It is troubling because they had done a relatively good job at keeping the Internet open until now."

The affected websites are Amad, Fatah Voice, Firas Press, In Light Press, Karama Press, Kofia Press, Milad News and Palestine Beituna. With their focus on internal Fatah issues, none are among the most popular outlets in Palestine. But they all report on daily news. 

Many of the sites have been described as loyal to Muhammad Dahlan, a former Fatah leader and critic of Abbas. A feud between them took on new urgency last summer, when Fatah sought to expel the former strongman and security forces raided his home. As far back as June 2011, the Palestinian Authority was complaining about its inability to shut down alleged Dahlan media based abroad, the al-Hayat newspaper reported at the time. Four of those sites are now being blocked. 
Fatah treats its Internet users just like the dictators in Syria and Iran. 

This is freedom of expression - Fatah-style.

Mahmoud Abbas writes entire article full of lies about Iraqi Jews

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 12:10 PM PDT

Last week I noted a new book in Arabic that claimed that Jews were forced out of Iraq by Iraqis who were colluding with Zionists. Because of this collusion, the Iraqis took away the rights of Jews and eventually forced them out,

As nutty as that was, Mahmoud Abbas' idea of history is even more filled with lies.

He wrote an article in Ma'an two weeks ago, translated now by MEMRI, where he claims there was a Zionist-British-Iraqi conspiracy to expel the Jews. He further claims that Iraqi Jews had no desire to leave the country but a Zionist terror spree in Iraq convinced them to go.

We've seen these bizarre conspiracy theories before, and they have been debunked thoroughly. Here is another opportunity to show that Mahmoud Abbas is a liar.

Here is how the American Jewish Yearbook contemporaneously described life for Jews in Iraq before Israel was declared a state:

Iraq's position at the crossroads of Russian and Western influences made her the target for conflicting propaganda from Russian sources on the one hand, and American and British on the other. Whenever these cross-currents resulted in student demonstrations, strikes or even the fall of a government, as in January, 1948, the Jews were the first to be endangered by the restless elements.
As a result of the growing economic discrimination against Jews, a number of them emigrated from Iraq, and many went to Palestine, usually illegally. The Arab League boycott of "Zionist goods," in which Iraq had already distinguished itself in 1946, furnished a ready pretext for commercial discrimination. The boycott was against all goods coming from and via Palestine. Typical of the stupidly blind fanaticism was a case reported in October, 1947, when Swiss goods arriving in Baghdad by an airplane which had landed at a Palestinian airport were confiscated and burned at once.
When the UN partition decision was announced, a storm broke out in Iraq as in all other Arab states. Nevertheless, the Iraqi government did not allow any serious bloodshed or pillage to develop. It contented itself with nonviolent economic pressure. To protect Iraqi Jews, Chief Rabbi Sassoon Kedmi of Baghdad was compelled to declare to the Iraqi press the "complete solidarity of Iraqi Jews with other Iraqis in the denunciation of Zionism and in their determination to continue living in brotherly Iraq, as they have lived for hundreds of years."
However, the fury had been let loose. After December 1, 1947, no Jews were permitted to leave Iraq, and those who had not yet left could not now escape. At first the Iraqi assault on local Jewry was financial, Jews being forced to contribute large sums to the fighting fund for the Palestinian Arabs. From January to May, 1948, life in Iraq was extremely unpleasant. Anti-Jewish feeling ran high, especially as Iraqi troops were defeated and the Arab refugees began arriving from Palestine. However, there was an outward calm. There were no pogroms in Iraq then, at least none that received any publicity abroad.
The storm really broke on May 15. Then, Jews were treated in Iraq as enemies within the gate, spies, agents provocateurs. Iraqi Jewry's only hope for the future lay in emigration.
When Iraq joined the other Arab nations in the war against Israel in May, 1948, the antagonism and bitterness, which had been stored up against the Jews of Iraq during the six months that followed the United Nations decision to partition Palestine, found an outlet. There were demonstrations by angered mobs and riots in some of the smaller towns in Iraq which resulted in some loss of life and damage to property. But for the most part Iraqi Jewry suffered from forms of official persecution, such as travel restrictions, dismissal of Jewish government officials, excessive taxation, and "voluntary contributions" to "general welfare" causes.
All Jews were classed as enemy aliens, and all Zionist activities were characterized as treason. Imposing martial law, the government embarked on a program of searching Jewish homes "for illegal weapons," since, under martial law, arrests or searches could be made on the sole basis of suspicion. Many Iraqis found this a convenient way of settling long-standing personal feuds with their Jewish neighbors. All in all, 310 Jews were arrested in Bagdad alone during the initial period of the war; about half of these were released after questioning, and the rest were held for trial. Similar acts occurred in other towns and villages.
The anti-Jewish repressions also served as a lucrative source of income for the government, which imposed heavy fines upon arrested Jews, thus replenishing its treasury and helping to finance the cost of the war. In addition, the government requisitioned buildings owned by the Jewish community, as well as some Jewish-owned private buildings, to house Arab refugees from Palestine. The sequestration of Jewish property and business, and blackmail, official and unofficial, proved profitable undertakings. The Jews found themselves forced to become the heaviest contributors to government campaigns for funds to continue the war and to provide for the Arab refugees, as the alternative to being branded enemies, Zionists, Communists, or spies. Thus, the wave of arrests of wealthy Jews was especially productive financially. The dismissal of almost all Jewish officials from government jobs, to "insure the better guarding of state secrets," proved of benefit to the large number of Iraqi Moslems who replaced them. Jews were also prohibited from enrolling in government schools of higher education.
The anti-Jewish persecutions reached their height with the arrest and execution of Shafiq Ades, an Iraqi Jew, on the charge of dealing with the enemy by selling arms to Israel. Surplus material which Ades had purchased two years previously from the British army was found in Palestine during the fighting. Ades claimed that he had sold the equipment to Italy. Because Ades threatened to expose several Moslem high government officials as having been involved in the deal, his trial was held behind closed doors. He was convicted in September, 1948, and his hanging in the public square in Basra was followed by the confiscation of his property, officially valued at $20,000,000. The execution of Ades was a shock to most Iraqis, Jews and non-Jews alike, because he had never associated himself with the Jewish community or contributed to its institutions.
No Jew was spared in the outburst of Iraqi antagonism, not even Chief Rabbi Sassoon Kadourie, who was arrested in October, 1948, allegedly for having, in the course of his Yom Kippur sermon in the synagogue, exhorted the Jews to "acts contrary to the safety of the state."
Contrary to Abbas' claims, there was persecution against Iraqi Jews before Israel; Iraqi Jews risked their lives to make aliyah before Israel was declared; the Iraqi government was the only party behind the decision to expel their Jews and grab their property; the Jews who said that they were anti-Zionist were often forced to say that in order to keep their jobs or money (and even then it did not help them.)

 I also would like to call attention to an AP article written during the first phase of the Iraqi exodus, that shows that many Jews were anxious to leave Iraq and go to Israel:

Abbas is once again proven to be a liar.

Hamas tweets its desire for ethnic cleansing

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 11:00 AM PDT

A couple of tweets from Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades in a Twitter conversation they were having:

Al Qassam Brigades alongside with Arab spring revolts would sweep Zionist settlers out of Palestine, liberate al Aqsa. M.


they have to go back in America,Germany, Poland,Russia, etc
Hamas considers every Israeli Jew to be a "Zionist settler."

Sudanese writer explains exactly why Egypt is doomed

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 09:45 AM PDT

From MEMRI, an Arabic interview with someone who gets it exactly right:



Following are excerpts from an interview with Sudanese writer Al-Hajj Warraq, which aired on CBC 2 TV on April 3, 2012 :
Al-Hajj Warraq : It is very important for [people in] Egypt to understand that democracy is about more than just the ballot box. Democracy is a culture engraved upon the cerebral box before it is the ballot box. One cannot talk about freedom in the absence of free minds. The tragedy of the Arab Spring is that when the tyrannical regimes fell, the fruits were reaped by movements that preach closed-mindedness, rather than free thinking. The outcome will be regimes that are worse than those that were toppled. The so-called Arab Spring countries are heading towards a harsh winter.
[…]
The Sudanese government's advisor on environmental issues a statement that the drinking water in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum is mixed with sewage. People are drinking water mixed with feces. A regime that allows its people to drink water mixed with feces must seek legitimacy in the heavens, rather than on Earth. Responsibility on Earth is costly: You must deal with development, the economy, planning, and so on. However, when you claim to be leading people to Paradise, it costs you nothing.
[…]
When you purport to be speaking in the name of Allah, any opposition becomes opposition to Allah. This is where the danger lies. A religious state necessarily leads – in all cases – to the criminalization of dissenting views, which become heresy.
[…]
Since these movements have a totalitarian view on all aspects of life, they want to dictate how you should conduct politics, what art you should consume, what clothes you should wear, and what theater you should watch. They want to control the human world in its entirety, and therefore, they necessarily lead to the violation of human personal liberties.
In Sudan, we have an agency dedicated to the monitoring of people's wrongdoings. It is called the "Public Order Police." They enter homes, take photos, and spy on people. If you are walking down the street with a woman, they might ask you to present a marriage certificate. This is the extent of their interference in people's lives. They can even deal with the length of schoolgirls' skirts – whether they should be above or below the knee.
Interviewer : Like the Authority for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice?
Al-Hajj Warraq : Exactly. Just like in Saudi Arabia.
[…]
In democracy, there should be some rights and liberties that are not dependent upon the will of the majority. Human rights…
Interviewer The rights that are guaranteed by the constitution.
Al-Hajj Warraq : Exactly. But when you establish a state on a certain religion, people of other religions will necessarily find themselves to be second-class citizens. This is what brought about the partitioning of Sudan. You cannot force a Christian to live in a country that purports to be Islamic, because his liberties will by necessity be curtailed. Could you demand that a Christian Egyptian pay the jizya poll-tax? Would you allow a Christian to become the head of an Islamic state?
Interviewer : The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis here said that they wouldn't demand the jizya, which belongs to the past…
Al-Hajj Warraq : The question is whether they are doing this as a favor, or whether they contemplated these things anew and decided against the jizya. They try to resolve many issues by tricking people, treating them as fools. It is impossible to resolve this by trickery. If you want to establish a religious state, it must conform to the sacred texts that you claim to abide by. Do these sacred texts require non-Muslims to pay the jizya or not?
[…]
Our own experience shows that these people use democracy as a ladder. They climb this ladder and then throw it away, so that no on else can climb it. They will reshape all the state institutions – the media, the education – and they will even monitor the souls and conscience of people. You will never get the opportunity to vote against them in future elections.
[…]
Ask any reasonable person which is better: the political system in Switzerland, or that of Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Taliban, or Sudan? Would any modern person given the option of living in Switzerland choose to live in Sudan, in Iran, in Saudi Arabia, or with the Taliban?
[…]

I just found a short essay I wrote on the topic in the very early days of this blog. And it is a theme I have revisited often.

Surprise! UN observers aren't stopping Syrian atrocities

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 08:25 AM PDT

Al Arabiya reports:
Syrian forces shelled several neighborhoods in Homs as it continued to violate the shaky ceasefire, Al Arabiya reported citing Syrian activists. The government forces launched a wide scale attack on al-Bukamal neighborhood early Monday, killing four people, the Syrian Shaam News Network reported.

The attack comes one day after the violent military operations carried out by the government forces in the Damascus suburb of Duma and in Deraa on Sunday, which killed at least 22 people, according to the Syrian General Revolution Commission.

Internet video footage that activists said was filmed in Duma on Sunday showed grey smoke rising from buildings and the sound of heavy gunfire in the background. One clip showed soldiers in helmets and bullet-proof vests next to a tank.

The official news agency SANA made no mention of fighting in Duma but said that at least one officer was killed by a bomb that struck a convoy of army officers and cadets in the northern province of Aleppo. Another bomb targeted a freight train transporting flour in Idlib province, it said.

Shaam reported two strong explosions in al-Khaldeya neighborhood on Sunday, despite the presence of the U.N. peace monitors.

A small group of unarmed observers has been operating in Syria for a week, overseeing a 10-day-old truce agreement that has curbed some of the violence but failed to bring a complete halt to 13 months of bloodshed.

In Damascus, Syrian government forces shot at protesters in Nahr Aysha; while two massive demonstrations went out in Kafr Soussa from al-Fateh and Bilal al-Habashy mosques on Sunday night. The two protests later merged together, Al Arabiya reported, citing Syrian activists.

On Sunday a group of monitors visited the central city of Hama and nearby town of Rastan. Internet video footage which activists said was filmed in Rastan showed observers walking through the town accompanied by rebel fighters.

In Hama, activists said soldiers opened fire at protesters right after the U.N. observers left the Arbaeen neighborhood. There were no immediate reports of casualties in the city.
Here's a video of UN observers actually being fired upon in Homs Saturday night according to the uploader.



To no one's surprise except perhaps the clueless UN, these observers are no more effective than the Arab League observers from December and January.


(h/t Yoel)

Backgrounder: The Israeli-Egyptian gas agreement

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 07:11 AM PDT

Is Egypt's refusal to provide natural gas to Israel a violation of Camp David, as some (including me) said initially, or is it just a business dispute, as Israel is spinning it now?

Here's some background from the book "The Political Economy of Transitions to Peace: A Comparative Perspective" by Galia Press-Barnathan:
This problematic interaction between the Egyptian government and the broader public was also evident in the case of the agreement to supply Israel with natural gas, as mentioned earlier. In 2000, the Israeli govermnent decided to allow the national electric company to negotiate with local and foreign suppliers of natural gas. One of the main contestants for this project was a private company called EMG, which was owned by both a senior Egyptian businessman, Hussein Salem, and a prominent Israeli, Yossi Mimen. Israel's agreement with EMG was for the company to supply natural gas to Israel for a period of up to twenty years, the total value of the purchases forecast to be about $3 billion. This agreement faced opposition in both Israel and Egypt.

In Israel, opposition reflected the classic realist concerns regarding the creation of a dangerous dependence on energy supply from a potentially unreliable or adversarial source. Opponents argued that it was doubtful that the Egyptian government would be willing to vouch for the continued supply of natural gas to Israel if political circumstances became difficult. Furthermore, should the supply of gas be disrupted, the damage to Israel would be very high because, unlike oil, gas cannot be stored in reserves.

In stark contrast to the public debate in Israel regarding the gas deal with Egypt, Egyptian government officials consistently denied foreign reports that such a deal was being negotiated. The Egyptian public knew nothing about the negotiations with Israel, which had been going on for several years. The strategic decision to sell natural gas to Israel was made by President Mubarak, who appreciated the lucrative economic dividend that would result from such a deal. Egypt had significant natural gas reserves and wanted to find buyers. However, the only promising market in the region was that of Israel. Once again, economic logic triumphed. While the treaty was conveniently signed by the private gas company, Israel made an effort to upgrade this economic interaction by calling for an official state-level agreement in which the Egyptian government would ensure a continuous supply of gas. Eventually, the Egyptians agreed to sign a vague memorandum of understanding. When the agreement was finally signed, in July 2005, Israeli journalists attending the ceremony reported the great unease that surrounded the event on the Egyptian side. This unease and complex maneuvering was already apparent in 2002, against the backdrop of the second intifada and severe criticism within Egypt of Israeli policy. President Mubarak announced that he would suspend all nondiplomatic relations with Israel. However, this announcement was not expected to hinder the completion of the gas deal with Israel. The government refused to sever all trade ties in practice because there was a real economic stake involved. This stood in sharp contrast to the public mood at the time. Chambers of commerce and trade organizations repeatedly issued statements of a boycott against Israel, but the government was unwilling to intervene. The head of the import sector at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce, Moustafa Zaki, concluded at the time, "It is up to the people. The government will not interfere. Consumers can refuse to purchase Israeli goods. That's the best we can hope for."
More details from IPS from 2005:
According to the agreement signed by Egyptian Minister of Petroleum Sameh Fahmy and Israeli Minister of Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer at a ceremony Jun. 30, also attended by Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, Egypt will supply Israel with the gas for 15 years, by way of a maritime pipeline to the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon.

The deal - expected to generate between two billion and three billion U.S. dollars a year in revenue - is to be cemented by a second, final pact, expected in August. The pipeline is slated to begin delivering gas late in 2006.

Although the deal comes at a time of popular anger over Israeli policies, many financial analysts agree that - from a strictly economic standpoint - the move was a practical one. "Economically, it makes good sense," said Nashwa Saleh, head of research at Cairo-based investment house HC Brokerage. "We have more natural gas than we can consume locally - it's smart to export."

Recent estimates have put Egypt's gas reserves as high as three trillion cubic meters.

Talks between Eastern Mediterranean Gas, a private firm jointly owned by an Egyptian businessman and the Israeli Merhav Group, and the state-run Israel Electric Corporation, which intends to buy the gas, have been ongoing since 2001. But an agreement was delayed several times due to ongoing Israeli-Palestinian violence, which made it politically awkward for Cairo to commit to the sale. Meanwhile, given the political sensitivities involved, authorities remained tight-lipped about the discussions.

So while the agreement was technically between a private Egyptian corporation and a state-run Israeli energy company, it was part of a state-level agreement to supply gas - but it was not from Camp David.

Arrest warrant in Lebanon for giving information about Ron Arad

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 05:40 AM PDT

From Naharnet:
Military Examining Magistrate Imad al-Zain issued an arrest warrant on Monday against a Lebanese citizen on charges of contacting Israel.

G.M. is accused of providing Israel with information on missing Israeli military airman Ron Arad.

Arad, an Israeli air force navigator, went missing after he ejected from an F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.

He was allegedly captured by the Shiite movement AMAL, headed by Nabih Berri, now parliament speaker.

Israel engaged in lengthy negotiations for the release of the airman but contact was terminated when the Israeli military bombed the south Lebanon village of Maydoun in 1996.

In January 2006, the head of Hizbullah Sayyed Hassan Nassrallah said Arad was probably dead, even though he had no proof.

As part of the deal, Hizbullah agreed to hand over information on Arad's fate within months. Israel was supposed to obtain the information in exchange for freeing Lebanese Samir Kantar, but the agreement was never finalized.
According to reports, Arad probably died in the mid-1990s in Lebanon.

Abbas refusing to speak to Fayyad

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 03:22 AM PDT

Al Quds al Arabi is reporting that there is a "silent crisis" between PA president Mahmoud Abbas and PA prime minister Salam Fayyad.

Last week, Abbas asked Fayyad to deliver a letter to Binyamin Netanyahu outlining the PLO demands to restart peace talks. Fayyad refused, worried that it would damage his image among the people. He was especially concerned because the letter was to be delivered on Prisoners Day and he did not want to appear to be contacting Israel on such a day.

In general, the job of PA prime minister is only concerned with internal matters anyway, and is not an appropriate position to be used for foreign relations - which is the PLO's domain.

According to one report, Fayyad told Abbas that he was not his "mailman."

In the end, the letter was delivered by Saeb Erekat.

Now, Abbas is refusing to speak with Fayyad. He is not answering his calls. Sources say that Fayyad's refusal "crossed all red lines' and their relationship is now in a "deep crisis."

Fatah leaders, who never liked Fayyad, are also pressuring Abbas to use this as a reason to get rid of him.

"Land of Promise" 1924 silent film about Zionist pioneers

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 01:00 AM PDT

The second reel is missing, but it is still over 40 minutes of amazing footage.



100% hasbara.

And 100% true, as hasbara is supposed to be.
פורסם על ידי zoom ב- 0:05

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