יום שני, 14 במאי 2012

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Link to Elder of Ziyon

Reminder: Panel discussion in NYC next week

Posted: 13 May 2012 06:00 PM PDT

Just a reminder that I will be part of a panel discussion next week in New York.

You ought to show up.

Not only because it is a rare opportunity to meet me (or someone who does a convincing impression of me.)

Not only because you can meet some serious heavyweights of the pro-Israel media.

You ought to come because, seriously, where in Manhattan can you get a kosher dinner for only $18?

You can RSVP here.

Leading Egyptian candidate: Israel "racist", OBL killing "state terrorism"

Posted: 13 May 2012 03:00 PM PDT

From Naharnet:
A leading Islamist candidate in Egypt's presidential election has branded Israel a "racist state" and said a shared 1979 peace treaty was "a national security threat" that should be revised.

Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh also denounced al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden's assassination by U.S. special forces as an act of "state terrorism," in a late Saturday Egyptian television interview.

Abul Fotouh, a front runner in the May 23-24 election according to polls, had earlier described Israel as an "enemy" in a televised debate with his main contender, former foreign minister and Arab League chief Amr Moussa.

In Saturday's interview with the private Egyptian CBC satellite station, he said he had opposed the treaty since its implementation. "I still view the peace treaty as a national security threat to Egypt, and it must be revised."

"It is a treaty that forbids Egypt from exercising full sovereignty in the Sinai and allows Israelis to enter Sinai without visas, while they need visas for Cairo," he said.

The treaty, in which Israel withdrew from the Sinai after capturing it in a 1967 war, does not allow Egypt a military presence in parts of the peninsula.

Abul Fotouh said Israel was "a racist state with 200 nuclear warheads" that continued to pose a threat to Egypt.

A moderate Islamist with support from both hardline fundamentalists and liberals, Abul Fotouh refused to describe Bin Laden as a terrorist, saying the term was used by the United States to "hit Muslim interests."

But he said the killing of the Saudi militant was an "act of state terrorism," and Bin Laden had deserved a fair trial, although he disagreed with Bin Laden's use of violence.
Fotouh has gotten endorsements from both the Salafi al-Nour party and from Wael Ghonim, the Google employee who was one of the early leaders of the revolution. In a recent poll he was slightly in the lead.

The thing is, compared to other candidates, Fotouh probably is moderate. You just have to move the goalposts a bit when talking about Arabs being "moderate" because it means something much different when applied to Arabs than to Westerners.

Gazans threaten Red Cross and UN. World yawns.

Posted: 13 May 2012 01:30 PM PDT

From WAFA:

A number of Palestinian activists Sunday demonstrated in front of a number of international organizations' offices in Gaza to protest their silence regarding the striking Palestinian prisoners.

The activists demonstrated in front of offices of the Red Cross office and United Nations and blocked staff from entering for several hours, as well as lifted banners calling to end the prisoners' sufferings and denouncing the international silence.

The activists issued a statement in which they threatened to escalate measures against these organizations if they do not take immediate action to support the prisoners.
Ma'an adds:
"Since international organizations remain silent towards Israeli procedures against Palestinian prisoners, they are responsible for their lives, just as the occupying state," youth activist Hani Abu Mustafa said at a press conference near the ICRC offices.

If any of the 2,000 Palestinians on hunger-strike dies, Abu Mustafa warned "the consequences will be disastrous for both the occupying state and the international organizations operating in Gaza Strip."
Here we have a direct threat against not only the UN but also the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Did the ICRC condemn the forced closing of their offices and the threat to their employees' lives? Not quite:
In return, the ICRC said that it understands and supports the demands of the prisoners. "We check the prisoners regularly and ask the Israeli authorities to take all the needed procedures to protect them and improve the circumstances of their detention," said Ayman Shahabi, spokesman for the ICRC.

To Abbas, NGOs aren't for human rights - they're for bashing Israel

Posted: 13 May 2012 11:40 AM PDT

In the latest Crisis Group Middle East Report N°122, 7 May 2012, "The Emperor Has No Clothes: Palestinians and the End of the Peace Process," there is a most interesting footnote number 169:
A U.S. official commented that Abbas had inquired into the activities of the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, two organisations Egypt's military authorities accused of seeking to interfere in domestic politics. According to him, "Abbas asked, 'What are these NGOs doing here? Are they trying to overthrow me?'" Crisis Group interview, Washington DC, March 2012. A presidential adviser expressed similar concern: "My worry is that NGOs can be easily used against the PA, rather than against Israel. They talk a lot about human rights in the PA, less about occupation". Crisis Group interview, Ramallah, April 2012.
According to these two quotes, Abbas sees NGOs as having only a single purpose - to demonize Israel. They have nothing to do with human rights or improving people's lives - they are simply political tools to be used as he wishes.

And for the vast majority of them, he gets his wishes. They spend much more time on Israel than on his own corrupt dictatorship.

So when a couple of NGOs break the formula, Abbas is incensed at how they could dare to actually do anything against his interests!

Another part of the same footnote is also notable, and shows that Abbas is more on the side of the Arab dictators than the protesters of the Arab Spring:
A senior PLO official said that Abbas "believes that the Arab Spring is bad for Palestine and for the region". Crisis Group interview, Ramallah, November 2011.
Despite how the West pretends to love him, Abbas' words and actions show that he is much more like Mubarak and Assad than those who are fighting against the Arab despots.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv - Israel Research Fellow at NGO Monitor)

Israel Inside: How a Small Nation Makes a Big Difference (video)

Posted: 13 May 2012 10:00 AM PDT

From Jerusalem Online U:



You have to type in your email to see this. But you can then be entered into a raffle for a free trip to Israel.

It was screened on some PBS stations last year.

Moroccan Islamists disapproved of her short dress, so they beat and stripped her

Posted: 13 May 2012 08:00 AM PDT

From Bikya Masr:
Women's rights in Morocco have come under the spotlight recently after a young woman was assaulted in a Rabat market by people she called "Salafists," or ultra-conservative Islamists. She said she was accosted by the men because of the short dress she was wearing.

Other witnesses were reported by the Magharebia news portal as saying the girl was attacked with stones and beaten after the assailants said the dress was "too revealing."

Human rights and women's organizations issued statements denouncing the assault on the Moroccan girl, during which she was stripped of her clothes entirely, reports indicated.

Young Moroccan men and women turned to Facebook and online groups to call for protection of individual freedoms in Morocco, including the group "Débardeur and I am fine."

"Though this incident appeared in the media and gained wider attention, that does not mean it is not repeated on an almost regular or semi-daily basis in all the alleys and streets of our cities. It may not end in stripping the girl of her clothing, but the verbal and physical harassment that women may experience is sometimes more heinous and horrible," said Nora Al-Fuari, an activist journalist at the Al-Sabah daily and a member of the Facebook group.
I don't quite get how stripping a girl is more modest than her wearing a dress, nor how beating a girl is less offensive than her wearing a skirt that reveals her shins.

Nasrallah, obeying his Iranian masters, threatens Israel

Posted: 13 May 2012 06:15 AM PDT

From Reuters:
The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah said his group was capable of striking any target in Israel, saying "the days when we fled and they did not are over."

"Today we are not only able to hit Tel Aviv as a city but, God willing, we are able to hit specific targets in Tel Aviv and anywhere in occupied Palestine," Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised address.

"For every building destroyed in Dahiya, a building will be destroyed in Tel Aviv," he said, referring to Hezbollah's stronghold in a suburb of southern Beirut.

"The days when we were afraid and they were not are over," he said. "And we say to them: The time has come when we will remain and you will be the ones who disappear."
As usual, the fearless Nasrallah made this speech via video from an undisclosed underground location.

Why aren't hunger strikers demanding an end to torture in Israeli prisons?

Posted: 13 May 2012 03:45 AM PDT

Given that the list of demands of the hunger strikers covers everything from increased canteen use to restoration of education in Israeli universities, isn't it strange that they aren't mentioning torture at all?

They are demanding things like more fruits and vegetables and access to more cable channels. But not a word about supposed Israeli torture.

The reason is obvious - there isn't any torture in Israeli prisons, despite the bleatings of the anti-Zionist crowd.


(h/t Margie)

Israel creating butterfly-sized UAV

Posted: 12 May 2012 09:45 PM PDT

From Israel HaYom:
At first, it seems like something "Q" developed for British superspy James Bond. The artificial butterfly is handheld and is capable of a vertical takeoff, just like a helicopter. Returning to the Bond movie, we will replace the two main characters: "Q" now becomes the IAI and "007" now becomes a Golani Brigade officer. True, the movie may not be a blockbuster, but no one will want to be the target of this metallic bug.

This butterfly does more than just fly around in the air. Just like any self-respecting UAV, it can also take color images and relay them back to ground control in real time. If you ever imagined what it would be like to be a fly on the wall at a critical moment, this butterfly can fulfill your dream. To explain how it works, Dubi Binyamini, head of IAI's mini-robotics department, takes out a helmet with a visor that looks like something from a science fiction movie and says, "When you put this on you are actually inside the butterfly's cockpit. You see what the butterfly sees. You can fly at any altitude and distance and see everything in real time."

"The butterfly's advantage is its ability to fly in an enclosed environment. There is no other aerial vehicle that can do that today," Binaymini said. "The enclosed structure may be an airport terminal or an indoor train station. You can follow a suspect around without them aware of the fact that you are observing everything they do."

Binyamini mentions airport terminals, but in fact his butterfly can function just as well in forests and jungles. This is important because in locations like southern Lebanon, there are quite a few forests with which Israeli soldiers have unfortunately had to become familiar over the years. Aerial vehicles in use today can fly over the forests, but they don't have the ability to observe the goings-on within them. Hezbollah ambush forces can elude UAVs easily, because UAV cameras cannot "see" past the tops of the trees. If the butterfly meets its planned specifications, it will be able to fly among the trees and plants of a forest.
They are even talking about weaponizing it.

(h/t Elder of Lobby)
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