יום שבת, 21 ביולי 2012

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Link to Elder of Ziyon

"Nine Iranian plots against Israelis and Jews in 2012" (updated)

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 01:55 PM PDT

From Reuters:
New York police believe Iranian Revolutionary Guards or their proxies have been involved so far this year in nine plots against Israeli or Jewish targets around the world, according to restricted police documents obtained by Reuters.

Reports prepared this week by intelligence analysts for the New York Police Department (NYPD) say three plots were foiled in January, three in February and another three since late June. Iran has repeatedly denied supporting militant attacks abroad.

The documents, labeled "Law Enforcement Sensitive," said that this week's suicide bomb attack in Bulgaria was the second plot to be unmasked there this year.

The reports detail two plots in Bangkok and one each in New Delhi, Tbilisi, Baku, Mombasa and Cyprus. Each plot was attributed to Iran or its Lebanese Hezbollah militant allies, said the reports, which were produced following the bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria of a bus carrying Israeli tourists.

Wednesday's bombing in the Black Sea city is listed in a document headed "Suspected Iranian and/or Hezbollah-linked Plots Against Israeli or Jewish Targets: 2012 Chronology," the latest of the nine 2012 plots linked to the Islamic Republic or its proxies.

U.S. officials say they increasingly concur with Israeli assessments that Iran and its proxies organized the killing of seven Israeli tourists in Burgas by a suicide bomber after they boarded an airport bus.

One U.S. official said Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militia, had in the past carried out suicide bombings.

A second U.S. official said U.S. federal authorities' tally of alleged Iran-linked plots in 2012 largely paralleled the NYPD list.
AFP adds:
The Pentagon said Friday that there were "distinctive Hezbollah markings" linked to the Burgas terror attack which claimed the lives of five Israelis.
Also, Walla reports that US ambassador Dan Shapiro said that there are some signs that Hezbollah was involved in the attack.

(h/t Yoel)

UPDATE:
In the past year Israel successfully prevented numerous terror attacks against Israeli targets abroad – most of which were not reported.

Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday revealed never before published information about one of the foiled attacks. He said that an attack against Israelis was prevented in South Africa, but did not disclose any further details.

A very senior defense official said that since May 2011 more than 20 terror attacks have been prevented, including in Azerbaijan (twice), Kenya, Turkey, Thailand Cyprus and Bulgaria (prevented at the beginning of the year) and in Turkey (an attempt to attack the Israeli Consul in Istanbul).

"Iranians and Hezbollah members are incarcerated in jails throughout the world, the senior security official said. "We don't know how long the wave of terrorism will continue – it's global."

Friday links

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 12:50 PM PDT

From Ian:

Latma Summer Series:
Alone in the dark
The stiff-necked sheikh

Prayer to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich

Antique Pictures of the Western Wall to Be Released Online. How Antique? Think Abe Lincoln's Days

Who Will Save the Christians in the Gaza Strip? by Khaled Abu Toameh
"We only hear voices telling us not make too much noise. Today it is happening in the Gaza Strip, tomorrow it will take place in Bethlehem. In a few months, there will be no Christians left in Palestine." — Christian man, Gaza City

Al Jazeera: Mark Regev on the Bulgaria bus attack (Freudian slip at 4min)



Terror Gives the Lie to Iran's Pose as Rational Actor by Jonathan S Tobin
More "rationality" from Iran: Iran Could Ban Images Of People Eating Chicken
"As a last resort to fight soaring food prices, a top Iranian official has proposed a ban on images of people eating chicken on television."

The Arab Education Problem, a Decade On
"A decade ago, the UN's Arab Human Development Report made waves when it found that "The Arab world translates about 330 books annually, one fifth of the number that Greece translates." The Report also noted that the Arab world had become a scientific desert:"

What America Gets for Its U.N. Blank Check by John Bolton

Honest Reporting has more on the BBC Olympics site, inc. Mark Regev's letter: BBC Olympic Coverage Declares East Jerusalem as Palestinian Capital

The BBC's tainted spectacles
"It's of little wonder the BBC has spent eight years and over £270,000 in taxpayers' money on legal fees to prevent the public from seeing an internal "Balen" report"

An inevitable move: Glenn Greenwald joins Guardian US from Salon

Swiss call for moratorium on death penalties in Gaza - (What about the rockets?)
"Following the hanging of three men by Hamas earlier this week, Geneva says capital punishment is a violation of the most fundamental of human rights"

UK Muslim couple convicted of plotting terror attack on Manchester Jews
"Husband and wife downloaded 'Make a bomb in the kitchen' manual from the Internet, cased synagogues and Jewish Agency building"
"This trial has shown the reality of anti-Jewish terrorism in Britain today. It explains why Jewish communities take security and antisemitism seriously," said Mark Gardner, spokesperson for the Community Security Trust, an organization which provides security advice, infrastructure and manpower to British Jews."

Mellanox provides 562% return on two-year investment
Analysts look ahead at Mellanox, which has provided by far the best return of any technology share on either the TASE or on Wall Street.


Also, the always thought-provoking Diana Muir Appelbaum on Time for Population Separation in Syria.

And the always worthwhile Yaacov Lozowick on his answer to The Map that Lies, and his

NormanF is also asking me to post this.

Photos: Ramadan in Gaza, 2012

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 12:20 PM PDT

This year's edition of Starving Gazan photos:

"Switched at Birth in Gaza?" update

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 10:25 AM PDT

Radio Netherlands addressed the issue I brought up, and I commented further, in my "Switched at Birth in Gaza?" post. Since the post has received thousands of views and is still going strong, I decided to keep the updates in that post itself.

Islamist sites have the best photos

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 10:00 AM PDT

From Qudsmedia, in an article railing against the idea that Israeli law extends to the Temple Mount:


Now if we can just get rid of that ugly spherical thing on the left side....

HuffPo writer insinuates Bulgaria was Israeli "false flag" operation

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 08:40 AM PDT

Sometimes you will run across a self-proclaimed "journalist" who will try to write halfway sober analyses for mainstream, leftist sites and go whole-hog crazy in the unfettered nutcase sites.

Meet Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich.

Her Huffington Post bio page says:
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich has a Master's in Public Diplomacy from USC Annenberg for Communication. She is an independent researcher and writer with regular contributions to various online blogs. Soraya is a public speaker and political commentator.
While her articles at HuffPo are sympathetic to Iran, they don't show her crazy side.

Like this:
Netanyahu, one of the most dangerous Israeli leaders, is demanding another war so that he may continue the aggressive usurpation of Palestinian and Arab lands uninterrupted by public opinion and disregard for international laws. The thuggish Netanyahu came to Washington to demand surrender from its puppet master, America, like every other Israeli politician before him. He demands sacrifice from Americans in the firm belief that all sacrifice is justified having witnessed his own brother Yonatan Netanyahu get killed in a 1976 Israeli false flag operation in Entebbe, Uganda.

Lending support to his conviction is the American cover-up of US servicemen murdered by Israel. When the USS Liberty was attacked by Israelis and the servicemen deliberately massacred, the Johnson Administration's cover-up of the tragic event send a clear message to Israel: American leaders have your back, even if you murder our citizens.

Or when she spouts bizarre conspiracy theories about the United States and Osama Bin Laden.

Or when she describes a secret Jewish conspiracy to fool Americans into loving Jews and Israel in the 1950s and 1960s:

Imperative data indicates that Anti-Semitism in the U.S. was at its peak at the end of WWII. ... One cannot erase from history the fact that the United States was so critical of the Jewish people that Woodrow Wilson was criticized for his nomination of Brandeis to the Supreme Court - he was not considered 'white'. In the 1920s there was widespread discrimination against the Jews including housing and "Christians Only" employment advertisements. What changed?

In the 1950s, during the Cold War, a widespread acceptance of the Jews came about. The change, a geo-political necessity, took place with the help of propaganda. In 1953, John Foster Dulles ...stated that "the world religious community has claims in Jerusalem which take precedence over the political claims of any particular nation." ( Dulles speech, June 1, 1953, Israel Relations (6), Subject Series, Papers of John Foster Dulles, box 10, Eisenhower Library ).

Israel bonded the Christian Americans with the geo-strategically vital oil-rich region. Americans 'ties' to Israel required a unity of religions with a strong sense of belief in the ' Holy Land '. Hollywood helped cement the bond with movies such as "Samson and Delilah" which promoted the Jewish male as strong and masculine and "The Ten Commandments", shown in the Knesset ( Moses and Ben-Gurion," Time, May 30, 1960 ) to cement the bond.

America 's most famous journalist, Edward Murrow (who went on to become the USIA Director in the Kennedy administration), led the way to promoting Jerusalem as the city where Jesus walked. Jerusalem as a territory gained importance, was connected to 20th century America and played in the psyche of the American people. Not long after, the tables were turned on Americans.
So it is not too surprising that this Iran-supporting, Jew-hating "journalist" is being quoted by Russia Today:

RT: But Israel is the victim in this case. Somebody bombed those buses. Do you think there is a legitimate concern that it could be Iran, or who else do you think could be possible suspects here?

SSU: I think many in your audience will know that Israel excels at false flag operations. And in fact in 2004, the New Zealand Herald revealed that Israelis tried to steal New Zealand passports in order to carry out assassinations. And they had stolen Canadian passports to kill members of the Jordanian political elite.

I can't say for certainty that Israel was behind this or that this was a false flag attack, but I only look at who gains by this operation judging from their past behavior. And to me it does not make sense that Iran would want to carry out this operation.
How equivocal. She's only 98% sure that Israel bombed its own citizens.

(h/t Zach, Lori, and HuffPo Monitor had this as well)

Hamas blaming Egypt, PA for restricting fuel delivery

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 07:20 AM PDT

Ma'an reports:
Egyptian authorities have restricted the amount of Qatari fuel entering the Gaza Strip through an Egyptian crossing with Israel, an Egyptian source said Monday.

While the Al-Ouja crossing in Egypt's northern Sinai has the capacity for ten trucks of fuel per day, Egypt only permits six trucks to cross, the official said, noting that this amount cannot meet Gaza's energy needs.
And Hamas is now also blaming Egypt, not Israel, for the current fuel shortage, saying that it has documented Egyptian fuel trucks arriving late to the Al Ouja crossing while Israeli fuel trucks are waiting to receive it.

Hamas charges that Egypt comes up with new excuses every day for delays and problems, blaming transportation issues, or security issues, or a lack of vehicles. In a statement, Hamas said that it has heard many excuses from Egypt that all indicate that this is a deliberate policy to restrict the amount of fuel going to Gaza.

Moreover, Hamas charged that the amount of fuel that Egypt is claiming to be sending is not matching up with the amount that Israel says it is receiving and shipping to Gaza, demanding an investigation and implying that Egypt is skimming some of the fuel. Interestingly, Hamas is not blaming Israel for doing anything wrong.

The amount of fuel entering Gaza has not been enough to keep the power plants running at close to their capacity.

Another Hamas spokesman decided to blame the PA instead, saying that they are behind the power crisis and charging that they are stopping the implementation of agreements to build power lines to Gaza from Egypt.

Because of these issue, Hamas is bizarrely threatening to not accept fuel from Egypt altogether, presumably to pressure Cairo into opening up Rafah when the photos of Gaza kids with candles go over the wires.








US officials agree Iran behind attack; A'Jad gloats about it

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 06:00 AM PDT

The NYT reports:
American officials on Thursday identified the suicide bomber responsible for a deadly attack on Israeli vacationers here as a member of a Hezbollah cell that was operating in Bulgaria and looking for such targets, corroborating Israel's assertions and making the bombing a new source of tension with Iran.

One senior American official said the current American intelligence assessment was that the bomber, who struck Wednesday, killing five Israelis, had been "acting under broad guidance" to hit Israeli targets when opportunities presented themselves, and that the guidance had been given to Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group, by Iran, its primary sponsor. Two other American officials confirmed that Hezbollah was behind the bombing, but declined to provide additional details.

The attacks, the official said, were in retaliation for the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, for which Iran has blamed Israeli agents — an accusation that Israel has neither confirmed nor denied. "This was tit for tat," said the American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still under way.

A senior Israeli official said on Thursday that the Burgas attack was part of an intensive wave of terrorist attacks around the world carried out by two different organizations, the Iranian Quds Force, an elite international operations unit within Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, as well as by Hezbollah.

"They work together when necessary, and separately when not necessary," the Israeli official told reporters on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss national security issues.

While the Burgas attack fit the modus operandi of Hezbollah, the Israeli official said, it was not clear whether the bomber intended to blow himself up or had suffered what the official called a "work accident," adding, "We will never know."

The bomber had a fake Michigan driver's license, but there are no indications that he had any connection to the United States, the American official said, adding that there were no details yet about the bomber like his name or nationality. He also declined to describe what specific intelligence — intercepted communications, analysis of the bomber's body parts or other details — that led analysts to conclude that the bomber belonged to Hezbollah.

"This looks like he was hanging out for a local target, and when this popped up he jumped on it," the official said, referring to a bus carrying Israeli tourists outside the airport in Burgas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a news conference on Thursday in Jerusalem that the attack in Burgas was carried out by "Hezbollah, the long arm of Iran."

And Iran's president seems to admit it.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gloated publicly on Thursday over the deaths of Israelis in a terror bombing in Bulgaria, and hinted that Iran was responsible for the attack.

Speaking hours after Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had publicly blamed the bombing Wednesday at Bulgaria's Burgas airport on "Hezbollah, directed by Iran," Ahmadinejad described the attack as "a response" to Israeli "blows against Iran."

"The bitter enemies of the Iranian people and the Islamic Revolution have recruited most of their forces in order to harm us," he said in a speech reported by Israel's Channel 2 TV. "They have indeed succeeded in inflicting blows upon us more than once, but have been rewarded with a far stronger response."

He added: "The enemy believes it can achieve its aims in a long, persistent struggle against the Iranian people, but in the end it will not. We are working to ensure that.

Ahmadinejad's speech was interpreted in Israel as asserting that the Burgas bombing was a revenge attack for the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists, for which Iran has repeatedly blamed Israel.

His remarks contrasted with a condemnation of the Burgas bombing by the Iranian Foreign Ministry earlier Thursday.
(h/t Yoel)

Ha'aretz removes idiotic piece by Amira Hass (in English)

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 04:45 AM PDT

On Wednesday, Ha'aretz published a piece by one of their resident Israel-haters, Amira Hass, called "The Anti-Semitism that Goes Unreported:"

Here's a statistic that you won't see in research on anti-Semitism, no matter how meticulous the study is. In the first six months of the year, 154 anti-Semitic assaults have been recorded, 45 of them around one village alone.

...It's no accident that the diligent anti-Semitism researchers have left out this data. That's because they don't see it as relevant, since the Semites who were attacked live in villages with names like Jalud, Mughayer and At-Tuwani, Yanun and Beitilu. The daily dose of terrorizing (otherwise known as terrorism ) that is inflicted on these Semites isn't compiled into a neat statistical report, nor is it noticed by most of the Jewish population in Israel and around the world - even though the incidents resemble the stories told by our grandparents.
This is the especially dumb argument that has been used by anti-semites for years, purposefully ignoring the definition of anti-semitism and the history of the term. Helen Thomas is only one of the more recent morons to push this argument in order to push her own anti-semitic agenda.

Of course, Hass actually engaged in anti-semitism in the article itself, by saying that "They are grabbing as much land as possible, using pretexts and tricks made kosher by the High Court of Justice."

The weird thing is that while the piece was of course gleefully picked up by the usual Israel-haters, it has disappeared from Ha'aretz' website.

As stupid as the piece is, it is a wonder that this is what Ha'aretz decides crosses the line, after all the vicious invective in the newspaper over the years against Judaism, Israel and Zionism.

(h/t Warped Mirror)

UPDATE: :The article is still on the Hebrew Ha'aretz site. (h/t EOL)

The victims

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 02:06 AM PDT

Here are photos of the Israeli victims of the terror attack in Bugras:


The Jerusalem Post has details:

The Interior Ministry on Thursday released the names of the five Israelis : Itzik Colangi, 28, Amir Menashe, 28, Elior Price, 26, Maor Harosh, 25, and Kochava Shriki, 44.

Itzik Colangi and Amir Menashe were good friends from Petah Tikva. Colangi's wife GIlat gave birth to their first child, Noya, four months ago, and his birthday was two weeks ago. The couple decided to celebrate in Burgas with their friends Natalie and Amir Menashe, who have a ten-month-old son, Rom. Gilat was severely injured and Natalie was lightly injured from the terrorist attack, while Itzik and Amir were killed while packing their luggage onto the bus.

Colangi will be buried Friday at 10:30 a.m. at the Segula cemetery in Petah Tikva. Menashe will be buried at the same cemetery at 11:30 a.m. Harosh and Price will both be buried at Nahalat Asher cemetery next to Kefar Mecher at 12:00 p.m. and 15:00 p.m. respectively. Shriki will be buried at the old cemetery in Rishon Lezion at 12:30. Elior Price, a student, and Maor Harosh, an electrician, grew up together in Acre and went on vacation to Bulgaria with another close friend, Daniel Fahima. Harosh and Price were killed, while Fahima was severely injured.

Kochava Shriki of Rishon Lezion, was pregnant for the first time after years of fertility treatments. She gave her family the good news shortly before leaving for vacation in Bulgaria with her husband Yitzhak. After the attack, Yitzhak, who was injured, searched for Kochava in the rubble and in the hospital in Bulgaria, and learned of her death a day later.
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