| The Butler did it Posted: 27 Aug 2012 08:37 PM PDT From JPost: The city of Frankfurt is slated to present the prestigious Theodor Adorno Prize, which comes with a 50,000 euro award, to a US professor who advocates a sweeping boycott of ties with Israel's cultural and academic establishment and has defended Hezbollah and Hamas as progressive organizations. The prize recipient, Dr. Judith Butler, a professor in the rhetoric and comparative literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley, has courted intense criticism in Germany, Israel and the US ahead of the September 11 ceremony.
Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, a Frankfurt-based Middle East expert, told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday that by presenting the Adorno Prize to Butler, the city of Frankfurt is legitimizing a "de facto boycott of its partner city Tel Aviv's academic and cultural institutions," because Butler supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign targeting the Jewish state.
Von der Osten-Sacken sparked the effort to rescind the award to Butler in a widely read early June article on the website of the Berlin weekly Jungle World titled "Adorno prize for Hamas fan." Judith Butler defended herself in Mondoweiss and denied describing Hezbollah and Hamas as progressive: My remarks on Hamas and Hezbollah have been taken out of context and badly distort my established and continuing views.... I was asked by a member of an academic audience a few years ago whether I thought Hamas and Hezbollah belonged to "the global left" and I replied with two points. My first point was merely descriptive: those political organizations define themselves as anti-imperialist, and anti-imperialism is one characteristic of the global left, so on that basis one could describe them as part of the global left. Really? Let's look at the video: Butler says: I think, yes, understanding Hamas/Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive that are on the left; that are part of a global Left is extremely important....Again, a critical and important engagement, I mean I certainly think it should be entered into the conversation on the Left." While she goes on to say in Mondoweiss that she is personally against violence (in the video she is slightly more equivocal, only saying that some on the left might oppose violence or encourage other non-violent options), the fact remains that she adamantly described Hamas and Hezbollah as being on the left - and insistied that describing them as such is "extremely important." She is clearly lying in the Mondoweiss article. She was giving her own opinion as to where in the political spectrum Hamas and Hezbollah fall, not explaining how they describe themselves. But besides the lie, her stated opinion in the video is nothing short of amazing. A celebrated academic who is unabashedly left-wing goes out of her way to describe Islamist groups - groups that are anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-human rights and really totally opposed to everything that progressives say they hold dear - as part of the fabric of the Left, her Left, the political philosophy that she is proudly part of. And there is only one possible reason why she can describe these regressive Islamist groups as part of her Left: because they are anti-Israel. Butler's views are so twisted that she believes that hating Israel is really the only criterion one needs to be considered progressive! Giving such a person a major academic award is indeed outrageous. 
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| "Jerusalem" at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair Posted: 27 Aug 2012 05:00 PM PDT A very cool find by Yisrael Medad: The Jerusalem exhibit was one of the [1904] St. Louis Fair's most expensive and ambitious undertakings. "Gigantic in its conception" and "gigantic in its execution," as its planners described, it was an enormous replica of the Old City of Jerusalem on a 1:1 scale. The largest model of Jerusalem ever built, it stretched over more than 10 acres and consisted of around three hundred structures (including astonishingly realistic copies of the Dome of the Rock, the Wailing Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the Tower of David). The structures were interconnected by twenty-two winding streets and alleys, and were girded by a faithful reproduction of the walls of Jerusalem. Once inside the model, the fair's visitors could take part in dozens of activities. They could take a tour of the holy sites with a turbaned guide, follow "in the footsteps of Jesus" along the Via Dolorosa, and view a diorama of the scene of the Crucifixion. They could take a bumpy camel or donkey ride and shop for Holy Land souvenirs in an oriental bazaar. They could also mingle with the hundreds of Jerusalem natives—Moslems, Christians, and Jews— who were imported to St. Louis for the duration of the fair, and who could be seen walking around in oriental garb conducting religious ceremonies or working in their artisan workshops and booths. Here are some photos: At one point, part of the exhibit caught fire: Believe it or not, this is not my first post about the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. 
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| How Muslims misrepresent Western science as supporting the Koran Posted: 27 Aug 2012 01:00 PM PDT I have been receiving thousands of hits, many from Muslim countries, trying to research the recent Arabic newspaper articles about supposed scientists who converted to Islam after realizing the "truth" of the Koran through their studies. In 2002, the Wall Street Journal wrote about this phenomenon, and that article explains much of what we are seeing today. One of their schemes was to invite scientists, along with honorariums and other perks, to answer questions about their fields and try to manipulate them into saying that the Koran's descriptions match what they say. Oh, and one of the founders of this initiative happened to be good friends with Osama bin Laden. Joe Leigh Simpson, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, is a church-going Presbyterian.
But thanks to a few conferences he attended back in the 1980s, he is known in parts of the Muslim world as a champion of the doctrine that the Quran, Islam's holy book, is historically and scientifically correct in every detail. Dr. Simpson now says he made some comments that sound "silly and embarrassing" taken out of context, but no matter: Mideast television shows, Muslim books and Web sites still quote him as saying the Quran must have been "derived from God," because it foresaw modern discoveries in embryology and genetics.
Dr. Simpson is just one of several non-Muslim scientists who have found themselves caught up in the publicity machine of a fast-growing branch of Islamic fundamentalism.
Dubbed "Bucailleism," after the French surgeon Maurice Bucaille, who articulated it in an influential 1976 book, the doctrine is in some ways the Muslim counterpart to Christian creationism. But while creationism rejects much of modern science, Bucailleism embraces it. It holds that the Quran prophesied the Big Bang theory, space travel and other contemporary scientific breakthroughs. By the same token, it argues, the Bible makes lots of scientific errors, and so is less reliable as the word of God. Muslims believe the Quran to be God's revelations to the prophet Muhammad, as told to him by an angel.
Before the planets and stars, modern science has largely concluded, the universe was probably a cloud of dust and gas. The Quran presaged that conclusion in the seventh century, Bucailleists argue, in a text saying Allah "comprehended in his design the sky, and it had been as smoke." The discovery of black holes in space? Foreseen in the passage, "Heaven is opened and becomes as gates."
While disdained by most mainstream scholars, Bucailleism has had an important role in attracting converts to Islam and in keeping young, Western-leaning adherents faithful. Widely taught in Islamic secondary schools, the doctrine fosters pride in Muslim heritage, and reconciles conflicts that students may feel between their religious beliefs and secular careers in engineering or computers.
Says Zaghloul El-Naggar, an Egyptian geologist who touts the doctrine on a popular weekly television program shown in the Arab world: "One of the main convincing evidences to people to accept Islam is the large number of scientific facts in the Quran."
Bucailleism has been propelled by a well-funded campaign led by Prof. El-Naggar's onetime protege, Sheikh Abdul Majeed Zindani, a charismatic Yemeni academic and politician. Founder and former secretary-general of the Commission on Scientific Signs in the Quran and Sunnah, based in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Zindani organized conferences where Dr. Simpson and other scientists appeared and were videotaped.
Mr. Zindani also is a friend and mentor to another Bucailleism devotee of Yemeni descent: Osama bin Laden. The world's most wanted man has regularly sought Mr. Zindani's guidance on whether planned terrorist actions are in accord with Islam, says Yossef Bodansky, biographer of Mr. bin Laden and staff director of a U.S. congressional task force on terrorism. "Zindani is one of the people closest to bin Laden," says Mr. Bodansky, who attributes the book's findings to interviews with various intelligence agencies, current and former terrorists and others.
Bucailleism began gaining momentum around 1980, when Mr. Zindani became director of a team at King Abdulaziz University that sought out Western scientists visiting Saudi Arabia. His breakthrough came when one of his assistants, Mustafa Abdul Basit Ahmed, presented a leech to Keith Moore, a University of Toronto professor and author of a widely used embryology textbook.
Mr. Ahmed wanted to show that a verse from the Quran, which states that God made man as a leech, was an apt simile to describe early human gestation as seen under a microscope. Mr. Ahmed says Prof. Moore was bowled over by the resemblance between the leech and the early embryo. Since the Quran predated microscopes, Prof. Moore, son of a Protestant clergyman, concluded that God had revealed the Quran to Muhammad. Prof. Moore has disseminated this view not only on Mr. Zindani's videos but in many lectures, panel discussions and articles.
Prof. Moore sanctioned a special 1983 edition of his textbook, "The Developing Human," for the Islamic world, that was co-written by Mr. Zindani. It alternates chapters of standard science with Mr. Zindani's "Islamic additions" on the Quran. In its acknowledgments, among "distinguished scholars" who gave "full support in their personal and official capacities," Mr. Zindani lists Sheikh Osama bin Laden, alongside Dr. Simpson and other Western scientists. Prof. El-Naggar, the Egyptian geology professor who taught Mr. Zindani, says Mr. bin Laden became intrigued by Bucailleism in his college days after hearing Mr. Zindani lecture, and helped pay for the book's publication.
Now a professor emeritus, Prof. Moore declined to be interviewed. Reached in Toronto, he said he was busy revising his textbook and that "it's been 10 or 11 years since I was involved in the Quran."
In 1984, after being denied a permanent position at King Abdulaziz, Mr. Zindani turned to the Muslim World League, a nonprofit organization primarily funded by the Saudi government. The World League provided financial support to establish the Commission on Scientific Signs. Mr. Ahmed, who moved to Chicago in 1983, was put on its payroll at $3,000 a month, and traveled from coast to coast cultivating U.S. and Canadian scientists.
The commission drew the scientists to its conferences with first-class plane tickets for them and their wives, rooms at the best hotels, $1,000 honoraria, and banquets with Muslim leaders -- such as a palace dinner in Islamabad with Pakistani President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq shortly before he was killed in a plane crash. Mr. Ahmed also gave at least one scientist a crystal clock.
Mr. Ahmed, who left the commission in 1996 and now operates an Islamic elementary school in Pennsylvania, says he reassured the scientists that the commission was "completely neutral" and welcomed information contradicting the Quran. The scientists soon learned differently. Each one was given a verse from the Quran to examine in light of his expertise. Then Mr. Zindani would interview him on videotape, pushing him to concede divine inspiration.
Marine scientist William Hay, then at the University of Colorado, was assigned a passage likening the minds of unbelievers to "the darkness in a deep sea ... covered by waves, above which are waves." As the videotape rolled, Mr. Zindani pressed Prof. Hay to admit that Muhammad couldn't have known about internal waves caused by varying densities in ocean depths. When Prof. Hay suggested Muhammad could have learned about the phenomenon from sailors, Mr. Zindani insisted that the prophet never visited a seaport.
Prof. Hay, a Methodist, says he then raised other hypotheses that Mr. Zindani also dismissed. Finally, Prof. Hay conceded that the inspiration for the reference to internal waves "must be the divine being," a statement now trumpeted on Islamic Web sites.
"I fell into that trap and then warned other people to watch out for it," says Prof. Hay, now at a German marine institute.
Similar prodding failed to sway geologist Allison "Pete" Palmer, who was working for the Geological Society of America. He stuck to his position that Muhammad could have gleaned his science from Middle Eastern oral history, not revelation. On one video, Mr. Zindani acknowledges that Mr. Palmer still needs "someone to point the truth out to him," but contends that the geologist was "astonished" by the accuracy of the Quran. Mr. Palmer says that's an overstatement. Still, he has fond memories of Mr. Zindani, whom he calls "just a lovely guy." He and the other American scientists say they had no idea of Mr. Zindani's ties to Mr. bin Laden. And in any case the U.S. didn't regard Mr. bin Laden as an outlaw at that time.
...University of Pennsylvania historian S. Nomanul Haq, a leading critic of Bucailleism, says the notion of inheriting traits from ancestors was commonplace in Muhammad's time. He attributes the rise of Bucailleism to a "deep, deep inferiority complex" among Muslims humiliated by colonialism and bidding to recapture faded glories of Islamic science.
According to its current secretary general, Hassan A.A. Bahafzallah, ...the commission raises about $250,000 a year from individuals and businesses, besides its subsidy from the Muslim World League. It has operated five conferences since 1986, most recently in Beirut in 2000, each costing about $100,000.
The legacy of those conferences lives on. Among other products, the commission distributes a videotape, "This is the Truth," which intersperses Mr. Zindani's interviews with non-Muslim scientists and his commentary -- including the prophecy that unbelievers "will be exposed to a fire in which every time their skin is burnt, we will replace them with new skins." At the risk of making this post way too long, it is worthwhile to read this critique of the aforementioned Keith Moore's use of the Koran by PZ Myers: I've run into this particular phenomenon many times: the True Believer in some musty ancient mythology tells me that his superstition is true, because it accurately described some relatively modern discovery in science long before secular scientists worked it out. It's always some appallingly stupid interpretation of a vaguely useless piece of text that wouldn't have made any sense until it was retrofitted to modern science. My particular field of developmental biology has been particularly afflicted with this nonsense, thanks to one man, Dr. Keith L. Moore, of the University of Toronto. He's the author or co-author on several widely used textbooks in anatomy and embryology — and they are good and useful books! — but he's also an idiot. He has published ridiculous claims that the Qur'an contains inexplicably detailed descriptions of the stages of human development, implying some sort of divine source of information.
I've mentioned this before. For instance, the old book claims that at one point the embryo looks like a piece of chewed gum, or mudghah, and Moore announces, "by golly, it does, sorta", throwing away all the knowledge we have about the structure and appearance of the actual embryo, which is not a chewed lump. I've actually seen these kooks show pictures of a piece of gum and an embryo and declare that they are similar. It's insane. It's pareidolia run amuck and swamping out actual scientific information for the sake of propping up useless superstitions.
You may not have heard of him before, but I regularly get email from Muslims telling me that as a developmental biologist, I ought to follow Islam because of its insights into embryology, which don't exist. Thanks, Dr Moore, you dumbass.
Well, now the Muslim cranks have another coup, having persuaded some other dumbasses to publish an appallingly bad paper in the International Journal of Cardiology, a credible peer-reviewed journal. Or, at least, formerly credible.
The paper is disgracefully bad. It's basically a compendium of an assortment of references to anatomy and health from the Qur'an, endorsing them as accurate sources of information. For instance, the Qur'an prescribes three techniques for healing, "honey, cupping, and cauterization," and gosh, we now know that "Honey contains the therapeutic contents sugars, vitamins, anti-microbials, among other things"!
Are you impressed yet?
Since this is a cardiology journal, the article also finds it necessary to waste the readers' time with blather about blood and arteries. Here's an example of the Prophet's profound knowledge of the circulatory system.
Another great vessel mentioned in the Qur'an is the Al-Aatín or aorta "We would certainly have seized his right hand and cut off his Al-Watín," [20]. Al-Watín has been translated into different, yet similar words, including "aorta", "life-artery", and simply "artery". This verse is taken to mean that if the Prophet Mohammed was lying about the teachings of God, then God would have grabbed the Prophet Mohammad's arm and cut a vital artery, certainly killing Mohammad. This verse confirms that 1. Blood was indeed viewed as a vehicle for life and 2. The artery directly leading from the heart is vital to survival. By analyzing the different translations and exegesis of Al-Watín, it can be safely assumed that it is the aorta that the author of the Qur'an is referring to in this verse.
Hmmm. So a warlike society that had many soldiers running about chopping into people with swords was aware that cutting major arteries would lead to rapid blood loss and death. I have no idea how they could have figured that out without an omniscient god whispering the explanation into the ears of priests.
The holy book also talks about heart disease, something else a readership of cardiologists would find interesting. Does this sound like well-informed medicine to you?
The Qur'an shares with the Hadeeth a metaphorical description of the heart as a possessor of emotional faculties, thus giving the heart many characteristics that modern science attributes to the brain. As is popularly stated in Islamic culture, every action is dependent upon intentions, and "…what counts is [to God] the intention of your hearts…". These actions, whether "good" or "bad" determine the health of the heart, namely if it is a sound or diseased heart. A diseased heart is one filled with qualities such as doubt, hypocrisy, and ignorance among many others. Possessors of such qualities have a "hardened," diseased heart. Other malaise qualities contributing to a diseased heart includes blasphemy, rejection of truth, deviation, sin, corruption, aggressiveness, negligence, fear, anger, and jealousy, among others.
The authors of the Qur'an and of this paper seem to have confused poetic metaphor with science. Finally, read this compendium of scientific responses to the article in the cardiology journal. 
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| Monday links Posted: 27 Aug 2012 11:22 AM PDT From Ian:
Why Sunni Islamism is the world's greatest threat To understand al-Qaida, which of course goes under many names and regional local groups, is simple. It has one strategy: kill!
"One step forward, one step back; tell the Western reporters and politicians what they want to hear. Pretend to be moderate in English while screaming death curses in Arabic.
These are the people who are coming to power. They hate their Shia counterparts generally and will kill them, too, at times. They will drag down their countries' economies.
Ironically, they will succeed in making Israel relatively stronger as they beat and burn and tear down, as they set back their countries' economic advancement, as they kick half the population (the female half) down the stairs." BBC spends a third of £1 million concealing Middle East 'Balen Report' A Freedom of Information request released by The Commentator shows how desperate the BBC is to hide the Balen Report Violence in a Christian residential complex in Jerusalem This occurred on Monday, August 20, from 8:00 p.m. to midnight when a group of fifty boys attacked the residential complex for 79 families which is part of a project of the Franciscans of the Holy Land. Following a brawl between young people of the Christian area and some neighbors, friends were called and they all attacked the complex, yelling, throwing stones, smashing cars and windows of houses.
A number of residents were injured and one had to be hospitalized for treatment. "They do so because they know that we will not respond with violence!" protested David Josef, a father of five children, as he emphasized: "This is the third time this happened to us in two years …" MEMRI: Syrian-French Writer Adnan Azzam Links Syria Conflict to Zionism and Napoleon When the new Germany lost its innocence In almost every East German town you will see people wearing neo-Nazi emblems or slogans on their clothes or on their cars. Even more important is the grass-roots work of that party and similar organizations. They organize community festivals, sport events, concerts and youth centers. Thereby, they establish structures independent of the state and succeed in presenting themselves as the real alternative to the traditional political parties in Germany. IAEA Evidence Shows Israel, Not Obama, Talking Sense About Iran "Time is running out not only on the countdown to the day when Iran will be able to quickly assemble a bomb but until the point where it will no longer be possible to use force to prevent them from doing so. Four years of Obama policies toward Iran have shown the administration to be willing to do nothing but talk about the need to avert this danger. The latest information from the IAEA is more proof that despite the media campaign orchestrated from the White House intended to undermine Israel's appeals, it is Jerusalem, and not Washington, that is talking sense about Iran." 'Isolated' Iran boasts kings, PMs at NAM summit Tehran opens conference with diatribe against Israel, exhibits cars of nuclear scientists "killed by Zionist regime elements." Bulgaria hosts ceremonies for Burgas terror attack victims The three-day visit to include a meeting with the Bulgarian president, prime minister and minister of tourism, as well as Israeli Ambassador to Bulgaria Shaul Kamisa One family not able attend due to inability to pay the $700 ticket to Bulgaria. Palestinian Attorney General Resigns, Known for Suppressing Opposition Egypt: 76 convicted for attack on Israeli Embassy Seventy-five of the defendants received suspended one-year sentences Sunday, while one defendant tried in absentia was given a five-year prison term. Galliano stripped of Legion of Honor At the Tower of David, a glimpse into a citadel touched by everyone but the legendary king Likely built by Maccabees about a millennium after King David's death, the site contains traces of everyone from Herod to the Jordanians Arab-Israeli solar company wins EUREKA grant Yafa Energy could be a bridge over which Arab-Israeli technology finds its way to industries in the Arab world seeking renewable energy solutions.
"Eureka! Yafa Energy has become the first Arab-Israeli company to win a prestigious European Union EUREKA (Exceptional, Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration) grant. Awarded through Israel's Prime Minister's office, Yafa was named as the best technological initiative from an Israeli minority community."
Also: Iraqi Political Analyst Haidar Said: We Iraqis Do Not Possess the Courage to Criticize Our Violent Past ( MEMRI) HuffPo Hearts Hamas Signs Suggest Iran Is Speeding Up Work on Nuclear Program (NYT) Scandinavia - The Liberal Anti-semitic sanctuary (h/t O) 
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| "By next year, Allah willing, Israel will be annihilated." Posted: 27 Aug 2012 09:45 AM PDT From MEMRI: Following are excerpts from an interview with Professor Gamal Zahran, head of the political science department at Port Said University, which aired on Al-Alam TV on August 17, 2012.
Gamal Zahran: Jerusalem is at the heart of the Palestinian cause, and the Palestinian cause is the cause of all Arabs and Muslims. Therefore, the elimination of the Zionist entity is beyond debate, and the only question has to do with the circumstances.
I believe that the Arab revolutions, which broke out in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen – as well as in Bahrain and elsewhere – generate the peoples' hope that one day, Jerusalem and Palestine will return to them.
Interviewer: Why keep it only as a hope? Why not act on it?
[...]
Gamal Zahran: The reason is that so far, the revolutions have not reached the throne of power. It is difficult to transform this hope into reality until these revolutions come to the forefront.
[...]
We are constantly keeping the memory alive among the younger generations, so that they will realize that the Palestinian cause is an essential one. The hope and the memory will later turn into action. By next year, Allah willing, Israel will be annihilated.
[...] The cynicism of the highlighted text is well known to readers of this blog, but it is rarely expressed so explicitly. If the "Palestinian cause" is so essential, it wouldn't need constant indoctrination. If it was so essential, then Egypt and Jordan would have encouraged an independent Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza between 1948 and 1967. If it was so essential, then Egypt would give citizenship to any Palestinian Arabs who seek it. All that is really "essential" to the Arab world is Israel's annihilation, not the "Palestinian cause." They would prefer that the entire area of British Mandate Palestine be turned into an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland than have even a tiny Jewish state existing anywhere in the area.
Also, a bonus MEMRI clip showing some mainstream Muslim antisemitism (no transcript available as of this writing): 
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| Jordanian farmers upset over West Bank egg imports Posted: 27 Aug 2012 08:15 AM PDT Ma'an reports: A truckload of eggs produced in the West Bank was exported to Jordan via King Hussein Bridge on Sunday, turning a new page in commercial relations between Jordan and Palestine.
The eggs were collected from farmers in Qalqiliya in the northern West Bank, who welcomed the step as a vital alternative to the Israeli market.
"This is a remarkable Palestinian accomplishment which enables Palestinian farmers to sell their products to our Jordanian brothers," said Adnan Zaid, a farmer from Qalqiliya. Who could be against Palestinian Arabs exporting their eggs to Jordan? Apparently, Jordanian farmers. A story in Ad-Dustour says that a shipment of "Israeli" eggs were shipped to Jordan - also on Sunday, also over the Sheikh Hussein Bridge. The article quotes the head of a Jordanian farmers union complaining about these eggs supposedly imported from Israel, saying that their prices undercut those of Jordanian egg farmers. Not only that, but he alleges that Israeli chickens have diseases that Jordanian chickens do not, and their eggs can make consumers sick. Moreover, Jordanian egg farmers produce enough eggs to satisfy the entire country. It seems likely that the union leader is lying, and is really referring to these eggs from Palestinian Arab farmers that could lower prices for Jordanians. So he uses the oldest trick in the Arab book - calling his enemy "Zionist" and pretending that the PalArab eggs are really Israeli. Which must be eggsapserating for the Palestinian Arabs who want to expand their market. (Sorry.) 
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| Hamas minister calls for suicide bombings inside Israel Posted: 27 Aug 2012 06:30 AM PDT Palestine Times reports that the Hamas minister for prisoner affairs, Dr. Attallah AbuSebah, has called for Palestinian Arab suicide attacks inside Israel in order to pressure Israel to release more Arab terrorists from prison. He made this call during a Hamas-organized rally in Gaza City. Abu Selah also called for kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. The speakers at the rally said that Israeli policies of solitary confinement are a violation of international law, although I am unclear as to exactly which law that might be. What can be better than a demonstration that simultaneously cites international law while calling to blow up women and children? Why, the venue of this protest - in front of the Red Cross headquarters! 
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| Latest horrible Israeli crimes Posted: 27 Aug 2012 05:00 AM PDT Aya, a six-year old Gaza girl with suffering from advanced leukemia, only wanted to visit the beach. From Israel's Channel 2, subtitled by Sass Video: 
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| Activist blames Jordan, not Israel, for stopping bus at Allenby Posted: 27 Aug 2012 02:32 AM PDT From AFP: Jordan on Sunday barred pro-Palestinian US and European activists from trying to cross into the West Bank to deliver school supplies to students.
"Two buses carrying 100 activists were not allowed to leave the Jordanian side" of Allenby Bridge Crossing, also known as King Hussein Bridge between the West Bank and Jordan, Walid Atallah, a spokesman for the "Welcome to Palestine" campaign in Jordan, told AFP.
"The Jordanian authorities stamped their passports and charged them fees and everything was okay. When the buses left, the last checkpoint on the Jordanian side was closed. No reason was given."
Atallah said the "activists left the buses and started to demonstrate near the checkpoint. One of them fainted and was taken to hospital."
"This was deliberate. Jordan did not want Israel to be held responsible for denying the activists entry," he added. This directly contradicts what they said yesterday: Dozens of foreign peace activists were denied entry into the West Bank by Israeli authorities at the Allenby Bridge crossing on Sunday evening, organizers of the third 'Welcome to Palestine' initiative said.
"The Welcome to Palestine Campaign decries the Israeli denial of entry via the Allenby Bridge to over 100 internationals who wanted to visit us in the occupied Palestinian Territories," organizers said in a statement. AP says that Israel admits stopping them, though: French organizer Olivia Zemor of the "Welcome to Palestine" campaign said Israeli authorities asked no questions and stamped "entry denied" into the passports without an explanation.
Israel's Defense Ministry denounced the protesters as "provocateurs and known troublemakers."
Earlier, Zemor told reporters in the Jordanian capital, Amman, that the group aimed to deliver one ton of school supplies to Palestinian children in refugee camps in Bethlehem.
In a statement late Sunday, the Israeli Defense Ministry called the effort a "failed publicity stunt." It said Israel exercised its right to deny them entry.
"There are no restrictions whatsoever on bringing in school supplies," the statement said. "If these activists sincerely wanted to bring in school supplies, they had countless options to do so. There are no shortages of school supplies in the West Bank." The EuroPalestine site says that both events happened. The first bus was stopped by Israel, and the second by Jordan, according to the site. Of course, the WtP spokesperson says both were stopped by Jordan. But the official statement said that both buses were stopped by Israel ("Israeli denial ... to over 100 internationals.") Whatever happened, we see that these "activists" cannot be trusted to even keep their own stories straight, and any media that relies on them for information is acting irresponsibly. 
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