יום שישי, 2 בנובמבר 2012

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

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Did Abbas renounce the so-called "right of return"? Of course not.

Posted: 01 Nov 2012 07:08 PM PDT

From the Times of Israel:
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stated Thursday that he was not seeking the right to live in Israel, even though he was born in Safed, in remarks that implied a moderated stance on the longstanding Palestinian demand for a "right of return" to Israel for millions of refugees and descendants of refugees.

Abbas also said explicitly that the Palestinians have no territorial demands on Israel in its pre-1967 lines.

Asked in a Channel 2 News interview what he considered to be Palestine, Abbas responded that "Palestine now for me is the '67 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is now and forever … This is Palestine for me. I am [a] refugee, but I am living in Ramallah."

Interviewer Udi Segal cut in: "Sometimes your official television… speak(s) about Acre and Ramle and Jaffa [all cities within sovereign Israel] as 'Palestine.'"

"I believe that [the] West Bank and Gaza is Palestine," said Abbas, "and the other parts (are) Israel."

Noting that he himself was born in Safed, in what since 1948 has been northern Israel, Abbas said he had visited the town and would like to see it again, but not to make his home there. "It's my right to see it, but not to live there," he said, in comments that, if applied to all Palestinian refugees and descendants, would represent a dramatic shift in Palestinian policy.
Is this a change in policy?

So far, the Fatah media has not commented on the interview at all. Islamic Jihad-oriented media that did note the interview so far did not see anything explosive in Abbas' declaration that he, personally, accepts that he has no right to live in Safed.

And Hamas interpreted Abbas' statements as being his own personal view and not an official policy:
Hamas denounced Abbas, saying he spoke only for himself.

"No Palestinian would accept ceding the right of our people to return to homes, villages and towns from which they were displaced," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.

"If Abu Mazen (Abbas) does not want Safed, Safed would be honored not to host people like him."
Since Western media has picked up on this point, no doubt Fatah and the PA will be forced to issue a clarification within a few hours. It would be most surprising if they say that the official PLO position is that the "right of return" is no longer considered a right. Anyone who has read their statements in Arabic over the years knows that it is considered sacrosanct.

So how will his statement be reconciled with the long-standing insistence on "return?"

Here is one way that Abbas' statement can be true without the PLO changing its position.

Paragraph 11 of UNGA 194, the source of the imaginary "right of return," says

Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return...

The General Assembly resolution, which has no legal weight, says that only those refugees wishing to return should be allowed to do so (the word "right" was deliberately left out, by the way.)

 Abbas is defining himself as a refugee who chooses not to return under UNGA 194. But that in no way limits how the Arab world (mis)interprets UNGA 194, and therefore it does not impact the PLO's negotiating position in the least.

This way Abbas can continue the long Arab game of telling gullible Westerners what they want to hear without actually saying what they want so desperately to believe he said.

Other relevant posts on UNGA 194:

The UN's 1950 interpretation of the "right to return"

The part of UNGA 194 that the Arabs ignore

Why Palestinian Arabs will never negotiate on "return"

Efraim Karsh on Resolution 194

The "right of return" is the opposite of human rights

PLO reiterates "right of return" has nothing to do with statehood

Today;'s anti-semitism out of Saudi Arabia

Posted: 01 Nov 2012 03:30 PM PDT

In today's Al-Madinah, Dr. Zaid Ali Fadhil says that what he is seeing today in the US is a fulfillment of the prophecy of "President Benjamin Franklin."

The purported "Franklin Prophecy" has been an anti-semitic staple since it was created in the 1930s. The version quoted in Al Madinah is similar to this:
There is a great danger for the United State of America. This great danger is the Jew. Gentlemen, in every land the Jews have settled, they have depressed the moral level and lowered the degree of commercial honesty. They have remained apart and unassimilated; oppressed, they attempt to strangle the nation financially, as in the case of Portugal and Spain.

If they are not expelled from the United States by the Constitution, they will stream into this country in such numbers that they will rule and destroy us and change our form of Government for which we Americans shed our blood and sacrificed our life, property and personal freedom. If the Jews are not excluded within two hundred years, our children will be working in the field to feed Jews while they remain in the counting houses, gleefully rubbing their hands.

I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude the Jews forever, your children and your children's children will curse you in their graves. Their ideas are not those of Americans, even when they lived among us for ten generations. The leopard cannot change his spots.
Interestingly, he skips one other section of the "prophecy" that is contradicted by, well, Israel's existence:
For more than seventeen hundred years they have lamented their sorrowful fate — namely, that they have been driven out of their mother land; but, gentlemen, if the civilized world today should give them back Palestine and their property, they would immediately find pressing reason for not returning there. Why? Because they are vampires and vampires cannot live on other vampires --they cannot live among themselves. They must live among Christians and others who do not belong to their race.
Dr. Fadhil goes on to say that nowadays the prophecy has come true and the Jews are indeed ruling the US, and America has lost the ideals of its founding fathers to the evil machinations of the Jews.

A comment on the article by the author contains a correction - he found out that Franklin was never president. Everything else is accurate, though.

There are anti-semitic articles in the mainstream Arab media every day. And not once have I seen any backlash, corrections or apologies.

Anti-Israel "peace" group loves Haaretz, goes beyond "apartheid" slander

Posted: 01 Nov 2012 01:00 PM PDT

Much has already been written about how Gideon Levy's Ha'aretz piece quoting a problematic survey to prove that Israelis support "apartheid."

And much has already been written on how Ha'aretz' belated corrections to its mistakes will never be propagated to the many media outlets that uncritically parroted the original, biased article.

But it is not only the media that embraced this canard. Anti-Israel groups masquerading as "peace" groups have also run with Levy's flawed assumptions, and are even adding to them.

"Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East" is one such group. While they cannot seem to find a way to condemn Hamas rocket fire, incitement against Jews on official PA media or Abbas' refusal to negotiate with Israel, they revel in anything that can make Israel look bad. So this bogus survey is right up their alley.

In their gleeful press release announcing Levy's article, their president says "The Israeli government, and its supporters in Canada, rile at the term 'Israeli apartheid,' and have even tried to prohibit its public use here in Canada, yet, as this survey reveals, it is unfortunately all too apt."

CJPME doesn't only parrot Ha'aretz' discredited claims - they exaggerate them. One egregious example:

Forty-seven percent favour the expulsion of Israel's "Arab" citizens, with only 40 percent opposed.
Really? 47% of Israelis want to expel all Israeli Arabs?

The actual question was:
?האם אתה תומך או מתנגד לטרנספר, דהינו להעביר חלק מערביי ישראל לרשות הפלסטינית
"Do you support or oppose transfer, i.e., to move some Israeli Arabs to the Palestinian Authority?"

This is a very poorly worded question, as were many of the survey questions. But it is clear that most Israelis would interpret this in the context of a land swap, where heavily Arab areas bear the Green Line would be swapped with settlement blocs in a peace agreement, obviating the need to physically move people to new homes on either side. (This is especially obvious because the previous question was about Israel keeping the settlement blocs.) The word "transfer" is loaded and had a completely different meaning in the days of the Kach party, but the survey question seems to have purposefully kept it in just so people like Levy could interpret it in the worst way.

But CJPME doesn't care about the subtlety. even though the question explicitly says "some Israel Arabs" they make it sound like a plurality of Israelis want to physically expel all Israeli Arabs.

Because CJPME doesn't care about peace or coexistence. Its website makes it clear that it believes that Israel is uniquely evil and the Arabs are wonderful (their upcoming fundraiser is entitled "Experiencing Arabia" - can you imagine one called "Experiencing Judea"?) This flawed survey and bogus interpretation is right up their alley.

So thanks to Haaretz and Gideon Levy, Israel-haters pretending to be "peace activists" have ammunition that will keep them going for years, the truth be damned.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

Administrivia/Thursday links

Posted: 01 Nov 2012 11:00 AM PDT

Things remain the same at the Elder compound. No way for me to get to work physically so working from home with the same painfully slow Internet connection on my phone.

While I have seen the AT&T commercials touting how their iPhones allow one to surf and talk at the same time, I really never listened to them. I found it hard to believe that anyone would not be able to do that on a smartphone nowadays. But Verizon's iPhone (provided by my job) indeed cannot do both at once, so when I need to speak on the phone, I lose the Internet, even when using it for W-Fi tethering.

And my T-Mobile Google Nexus Galaxy phone, which I love, is having serious Internet issues so that is not an option for Wi-Fi tethering, at least not now.

When an average web page takes two minutes to load, it means that I simply cannot blog as fast as I normally do. It also means that  I will tend to favor stories that are easy to blog - a minimum of links and photos.

So until my home Internet provider is back online, posting will remain light.

Meanwhile, here are today's links from Ian.
The Islamists' Need to Feel Wronged by Nonie Darwish
"When anyone dares to say jihad means violence, or when violence is committed in the name of Islam, the so-called moderate Muslims are outraged but manage to look the other way. The more some Muslims terrorize, while others stand by in denial, the more they confuse, soften and weaken their victim. While one face of Islam is doing the terror, the other face tells the world, we love peace, so please don't you dare judge us by our terrorists because if you do, we will riot, kill, and burn. Both faces of Islam work together; one cannot survive without the other."

Israel admits to top-secret operation that killed senior Fatah commander in 1988
Special ops mission commander recounts killing terror mastermind Abu Jihad — with the help of a box of chocolate and a soldier dressed as a woman
"Abu Jihad ("father of the struggle"), whose real name was Khalil al-Wazir, was deemed a security threat. He was the mastermind of the infamous Coastal Road massacre, a 1978 attack on an Israeli bus near Tel Aviv that killed 38 Israelis and wounded another 70. As military commander of Fatah, he unified fragmented factions of the PLO, enabling the movement to better fight Israel in the First Intifada."
"Lev and another soldier who dressed up as a woman pretended they were a vacationing couple. He carried a large box of bonbons, and his other hand was hidden by the box — except that there weren't any chocolates inside, but rather a gun with a silencer."

Dieudonné's movie 'L'Antisemite' deserves our gratitude
L'Antisemite has torn away the pretextual camouflage. Now it is finally clear: cocktail chitchat against Israel leads directly to cocktail Molotovs against neighborhood synagogues and, most recently, a Jewish school massacre.

Netanyahu, Hollande to visit Toulouse killing site
Leaders to tour school where terrorist shot dead rabbi and three children; victims' relative says he prefers debate over vengeance

Protest planned for Israel Philharmonic concert at Disney Hall

Ireland: It seems we are very selective about what makes us angry in this country
"WELL, that was a very revealing week. Had I called Uganda a "cancer" after the revelations about missing Irish Aid money there, by now, I'd be hanging from my thumbs, while the various press-quangoes consulted Torquemada on how to deal with heretics, and numerous columnists would be sharpening their blades on my ribcage.
Instead, Vincent Browne called Israel a cancer, refused to apologise, and the affair -- such as it was -- was over by the weekend. As far as I can see, neither 'The Irish Times', 'The Sunday Times' nor the 'Sunday Independent' even mentioned the story."

The Alan Dershowitz Syndrome
Prominent Jews like the Harvard lawyer have spent years criticizing Obama. So, why are they endorsing him?

Former Democrats Abroad Israel Chair: Obama Soured U.S.-Israel Relations

MEMRI: Grand Mufti of Lebanon: The Jews Orchestrated 9/11 and Were Behind Anti-Islam Film
Lebanese Priest: "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" Called to Destroy Christianity

BBC Watch: BBC's Jon Donnison continues to airbrush Hamas terrorist activity

CIF Watch: Rachel Shabi has "fresh hope" that the Jewish state may cease to exist

Morsi removed affirmation of Arab peace plan from U.N. speech
"Morsi's remarks, as prepared for delivery and distributed by the Egyptian mission to the United Nations on Sept. 26, included an endorsement of the Saudi-initiated Arab plan, which would exchange pan-Arab recognition of Israel for Israel's return to the 1967 lines and a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue.
It also included a recommitment to Egypt's prior international agreements, which include the 1979 peace accords with Israel.
Morsi removed these two elements in his spoken remarks, instead endorsing Palestinian statehood without noting whether his vision would accommodate Israel."

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood says new constitution must be based on Islamic Shariah law

Egyptian night owls decry government efforts to impose curfew
State faces backlash from nocturnal Cairo residents after making move to conserve electricity

Tunisia, a Sad Year Later
A year later, we have no democracy, no trust in elected officials, no improved constitution. Human rights and women's rights are threatened. The economy is tanking.
"Tourism is dwindling. Who wants to vacation among bands of bearded savages raiding embassies, staking their black pirate flag over universities or burning trucks carrying beer? Meanwhile, our government and puppet president watch, without arresting these Salafist extremists."

Norwegian Islamist held for offering to 'protect' Jews with AK-47
Security stepped up at main Oslo Synagogue after comment posted to Facebook

European Jewish Association calls for protection of Ukrainian Jews
Move follows unprecedented electoral gains of anti-Semitic, ultranationalist Svoboda party

Italy, Land of Islam
Education minister Profumo proposed that Islam be taught in public schools alongside Catholicism. Nazification of Israel ruled free speech.
"Meanwhile, the Italian judges are apologetic about hatred. Ucoii, the largest Islamic organization in Italy, published an ad in many mainstream newspapers entitled "Nazi Bloodshed Yesterday, Israeli Bloodshed Today". An Italian court ruled that the Nazification of Israel came under "freedom of expression" and was not a case of incitement to hatred."

Thousands of Texas Christians Rally for Israel
Thousands of Christian Zionists came together at a Texas megachurch on Sunday night to rally in support for Israel, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

Victim of Burgas Attack Celebrates 25th Birthday, Looks to Future
The Algemeiner spoke with Daniel on his 25th birthday, an event hosted by the One Heart One Hope Foundation. An especially sweet occasion considering that only a few months earlier he was nearly killed by a terrorist attack on his tour bus in Burgas, Bulgaria that killed seven others.

IDF Blog: Infographic: Last week, 32,800 Tons of Goods Entered Gaza

Jewish groups begin Sandy relief efforts
Union of Reform Judaism, Jewish Federations of North America establish aid funds

Egyptian Salafi "vice" squad attempts to cut off man's tongue

Posted: 01 Nov 2012 08:30 AM PDT

We've discussed Saudi Arabia's official religious police before, but in Egypt the unofficial "vice squad" is already out of control. From Al Arabiya:
The "Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Authority" group , in Egypt's eastern city of Suez has attacked a man for not allowing them to use his private toilet and ordered to cut his brother's tongue for "cursing" Islam.

Ahmed Gharib, this week told the online newspaper, al-Mowjaz, that the problem started as he was in his shop, in the El-Arbeen area in Suez, when a "bearded man" rushed inside to use the bathroom.

"I told him that he needs to ask for permission to use the toilet," said Gharib, "but he just responded with 'we do not ask for permission,'" he added.

A few minutes later, a group of 30 "bearded" men reportedly came to Gharib's shop and said they wanted to "discipline him for insulting a religious figure," reported the newspaper.

"They tied me down and assaulted me," said Gharib. "They tried to cut off my hand for reaching for one of them," he added.

They were unable to cut off his hand, however, as passersby intervened to stop the fight. But Gharib sustained deep cuts.

Gharib's brother, who had reached the shop later, angered with what had happened to his brother insulted the men so the "Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" group ordered the cutting of the young man's tongue as they claimed that he cursed Islam.

"They tried to catch him to carry out the order but he managed to escape with the help of neighbors," said Gharib.

The father of the two men had to report the incident to police after the group refused to leave and remained waiting for the brother outside his home's doorstep.

A political activist, Fawazi Abdul al-Fatah, also confirmed the incident and said that the group remained in search of the young man and members of the neighborhood had to guard the man's house.

The incident is the latest in a series of events where extremist groups, mainly Salafis, have carried out attacks against Egyptian citizens to prevent them from carrying out what they say is the "vice," prompting fears among human right activists and liberalists of the deteriorating status of personal freedoms.

In July this year the same group stabbed to death university student Ahmed Hussein Eid for walking alone with his fiancée.

"We see groups of them [Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice commission] roaming the streets of Suez but authorities insist on denying their existence," said Fatah.

Israel offers help to Jordan on water, natural gas. No one reports it.

Posted: 01 Nov 2012 06:30 AM PDT

Jordan is having serious problems with shortages of both water and natural gas.

From AFP, October 1:
Many ordinary Jordanians, as well as others in government circles, complain that tens of thousands of Syrian refugees who have fled from the conflict at home are draining the country's meager water resources.

In recent weeks, people have demonstrated in southern and northern villages for not receiving water for the past two months, burning tyres, blocking roads and seizing a Water Authority tanker.

Their only alternative is to buy from private suppliers at grossly inflated prices, or even steal it.

"This summer has been tough and hot, and the increasing Syrian refugees and sometimes tourists have added pressures to water resources," Water Authority Secretary General Fayez Bataineh told AFP.

And Asharq al-Awsat talks about how Egyptian supplies of natural gas to Jordan have been interrupted many times this year. They spin a conspiracy theory of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood wanting to destabilize Jordan, which is far from convincing - it appears that there were technical problems as domestic Egyptian demands caused a shortage, and Egypt is even now importing gas just to be able to re-export it according to agreements.

Buried in an article critical of the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty at Jordanian newspaper Al Ghad, we see something very interesting:
Months ago, Israel supplied Jordan with three million cubic meters of water beyond the annual quantities agreed upon in accordance with the Treaty; this water went mostly for the consumption of Syrian refugees residing north of the Kingdom.

Months before that, Israel also offered to sell the Kingdom natural gas at cost in the face of the disruption of the supply of Egyptian gas....But this offer requires a pipeline from the territory of Jordan towards the network that supplies Israel with natural gas, and could trigger an internal political storm.

So while Jordanians are protesting against peace with Israel, Israel is quietly working behind the scenes to help Jordan with its two most pressing needs.

This makes it crystal clear how much that right-wing hawkish satanic Likud government of the Zionist entity  wants peace and stability in the entire region.

Maybe if journalists would do their jobs, we - and the Arab people - would know these things.


(The article also notes how Israel is negotiating with Jordan to allow them to sell produce to European markets through Israel's ports on the Mediterranean. In addition, some 30,000 Israelis - mostly businessmen - crossed the Allenby Bridge to Jordan in 2011. Israel exported over $209 million of goods to Jordan last year, most of which gets relabeled and resold to Gulf Arab states at a profit.)

(h/t Zvi)

Western money goes to terrorists, not peace

Posted: 01 Nov 2012 03:33 AM PDT

From the Wall Street Journal:

A report by Palestinian Media Watch recently revealed that British taxpayers have been paying salaries to terrorists. It revealed that £3 million every month is paid by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in salaries to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The salaries come from the PA's general budget. That "general budget" is kindly provided by the U.K., among other EU countries.

Many British taxpayers, struggling to pay their family's way through a recession, might rightly wonder why their money is going to pay as much as £2,000 a month to people serving the longest sentences—those who have targeted Israeli buses and other civilian targets with suicide bombers, for instance. That is higher than the average wage in nearly all of Britain. You might be forgiven for wondering, if you were a struggling teaching assistant in the North of England, why failing to tick "suicide bomber" on your careers form should have left you so much worse off than a terrorist in the Middle East.

Meanwhile:
The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, where students from Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority learn together, may not open its gates in the next academic year.

Located in the southern kibbuz of Ketura, the institute was established in 1996 as an engine for the vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace. This is the only place in the Middle East dealing with the common environmental problems of Israel and its neighbors.

"From my point of view it's a severe blow," explained Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed, director of the institute's Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation. "We won't have partners on the other side, the environmental problems won't go away and it will be increasingly difficult to solve them."

The institute, Abu Hamad says, doesn't only promote international cooperation, but peace between peoples as well.

"We need $1.5 million to begin 2013. Some donors promised us hundreds of thousands of dollars over a span of years, but those contributions have shrunk or vanished."

Yes, the terrorists get paid far more every month than a real example of cooperation and peace needs to start its academic year.

No one in the "pro-Palestinian" crowd supports the existence of real peace programs between Israel and the Arabs. Because they aren't "pro-Palestinian" at all - but anti-Israel.
Both those stories are worth reading in full for other reasons.

The British story notes how Britain's International Development Minister Alan Duncan adamantly refuses to accept the evidence and insists that paying these prisoners - whose payscale increases with the time they are in prison - is really "social welfare."

The Arava story notes that the institute has to hide the fact that it is in Israel when recruiting students from Jordan.

(h/t Ian, Zvi)
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