יום חמישי, 7 במרץ 2013

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Link to Elder of Ziyon

Egypt making a power play to screw Israel in the Mediterranean?

Posted: 06 Mar 2013 05:00 PM PST

There was a somewhat cryptic article in Egypt Independent today:
The Shura Council's legislative committee approved a draft law submitted Wednesday cancelling current maritime borders of an economic zone between Egypt and Cyprus.

The proposed bill was submitted by MP Khaled Abdel Qader Ouda, who said the agreement was signed by Cyprus and Israel in February 2003.

He said this invalidates the deal since Egypt had the right to be present at the signing, according to international agreements.

Ouda argues that the renegotiation could mean billions of dollars for Egypt.

The draft law calls for the creation of new borders surrounding the economic zone in the presence of Turkey as a third party.
Apparently, Ouda is referring to the Egypt/Cyprus EEZ agreement of 2003, which states:
If either of the two Parties is engaged in negotiations aimed at the delimitation of its exclusive economic zone with another State, that Party, before reaching a final agreement with the other State, shall notify and consult the other Party, if such delimitation is in connection with coordinates 1 or 8.
Egypt apparently is claiming that the 2010 Israel/Cyprus EEZ agreement is subject to Egypt's approval, and Egypt is (retroactively?) disapproving it.

Coordinate 8 in the Egypt/Cyprus agreement happens to be coordinate 12 in the Israel/Cyprus agreement,32º 53' 20" latitude and 32º 58' 20" longitude, seen here:



Lebanon has also challenged the Israel/Cyprus agreement. 

But if Egypt is trying to bring Turkey into this, to carve up the areas now assigned to Israel and Cyprus, it might really turn into a mess. 

This is worth watching.

(h/t JE)

Storming Jews "performing Talmudic rituals" again! (video)

Posted: 06 Mar 2013 02:30 PM PST

From Kuwait's Al Qabas:
Jewish extremists stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem this morning and performed Talmudic and Jewish rituals in the courtyards.

Local radio stations said that a number of Jewish extremists stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection and guard of the Israeli occupation forces to perform Talmudic ritual in patios at Sur Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Scuffles occurred between those stationed in Al-Aqsa Mosque and the occupation forces after the raid, injuring two of those stationed in the Mosque.
From the Al Aqsa Foundation site we can see a video of exactly how provocative those "Jewish extremists" are, as they peacefully walk around while being screamed at by a crowd of Muslim women. Those violent "Israeli occupation forces" are politely shooing them away from the peaceful Jews.

Wednesday Links Part 2

Posted: 06 Mar 2013 01:00 PM PST

From Ian:
Dutch Youngsters on TV: "Too Bad Not All Jews Were Killed"
"What would happen if the word Muslim were substituted for Jew?" asked a writer about the hate-filled video that elicited only apathy.
Arutz Sheva was sent this shocking video of a broadcast on the Dutch Nederland 2 station that took place on the 17th of February. The interviewer is a volunteer youth worker Mehmet Sahin who tries to reeducate Turkish youngsters in Arnhem, a major city in the eastern part of the Netherlands.
For over a week there was hardly any reaction in the Netherlands. Nine days later, one well-known columnist, Elma Drayer, published an article in the Dutch daily Trouw in which she wrote how scandalous it was that there had been no reaction.
She wrote that if Dutch youngsters had said on television that it would have been a good thing had all Muslims been slaughtered, including little babies, there would have been massive reactions about how horrible this was.
U.N. seeks more than $10 billion in humanitarian aid
The United Nations and humanitarian agencies are seeking $10.4 billion in aid to assist millions of people in Syria and 23 other countries, a top U.N. official said in Brazil on Tuesday.
"We and our humanitarian partners are seeking $10.4 billion this year to help more than 57 million people in 24 countries with some of the world's most pressing crises," Valerie Amos, the visiting U.N. emergency relief coordinator, said.
U.S. urges ban on drunk diplomats at UN budget debates
The United States called on Monday for a ban on drunk diplomats at budget debates at the United Nations.
"We make the modest proposal that the negotiating rooms should in future be an inebriation-free zone," Joseph Torsella, deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for management and reform, told the General Assembly's budget committee.
UN Watch: Michael Coren & Hillel Neuer - The U.N. Human Rights Council



Syrian refugees top 1 million, UN says
Number of displaced civilians from Syrian civil war swells, straining economies of host countries
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said in a statement released in Geneva that the figure is based on reports from his agency's field offices in neighboring countries that have provided refuge for Syrians escaping the civil war.
"With a million people in flight, millions more displaced internally, and thousands of people continuing to cross the border every day, Syria is spiraling towards full-scale disaster," Guterres said.
Al-Qaeda gunmen study IDF patrols on Israeli-Syrian border
Terror groups filmed operating openly just across the fence, weapons in hand
Members of the al-Furqan group — affiliated with the global al-Qaeda organization which has acted in Yemen and Iraq — were filmed close to Israel's border, out in the open, in footage screened by Israel's Channel 10 on Tuesday night.
In a number of videos uploaded to the internet, the fighters can also be seen holding various munitions, including old anti-tank rockets and heavy machine guns.
Pres. of Ukrainian Jewish Congress Targeted in Car Bombing
The president of the Ukrainian Jewish Congress narrowly escaped death after he was targeted in bombing attempt in central Kiev.
Vadim Rabinovich, a businessman and president of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress, said a bomb was hurled at his car as it pulled out from an office courtyard.
Jews hit Malmö streets to counter anti-Semitism
The efforts on the part of Malmö's Jewish leaders appear to be bearing fruit with a young Malmö Muslim, Siavosh Derakhti, who was given an award last autumn by the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism.
Derakhti, a 21-year-old son of Iranian immigrants who has lived in Malmö his entire life, was recognized for setting up the organization Young Muslims Against Anti-Semitism to educate students about the Holocaust.
"Jews in Malmö are subjected to everything from threats to harassment and it's our duty as Swedish citizens and residents of Malmö to react and stand up for human rights," Derakhti wrote in a recent opinion article in the local Sydsvenskan newspaper.
Kippah walks through central Malmö are now a regular occurrence and local Jews appear to be more willing to show their beliefs than before the wave of anti-Semitic incidents.
Peres Honors Belgians Who Saved Jews During the Holocaust
President Shimon Peres kicks off a European tour with a homage to 22 Belgians honored for saving Jews during the Holocaust.
Their names are to be added to 1,650 other Belgians named "Righteous Among The Nations," the highest distinction awarded by Israel for wartime bravery towards Jews in peril.
Rita rocks the UN
Iranian-born Israeli diva Rita performed before UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other international dignitaries Tuesday at the UN General Assembly Hall in a first-of-its-kind event organized by the Israeli Mission to the UN.
Rita and her nine-piece band performed in Hebrew, English and Persian before a full house that included President of the UN General Assembly Vuk Jeremic, ambassadors, diplomats, and leaders of the US Jewish and Iranian communities.

James Baker: The problem isn't that Hamas is terrorist, it is that we are calling Hamas 'terrorist'

Posted: 06 Mar 2013 11:00 AM PST

Some things are so stupid, it takes a former diplomat to state them:
One solution to promote peace between Palestinians and Israelis is to have non-Hamas members from the Gaza Strip negotiating peace, a former U.S. official told Al Arabiya.

"Israel and the United States will not work with Hamas because it is seen to be a terrorist organization," James Baker, who served as the Chief of Staff in the final year of the administration of President George H.W. Bush said.

Baker, also the Secretary of State during H. W. Bush's era, cited strategies used in the Madrid Conference in 1991, where Palestinians who were not members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) – listed as a terrorist organization by Washington and Tel Aviv at the time – to negotiate peace with the Israelis.

"To promote peace we used the construct of Palestinians from within the territories because we couldn't work with the PLO," he said.

However, in spite of Israel, the PLO brought an unofficial "advisory delegation," to act as liaison with the Palestinian representatives.

So, Baker has advised finding Palestinians from Gaza, not members of Hamas to represent people from the enclave.

Hamas, an Islamist movement, who doesn't recognize the Jewish state yet, has functioned as the de facto ruler of Gaza from 2007.
Hamas' targeting civilians and implacable stated desire to eradicate Israel isn't the problem. No, the problem is that the West and Israel stupidly fail to ignore Hamas' support for terror and insistence that Israel be destroyed.

Smart people like Baker, on the other hand, know that the more Hamas insists on - and acts upon - destroying the Jewish state, the more important it is to make them part of the "peace process."

The full interview with Al Arabiya hasn't yet aired, so we will have to wait if more examples of Baker's pure genius will be evident.

EoZNews Video: The Bedouin problem in the Negev

Posted: 06 Mar 2013 09:00 AM PST

While I was in Israel last month I was given a tour of the Negev by Regavim, an NGO that concentrates on the legal use of land in Israel.

A major concern is how the Bedouin have been illegally building villages throughout the entire Negev. This is not a small problem - it is an epidemic.

The problem is not all the Bedouins' fault, either. Regavim is very sympathetic to how badly they were treated by Israel in the decades following 1948. But if nothing is done now, the problem will only get worse.

Israel has tried to deal with the issue by giving them land, but as this video shows, that has not worked. The Bedouin are recklessly ignoring Israeli law and building wherever they want. These are not ancient villages but scattershot buildings all being built today on stolen land - on literally thousands of settlements.

What is also clear is that the people who say that Israel must simply make these buildings legal have no idea what they are talking about. No responsible state should cave in to what is simply theft. And many of these buildings start as mere shacks, but when nothing is done they become more permanent with cinder blocks and eventually fully functional housing.

But Israel does have to offer an alternative, and that will cost serious money.

The current state cannot continue.

Hopefully, this video will illustrate the problem a little better.

  

Wednesday Links Part 1

Posted: 06 Mar 2013 07:30 AM PST

From Ian:
Arab Students Chase British Envoy From Ramallah College
Scores of violent Arab students forced the British consul general to make a hasty departure from a university in Ramallah on Tuesday, according to witness reports.
Consul General Sir Vincent Fean had travelled to Bir Zeit University near Ramallah to deliver a lecture on Britain's policy in the Middle East and the prospects for peace but was turned away by vehement Arab demonstrators, the Ma'an news agency reported.
The protesters also held up Palestinian Authority flags and banners in English and Arabic, one of which read: "I am a refugee because of Balfour" in reference to Britain's publication in 1917 of the Balfour Declaration, which called for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel.
PA nabs 66 Hamas supporters as unity talks fail By Khaled Abu Toameh
Hamas announces that the PA has arrested 66 of its supporters in W. Bank including 32 former prisoners held by Israel.
In a report, Hamas said that among those arrested were 32 former prisoners [held by Israel], three university students, a journalist and a teacher.
The report said that PA security forces also summoned another 38 Hamas supporters and leaders for interrogation.
Ten Hamas supporters were ordered remanded into custody despite court decisions to release them, the report said.
CIF Watch: Sunset over Gaza: A story about Palestinian misogyny Harriet Sherwood won't report
While every perceived violation of Palestinian human rights by the Israeli government is reported, the routine disregard for the basic human rights of Palestinian women, gays and minorities (and Palestinian journalists) by Palestinian leaders is rarely reported.
Additionally, when Palestinians aren't portrayed as victims, as such, they are idealized – their culture and land is idealized and romanticized.
Judge Clears Path for Trial Against French Bank's Hamas Accounts
A leading European bank faces trial in New York later this year after a federal judge found there is sufficient evidence it knew the funds were being used to support a Palestinian terrorist group.
U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry denied French banking giant Credit Lyonnais SA's motion for summary judgment last Thursday, saying "there is a genuine issue" about the bank's behavior with the accounts in question.
Gaza smugglers keep their heads above water
Egyptian military admits that its strategy of flooding tunnels beneath the border has not worked as well as expected
Egyptian military sources said they will step up operations against the tunnels as they have as yet been unsuccessful, according to a report by Israel Radio on Wednesday which quoted the Palestinian Ma'an news agency.
The source said that Egyptian army engineering units are preparing to bring heavy equipment to bear on the tunnels. The engineering units will be provided with special military protection as they work to destroy the passages in order to prevent attacks by smugglers hoping to save the underground infrastructure.
Thousands of Christians flee religious persecution in Egypt
Life for Christians under the government of Mohammed Morsi in Egypt has become difficult. Reports are emerging that up to 100,000 Christians have left Egypt since the Muslim Brotherhood came to power. Some of those have arrived in Moscow. VoR's Brendan Cole went there to investigate.
Ahmadinejad claims Chavez fell "martyr" to "suspect illness"
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has backed claims made by the Venezuelan Vice President that Chavez was somehow 'attacked' by his enemies
Earlier, Nicolas Maduro (Chavez's heir apparent) had boldly stated: "We have not a single doubt and at the proper moment we will convene a medical board to confirm that Chavez was attacked," likening Chavez's case with that of Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, whose death, Maduro said, was caused by poisoning by the Israelis.
The relationship between Ahmadinejad's Iran and Chavez's Venezuela had grown steadily over recent years, with both leaders sharing virulent anti-American, anti-Israeli, and anti-Jewish sentiments. Billions of dollars in investment agreements have been signed between the states.
Bundeswehr 'bullied' by Turkish troops
German troops deployed on the Turkish-Syrian border are being badly treated by their Turkish hosts and NATO partners, a government report said over the weekend.
A majority of the 400 German troops sent to Turkey in December as part of a NATO mission deploying Patriot anti-aircraft missiles to defend the Syrian border said Turkish soldiers did not treat them as welcome guests and were "rarely helpful," wrote Der Spiegel magazine on Saturday.
Not only that, but the soldiers often felt they were being persecuted by the Turkish army on purpose, according to a report presented to parliament on Friday.
Report: Turkish Diplomats Say Shipment of Free Navy Vessels from U.S. Only Halted Temporarily
According to Turkish diplomatic sources the bill that would have allowed for the delivery of the ships, which are to be donated, failed to be ratified by the Senate before the end of the legislative term on Jan. 3rd because "Debates on the issue of the fiscal cliff kept the House of Representatives occupied for a long time. Thus, when the bill came to the Senate, there was a time pressure."

Turkey appoints ambassador to 'Palestine'
One-time close ally of Israel gives consul-general in Ramallah an upgrade

Allscripts acquires dbMotion for $235 million
Israel's dbMotion is considered a pioneer in computerized healthcare information solutions.
Founded in 2004, dbMotion provides a strategic platform for care coordination and population health management that integrates discrete patient data from diverse care settings, regardless of IT supplier, into a single patient record. dbMotion provides a longitudinal clinical data repository with semantically normalized patient data, point of care tools, a physician portal, population tools and an analytics gateway. This reduces the cost of care delivery and enables better physician-to-physician care coordination.

Senator Bob Menendez' passionate defense of Israel

Posted: 06 Mar 2013 05:36 AM PST

From the AIPAC conference, the climax of a speech by Bob Menendez, US Senator from New Jersey:



What is remarkable about this is that it was not part of his prepared remarks. The bulk of this section appears to be extemporaneous.

The text:
While the Shoah has a central role in Israel's identity, it is not the reason behind its founding, and it's not the main justification for its existence. That extreme characterization of that mistaken view is that Western powers established Israel in 1948 based on their own guilt; at the expense of Arab peoples who lived there. Therefore the current state is illegitimate and should be wiped off the face of the map. This flawed argument is not only in defiance of basic humanity dignity, but in plain defiance of history. It is in defiance of ancient history as told in biblical texts and through archaeological evidence. It ignores the history of millennia. Several thousand years of history leads to an undeniable conclusion: the establishment of the State of Israel in modern times is a political reality with roots going back to King David and the time of Abraham and Sarah. The argument for Israel's legitimacy does not depend on what we say in any speech. It has been made by history; it has been made by the men and women who made the desert green; by Nobel prizes earned; by groundbreaking innovations and enviable institutions; by lives saved; by democracy defended; by peace made; by battle won. There can be no denying the Jewish people's legitimate right to live in peace and security in a homeland to which they have a connection for thousands of years.
Notice also that what makes this effective is that he is doing what I recommend pro-Israel activists do - he uses the proper framework of Jewish history.

Too bad too many Jews can't do the same in defending Israel.

(h/t Arsen Ostrovsky)

Turkish "intellectual" says Muslims cannot be anti-semitic

Posted: 06 Mar 2013 02:29 AM PST

Wikipedia says:
Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu is a Turkish academic, diplomat and currently the Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the second largest intergovernmental organisation after the United Nations. He is also an eminent intellectual, author, editor of academic journals and advocate of intercultural dialogue.
In a talk he gave at the Foreign Policy Institute in Stockholm, answering a question about contemporary Arab anti-semitism, this "eminent academic" said:
Muslims by definition can not be anti-Semites. We see Moses as a prophet, like Jesus. Arabs are also Semites too.
Here we see İhsanoğlu goig even beyond the insipid argument that "Arabs are semites" - something that is worthy of a Helen Thomas, not an intellectual - to the bizarre idea that Muslims altogether cannot be anti-semitic!

By definition!

Obviously, academic İhsanoğlu cannot be bothered to look up the actual definition of anti-semitism.

Luckily, the Swedish columnist, Erik Helmerson, who noticed this, slams him, although not quite as much as he deserves:
Of course the Secretary General of the OIC is fully aware of the antisemitism currently rampant in school books, the media and political rhetoric in so many parts of the Arab world. For example, when Egyptian President Morsi speaks of "Zionists" as descendants of apes and pigs his statement is part of a recurring anti-Jewish discourse, as well as the recurring approaches to deny or trivialize the Holocaust.

That Morsi tried to explain away his three-year-old vitriol as being directed not against Jews but rather Israeli policy shows a different trend in today's Middle East, allowing anti-Semitic attacks anytime and excusing them with Israel's treatment of Palestinians. The same excuse has been used in attacks against Jews throughout the world, for example in Malmö.

Few forums are as useful as the OIC to combat the anti-Semitism that plagues parts of the Muslim community. It is bad if the Secretary does not take responsibility.

(h/t Mats Skogkär)

UPDATE: İhsanoğlu also believed the false rumor that an Israeli police officer kicked a Koran, and he condemned it.
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