Elder of Ziyon Daily News

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• Happy Birthday Israel video (MFA)
• Arab media roundup: Egyptian Jewish leader dies, Hamas upset over women's clothing, PLO freaks out over Baird visit
• Egyptian Islamist denies "union with Israel" statement
• Saturday Links

Happy Birthday Israel video (MFA) Posted: 13 Apr 2013 11:00 PM PDT

Arab media roundup: Egyptian Jewish leader dies, Hamas upset over women's clothing, PLO freaks out over Baird visit Posted: 13 Apr 2013 08:15 PM PDT Woman leader of Egypt's disappearing Jewish community dies: The leader of Egypt's dwindling and aging Jewish community, known for her tireless work preserving synagogues and a once-sprawling Jewish cemetery, died Saturday at the age of 82. Carmen Weinstein will be buried on Thursday in the Bassatine cemetery she herself worked to save since 1978. It is the only Jewish cemetery left in Cairo and is the largest in Egypt. The transformation of Bassatine mirrors the dramatic changes Egypt has undergone as its population skyrocketed and poverty grew. Named in Arabic after its gardens, the cemetery is now a slum of tightly-packed redbrick apartment buildings that house thousands of poor Egyptians after waves of migration from villages in southern Egypt. Parts of Bassatine were turned into a garbage dump, while another area was seized by antiquities' officials. Weinstein was able to preserve a small area as a Jewish cemetery. Hamas cracks down on women's clothing stores: Hamas officials Saturday prevented men in the Gaza Strip from working in stores that sell women's clothing, as well as the display of women's clothing in front of shops, said residents of the sector. A witness stated that verbal altercations occurred between members of Hamas and a number of dealers and sellers of women's apparel in the Jabalya refugee camp while trying to impose these new edicts. Christian school gates torched in Gaza City: Arsonists set fire to the main gates of a Christian school in Gaza City on Saturday, witnesses said. Unidentified assailants set fire to the entrance of the Holy Family School in the early hours of Saturday, with no injuries reported. Unnamed Arab "dignitaries" sign petition demanding Britain apologize for Balfour Declaration (from Hamas media): 220 Palestinian, Arab, and international personalities signed a memorandum demanding the UK to apologize for the Balfour Declaration. The International Campaign to demand Britain to apologize for the Balfour Declaration said in a press statement on Thursday that the signing of the memo took place during a conference held in Cairo from April 4 to 6, in the presence of a group of dignitaries from around the Arab and Muslim world. The campaign added that the signatories to the petition were parliamentarians, scholars, academics, journalists, politicians, researchers, heads of associations, doctors, engineers and writers, from different Arab, Islamic and Western countries. International Campaign to demand Britain to apologize for the Balfour Declaration has been officially launched in London on January 19 during an academic conference organized by the Palestinian Return Center. The campaign aims to collect one million signatures within five years to be submitted to the British government to demand it to apologize to the Palestinian people for the Balfour Declaration. Erekat freaks over Baird visit The PLO lodged an official complaint with Canada on Friday after its foreign minister attended a meeting with an Israeli leader in East Jerusalem. John Baird broke a widely observed diplomatic taboo when he met with Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni at her office in East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967. Such meetings are normally avoided by visiting diplomats over concerns they could be seen as legitimizing Israel's annexation of the city's eastern sector. In the complaint, obtained by Ma'an, a senior PLO official blasted the move. "Your recent meeting with Israeli officials in East Jerusalem has the effect of attempting to legitimize the illegal situation on the ground and may be deemed as aiding, abetting or otherwise assisting illegal Israeli policies," Saeb Erekat wrote in the message to Canada's representative office. "As such, Canada's actions are tantamount to complicity in ongoing Israeli violations of the international laws of war. ... these violations are being (perpetrated) not only against the State of Palestine and the Palestinian people, but against the international community as a whole." In London, Baird rejected criticism over the visit. "I'm just not interested in getting into the semantic argument about whether you have a meeting with one person on one side of the street (and) it's OK, and you have a meeting on the other side of street and it's not," he told reporters covering the G8 summit, according to the National Post newspaper. The Justice Ministry is two blocks from the Green Line. View Larger Map

Egyptian Islamist denies "union with Israel" statement Posted: 13 Apr 2013 06:35 PM PDT On Friday, I noted a story where an Egyptian Islamist said "Egyptians 'would love' to be part of an Islamic Union model which will bring together not only the Muslim countries but Israel as well to discuss how to solve regional conflicts." I predicted some serious backtracking this coming week. Well, it happened even faster than I thought it would: A prominent Islamist member of the Egyptian parliament denied on Friday telling a Turkish television that Egyptians "would love" to be part of an Islamic Union in which Israel, Russia and Armenia can participate. Abdulmawgoud Dardery, head of the Foreign Relations Committee at Egypt's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), described the idea of Egyptians taking part in a union with the Jewish state as "imaginary." I guess Dardery values his life. (h/t American Infidels)

Saturday Links Posted: 13 Apr 2013 05:00 PM PDT From Ian: Barry Rubin: Snapshots: Personal Experiences in the Real Middle East --The left-wing American peace activist lectures the Fatah man, who has told the American honestly that he wants to wipe out Israel and replace it with a Palestinian state, on how he must sound more moderate in order to gain Western support. --A young Israeli who has just left the army describes how his first job in the army was to register guns given to the Palestinian forces to maintain security and prevent terrorism. His last duty before leaving is capturing Palestinian terrorists and sometimes recognizing—by checking the serial numbers—the guns he helped issue to the Palestinian police a couple of years earlier. --The editor of a major newspaper who changes the reporter's story because it said that Hanan Ashrawi voted not to change the PLO National Charter (which called for wiping Israel off the map). Since, the editor said, Ashrawi was a moderate she could not possibly have voted that way. How did the journalist know about the true story? The journalist was standing outside the hall in Gaza where the meeting was taking place and asked Ashrawi how she voted. Israel Sees Jordan: Things are Not All Quiet on the Eastern Front A recent Jordanian-Arab Palestinian agreement to prevent the Judaization of Jerusalem, and an overwhelming majority of the Jordanian parliament urging prison release for the mass murderer of Israeli schoolgirls, reveal things are not all quiet on the Eastern front. Obama Budget Attempts to Resume UNESCO Defunding Over Recognition of 'Palestine' The Obama administration is trying to circumvent U.S. law dating back to 1990 by asking Congress to resume the funding of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Kerry asks Abbas, Fayyad to bury the hatchet Palestinian Authority president to meet in Ramallah with resigning prime minister, an American-trained, West-backed economist Palestinian Arab Museum that "Rewrites" History Funded by the West (VIDEO) In a video celebrating the museum's launch the claim is made that Palestine was home to "one of the most infuential [sic] cultures the world has ever seen" but that the fabric of the nation was torn apart by "dispossession" and "forced exile" in the 20th century. Canada's FM Meets Livni in Eastern Jerusalem, PA Fumes The Palestinian Authority is fuming after Canada's Foreign Minister, John Baird, met Israel's Justice Minister Tzipi Livni in her eastern Jerusalem office this week. Such a move is normally avoided by visiting diplomats since world countries do not recognize Israel's sovereignty over eastern Jerusalem, which it liberated during the 1967 Six Day War. Hezbollah Must be Called Terror Organization by EU, Says Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird is calling on the 27-member European Union to join Canada in recognizing Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. IDF troops come under fire along Syrian border An IDF patrol in the Golan Heights came under artillery and small arms fire Friday from Syrian forces. No injuries were reported, but damage was inflicted to an IDF vehicle, according to an Israel Radio report. The IDF Spokesperson reported that no damage was reported. Swedish mayor who opposes anti-Israel vitriol attacked A Swedish mayor working to stop anti-Israel propaganda from being sold at a municipal cultural center was assaulted. Mats Green, mayor of Jonkoping, was lightly wounded in an attack April 7 outside his home when two men struck him and kicked him, the news site nyheter24 reported. NY teacher asks students why Jews are evil Teacher may face discipline after giving writing assignment as part of a class project to demonstrate how Nazis thought. An Albany, New York high school English teacher who asked students to imagine they were Nazis and give reasons why Jews were evil may be disciplined, a school district spokesman said on Friday. Portuguese Architect Defies BDS Bullies & Accepts Israeli Prize Nevertheless, Mr Souto de Moura, despite apparently critising Israeli policy in the past, has withstood the badgering and announced that he will in fact be accepting the Wolf Prize. To judge from the invective spewed out by some of its representatives on social media, the response of the BDS movement is much beating of breasts and gnashing of teeth. Before Jackie Robinson, there was Hank Greenberg This year, filmmaker Brian Helgeland taps into this time of year when baseball is on the brain with the release of his Jackie Robinson biopic, "42," premiering in theaters across the US on Friday, April 12. Helgeland's film tells the story of the first African American to play in the major leagues in the modern era. Holocaust-Era British Rabbi will Receive Award for Rescue of 300 Children The UK's Department for Communities on Monday will posthumously honor a British rabbi who saved about 300 Jewish children during the Second World War as a British hero of the Holocaust.

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