יום שבת, 20 באפריל 2013

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Link to Elder of Ziyon

Hezbollah regards Syria issue as "existential"

Posted: 19 Apr 2013 04:20 PM PDT

From Now Lebanon:
Hezbollah and other major regional Shiite powers have adopted a stance that the conflict in Syria is an existential one, sources told NOW contributor Qassem Kassir.

Kassir wrote Thursday that top figures in Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Amal Movement as well as Iraqi Shiite parties believe "their defense of [the Syrian regime] is no longer limited to religious reasons and Syrian towns inhabited by Shiites on the Lebanese-Syrian border, it is rather a defense of the Resistance and the region," although they have yet to make this position public.

Sources close to Hezbollah said that "rumors about the Shiite party's leaders being restless regarding the fighting in Syria are not true."

"On the contrary, with the passing of time, their belief in the dangers of what is happening in Syria and the importance of defending [Syria] is increasing because the battle there is an existential and decisive one."
The big question for the past year has been, which would be less awful - a likely Islamist victory in Syria or Assad staying in power?

At least for the foreseeable future, I think that weakening Iran and Hezbollah by defeating Assad is more important than the downside of jihadists in charge in Syria.

But it is a tough call.

The last "Hadith of the Day" that the Boston terrorist read

Posted: 19 Apr 2013 03:00 PM PDT

The following is meaningless. But it is still a little creepy.

One of the Twitter feeds that the Boston Marathon terrorist at large, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, followed was called "Hadith of the Day" - a series of Islamic proverbs that people subscribe to.

On the morning of the day of the bombings, the Hadith that it published was:

Friday Links Part 2

Posted: 19 Apr 2013 01:00 PM PDT

From Ian:
LATMA: Obama's advisor on his post-American foreign policy and suicide bomber go on strike



Terror Never Left America's Shores
Terror did not return to America at the Boston Marathon, because terror never left.
There have been more anti-US attacks and abortive attacks (not including Iraq and Afghanistan) in the last four years than in the previous seven years after 9-11.
This is not a statistic that is widely cited at government briefings, in the main news media nor on most college campuses, because our government, media and educational elites would like to pretend that the terror problem ended with Osama Bin-Laden.
National Tragedy Perverted to Promote Jewish Conspiracy Theories
"It is disturbing that once again extremists are taking advantage of a national tragedy to promote conspiracy theories rather than letting the hard and detailed work of the investigators take its course," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "America should come together in the aftermath of terrorism. We should not allow the extremists and bigots to divide us."
Just minutes after the attack, anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists took to the Internet and blamed Jews and Israel for the bombing, according to information compiled by ADL's Center on Extremism.
King David Era Find 'Buried' by Authorities for Political Reasons
Soon the area will be handed over to the PA.
According to Makor Rishon, Antiquities' director-general Shuka Dorfman and former chief of the central front Gen. Avi Mizrahi were called in to look at the find, a year and a half ago and decided together to silence the discovery.
The question is, based on their track record, how respectful would the future owners of the area, the PA, of a site that could prove beyond doubt that it used to belong to a Jewish empire – the very empire the PA officially says never existed.
How UNRWA Steals Money from Those Who Need It Most
But an even more basic reason for abolishing UNRWA is the harm it does to the world's most vulnerable people–real refugees like the Syrians. Were the Palestinians handled by UNHCR like all other refugees are, UNHCR would have the budgetary flexibility to temporarily divert aid from the Palestinians, who need it far less, to people who need it more, like the Syrians today. Instead, it is forced to watch helplessly as Syrian refugees go roofless and hungry while $1 billion in aid is squandered on Palestinians with homes, jobs, and all the comforts of settled life.
Bad, Deceptive, Stupid
Grasping the true nature of BDS claims and countering them with well formed arguments is a lengthy process. BDS uses false premises to mischaracterize Israel in order to justify calling for sanctions against it, while ignoring that Israel is the Middle East's only democracy that enshrines in law and enforces fully equal rights for its 1.6 million Arab citizens who form 20 percent of the population. Israel's open and self-critical society, with its hundreds of human rights groups, attempts to uphold the highest international standards of conduct. Furthermore, Israel has sought peace with all its neighbors, particularly with the Palestinians. In 2000 and 2008, Israel made concrete proposals for a Palestinian state that would exist alongside it in security and mutual recognition. The Palestinians rejected those offers. BDS advocates intentionally ignore these historical facts.
UC Berkeley Votes in Favor of BDS
The Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) voted 11-9 to divest from companies affiliated with the IDF on Thursday, the Daily Californian reported.
Sydney University student council votes for BDS
Sydney University's Andrew Potter said: "The vice-chancellor and the university welcome student debate and opinion but disagree with the SRC on this issue."
Meanwhile, plans to open a Max Brenner chocolate shop at the University of New South Wales, also in Sydney, have been attacked by Students for Palestine, which launched a campaign this week against the Israeli-owned chain, The Australian newspaper reported
Irish official: Israel boycott passed without debate
Boycott was reportedly adopted without any debate or discussion. Only proposer, seconder discussed item on agenda before vote.
Nokia-Siemens puts all its new tech eggs in one basket
If you've ever thrown your smartphone down in frustration at how slow it is, hang in there. Nokia Siemens Networks understands where you're coming from, and is working on ways to fix slow networks once and for all. The solutions it is implementing for its new effort — its Liquid Network architecture — are all going to be Israeli-developed.
Ghana Builds Preschools With an Israeli Touch
The MCI designation provides a framework, advice and connections but does not provide financial assistance—that is where Israel came into the picture. The head of MCI in West Africa, Abenaa Aboateng, met with MASHAV and came to the Golda Meir Training Center at Israel's Mt. Carmel. After reviewing the program and visiting Israeli kindergartens, Aboateng invited MASHAV to partner in developing in the Kumasi Early Childhood Education project. The State of Israel agreed to participate and fund the training programs.
IDF's Arizona Girl Receives 'President's Excellence Award'
Nira Lee grew up in Tempe, Arizona as a Zionist but firmly planted in the USA, until she saw the destruction following the Second Lebanon War during a visit to Israel. Now she is Lieutenant in the IDF.
After she received the President's Citation of Excellence on Israel's 65th Independence Day, she said, "It's a huge honor for me to receive this award. Being a new immigrant, there are certainly times you feel you do not fit in, but the army is the epitome of how this country unites people."

Boston suspect's interesting tweets - "Free Palestine"

Posted: 19 Apr 2013 10:45 AM PDT

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Twitter account doesn't seem to indicate too much extremism, but some of his tweets are interesting:













He retweeted:








Retweeted:

Retweeted:



(h/t Judge Dan)

Salafist leader urges Egypt to allow him to fire rockets at "the Jews"

Posted: 19 Apr 2013 10:25 AM PDT

Salafi Sheikh Murgan Salem is refreshingly honest as to who his enemy is.

In the wake of the Salafist rocket attack on Eilat this week, Salem urged military leaders of Egypt to allow the jihadists to fire rockets into Israel and to support them, because it is an Islamic duty.

"We see the firing of rockets as a religious duty for all who are able, it is a jihad duty in the name of Allah; God Almighty ordered all of who are able to wage jihad against them as Allah says: 'Fight those who do not believe in Allah...' - The blood is boiling in the [Egyptian] soldiers, who have waited long enough for their leaders to allow them to launch rockets at the Jews...

"I think that the biggest danger is keeping the treaty and support for Israel, the Jewish entity, a cancer extending into the body of our nation established by the atheistic United Nations - Israel is not a state worthy of respect. For more than 30 years we have been subject to servility under the Jewish usurpers."

He also called to cancel the Camp David agreements between Israel and Egypt, saying that the Egyptian government that concluded the agreement was forged by infidels who had no authority to act on behalf of Egypt.

Just another day in Egypt.

Friday Links Part 1

Posted: 19 Apr 2013 09:10 AM PDT

From Ian:
Caroline Glick: Israel - The Happy Little Country
The Europeans prattle on about Israeli racism, and threaten to put yellow stars or some other nasty mark on Israeli goods. They ban Israeli books from their libraries in Scotland. They boycott Israeli universities, professors and students in England. In Italy they hold rallies for convicted mass murderer Marwan Barghouti at their national Senate. And in France they butcher Jewish children.
And then the likes of Catherine Ashton expect us to care what they think about us.
Sarah Honig: Another Tack: Amira, daughter of Rosa
The anti-Israel and pro-Arab line that Hass promotes appeals equally to anti-Israel forces on the international arena's left and to rightist neo-Nazi outfits abroad. The rhetoric to which both supposed opposites resort when demonizing Israel is eerily similar. Hass delights them both.
She may pose as the embodiment of humane admonition and hector as the self-appointed voice of Israeli conscience. She may adopt the affectation of doing the moral thing in our name but the end result is immoral and indisputably at our expense.
For Palestinians, human rights begin at home
What is true for the rest of the world is also true for the Middle East and the Israeli-Arab conflict. If we want to promote peace and stability in the region, we need to pay more attention to the true benchmarks of democracy, rule of law and respect for basic human rights, and less on forming new states. To put it bluntly – creating a new repressive Islamic state in the region will do no good. So long as there is no real democratic reform in the Palestinian Authority, there will be no peace, nor will quality of life improve for the ordinary Palestinian.
Barry Rubin: Turkey's Regime Fails Abroad; Is World Champion at Fundamental Transformation at Home
Erdogan's greatest achievement in terms of the international scene is that by his maneuvers and Obama's approval, he has made the world uninterested in the escalating repression in Turkey including ridiculous Stalinist-style show trials of dissidents. The latest event is the sentencing of an internationally famous Turkish concert pianist to ten months' imprisonment for tweets "insulting" Islam and a court decision claiming a 700-year-old church was illegally run as a state museum making possible its conversion into a mosque.
Thus, Erdogan has put together a winning combination: fake victories abroad; repression, seizing institutions, and mobilizing support through patriotism and Islam at home.
The Guardian refers to Palestinian terrorist Samer Issawi as a "political prisoner".
Issawi – who was freed by Israel in 2011 as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, but recently re-arrested for violating his release conditions - was originally sentenced to 26 years in prison for his involvement in a series of violent terror attacks, including indiscriminately firing an assault rifle at public buses, and manufacturing and distributing pipe bombs used in attacks on Israeli civilians.
A "political prisoner" is a person 'imprisoned for their political beliefs or actions'.
No reasonable person can characterize Issawi's crimes in a manner which fits that definition.
It is indeed that simple.
PA Arabs in Jerusalem to be 'Gifted' Israeli Citizenship
PA Arabs living in several Jerusalem neighborhoods on the Israeli side of the security fence are to be "gifted" with Israeli citizenship
According to the State Attorney, the facts of their residence and work situation would be sufficient to grant them rights identical to those of Israeli citizens in nearly every legal situation. As such, granting them citizenship would confer upon them not only the rights, but also the obligations, of Israeli citizenship, the State Attorney said.
Media Mum on Hamas's Razing Roman Temple
As Hamas destroys antiquities, Israeli media looks the other way.
France, UK say they have proof of use of chemical weapons by Assad forces
Britain and France have told the secretary-general they have reliable evidence that the Syrian government used chemical weapons near Aleppo, in Homs and possibly in Damascus, UN diplomats and officials say.
UN Watch: Syria accuses Israel of treating its wounded victims, in UN Security Council debate
And now Israel is blamed for treating the injured
Germans in Bremen, Stuttgart lash out at Israelis
The Israeli couple came to visit a "stumbling stone" memorial for five members of their family who were murdered by Nazis, the Stuttgarter Zeitung reported on Tuesday.
A dispute over the correct subway tickets and registration of the tickets with the transportation authorities resulted in one of the officials apparently praising the murder of the family's members in the Holocaust.
Palestinians compete to become 'President' on new reality show
A cross between "The Apprentice" and "American Idol," "The President" pits young Palestinians against one another in a battle for the coveted title of President of Palestine. Though the victor of course will not actually take the presidency, the winner will receive an as-yet-unannounced prize.

Abbas says unity coming "soon"

Posted: 19 Apr 2013 07:40 AM PDT

Any bets as to whether "soon" will be closer to one week, one month or one millennium?

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas pledged to launch talks "in the near future" on forming a national unity cabinet, following the resignation of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Abbas made the remarks late Thursday at a meeting of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was attended by Fayyad.

"We will hold consultations in the near future to form a government," said Abbas, according to a statement issued after the meeting.

The president has been pressed by members of his Fatah party to form a national unity government that would guarantee Palestinian national reconciliation with the rival Hamas movement.

Fayyad, who resigned on Saturday, was a bone of contention between Fatah, which dominates the West Bank, and the Islamist Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip.

Hamas never recognized Fayyad's authority, continuing instead to recognize its own premier, Ismail Haniya.

"The president must hold consultations with Palestinian movements to form a national unity government and set a date for elections," Azzam al-Ahmed, a Fatah leader, told official Voice of Palestine radio on Monday.

The statement also called for the formation "as soon as possible of a national unity government comprising independent figures" in line with a 2011 reconciliation pact.

Fatah and Hamas signed an agreement in Cairo in 2011, pledging to set up an interim consensus government of independents that would pave the way for legislative and presidential elections within 12 months.

But implementation of the accord has stalled over the make-up of the interim government.
The reason I haven't been posting any "unity" stories is because, like this one, they are fantasy. Even if something is cobbled together it wouldn't last long. Hamas isn't giving up its political power and military infrastructure in Gaza, and that is pretty much the deal-breaker there.

So the Boston terrorists were Muslim. Is anyone shocked?

Posted: 19 Apr 2013 05:59 AM PDT

Many people were fervently hoping that the Boston Marathon terrorists were not Muslim. Some actually hoped they would be white Americans,  apparently afraid that if they were Muslim, it would stoke Islamophobia in America.

Just a reminder: A Gallup survey done a few years back, that was heavily spun to make it look like the vast majority of Muslims are moderate, in fact showed that 36.6% of Muslims worldwide thought that the 9/11 terror attacks were partially or wholly justified.

Which comes out to nearly half a billion Muslims who have no problem with terrorism against innocents.

Obviously, only a small percentage of those would actually perform terror acts. But that is a huge pool of potential jihadists. In fact, there are more Muslims who find justification for terror then there are people in South America.

Plus Canada.

Plus Australia.

That is a lot of people who want to cause harm to the West.

In this case, apparently, they were motivated enough to act on their jihadist terrorist indoctrination.

Naysayers like to say that most terror attacks on American soil since 9/11 were not performed by Muslims. David Sirota, linked to above, says that "FBI data show fewer terrorist plots involving Muslims than terrorist plots involving non-Muslims," although if you follow his links you see that the FBI said no such thing and the statistics come from the Muslim Public Affairs Council. But even if the numbers are accurate (and a glance at that report shows some spinning), that does not negate the huge number of Muslims who hate America, period. Most do not have easy access to the nation they hate so nothing will be done - but some will be motivated. Identifying that threat and being aware of it is not something to be ashamed of.

But, the argument goes, if Muslims are proven to have been behind the attack, then the US might decide to bomb a Muslim country in response. Um, why - because it happened after 9/11? Can you really generalize from that? Indeed, are people in Chechnya now building bomb shelters in fear that the US is going to attack?

These analysts think it is better policy for Americans to close their eyes to the dangers rather than be aware of them.

No one serious is saying that Muslims should be discriminated against in the US. But believing in radical interpretations of Islam is a factor in finding potential terror threats, as is an Internet history of researching explosives or of buying unusual amounts of fertilizer. The existence of non-Muslim terrorists doesn't mean that US law enforcement officials should discard anything they find that indicates radical Islam - it means that they need to add another category of potential murderers and treat people in any high risk radical demographic the same way.

The fact that these terrorists were Muslim is not something to celebrate. But it does prove that closing our eyes to the fact that hundreds of millions of people want us dead is not smart policy. Closing our eyes and hoping that the problem isn't with the millions of radical Muslims who want us dead is not very bright.

Pravda: Israel injecting PalArab prisoners with "viruses" before release

Posted: 19 Apr 2013 04:30 AM PDT

The latest blood libel, from Pravda:
A Palestinian released from Israeli jails, Rania Saqa, has brought to light that the Israeli regime injected detainees that are out of prisons with dangerous viruses.

Noting that Palestinian prisoners suffer from serious and chronic diseases such as bladder cancer and liver disorders, Rania has revealed that the Tel Aviv regime injects prisoners with dangerous viruses before releasing them.

The released prisoner has asked the many institutions and the international community to examine them carefully.

Most former inmates die after being released from Israeli jails.

Saqa Rania criticized the neglect of the Palestinian state to the situation in which the prisoners and their families find themselves and added that "the prisoners are subjected to the most cruel tortures."

A suspiciously large number of Palestinian prisoners are suffering from incurable diseases or permanent disabilities as a result of the critical situation in prisons that they suffer at the hands of Israeli regime.

Recently, the International Solidarity for Human Rights Institute warned that the Israeli regime uses and abuses Palestinian prisoners to test their new drugs, and this contradicts international medical and moral principles.

Currently, about 5,000 Palestinian prisoners, including women and children, are crowded in the jails of the regime in Tel Aviv. Most have not been tried and some have no formal charge against them, a strategy that the Israeli regime called "administrative detention."
As usual, not the slightest shred of evidence for sensationalist accusations. "Most former inmates die"? Well, maybe within 50 years they do.

El Saqa seems to be really unstable. She was interviewed in Hamas' Felesteen a couple of months ago. She
had been jailed for attempting to stab an Israeli officer at the Qalandiya checkpoint. Rania complained about her many illnesses after leaving prison including breast cancer, bladder cancer, hepatitis B, and multiple broken bones. She claims that she has been trying to get both the PA and Hamas to pay her medical bills but they have refused, and she tried to immolate herself to gain attention. She said that first she had medical negligence in Israeli prison, and then medical negligence by the PA and Hamas when she left.

In that article, she said nothing about being injected with viruses.

Similarly, in another interview for Al Quds, she said she needs cash to be treated in Italy but said nothing about Israel giving her these diseases.

Then, a few days ago, she suddenly announced she has money to travel to Italy for treatment, but not enough for living expenses. By then, her story about Israel injecting prisoners was starting to gel.

El Saqa has grasped the basic concept that if you want to get international media coverage - and money -  blaming the PA is not going to get you anywhere. You have to blame Israel.

And, as we see, it works. Expect to see her absurd charges repeated, amplified and exaggerated in coming days.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv and O)

Palestinian Arab "leaders" again reject solving "refugee" issue

Posted: 19 Apr 2013 01:35 AM PDT

I had missed this story from last week. From the anti-Israel Middle East Monitor:

Israel's President Shimon Peres has said that Canada could play a significant role in the peace process, especially with regards to the Palestinian refugee issue. Mr Peres made his remarks after meeting Canada's Foreign Minister John Baird in Tel Aviv.
Ain Hilweh  "refugee"camp - really, prison - in Lebanon

Peres pointed out that Canada has shown willingness in the past to absorb about 120,000 Palestinian refugees and grant them full Canadian citizenship so that they can live there forever. According to Peres this is an important offer as it would "save" the refugees from the "terrible suffering" they face in the refugee camps. As far as the Israeli president is concerned, "Instead of returning to what is now Israel, they can choose between compensation and migration to a country like Canada or moving within the borders of an independent state of Palestine."

Baird did not address the refugee issue openly, but Israeli sources confirmed that following Canada's offer to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in 2010 to allow Palestinians to migrate to the North American country, around 5,000 Palestinians holding travel documents issued by the UN agency had made the move. This was done ostensibly to reunite Palestinian families in the diaspora.
Then comes the blatant lies:
Commentators have warned that this does not make the refugee issue disappear; it merely switches it to another country as the Palestinians' right to return to their land is enshrined in international law. "Canada's offer would simply get Israel off the hook," said MEMO's senior editor Ibrahim Hewitt. "If Peres is serious about doing something to save refugees from such terrible conditions in the refugee camps, why doesn't he implement UN Resolution 194? After all, allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their land was one of the conditions of Israel's membership of the UN which has never been fulfilled."
There is no "right to return," in international law or otherwise, and that goes doubly so for descendants of refugees. UNGA 194 is not international law and its other paragraphs have been roundly ignored for over six decades.

The idea that Israel's admission to the UN was conditional on solving the refugee problem is another lie that Palestinian Arab leaders like to throw around.

Another major PalArab group, of course, rejects the idea that Palestinian Arabs should move out of camps and become full functioning citizens of a Western country:
Hamas movement renewed its affirmation that the right of return for Palestinian refugees to their homeland from where they were forcibly evicted is a sacred right.

It said in a press release on Friday that no power on Earth could revoke that right, adding that the Palestinians were forced to live in other countries on temporary basis and would never relinquish the right of return.

Hamas was responding to statements attributed to Canada's Foreign Minister John Baird that his country was ready to absorb 120,000 Palestinian refugees where they would be granted Canadian citizenship and live there forever.

Hamas said that it absolutely rejects all solutions tabled by Israel and other international parties to dissolve the Palestinian refugees' rights and asks all international parties to stop such "suspicious attempts" that only serve Israel and its schemes and deepen the Palestinian people's suffering.
This has been true for years, and was especially evident when Western nations offered to relocate homeless Iraqis of Palestinian origin who were real refugees - and Arab leaders denounced the attempts to help these people out.

Naturally, the idea of making these people citizens in the Arab countries they were born in - which really does have a basis in international agreements - is utterly rejected by the Arab states as well as the "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas.

So who cares about the descendants of Arab refugees from Palestine? Certainly not the Arabs.

(h/t YM)
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