Elder of Ziyon Daily News |  |
- Economist editorial, filled with lies, says Israel releasing ONLY 26 murderers is an insult
- 8/16 Links Part 2: Falafel Furore at CIF, Fatah threatens Hamas,Egypt's siege of Gaza continues
- 28% of PA Arabs' wages come from Israeli employers. What would happen if that went away?
- Qaradawi: "Even the Jews never did a massacre like the Egyptians"
- 8/16 Links Part 1: Hobson’s choice, Pollard Speaks, Palestinian Heroes, Would Norway Release Breivik?
- Gaza could get lots more goods through Israel, but they choose not to
- Hizballah revealing an alleged military drone today
- Swedish royalty get conned to pose with anti-Israel keffiyeh
| Economist editorial, filled with lies, says Israel releasing ONLY 26 murderers is an insult Posted: 16 Aug 2013 02:45 PM PDT This Economist editorial is completely bat-sh*t crazy anti-Israel. AS A measure of the seriousness of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, the number of Palestinian prisoners released on the eve of talks, say pessimists, is a gloomy barometer. When the two sides sat down to negotiate two decades ago, after signing the Oslo accords in 1993, Israel freed 2,000 Palestinians in a single year. For the next couple of years it released, on average, around 1,000 a year. In later years that number slumped to a few hundred. Now, to coincide with the fresh round of talks that started in Jerusalem on August 14th, Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has freed just 26.26 murderers! By the way, I am not certain about these numbers. In the wake of Oslo, Israel released many prisoners, but Israel also released 900 in 2005, 400 in 2007, and several hundred more in 2008 to entice Abbas to make peace; nothing positive resulted from those "goodwill" prisoner releases. Why doesn't the Economist mention those more recent gestures - and their lack of response? Even this has provoked an outcry in Israel. Many of the 26 were convicted of crimes of violence, including murder, against Israeli civilians. Relations of the victims have carried black banners, accusing Mr Netanyahu of truckling to terrorists.No. Every single one was found guilty of either murdering someone or was complicit in murdering someone. Every single one. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president who is leading negotiations for his side, has had an even rougher time trying to persuade his people that the Israelis earnestly seek a peace deal.The Economist couldn't be bothered to mention that Abbas has been the one torpedoing peace talks for the past five years. Despite previous releases of thousands of prisoners to help him burnish his image. Indeed, many Palestinians deride Mr Abbas for winning freedom for so tiny a share of the 5,071 Palestinians said to be behind bars for politically motivated acts of violence or subversion.I haven't seen any such criticism in the Arab press. Not saying it doesn't exist, but from the tone of the article, this seems to be The Economist's opinion, not the average Palestinian Arab's. Few issues stir Palestinian emotions as fiercely as the fate of prisoners. Almost every Palestinian has a relative in jail—or has been there himself. Human-rights groups estimate that 750,000 Palestinians have passed through Israeli prisons since the West Bank and Gaza were conquered in 1967.This 750,000 statistic is a risible lie, obvious to anyone who knows basic arithmetic. The Economist believes these ridiculous statistics (from Addameer and others). But as we have seen, fact checking doesn't exist when the writer is predisposed to believe the lies. Some 2,300 Palestinians were detained in the first six months of this year alone.I have no idea where this statistic comes from. I can say that PCHR tracks every arrest and lists the names of those arrested. The average has been about 40 arrests a week from some quick sampling, less than a thousand arrests in 7 1/2 months. And most of those do not go to prison, as B'Tselem's statistics on prisoners this year have been holding steady at about 4700 almost every month through June. But catching The Economist lying- despite its pretense of objectivity above all - is old news here. What Palestinians want as a sign of good intent, is the release of thousands, not scores, of their compatriots. The Israelis hint that they will see how the talks proceed—and let more prisoners trickle out if things go well.Israel has said (against all logic) that they will release 104 prisoners, and these 26 were just phase 1. The Economist is implying here that Israel is not going to release them if the talks go nowhere. I would be happy if that was the case, but it isn't - they are as good as released, their names have been published, the US has put the pressure on, and the cabinet voted on it. The Economist knows this and pretends otherwise. So this is just another heavily biased, chockful of lies, anti-Israel tirade in The Economist. (h/t Elliott)           | ||
| 8/16 Links Part 2: Falafel Furore at CIF, Fatah threatens Hamas,Egypt's siege of Gaza continues Posted: 16 Aug 2013 01:30 PM PDT From Ian: CIF Watch: 'Comment is Free' contributor: Israel sparks fury with its postcards of falafel. While questions remain as to where precisely in the Middle East the deep-fried round patties (made from ground chickpeas, fava beans or both) originated, as Shabi surely knows, nearly half of Israeli Jews are Mizrachi – descendants from Jewish communities in the Middle East. So, to suggest that Israelis are 'colonizing' the ubiquitous street food is not only petty, but ahistorical.IsraellyCool: Sweet Irony! Safer To Be An Islamist In Tel Aviv Than In Cairo So in the evil, hated Zionist Entity, Islamists are free to protest in Tel Aviv, and you better believe that not a single one of them fears any kind of violent reaction from Israeli security or police personnel. Fatah threatens 'painful decisions' against Hamas Emboldened by the military coup in Egypt, a senior Fatah official is threatening "painful decisions" against Hamas in a bid to end the political divide that has separated Gaza from the West Bank since 2007.20,000 Palestinians working in settlements, survey finds The survey also showed an increase in the number of Palestinians working in Israel and settlements.Palestinians want FIFA to ban Israel over travel dispute Palestinian sports supremo Jibril Rajoub has threatened to call for Israel's expulsion from world soccer's governing body after it denied a number of officials entry to the West Bank for a youth tournament on security grounds.Hamas Uses Social Media to Crackdown on Dissent Amid Fears of Egypt Chaos Spillover Hamas's fears are not without precedent. On March 15, 2011, youth activists used social media to organize large rallies denouncing the rift between Hamas in Gaza and rival political party Fatah based in the West Bank.Gaza-Sinai Border Crossing Closed Indefinitely Following Unrest in Egypt Mahir Abu Sabha, director of border crossings for the Hamas-run government in Gaza, said in a statement that the Rafah crossing would be closed heading in both directions "due to bad security conditions in North Sinai district," according to the Ma'an report.Suppose the German military had crushed the Nazi Party in 1936 Suppose the German military had overthrown the democratically-elected leader of Germany and massacred his loyal followers, say, in 1936? The world, presumably, would have condemned the blatant use of force against an elected leader even if, hypothetically, a third of the German population already had taken to the streets to demand Hitler's ouster. The Muslim Brothera are Nazis bearing a crescent rather than a swastika.Islamists march against military rule in tense Cairo Tens of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters took to the streets Friday in several Cairo neighborhoods and other towns across Egypt in defiance of a military-imposed state of emergency following the country's bloodshed earlier this week.Egypt: Obama remarks 'strengthen' armed groups The Egyptian Presidency's office issued a statement late Thursday in response to US President Barack Obama's earlier remarks on the crisis, saying that the country was fighting "terrorist acts" and that Obama's comments are not based "on the truth of matters" and could be seen as "strengthening the armed violent groups and encouraging them in their path."US issues travel warning to Egypt, scraps military drills President Barack Obama scrapped plans for joint American-Egyptian military exercises Thursday, announcing the first concrete US reaction to the spiraling violence in and around Cairo but stopping well short of withholding $1.3 billion in annual American military aid.Middle East countries split on Egypt support Saudi Arabia, UAE maintain support for Egyptian army while Turkey, Iran and Qatar back Islamist protesters; Turkey's Erdogan calls on western countries to get involved, stand up for democracy.Egypt Violence Is Not 'Worse Than the Holocaust' A quick way to turn public opinion against a valid and deeply troubling issue (in this case, the military's violent crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt) is to widely exaggerate the death tolls. Another way is to invoke the Holocaust without credibility. Today, a Muslim Brotherhood official did both, at least, according to the Daily Caller.Egypt's UK envoy says protesters 'got what they wanted' Egypt's ambassador to Britain said a crackdown on supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi was not excessive and that protesters had portrayed themselves as victims and had shot one another dead in some cases.Sunni Group Issues Warning to 'Pig Nasrallah' Shortly after news of the attack broke, an online video surfaced showing three masked men, two of them holding rifles, in front of a white flag inscribed with the Islamic profession of faith, reported AFP.Nasrallah not looking quite so smart now It's fair to assume that on Thursday night, too, Nasrallah was internalizing the scale of the mistake he made when he caved in to Iranian pressure and agreed to send his forces to fight alongside Assad's in Syria. Thursday's car bombing was only the beginning for those terror groups associated with al-Qaeda who see the Shi'ites — no less than the Jews and Christians — as their enemy.Insight: Iran's Arab minority drawn into Middle East unrest Arab insurgents blew up a gas pipeline in Iran last week and dedicated the attack to their brothers in arms in Syria, highlighting how the Syrian civil war is spreading into a region-wide proxy conflict that could blow back onto Iran.French advocate for Nazi and terrorists dies at 88 A French publishing house says Jacques Verges, called the "Devil's advocate" for his flamboyant courtroom defense of the likes of former Nazi Klaus Barbie and Carlos the Jackal, has died.Anti-Israel Author Disinvited from University Event The University of Michigan has disinvited author Alice Walker from giving a speech at the anniversary celebration for the university's Center for the Education of Women.      | ||
| 28% of PA Arabs' wages come from Israeli employers. What would happen if that went away? Posted: 16 Aug 2013 11:55 AM PDT The latest Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics labor report just came out, and it includes some interesting numbers. Between Q1 and Q2, the number of West Bank Arabs employed by Israelis (in Israel and the settlements) went up from 93,000 to 96,000. The average daily wage for WB Arabs working for Israelis increased from 167.6 NIS to 172.1 NIS, which would be an annualized rate of over 10%. The average daily wage in the WB for these workers is 88.6 shekels, almost half less than what the Israelis pay. When you account for the fact that Arabs work fewer days for Israelis than for other Arabs, it means that the amount of wages for Arabs in the West Bank every month is almost 1.5 billion shekels - and Israeli employers are paying over 28% of those wages. Now, imagine two states with an international border between them, and no settlements to employ Arabs. Imagine the PA with a loss of 28% of revenue. Imagine the number of unemployed increasing from roughly 140,000 to 235,000, with the PA responsible to keep basic welfare services operating for them. (I'm not even including the influx of "refugees" that would want to move to a future PalArab state.) Apparently, no one is thinking about how any Palestinian Arab state could stay above water without increased billions from the West propping it up. And the hundreds of thousands of unemployed, disgruntled Arabs that would result. And the self-immolations and violent protests against the government that would follow. And the Islamist groups that would try to take advantage of the resulting chaos. And what follows that. Welcome to a successful peace process.      | ||
| Qaradawi: "Even the Jews never did a massacre like the Egyptians" Posted: 16 Aug 2013 10:15 AM PDT Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi, the antisemitic, terror supporting TV preacher who is allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, decided to use the J-bomb in his criticism of the Egyptian crackdown on Islamists. In a phone interview on Al Jazeera, he said that he never saw such a "massacre" such as the army in Egypt performed with the help of the police, "even from the Jews." He claimed that they killed and burned thousands of demonstrators. Qaradawi demanded that Egyptians go out "to defend the gains of the January revolution and the defense of the innocent martyrs." Even worse than the Jews? How can such a thing be?      | ||
| Posted: 16 Aug 2013 09:00 AM PDT From Ian: Sarah Honig Hobson's choice – the Obama variation The buzz about Obama's alleged variation on Hobson's choice might be altogether unfounded. In that case all we'd supposedly gain from going to the gallows is the hope that we can at the last moment avoid execution but in the meanwhile diminish our excruciating delegitimization abroad.Jonathan Pollard: Restoring Israel to greatness The Land of Israel is eternal and the State of Israel has temporal stewardship over the land. The corrosive moral ambiguity that has brought us to this dreadful day is relentlessly eating away at the legitimacy of the state's continued role as legal guardian of the land. The prognosis is dire.Irwin Cotler: Israel and the United Nations While Ban cannot control the actions of member states, he does have the power to give moral leadership and direction. Words matter.Netanyahu protests anti-Israel incitement at UNRWA camps At a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to present proof of anti-Israel incitement in summer camps run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian children in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip.JPost Editorial: PA incitement A documentary broadcast twice on official PA TV declared that the PA plans to destroy Western Wall Plaza, Judaism's ultra-scared prayer site frequented by millions of Jews, and replace it with assorted edifices. The documentary stated that Jews worshiping at the Western Wall were "sin and filth." No foreign statesmen or journalists were bothered in the least.WSJ Editorial: Palestinian Heroes Releasing murderers will not advance the peace process. The Israeli decision to release the prisoners was shortly followed by the approval of additional construction permits for housing in East Jerusalem and West Bank settlements. The move elicited howls of condemnation from the usual suspects, as if building houses is more objectionable than murdering people in cold blood. Perhaps the larger question is why anyone should expect that a peace process that begins by setting murderers free is likely to result in peace.Israeli envoy panned for comparing Palestinian and Norwegian terrorists Israel's ambassador to Sweden is drawing fire in Scandinavia after comparing Palestinian prisoners released earlier this week to a Norwegian terrorist who killed 77 people in 2011.Too Good to Last By David Pryce-Jones Time to pay our respects to what was, and for European Jews to move elsewhere?Add Brussels to the List of Where Jews Need to Hide. Again. For years there have been reports of Jews being warned not to wear items that identify them as Jewish in places where there are large or numbers are particularly aggressive anti-Semites.'Israeli scientific research does not depend on Europe' Professor Yisrael Aumann, Nobel laureate in economics, sits down with Israel Hayom to discuss peace talks, European boycotts and the Arab Spring: "Israel should say that it needs no favors, and make up the science budget in place of the Europeans."Visit to Joseph's Tomb in Shechem Interrupted by Stone Throwing A riot broke out early Thursday morning as Arab men burned tires and threw stones at Israeli worshippers gathered at Joseph's tomb in Shechem, reported Ma'an, a news agency based in the Palestinian Authority (PA).Israel is model for world dairy industries The Volcani Center is a government-run research institute that investigates everything related to the agriculture industry, including dairy cattle. Miron showed ISRAEL21c his cowshed laboratory, a high-tech outdoor facility that waters, protects, feeds and milks 230 milking cows in the village of Beit Dagan, about 20 minutes south of Tel Aviv.Israel Tourism to Break Records in August; El Al Surges to Q2 Profit, Orders 6 New 737s More than 70,000 passengers passed through Ben Gurion International Airport on Friday, August 9, 2013, an all-time high in passenger flow, Globes said. The passenger traffic record is expected to be broken again on Thursday, with Ben Gurion now on track to record the highest monthly passenger traffic numbers in its history for the current month of August.Animation- Another Way to Tell the Story of the Holocaust In the 70 years since the Holocaust happened, animation is now able to fill in pictures and videos of Holocaust related material and stand in place of words.      | ||
| Gaza could get lots more goods through Israel, but they choose not to Posted: 16 Aug 2013 07:03 AM PDT This week I had an email conversation with the COGAT Gaza spokeswoman about the precise process of how goods get transferred into Gaza. Here is how it works. (These are mostly COGAT's words, I edited them from multiple emails): When a Gaza businessman wants to order goods from Israel privately, his first stop would be at the PA offices. There, there's a committee that is in charge of integrating all the requests and putting them in order, the Civil Committee of the PA, according to the format that is familiar to both sides. After that, it is that committee's job to pass a list of trucks that are to cross the next day. The head of the civil committee is in direct contact with the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) and they work with him closely every day, through phone calls and meetings, in order to make the work process efficient. The PA committee is the CLA's POC, but it is not the one ordering the goods. When the lists are received at the Gaza CLA, they get to the approval process, and once they are approved they are passed to the CLA's representatives at Kerem Shalom, who are the first to receive the truck drivers the next morning. As of today, the capacity of Kerem Shalom is 400 trucks per day. Due to the number of requests from the PA Civil Committee the number of trucks crossing per day never reaches 400. It can go up to 300 trucks on a good day. Of course, if the Palestinian side would like to add more trucks to cross at Kerem Shalom, they're free to do so. The Israeli side will make its arrangements to meet the demands. Unfortunately, many trucks are a no show at the crossing, for Palestinian personal matters. The trucks are coordinated, and are on the list, but every day the CLA sees a large number of blank forms for trucks that never crossed. That depends almost entirely on the Palestinians. Should they decide to cancel a truck for whatever reason, the CLA only knows about it at the end of the day, when they sum up the merchandise that went through. (It appears possible that the Israeli seller might renege sometimes as well, but that doesn't appear to be the normal case.) The Palestinian businessmen do their coordination with Israeli private companies on their own. They only interact with COGAT (through the PA) when it comes to making sure the goods actually cross. My comments: While Kerem Shalom can handle 400 trucks a day, and perhaps 300 actually are hired typically, often dozens of the expected trucks never make it, for whatever logistical reasons that the Gazans canceled the delivery at the last minute. Last week about 10% of the expected trucks did not arrive. The upshot is that Kerem Shalom is not being run at capacity - not even close. If Israel's "siege" was so painful, one would expect that the crossing would be over capacity and that there would be pressure to expand it. But even now that Egypt has cracked down on smuggling, Kerem Shalom is not close to its limit. It has increased transfers markedly, from 4700 in February to 6600 in July, but it can handle far more. It seems apparent that Hamas prefers goods to be sent through Rafah than from Israel, for a number of reasons. One is that the PA is not involved in Rafah tunnels. Another is that Hamas can tax tunnel goods at will. Yet another is that fuel and some other smuggled goods are cheap because Egypt subsidizes them, so Hamas can buy things like construction material and diesel at a discount. And the fourth is that Israel happily ships goods to businessmen and to NGOs, but not to Hamas. (Also, dual-use materials are still restricted so Hamas has no choice but to smuggle those.) People and businesses in Gaza don't need that many imports from Egypt - but Hamas does. The simple fact is that if Gaza was suffering from a "crushing siege," Kerem Shalom would be operating at capacity. It isn't.      | ||
| Hizballah revealing an alleged military drone today Posted: 16 Aug 2013 05:29 AM PDT Arab media are reporting that Hizballah will unveil today the "Mersad-1" aircraft, on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the 2006 Lebanon war. I'm not sure if they are saying that this is a new aircrapft or revealing that it was used in 2006, as Hassan Nasrallah said this week he will reveal secrets about that war.
This Lebanese website mentions the Mersad-1 in 2010, saying it is an Iranian UAV known as Ababil. Wikipedia has an article about it, saying it is probably the Iranian Mohajer 4. Israel shot down 3 of the Ababils during the 2006 war. All of this seems well known, so it is unclear what is being announced today. In fact, as early as 2004, Nasrallah mentioned the UAV, claiming then that it could hold 40 or 50 kg. Sounds like Nasrallah is trying to misdirect the Arab world from his own problems much closer to home.      | ||
| Swedish royalty get conned to pose with anti-Israel keffiyeh Posted: 16 Aug 2013 03:05 AM PDT  From YNet:During a tour of Sweden to celebrate 40 years of the reigning royals, King Carl Gustaf and his wife, Queen Sylvia, visited the neighboring area of the city of Sundsvall. There they were approached by a man who identified himself as an Iraqi refugee, and who gifted them with hand made keffiyehs, the traditional Arab scarf, as a thank you for allowing him to start a new life in Sweden. He then asked them to pose for the camera with the scarves.Here is an example of how clueless the EU intelligentsia are. A Swedish newssite that reported this story can't figure out if the statement "Al Aqsa is ours and is not their temple." They even make it sound like the idea that of a Jewish temple is what is controversial: Michael Schulz, Associate Professor of Peace and Development Studies at the University of Gothenburg says that there is often strife in the area.Of course. Because the only problems any Muslims have with Jews is "occupation." That's the breadth of understanding of a professor of "peace and development studies."      |
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