יום רביעי, 21 באוגוסט 2013

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Link to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Bubala Please - Shabbat (Video)

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 08:00 PM PDT

Definitely one of the better episodes of this web series (NSFW for language, and its halacha leaves a bit to be desired...)

8/20 Links Part 2: The Rot of Return, Why They Hate Israel and America, A Black Stain on Whitehall

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 03:00 PM PDT

From Ian:
The Rot of Return
If you're looking for intelligent discourse on the matter, you'll have to look elsewhere. Reporter Ben Lynfield plugs maximalist Palestinian demands that are rotten to the core. This Monitor dispatch is a real disservice, for several reasons.
First of all, contrary to the conventional wisdom, there's no legal basis for the so-called "right" of return.
Secondly, any responsible article about the "right" of return has to explain its consequences for Israel, not just bury a brief Mark Regev reaction at the bottom of the story. If the more than one million registered Palestinian refugees flooded what is today the state of Israel, it would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
'World mum on PA incitement but slams Israel on construction'
"When Israel builds in areas which everyone understands will remain part of Israel in a final-status agreement, this is somehow perceived as a problem for peace. When Palestinians indoctrinate their people with hatred for Israel, and thereby directly undermine reconciliation, this is ignored.
"What is required of leadership at this time is to prepare the public for respect and reconciliation. But what we are seeing from the Palestinians is the opposite: continued demonization, stress on maximalist goals and that Israel is an illegitimate creation that will eventually disappear."
In classified cyberwar against Iran, trail of Stuxnet leak leads to White House
The Obama administration provided a New York Times reporter exclusive access to a range of high-level national security officials for a book that divulged highly classified information on a U.S. cyberwar on Iran's nuclear program, internal State Department emails show.
The information in the 2012 book by chief Washington correspondent David E. Sanger has been the subject of a yearlong Justice Department criminal investigation: The FBI is hunting for those who leaked details to Mr. Sanger about a U.S.-Israeli covert cyberoperation to infect Iran's nuclear facilities with a debilitating computer worm known as Stuxnet.
Shmuley Boteach: Why They Hate Israel and America
It's not that imams are preaching violence, although many unfortunately do. It's rather that they preach victimhood. America is to blame for their problems. Israel is to blame for their suffering.
Where are the Islamic leaders and clerics who are prepared to say, "We are responsible for our own problems. We are taking a great world religion and turning it insular and away from secular knowledge rather than finding the balance between the holy and the mundane. We are not empowering women to be the equals of men in all spheres."
"We Palestinians took the largest per capita foreign aid ever given to a people and we allowed corruption and hatred of Israel to squander the funds on bombs and bullets rather than building universities and schools. We elect leaders democratically who then, like Hamas, or Muhammad Morsi, precede to dismantle democratic institutions. We see the Jews as our enemies rather than using them as an example of what we ourselves should aspire to. They returned to their land after long ago being dispersed by foreign European powers and made the desert bloom. We can surely do the same."
Black stain on Whitehall
While British Prime Minister David Cameron publicly calls the UK a 'strong friend of Israel' and bilateral ties in trade and technology are on the rise, diplomatic and the political relationships can be more strained.
This all comes down to one thing: the deeply entrenched scepticism that the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) displays towards Israel. Israeli settlement activity has been singled out as the cause of aggression by some, but it is really only one small part of a wider problem that the FCO appears to have with Israel.
Guardian staffer ponders the "Evil Trinity" of Zionists, Neo-cons and Wahabists.
An Aug. 18 Guardian report titled 'US has lost all credibility in the Middle East, says John McCain', elicited 156 reader comments, including one which noted the "sharp divide" in the U.S. between pragmatists and extremists – the latter consisting of the "Evil Trinity" of "the neocon-military-corporate complex in alliance with Saudi Wahhabism and Israeli Zionism."
Not only was the comment not deleted by moderators but, as you can see by the orange icon on the right side of the graphic, it was actually recommended by the Guardian staff.
Indy's Matt Hill engages in cynical smear about Netanyahu and the Rabin murder
Before even fisking Moreh's accusation, it should be noted that Hill's claim that Bibi "helped lead the incitement against Yitzhak Rabin" is evidently based solely on one opinion by one film director that "Netanyahu made a speech in which [a couple of] protesters carried a coffin [of Rabin]". That's it – one protest against the Oslo Peace Process in which a protester allegedly incited against the Prime Minister.
However, even this claim has been completely deconstructed by, among others, the popular blogger Elder of Ziyon. Here are the main points:
BBC's Marcus invents a "cloudy understanding" about Israeli building
The notion that sectarian violence in Iraq (which last month saw the highest death toll since 2008) is in any way influenced by progress – or lack of it – in peace talks between Israel and Palestinian representatives is of course absurd. The idea that Bashar al Assad will retire to write his memoirs and play golf, that strife in Egypt will be eased or that Iran will stop persecuting Bahais if only Livni and Erekat manage to sign a piece of paper is downright comic. Western diplomats – perhaps hampered by the culturally dependent notion that if there is a problem, it must have a doable solution: a premise which does not always work in the Middle East – may indeed "believe" such fairy tales, but that is no reason to promote them to the BBC's audiences.
Roger Waters: "One Baroness Deech, (Nee Fraenkel) disputed the fact that Israel is an apartheid state ..."
The incorrigible Roger Waters [formerly] of the rock group Pink Floyd, seemingly needs no excuse to deride and demonise Israel.
But famous British violinist Nigel Kennedy's remarks at the Proms (described below) have been characterised by Waters as the "inspiration" for issuing a new open letter denouncing Israeli "apartheid" and calling on fellow musicians to boycott Israel (see here for details).
Note, in this extract, the reference to pro-Israel Baroness Deech's maiden name, just in case her Jewishness might not be at once apparent (incidentally, this distinguished lady's father, Josef Fraenkel, was a renowned Yiddishist and co author of Theodor Herzl, which appeared in 1943):
Israel Second Quarter Economic Growth Exceeds Expectations
Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) announced that the Israeli economy grew at an annual rate of 5.1 percent in the second fiscal quarter of 2013, beating economists' expectations.
Economists had projected 3-percent growth in the second quarter for Israel. This compares with just 2.7-percent growth in the first quarter and 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 for the Israeli economy.
Israel Puts Focus on Latin American Trade
The new effort to increase Latin American trading, particularly with Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico, will compliment Netanyahu's simultaneous effort to increase economic ties with China and other East Asian countries. These four Latin American countries formed the free-trade Pacific Alliance last year and account for about 36 percent of the continent's gross domestic product (GDP). They all trade significantly with North America.
Currently in Latin America, Brazil is Israel's main trading partner, taking in Israeli exports at about $1.1 billion per year and importing to Israel at about $400 million per year. In June, Israeli President Shimon Peres signed a free-trade agreement with Colombia.
Evogene reports success in banana disease field trial
Plant genome company Evogene Ltd. (TASE:EVGN) and banana biotechnology company Rahan Meristem (1998) Ltd. have successfully field tested banana varieties that are resistant tolerance to Black Sigatoka (also known as Black Leaf Streak Disease), the most damaging disease threatening commercial banana plantations.
Current methods to control Black Sigatoka include the use of fungicides, which can account for 30% of a grower's production cost and adds 15-20% to bananas' retail price. In addition to this substantial cost, frequent use of fungicides has significant adverse environmental and health effects.
Elfi-Tech selected as finalist in $2.25m Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE
Israeli medical device startup Elfi-Tech has been chosen as one of 12 finalists in the $2.25 million Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE, a global competition aimed at revolutionizing digital healthcare. The contest is comprised of two competitions that are designed to accelerate the development of sensing technologies that capture meaningful data about a consumer's health state, surrounding environment, and risk of developing a health condition.
Small, fast and not so demanding: breakthrough in memory technologies could bring faster computing, smaller memory devices and lower power consumption
Increasingly, memory devices are a bottleneck limiting performance. In order to achieve a substantial improvement in computation speed, scientists are racing to develop smaller and denser memory devices that operate with high speed and low power consumption.
Prof. Yossi Paltiel and research student Oren Ben-Dor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Harvey M. Krueger Family Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, together with researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science, have developed a simple magnetization progress that, by eliminating the need for permanent magnets in memory devices, opens the door to many technological applications.
Israel's dive heaven on the Red Sea
"People come from all over Europe, from the US and Canada, and a lot of South Americans," Koretz tells ISRAEL21c. "Most have dived all over the world."
Almost every Eilat beach has diving equipment for hire. After all, diving represents 10 percent of the tourism income in Israel's southernmost city, according to the Ministry of Tourism.
The coral reefs just off the coast are among the most heavily used in the world for recreational diving, with 250,000 to 300,000 dives per year.
A walk through the Baha'i Gardens on Mount Carmel
It costs nothing to take a tour of the 19 perfectly manicured, terraced Baha'i Gardens covering the slope of Mount Carmel in Haifa.
Besides being a UN World Heritage Site that attracts 750,000 visitors each year, the gardens and fountains are part of the Baha'i World Center, a religious shrine for the followers of a faith that teaches beauty in diversity.
That clearly goes for plants as well as people. Catch a glimpse of some of the 450 plant species here.

Those oppressive checkpoints making Arab lives miserable - in Lebanon

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 01:30 PM PDT

From Now Lebanon:
Notwithstanding the dramatic Roueiss car bomb and the innocent victims it caused in Dahiyeh, what many Lebanese went through in the wake of the attacks on Thursday has caused much frustration. Convoys of cars going in and out of Dahiyeh waited for hours to pass through the many fixed and mobile roadblocks manned by Hezbollah.

Since the blast, Dahiyeh has come to resemble more of a military barracks. Some residents went as far as to dub it as a prison – where Hezbollah deployed its members – the majority of whom were young men barely beyond their teenage years. These members stopped cars and passerbys without any exception, searching each vehicle they regarded as suspicious and asking each driver for identification and the reasons for entering Dahiyeh.

Indeed, entering the Hezbollah-controlled Dahiyeh has become anything but an easy feat since Thursday's attack. Employees, shop owners, and other citizens at large were impacted by the new roadblocks. Many individuals NOW spoke with were frustrated with the new security checkpoints in Dahiyeh even though they also appreciated that these measures would protect them from future attacks.

Ali H., a shop keeper in Dahiyeh, stressed the need for both Hezbollah and the Lebanese state to spare no effort in protecting residents from the threat of "terrorists and takfiris." Ali insisted that protecting lives is more important than having roadblocks delay traffic for an hour or even less. He argued that some hope to provoke media clamor in order to use it against Hezbollah. However, Ali wishes that more advanced methods are adopted at the road blocks including the use of police dogs, which he says will alleviate the burden of these measures for the good of Dahiyeh's residents and visitors.

At the same time, residents questioned the usefulness of such roadblocks given the operational methods of the youths manning each station. NOW saw no evidence of armed individuals at each of the checkpoints it passed, but it also saw that each officer donned Hezbollah's yellow armband insignia.

While many argue that pre-emptive security measures are justified following the Bir al-Abed and Dahiyeh explosions, some politicians including MP Antoine Zahra say that only the Lebanese state and its security institutions should control the country's checkpoints. "Auto-security [by Hezbollah] is the most dangerous phase a country could reach at the brink of collapse," Zahra told the Orient radio station earlier today.

Other than Ali, the majority of Dahiyeh shop owners with who NOW spoke with complained about the security measures following Thursday's blast. While most shopkeepers said they welcomed protection from future attacks or explosions, they also said they do not want Dahiyeh closed off from its own people. Many also complained that no clients visited their stores following the implementation of roadblocks, noting that many people visiting the Dahiyeh fear they will stand accused by entering it.

Another resident of Dahiyeh by the name of Ali G. told NOW that motorcycles had followed him and other residents around town – later requesting their names, where they came from, and where they were heading in Dahiyeh.

Walid Q., a resident of Dahiyeh, said that his car was searched and his seats were removed at one of Hezbollah's roadblocks. Walid said that he was then forced to head to the nearest repair shop to have his car restored to its original state.
Can't wait for the UN and EU to condemn this use of roadblocks that is strangling the residents of the area.

Lawsuits in Egypt to cut off electricity to Gaza - and to expel the US Ambassador

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 12:00 PM PDT

Today, an Egyptian court may decide whether the country should continue to provide electricity to Gaza.

The First Circuit Court of Administrative Justice of the Egyptian State Council, headed by Judge Abdul Majid , will rule today on a lawsuit filed by lawyer Reza Albarakaoy, which called for a court ruling to stop the Egyptian export of electricity to the Gaza Strip.

The lawsuit says that Egypt exports electricity to the Gaza Strip at a time when the Egyptians suffer from outages of electricity themselves, and disregards the needs of the Egyptian people themselves.

The suit adds that the production of electricity in Egypt is very expensive because it uses large quantities of Egyptian natural gas in the process of producing electricity, which requires the need to provide electricity to the Egyptian people, and take advantage of it rather than exported to the outside and the people in greatest need, in short supply.

Egypt provides about 28 MW of electricity to Gaza. Israel provides about 125 MW.

According to the web page of the law firm bringing the lawsuit, they also sued to close all Gaza smuggling tunnels, to stop Al Jazeera from broadcasting in Egypt, and to stop the sale of land in the Sinai - out of fear that Palestinian Arabs might buy it and use it as an "alternative homeland."

Another lawsuit being brought demands the expulsion of the US ambassador to Egypt for "violating Egyptian sovereignty through the provision of the U.S. Embassy financial and political support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi groups."

8/20 Links Part 1: Obama Appeasement Will Result in Disaster, Ban's about-face on UN bias

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 10:45 AM PDT

From Ian:
Prosor: Israel Won't Stand By as Assad Fires Mortars
Prosor sent a letter of complaint to the Security Council after the latest incident on Saturday, when the Israeli army fired into Syria after shells from the neighboring country hit the Israeli side of the Golan Heights. The Israeli attack demolished a Syrian military position.
Israel, wrote Prosor in his letter, will not stand idly by while "Assad's terrorist regime fires mortars at Israeli citizens."
Prosor stressed in the complaint the "blatant violation on Syria's part of the disengagement agreement of 1974." He added, "Israel has sent repeated warnings and warned the Security Council that such provocations will not be accepted by Israel. It should not be expected Israel will stand by while the terrorist regime of Assad rains down mortar shells on Israeli citizens."
In reversal, Ban says Israel does not face bias at UN
On Friday, Ban told Israeli students in Jerusalem that Israel "has been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination" at the UN.
But asked by a reporter at UN headquarters in New York on Monday if he believed "there was discrimination against Israel" and what he "intend[s] to do about it," he said he did not believe there was discrimination, but also insisted Israel should not face bias at the organization.
"No, I don't think there is discrimination against Israel at the United Nations," Ban replied, according to an official UN transcript of the conversation.
Victory: Swiss parliament declares U.N. nomination of Jean Ziegler "inappropriate"
UN Watch applauded the Swiss parliament today for declaring the U.N. nomination of Jean Ziegler — co-founder, co-manager, and 2002 recipient of the Muammar Gaddafi Human Rights Prize — "inappropriate."
The parliament called on Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter to cancel the nomination.
Samantha Power Blasts Re-election of Swiss Critic of Israel
Power took to Twitter to denounce Jean Ziegler, a former sociology professor and former Social Democrat member of the Swiss parliament, the report said.
"Indeed, Dr. Ziegler is unfit for continued service" at the UN Human Rights Council, Power wrote last week.
In her denunciation of Ziegler, she took on a 79-year-old fixture at the UN who has praised Libya's Muammar Qaddafi, Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Cuba's Fidel Castro, while accusing Israel of human rights abuses.
Isi Leibler: Obama appeasement will result in disaster
As anticipated, the Arab Spring has devolved into a bloody nightmare that has engulfed Egypt, leaving Israel surrounded by a sea of violence and barbarism with no prospect of stability on the horizon.
Yet while hundreds of people are being brutally killed daily, the international community remains obsessed with condemning Israel for allowing the construction of homes in the Jewish suburbs of east Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, the disproportionate levels of energy and passion invested by US Secretary of State John Kerry and other Western leaders in the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio can only be described as surrealistic.
'Back Egypt or risk peace talks,' says Israeli official to US
The unnamed Israeli source spoke to the newspaper's Middle East correspondent Charles Levinson, telling him that Washington must back the Egyptian military or "good luck with your peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians," — a conversation the reporter recounted on Wall Street Journal Live.
"The Israeli position Saudi and Egypt have historically and still today played very crucial roles in supporting negotiations, in giving the Palestinians the support they need to stay in negotiations, to make concessions," Levinson said of the conversation.
US reportedly secretly suspends aid to Egypt
Washington has refrained from calling the July 3 ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi a coup but has nevertheless secretly decided to temporarily halt aid, without publicly announcing it.
"The decision was we're going to avoid saying it was a coup, but to stay on the safe side of the law, we are going to act as if the designation has been made for now," the Daily Beast quoted one administration official as saying. "By not announcing the decision, it gives the administration the flexibility to reverse it."
Portrait of a Cairo Liberal as a Military Backer
In Cairo Friday morning, before the midday call to prayer and an afternoon of protest marches that resolved in violence, chaos, and the overnight siege of a mosque, I jumped into a taxi and slipped across the Nile into the quiet, semi-suburban neighborhood of Dokki. I was there to meet with Mohammed Aboul-Ghar, a seventy-three-year-old academic and politician who has been a leading figure in Egypt's liberal establishment, and now represents one of the most confounding elements of the country's current crisis: the wholesale alignment of old-guard liberals with the military.
Qatar's Risky Overreach in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Beyond
Morsi came to power in a democratic election, but misinterpreted the meaning of democracy. He and his Muslim Brotherhood backers – primarily Qatar – appeared to believe that having won the election, they could run the country according to their decree, not according to democratic principles as the majority had expected. A series of draconian laws, a spiralling economic crisis, and a feeling on the Egyptian street that the Muslim Brotherhood was paid handsomely by foreign forces, spurred street protests of historic proportions, prompting the military to intervene.
With Morsi gone, Qatar suddenly became "persona non grata" in Egypt.
Qatar sought to extend its influence and Muslim Brotherhood-inspired view of how countries like Egypt, Syria, Libya, and others should be. Qatar was also playing a power-game against Saudi Arabia, another hugely wealthy regional power whose vision of an even more strictly Islamist way of life for Muslims drove a wedge between the two parties.
Muslim Brotherhood supreme leader detained
The arrest of Mohammed Badie marks a serious setback for the heart of the Islamist movement, which had risen to power after the fall of president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, only to see its fortunes fall with the ouster of president Mohammed Morsi in early July.
Muslim Brotherhood memo blesses Egyptian church burnings
A memo posted on the Facebook page of a local office of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism shows a clear call to incitement against Egypt's Coptic Christian population, giving its blessing to the burning of churches.
Over 40 Coptic churches have been burned by Muslim Brotherhood supporters since the Egyptian police cleared demonstrators protesting the overthrow of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on Tuesday. Brotherhood supporters also reportedly blocked the road between Cairo and Aswan in southern Egypt looking for Copts, taking seven Copts hostage Thursday. They were later released after a ransom of 150,000 Egyptian pounds, roughly $21,500, was paid.
Looters ransack Egyptian antiques museum and snatch priceless artefacts
According to a statement made by the Ministry of Antiquities, the museum, in the Upper Egyptian city of Minya, was allegedly broken into and some artifacts were damaged and stolen on Thursday evening.
The ministry's official statement accused Muslim Brotherhood supporters of breaking into the museum.
It not yet clear what is missing - a list is being compiled to ensure the artefacts are not smuggled out the country.
MK Zoabi: Al-Sisi must be overthrown
Like rest of world, Arab Knesset members breathlessly follow events in Egypt, do not like what they see. 'Muslim Brotherhood will not disappear," said MK Zahalka. 'Blood on streets will be downfall of regime'
Photo of Friendly Embrace Between Senior Egyptian and Israeli Security Officials Sparks Online Furor
The photograph, first uploaded to Facebook on August 13, 2013, was taken from the cover of a United Nations Director General's report from 2011. The Facebook page, titled "Brotherhood Intelligence Agency (ASA)," has a large following of 151,000 "likes" and, according to Israel's Channel 2, was created by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.
The post condemned the "apparent coordination between the parties, Egypt and Israel," which it said was "completely contrary to common logic and health." It called for the purge of "traitors" from within the Egyptian Army and claimed that "we (the Muslim Brotherhood) are the only ones who can do it," according to Channel 2′s translation.

Analyst: Mideast Gas a Chance for U.S. to Break with Turkey
The natural gas fields in the Mediterranean provide the United States with an opportunity to break with Turkey, according to Seth Cropsey, formerly the deputy undersecretary of the Navy in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations.
"Politics and alliances in the eastern Mediterranean are shifting, and the region's security framework is splintering," Cropsey wrote Monday in PJ Media. "The region is now divided as much within the Muslim world as between it and the non-Muslim states."

So what the hell was Erdogan talking about?

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 09:00 AM PDT

This news is all over Israeli and Jewish news media today; here's the version from JTA:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Israel was behind last month's military coup in Egypt.

Erdogan told a meeting of the provincial chairs of his ruling Justice and Development, or AKP, party that he has evidence that Israel was involved in the July 3 overthrow of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, the Turkish Hurriyet news service reported.

"Who is behind this? Israel. We have evidence," the prime minister said, according to Hurriyet.

He cited as proof a statement by a French intellectual he identified as Jewish, who told the Israeli justice minister during a visit to France before Egypt's 2011 elections, "The Muslim Brotherhood will not be in power even if they win the elections. Because democracy is not the ballot box," Hurriyet reported.
Who is this "French Jewish intellectual"?

Almost certainly it is Bernard-Henri Lévy, the rock-star philosopher of France.

Here is what he wrote in the Huffington Post after the Egyptian elections:
Let's not tell ourselves any stories.

The Muslim Brotherhood, whose candidate just won the presidential election in Egypt, is not a democratic organization.

They were not at Tahrir Square, in Cairo, at the beginning of the revolution.

Engaged in a curious game where, as long as they were left free to do their (economic, financial and other) trafficking, the army had already handed over an entire part of the prerogatives (concerning health and education, for example) that are normally those of a State, they began by doing everything they could to curb the movement.

I remember, on February 20th, at their headquarters in El-Malek El-Saleh street, an edifying encounter with Saad Al-Hoseiny, a member of the strategic leadership of the Brotherhood, whose attitude towards the insurgent peoples' demands for rights and liberty was, to say the least, one of prudence, if not ambivalence or even hostility.

Worse, we can never be reminded enough that the organization whose pale apparatchik is in the process of acceding to the leadership of the largest Arab nation was born in the late '20s as a totalitarian sect, inspired by Naziism, one whose founder, Hassan Al-Banna, never neglected an occasion to inscribe Adolf Hitler after Saladin, Abu Bakr or Abdelaziz al-Saoud in the lineage of "reformers" whose "patience, firmness, wisdom and obstination" had guided humanity.

...Scarcely more than a quarter of registered voters adhere to the president-elect's supposedly "moderate" Islamism.

Better still, there exists today in Egypt a huge "modern party" that, though certainly divided and rife with contradictions, consists of half of the electorate.

Or, even better put, it means that a battle is engaged where there will be, on one side, as usual, the military-Islamist bloc, and on the other, this formerly unheard of bloc that, though disorganized, has not renounced the spirit and the hope of the Tahrir Commune, and no one knows what the outcome of this battle will be.

Revolutions are not events but processes. These processes are long, conflictual, fraught with sudden leaps forward and discouraging retreats. But nothing says that things will not happen in Egypt at this dawn of the 21st century as they have in other great countries, heirs of immense civilizations that have taken time to give birth to their respective futures -- France, for example, where we had to pass through the Terror, the counter-Terror, two Empires and a Commune crushed in blood before we saw the birth of the Republic, or these countries that have emerged from a long communist coma and are groping towards a democracy whose first stage will have been the return to power, at the voting booth, of this or that Communist Party, or, worse, the appearance of a chimera named Putin, synonym of crimes that are right in line with those of the red czars of the last century.

Will we regret the fall of the Wall because of the war in Chechnya? 1789 and the glorious Gironde because of the massacres of September? No, of course not. And that is why the sombre lesson coming, these days, from Cairo does not make me regret the breath of spring of Tahrir. The promise is still alive. The struggle continues.
Levy's antipathy towards the Islamists is obvious, and almost certainly Erdogan is twisting his words (not to mention that the idea that a conversation between Levy and an Israeli official is an absurd proof of Israeli actions) but Levy believes that revolutions are not one-time moments but a continuous, time-consuming process,  and that the process includes elections but is not exclusive to them.

Indeed, he seems to be almost prophetic about the current events in Egypt in this June 2012 article.

Israeli export markets: #1 - US. #2 - UK. #3 - Turkey

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 07:00 AM PDT

From Haaretz:
Exports to the United States, Israel's largest export market, totaled $5.4 billion in the first half this year, an increase of 9% over the same period last year, according to figures provided by the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute. Pharmaceuticals were a major source of this growth, though exports still grew by 4% when pharmaceuticals are excluded.

Israel's top export destinations in the first half of 2013 were the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey, China, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and France. ...

Israeli exports to the UK reached $1.7 billion in the first half of 2013, a 15% increase over the same period the year before. The jump in exports to the British market occurred almost entirely in the pharmaceutical sector, which constitutes some 60% of total Israeli exports to that country, according to the institute's analysis.

While the U.S. and the UK retained their previous spots in the export rankings, Turkey jumped three places, from sixth to third, on the list this year. Exports to the Turkish market rose a whopping 56% in the first half of this year, compared to last, totaling $1.2 billion. According to the institute's analysis, the growth in exports to Turkey was due to a doubling of chemical and refined petroleum product exports, from $465 million in the first half of 2012 to $915 million in the first half of this year. ...
According to a separate article last month, Turkey is also still a market for military exports:
The head of SIBAT spoke about the crisis with Turkey and said that "defense exports to Turkey were never halted, and are weighed according to the interests of the State of Israel. The relationship that existed in recent years didn't continue, but if you look at the numbers – defense exports to Turkey were not zero." He says that although "most of it was composed of continuing contracts and past contracts, there are now requests for new transactions that we are examining."
Time for BDS to protest Turkey for buying Zionist goods.

Why aren't any Rachel Corries flying to Egypt?

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 05:00 AM PDT

Palestine Press Agency reports that there was a new round of tunnel destruction on the Egyptian border with Gaza.

Five tunnels, including those for smuggling of building materials and food, were dynamited, with white smoke visible from the explosions. The Egyptian army also flooded the tunnels with water.

The army also destroyed a house, apparently because it either hid the entrance or was used otherwise in the tunnel trade.

Which makes one wonder - how come there are no Rachel Corries bravely flying to Egypt to protect the houses of Rafah and the tunnel trade to Gaza? Where are the brave activists willing to use their bodies to protect Gazans from losing their lifeline (and Egyptians from becoming homeless)? How come no hordes of human shields from ISM to help their friends in Gaza from the Egyptian army who are placing them under siege? Where are the protests at Rafah for the closing of the crossing? For that matter, where are the filmmakers documenting Egypt's destruction of the tunnels and the cruel actions of the Egyptian army? Is Evergreen College offering college credit for students who want to travel to Egypt to protest? Where are the.................

I'm sorry. I couldn't finish the paragraph because I was laughing too hard. Brave protesters are only "brave" when confronting the ruthless, evil, inhuman IDF. They are more than willing to put themselves in danger when they believe that there is no danger.

They seem to lose their principles when the principles have any potential cost.

Israel-hating Canadian filmmaker arrested in Egypt on way to Gaza

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 02:50 AM PDT

From Realscreen.com:
Toronto-based documentary maker John Greyson (pictured) has been arrested in Egypt, according to multiple international reports.

Greyson, whose doc Fig Trees won a Teddy Award for Best Documentary at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival, was arrested on Friday (August 16), along with Tarek Loubani, an Ontario-based emergency room doctor.

The pair were in Egypt en route to Gaza, with Greyson exploring the possibility of making a documentary on the work Loubani was to undertake. With the border crossing closed, the two men became stranded in Egypt.

Caitlin Workman, a spokesperson for the department of foreign affairs, told the Toronto Star that the government was aware of the arrests. "The embassy in Cairo is in contact with local authorities and we are prepared to provide consular assistance," she said.

According to the CBC, Justin Podur – a professor at York University, where Greyson also teaches – informs that he has received word from the two men and that they are both okay for the time being.

The Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF) today issued a notice expressing concern for the safety of the two men; Greyson is a TPFF advisory board member.

"Canadian and Egyptian authorities should be aware of Professor Greyson's and Dr. Loubani's dedication to humanitarian work in their fields," the TPFF stated. "In addition to being an admired university professor and award-winning filmmaker, Professor Greyson has played an integral role in the festival as an advisor for the last five years, providing us with invaluable programming guidance and support.

"Professor Greyson has used his skill, art and reputation to spotlight human rights issues in Canada and abroad, including the plight of Palestinians."

In addition to winning a Berlinale award in 2009, Greyson also drew attention that year when he withdrew his short documentary Covered from the Toronto International Film Festival, in protest of the festival's inaugural City to City Spotlight being on the city of Tel Aviv.
Greyson's letter to the Toronto International Film Festival shows how much he hates Israel and how easily he lies about it:
This past year has also seen: the devastating Gaza massacre of eight months ago, resulting in over 1000 civilian deaths; the election of a Prime Minister accused of war crimes; the aggressive extension of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands; the accelerated destruction of Palestinian homes and orchards; the viral growth of the totalitarian security wall, and the further enshrining of the check-point system. Such state policies have led diverse figures such as John Berger, Jimmy Carter, and Bishop Desmond Tutu to characterize this 'brand' as apartheid. Your TIFF program book may describe Tel Aviv as a "vibrant young city... of beaches, cafes and cultural ferment... that celebrates its diversity," but it's also been called "a kind of alter-Gaza, the smiling face of Israeli apartheid" (Naomi Klein) and "the only city in the west without Arab residents" (Tel Aviv filmmaker Udi Aloni).

To my mind, this isn't the right year to celebrate Brand Israel, or to demonstrate an ostrich-like indifference to the realities (cinematic and otherwise) of the region, or to pointedly ignore the international economic boycott campaign against Israel. Launched by Palestinian NGO's in 2005, and since joined by thousands inside and outside Israel, the campaign is seen as the last hope for forcing Israel to comply with international law. By ignoring this boycott, TIFF has emphatically taken sides --and in the process, forced every filmmaker and audience member who opposes the occupation to cross a type of picket line.

A group of celebrities including Jerry Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen, Natalie Portman, Jason Alexander and Lisa Kudrow, slammed Greyson's position. The usual Israel bashers like Alice Walker, Ken Loach and David Byrne expressed support. So did Jane Fonda, who later changed her mind.

Rafah has been closed by Egypt, and it is possible that Egyptian authorities are suspicious that anyone who tries to travel to Gaza is a supporter of Hamas. In this case, they are probably right.

(h/t Josh, Russell)
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