Elder of Ziyon Daily News |  |
- Even UNRWA's own photos show their tacit support of terrorists
- 9/03 Links Part 2: Peace on paper is not peace on the ground, An open letter to the UNRWA
- "May Allah help our hackers and mujahadeen"
- Coverage of Egyptian helicopter strike shows double standards
- 9/03 Links Part 1: Murray - The Syrian paradox, Kissinger’s Good Option, Hezbollah Mobilizes Fighters
- Giora Eiland: Obama nixed Israeli plans to attack Iran's nuclear facilities
- Peter Beinart's cocoon
- Syrian refugees in Egypt being treated like garbage
| Even UNRWA's own photos show their tacit support of terrorists Posted: 03 Sep 2013 04:45 PM PDT A couple of months ago, an excellent documentary Camp Jihad, was released, which showed how UNRWA schools and camps are being anything but peaceful when they teach Palestinian Arab kids. On August 22, UNRWA responded: In recent days, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been attacked after an Israeli film-maker released a film, "Camp Jihad," alleging that UNRWA promoted anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in its 'summer camps'. These false accusations have been repeated in various media outlets.What I find funny is that at the UNRWA website itself, it shows this photo (from a Syrian UNRWA camp:)  This is a photo that UNRWA itself publishes on its own website. Now, which sounds more believable - the idea that they condone terror or that they are against it? (h/t Elihu)           |
| 9/03 Links Part 2: Peace on paper is not peace on the ground, An open letter to the UNRWA Posted: 03 Sep 2013 03:00 PM PDT From Ian: Netanyahu: 'While They Shoot at Each Other, We Build for Each Other' "We have very great tasks in light of what is occurring throughout our region both near and far. While they shoot at each other, we build for each other," the Prime Minister said.Netanyahu Lauds Israeli Secret Services In a visit to the headquarters of the Shin Bet, which is headed by Yoram Cohen, Netanyahu thanked the agents for their tireless work in preventing terror attacks, singling out their latest achievement in apprehending a Ramallah-based Hamas cell that was planning to attack shoppers in Jerusalem's Mamilla mall.Attempted terror attacks not news for the BBC On the evening of Friday August 30th an explosive device was detonated near an Israeli army patrol jeep on the border with the Gaza Strip. No injuries were sustained.'Pro-Palestinian' Campaign: Free Baby Adelle's Attackers Pro-Palestinian organizations have launched a European advertising campaign calling for the release of five Arab youths who are suspected of throwing rocks at a car six months ago, causing grievous head injuries to Adelle Biton, a Jewish three-year-old.An open letter to the UNRWA: I'm a Palestinian Refugee, Too Dear UNRWA:Peace on paper is not peace on the ground Despite a 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan signed by the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein, this agreement has yet to be put in effect in the hearts of the people of the neighboring countries.What More Must PA Do to Show Its Disinterest in Peace? Under pressure from his own party's opposition to "normalization" with Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday canceled a meeting with Israeli Knesset members who had formed a caucus to support the recently revived peace talks. Normally, this would call the whole point of peace talks into question: Someone too scared of the anti-normalization thugs to host a meaningless gabfest with Israeli MKs isn't likely to have the guts to sign a final-status agreement containing real Palestinian concessions. But in this case, anyone paying attention to Palestinian behavior since the talks began already knew they were nothing but a farce.Bennett: Stop the 'Peace Cult' "These days, we are discovering what a difficult neighborhood we are living in," Bennett said at the Bayit Yehudi party's ceremonial toast for the new Hebrew year (Rosh Hashana) in Modiin, which was held in the presence of Chief Rabbi David Lau, members of the party's Knesset faction, and 700 Bayit Yehudi delegates and candidates in municipal lists.So who still thinks Israel is the root of Middle East problems? This tribal and sectarian dispute, which has the potential to become the Muslim equivalent of the Thirty Years War, has about as much to do with Israel as did the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. And the peoples involved care very little, if at all, about the fate of the Palestinians – certainly much less than do Nigel Kennedy and Roger Waters.MEMRI: Rabbi Yahya Youssuf Salem, Head of Jewish Community in Yemen, Talks of Segregation and Persecution Report: Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda Attempted to Infiltrate CIA Approximately one in five "flagged" job applicants to the US's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had ties to either Hamas, Hezbollah or Al Qaeda, according to a Washington Times report.Guardian columnist acknowledges Muslim Brotherhood's antisemitism Indeed, the Guardian's coverage of the Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power in Egypt last year ignored the group's long and well-documented antisemitic record (consistent with the paper's tendency to obfuscate other groups' extreme Judeophobia), all of which makes Giles Fraser's recent 'CiF' column on the Brotherhood quite unique.Guardian frames Egypt 'Spy Stork' row as sign of increased xenophobia under military regime Whilst blaming the stork's apprehension on the current mood of jingoism – in contrast, presumably, to the 'enlightened internationalism' under the Muslim Brotherhood – is itself quite comical, those of us who've 'covered' previous instances of spy animals can refute the reporter's thesis by noting other examples of Egyptian 'xenophobia'.Iran's Press TV claims army of pro-Israel propagandists occupy BBC So why exactly are all of the above (and quite a few more) in such a tizzy? Well the former head of the BBC News website's Middle East desk Tarik Kafala recently moved on to become head of the BBC Arabic Service (mabrouk!) and his replacement is Raffi Berg.BDS head draws fire after defending 'Shoot the Jew' chant An anti-Israel rally at a South African University that saw protesters chanting "Shoot the Jew," which was subsequently defended by the head of the country's BDS movement, drew widespread condemnation.Facebook Fails to Enforce 'Community Standards' for Vile Anti-Semitic Page I was recently pointed in the direction of a Facebook page entitled The Untold History, run by a group out of Sweden that calls itself the European Knights Project, a partner of the Institute for Historical Review. On its masthead, it proclaims in all-caps that it is a "HISTORICAL SITE NON-POLITICAL," but this is a sham. It is, in fact, a Holocaust denial site that not only presents bogus and falsified history, but also traffics in the vilest sort of anti-Semitism.Solar Power is the Path to Israel's Energy Future The perpetuation of a world powered by oil is one of the most anti-Jewish actions imaginable. A world that resists transitioning quickly from oil to renewables is a world that feeds the Iranian nuclear program, promotes radical whabbiism in Saudi Arabia and around the world, accelerates extreme climate change, pollutes our air, distorts world policy against Israel, and sends American and other troops off to bloody and expensive wars in Iraq and elsewhere.Is Shale the Key to Israel's Energy Future? One obvious question that remains is, if solar energy can be part of the solution for Israel's own energy needs, why can't Israel use solar—rather than develop its shale resources—to help the world reduce its dependence on oil? The reason that approach isn't viable is that solar can be an alternative to fuels such as coal or natural gas only to the extent that it can replace those fossil fuels for producing electrical power. But because virtually no oil is used for producing electricity in the industrialized world, solar can do nothing to replace oil. In fact, rather than being used for generating electricity, more than 60 percent of oil used worldwide is consumed, instead, to produce liquid transportation fuels (gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel), while most of the rest is used as a feedstock for manufacturing petrochemicals. So, to repeat the point: because solar cannot be used to fuel cars, trucks or buses or as the feedstock for plastics and fertilizer, it is pretty much useless when it comes to replacing oil.      |
| "May Allah help our hackers and mujahadeen" Posted: 03 Sep 2013 01:00 PM PDT This announcement of a cyberattack against Israel on 9/11 is actually pretty funny, although it is meant to be scary: I'm still unclear on who the terrorists are, and who the Illuminati are. But maybe we'll find out. (I think they are using the "Mike" voice on this AT&T voice synthesis demo, with a little reverb added for drama.)      |
| Coverage of Egyptian helicopter strike shows double standards Posted: 03 Sep 2013 11:00 AM PDT The Independent: Egyptian helicopter gunships attack Sinai militants Bloomberg: Egypt Forces Attack Sinai MilitantsAP: Egyptian helicopters fire rockets at militants in Sinai, killing at least 8Notice that not one of these sources say "suspected militants" in the headline (Bloomberg does in the story.) None call them "extrajudicial killings" or "assassinations." Without any proof, it is assumed that Egypt's army is telling the truth, that the houses they hit had no civilians in them, and that everyone killed was an active militant. It may be true, but when Israel does the exact same thing, the news sources first quote Hamas officials - often claiming that the victims were civilians - before putting scare quotes around Israel's description of the targets as "militants" or "terrorists." No such skepticism here. It is true that the jihadists don't have press spokesmen in suits who have cultivated relationships with Western reporters in the area - in fact, there are no Western reporters in the area who regularly interact with the Sinai jihadists and report on how wonderful and hospitable they are. But that's the point, isn't it? Reporters are only skeptical when the claims don't jive with their own pre-existing biases. Those biases are directly reflected in the quality and objectivity of the coverage we read about. To put it in terms that reporters themselves might understand: In 2001, George W. Bush first met Vladimir Putin and said "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul." It didn't take long for the media to ridicule Bush, correctly, for his naivete. Yet that is exactly what many reporters do when they go to Gaza or the West Bank, when they eat meals with the people they are reporting on. They make judgments based on how friendly their hosts are and their reporting then reflects their own look deep into the souls of their subjects. Sinai jihadists are not much different from Hamas jihadists. But they don't have media savvy like Hamas and Islamic Jihad now have. Here are the facts: Egyptian helicopters shot at houses that Egypt suspects sheltered militants, killing several people. That's all we know. That's all that should be reported until it is confirmed or disproven. It's not rocket science to differentiate between facts and assumptions. It is apparently beyond the ability of many journalists, however.      |
| Posted: 03 Sep 2013 09:10 AM PDT From Ian: Khaled Abu Toameh: Will Assad Unleash His Palestinian Terrorists Against U.S., Israel? Informed sources told the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper that the PFLP-GC has reached an agreement with the Syrian regime, Iran and Hizbullah to retaliate for a US-led military strike, and that Israel would be the first target of such retaliation.Palestinians in speeding truck penetrate airport security Additional roadblocks were immediately deployed and, when the truck breached a second barrier — nearly hitting the guard stationed there — security personnel shot at the truck, eventually causing it to stop. The two Palestinian men were ordered out of the vehicle and arrested.As the US pledged $148 million to the PA, the PA pledged $15 million to released prisoners The Palestinian Authority has announced that it plans to give 5,000 released security prisoners who served more than 5 years in Israeli prisons a Dignified Life Grant. The Head of the Statistics Department of the Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs, Abd Al-Nasser Farwaneh, said that the amount distributed would be "15 million American dollars." The PA's intention to use "American dollars" for released security prisoners, most of whom are convicted terrorists, was reported by the official PA daily the very same day that the US announced it was giving the PA "$148 million" - "American dollars" - for the PA's general budget.Abbas on Syria: 'We Will Never Support the Bombing of an Arab Country by a Foreign State' "We don't accept for any Arabic country to be attacked and we condemn the use of chemical weapons by any group. The solution to the Syrian crisis must be political and there is no military solution. We want a peaceful solution for Syria," Abbas said in a speech to Fatah's revolutionary council, according to Ma'an News Agency.In turning to Congress on Syria, Obama overrules top advisers People close to the deliberations say Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, national security adviser Susan Rice and UN Ambassador Samantha Power largely agreed about the need to use force to punish Syrian President Bashar Assad. While there were some differing views about the speed and the scope of an attack, there were no splintered factions the way there had been during first-term debates over taking action in Libya or launching the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.Israel 'uneasy' being painted by Obama as potential WMD victim Israel is "discomfited that both Obama and Kerry mentioned Israel as a potential victim of Assad's chemical weapons," Israel's Channel 2 news reported Monday night. "Israel," it quoted unnamed senior Israeli officials saying, "is not a victim. We don't need America to take care of threats to Israel."Israel shoots test missile over sea, raising alarms Russia raised a brief alarm in the Middle East Tuesday after apparently detecting a joint Israel and US missile launch test in the Mediterranean.Douglas Murray: The Syrian paradox The problem then is this. If any country carries out punitive strikes against the Assad regime they will undoubtedly and rightly be demonstrating the international community's revulsion over the use of chemical weapons. But if the targets that are hit in the resulting strike are meaningful (government buildings, installations etc) then there is the risk that such an intervention could tip the balance in the Syrian civil war. If that balance is tipped and Assad is severely weakened or even falls as a result then whoever carried out the strikes will be at least partly responsible for what comes next. That is a responsibility which neither America, Britain, France nor any other Western power can handle and it is one which none of us wants.Kissinger's good option Kissinger believes Syria should and will break up in some fashion — indeed, the independent-minded Kurds have already created a de facto state with a potent military, the Druze have their own militias and Assad's ruling Alawites, in preparation for a retreat to their traditional homelands should they lose the civil war, have heavily fortified Alawite territory. This break up, sooner rather than later, is Kissinger's preferred outcome yet the West is misguidedly acting to thwart it.UK Government let British company export nerve gas chemicals to Syria The Government was accused of "breathtaking laxity" in its arms controls last night after it emerged that officials authorised the export to Syria of two chemicals capable of being used to make a nerve agent such as sarin a year ago.Syria tried to buy banned weapons material from Swiss Since 1998, the government of Syria made 14 attempted purchases which were flagged and rejected by the Swiss export control watchdog, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.German Intelligence Concludes Assad is Behind Chemical Attack The German intelligence agency (BND) has enough evidence in its possession to conclude that President Bashar Al-Assad ordered the suspected chemical attack in Syria on August 21, Russia Today (RT) reported Monday, citing a report in the German weekly Der Spiegel.French PM Shares 'Proof' Assad behind Chemical Attack French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has shared intelligence with lawmakers he says proves the chemical attack on 21 August came from government forces.Stream of refugees out of Syria passes 2 million mark, UN says If the conflict continues 3.5 million people Syrian refugees are expected by the end of the year, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said.Report: Iran Thinks Israel is Close to Striking It Iran believes that Israel is close to stiking its nuclear facilities, according to a report in Lebanese newspaper Al Jumhuriya, cited by Maariv/NRG. According to the report, a senior Iranian official recently visited Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in his hideout in the Dahiya section section of Beirut to discuss this assessment.Hezbollah said to mobilize troops ahead of possible showdown Members of Hezbollah have "disappeared" from villages across Lebanon, AFP reported Tuesday, citing Lebanese media and witnesses. The report noted that Hezbollah fighters in strongholds along the coast, in the Bekaa valley, near the Syrian border and in southern Beirut had left town, with many turning off their cellphones to avoid being tracked.Three Men Charged in Lebanon for Firing Rockets Into Israel Three men suspected of firing rockets into Israel from Lebanon last month were formally charged on Monday, Lebanon's National News Agency reported.Report: Hamas Members Arrested in Attack on Egyptian Police Egyptian authorities reportedly have arrested 11 people suspected of killing 25 Egyptian police officers in an ambush last week. Five of the suspects are Hamas members, the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat reports.Egypt army pummels Sinai militants, killing dozens Egyptian helicopter gunships fired rockets early Tuesday at militants in the northern Sinai Peninsula, causing "dozens" of casualties, a security official said.      |
| Giora Eiland: Obama nixed Israeli plans to attack Iran's nuclear facilities Posted: 03 Sep 2013 07:30 AM PDT Mida (Hebrew) has an interview with Major General Giora Eiland (ret.), Israel's former National Security Advisor. According to Eiland, Bibi Netanyahu was ready to strike Iran's nuclear program, but pressure from the US nixed the plan. Eiland, who says this happened last year, believes that this was because Obama did not want to jeopardize his re-election campaign; according to Eiland it was right after Obama's disastrous first debate with Romney, which would mean October 2012. Eiland points out that since last year, Iran has had time to get closer to the bomb, and things wouldbe more difficult nowadays. he believes that a strike last year would have crippled the program; whether that is still possible is much less clear nowadays. The general added that the ideal scenario would be an American attack to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat, but given how the US is acting towards Syria, the idea that this would happen seems much more remote today. While the world is riveted by the Syrian situation, Eiland says, the real drama is the countdown to Iran's nuclear weapons capacity. (h/t Yoel)      |
| Posted: 03 Sep 2013 05:00 AM PDT In the New York Review of Books, Peter Beinart is upset that the organized American Jewish community doesn't invite Palestinian Arabs to speak at their events. He believes that American Jews don't give enough empathy to Palestinian Arabs. For the most part, Palestinians do not speak in American synagogues or write in the Jewish press. The organization Birthright, which since 1999 has taken almost 350,000 young Diaspora Jews—mostly Americans—to visit Israel, does not venture to Palestinian towns and cities in the West Bank. Of the more than two hundred advertised speakers at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) 2013 Policy Conference, two were Palestinians. By American Jewish standards, that's high. The American Jewish Committee's Global Forum earlier this year, which advertised sixty-four speakers, did not include a single Palestinian.Beinart grudgingly admits: This lack of familiarity with Palestinian life also inclines many in the organized American Jewish world to assume that Palestinian anger toward Israel must be a product solely of Palestinian pathology. Rare is the American Jewish discussion of Israel that does not include some reference to the textbooks and television programs that "teach Palestinians to hate." These charges have some merit. Palestinian schools and media do traffic in anti-Semitism and promote violence.But: Still, what's often glaringly absent from the American Jewish discussion of Palestinian hatred is any recognition that some of it might stem not from what Palestinians read or hear about the Jewish state, but from the way they interact with it in their daily lives.Beinart is at least as guilty of willful blindness as the American Jewish establishment he is insulting. His "Open Zion" site all but ignores the Palestinian Arab hate and antisemitism, just as he attempts to minimize it and contextualize it here as a natural result of things Israelis did. He says that most terror attacks are the result of anger at Israeli actions from the first intifada, without mentioning who started the first intifada. No doubt Israel's initial reaction was more severe than would be acceptable today, but at the time Palestinian Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza would travel freely to pre-1967 Israel and Israelis would visit freely to Arab areas, without fear. The restrictions that Beinart is so upset about today came because of Palestinian Arab terror, not the other way around. Moreover, while Beinart talks about checkpoints that exist today, what does he think would happen if a two-state solution that he so passionately supports would occur? They wouldn't be checkpoints - there would be national borders. Try commuting to another country every day, let alone an enemy country, and see how painless it is. American Jewish leaders have access to The New York Times, the BBC, the Guardian and, yes, Open Zion. Jewish Americans read Thomas Friedman and Roger Cohen. The idea that they somehow live in a pro-Likud bubble is ridiculous. They know far more about Palestinian Arab claims and grievances than readers of Open Zion know about the day to day incitement against Israel and Jews in Palestinian Arab lives - not just "textbooks and television programs" but virtually every newspaper, every school, every medium. This is the stuff I expose along with MEMRI, Palestinian Media Watch and others. Beinart would like to pretend that we cherry pick the worst examples. To an extent that is true. That's how the media works - to show the worst in order to illuminate the facts - something Beinart is doing in this very essay. However, as someone who reads quite a bit of Arabic media daily, I can assure Beinart and my readers that the hate isn't an anomaly, while people like Salam Fayyad are the silent majority. No - within the "cocoon" of Palestinian Arab life, there is zero tolerance for any viewpoint that is the least bit conciliatory to real coexistence and peace. The hate is pervasive, not anomalous. Anyone who would speak to an American Jewish organization would, by that very fact, lose all legitimacy from their own people. Beinart knows this, but he won't dare say it. One need only look at this post from yesterday to see that this is true. Not only is there virtually no voice for true peace among Palestinian Arabs, but even the slightest attempts at coexistence are demonized and practitioners blacklisted. How often does Open Zion report on this? For that matter, how much does the NYT, BBC and other mainstream media (the recent Forbes piece being a rare exception) report on this? Where are the Palestinian Arab "Open Zions?" Where are the people who really want co-existence who can speak out without being tarred that worst of all insults - "collaborators"? You will not find any Arab Beinarts writing for Palestinian Arabic media. Beinart's own self-created cocoon where he pretends that most Palestinian Arabs want peace is even more bizarre. In his entire lengthy essay, he does not mention Islamic fundamentalism once. The reason is once again willful blindness - Beinart knows that there is no way that fundamentalist Muslims, represented by Hamas - winner in the last PA elections - would ever accept Israel's existence in any manner. So Beinart chooses to ignore that problem and pretend that Salam Fayyad, an unelected former prime minister who barely scraped together 2.4% of the vote for his own party, is mainstream and Hamas is all but nonexistent. Even though he admits that "Virtually every Palestinian I've ever met considers Zionism to be colonialist, imperialist, and racist. " Sure, let's invite them over to the Hadassah meeting so we can hear all about it! That is willful blindness of a far worse kind than anything he can say about the American Jewish establishment. The real cocoon is the one that looks at the Middle East and pretends that it is Jewish American leadership that is somehow more in denial than liberals like Beinart. The real cocoon is the place where the extent of Palestinian Arab intransigence and hate is downplayed and glossed over as simply a few TV programs and textbooks, with no mention of, say, Gaza being controlled by a separate party that considers all of Israel to be "occupied." The real cocoon is the place where, even in light of the Arab Spring, Muslim fundamentalism simply isn't worth mentioning as a problem. Israel doesn't want to oppress anybody, but it has an obligation to protect its citizens - the supreme obligation of any nation. The line it needs to walk in order to do that is a thin and jagged one, and one that for the most part has been successful. Today there is less terror than ever before even as restrictions on Palestinian Arabs are being slowly lifted. This is what should be emphasized, highlighted and encouraged. Beinart, though, is blind to the real facts - because he is the one who lives in a cocoon.      |
| Syrian refugees in Egypt being treated like garbage Posted: 03 Sep 2013 02:00 AM PDT From Al Ahram: Some 88 Syrian refugees, including 25 children, are waiting to be deported to other countries after being detained in Alexandria.Must be the occupation, since everyone knows that is the source of all the problems in the Middle East.      |
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