יום שני, 11 בנובמבר 2013

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Link to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Hizballah, not surprisingly, has no sense of humor

Posted: 10 Nov 2013 07:30 PM PST

Al Arabiya reports:

Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah was the subject of mocking at a Lebanese television program this week, raising anger among his supporters who protested against the show.

His supporters took to the streets on Friday, burning tires and blocking roads in several parts of Lebanon.

It wasn't the first time Nasrallah was mocked in Basmat Watan, a slapstick program aired by LBC TV.

In 2006 Nasrallah's character appeared in the program and the result was a similar one; people protesting and burning tires in the streets.

This week's program poked jokes at Hezbollah's role in Syria, with Nasrallah's character lamenting what he said was a late intervention.

"Our weapons should have included planes and submarines," he said.
Here's the skit in Arabic:

Less than 20 Jews left in Egypt

Posted: 10 Nov 2013 03:00 PM PST

Most sources say that there are around 100 Jews left in Egypt.

But an interview with the new leader of Egypt's Jewish community, the rabidly anti-Zionist Magda Haroun, indicates that things are much worse than that.

According to Dostour, Haroun says that there are now "nearly 20" Jews left in all of Egypt.

Haroun was attending a press conference to ensure that Egypt's latest constitution provides rights for minorities, saying that "even if there is only one Jew in Egypt they deserve their rights."

It is easy to provide rights to people after they have been ethnically cleansed.

Here are the numbers of Jews left in Arab countries, from a number of sources.

Country
1948 Jewish population
Current Jewish population
Algeria
140,000
0
Bahrain
600
37 (2011)
Egypt
80,000
19 (2013)
Iraq
140,000
8 (2008)
Lebanon
5000
20 (2003)
Libya
38,000
0
Morocco
300,000
3,000
Syria
40,000
50 (2013)
Tunisia
105,000
500
Yemen
80,000
350
Jordan
0
0

Off topic Beatles trivia question

Posted: 10 Nov 2013 01:30 PM PST

It's been a few years since I did my last Beatles trivia question (which was "How many Beatles songs have the lyrics "yeah, yeah, yeah" - I thought of 5, my niece came up with #6, see here for the answers).

Since Sunday is a light blog day, here's a new one:

What do these Beatles songs have in common?
  • Can't Buy Me Love
  • A Hard Day's Night
  • Hey Jude
  • Got to Get You Into My Life
  • Savoy Truffle
  • Here Comes the Sun
  • Something
I believe that this list is complete, meaning that every other song does not have the attribute I am thinking of.

Bizarre hint: "It's Only Love" is not on this list, although some mistakenly think it should be.

It is fun to try to find trivia questions where Google is next to useless :)

Answer tomorrow unless someone figures it out first.

Protest against Israeli "siege" postponed - because of Egyptian siege!

Posted: 10 Nov 2013 11:35 AM PST

This is too funny:
The closure of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip has delayed the launch of Gaza Ark, an improvised cargo ship built by Gaza fishermen set to sail to Europe in protest against the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Member of the Gaza Strip association of fishermen Mahfouth Kabariti said Sunday that the Gaza Ark was supposed to set sail by the end of 2013, but as a result of the closure of Rafah crossing, the launch has been delayed to spring 2014.

He noted that in order to be seaworthy, the Gaza Ark still needed international standard navigation equipment that could only be brought into Gaza via the Rafah crossing.
Hey, maybe they can try to sail to Egypt and pick up the supplies that way!

Oh, wait, Egypt shoots at Gaza boats. Because they sometimes have terrorists.

So the people who want to publicly protest Israel's border restrictions on Gaza are thwarted by Egypt's border restrictions on Gaza.

Yet, for some reason, there is no international cry blaming Egypt for having more draconian policies towards Gaza than Israel does.

By the way, the Rafah crossing was closed today for the third day in a row. The "Free Gaza" movement is curiously silent.

(h/t PTWatch)

11/10 Links: On Kristallnacht Anniversary EU Calls for Boycotts, NGO Monitor Awarded the 2013 Begin Prize

Posted: 10 Nov 2013 10:15 AM PST

From Ian:
Understanding global anti-Semitism
As our global age is political in that people now understand that virtually all spheres of life are governed or profoundly influenced by politics. So too today's anti-Semitism, which before was mainly cultural or socially oriented, has now adopted a political cast.
Hence anti-Semitic governments, through the UN and as a matter of domestic and foreign policy, promote anti-Semitism, and indeed have forged something against Israel that exists against no other country: an international eliminationist political alliance.
Finally, because nothing incites anti-Semites more than the specter of Jews being powerful, and because the global world is a world organized by the international state system, global anti-Semites relentlessly focus their ire and efforts on deprecating, demonizing and delegitimizing Israel. Many though certainly not all of them want to destroy the country.
Such is the logic of today's globally oriented global anti-Semitism.
Europe marks 75th Anniversary of Kristallnacht with new calls for boycotts
Having concluded that by and large, the European political class has long abandoned Israel, it would be nice to state that this is not the case for European civil society. Romantic perceptions would have it that, at the very least, ordinary European citizens would be on the right side of history. Sadly this is not the case. In parallel with their political leaders, much of European civil society, consisting of trade unions, academia, churches and other non-governmental organisations, has stepped up its dipomatic war against Israel and is pressing for more sanctions and boycotts. When the World Council of Churches met recently for its annual meeting in Geneva, there was little concern for its persecuted Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East; but there were four workshops on the issue of – you guessed it – the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The problems in Europe in 2013 are the same as in 1938. When the boycotts and singling out of the Jewish people began, the good people chose to look the other way. It is now high time to look in the right direction.
Gantz: 'We will never again be helpless against our enemies'
Speaking at the Berlin- Grunewald station's Track 17 memorial, used by the Nazis as a major deportation site to send Jews to concentration camps during the Second World War, Gantz said. "The State of Israel in 2013 is strong. The Jewish nation-state is a democratic and advanced country with a powerful military that deters [its enemies]. Today too, we are required to deal with hostile states and organizations that seek to harm us, but unlike the past, we face our enemies from a position of strength – stronger than ever before."
Israel's chief rabbi remembers Kristallnacht in Berlin
Israel's chief Ashkenazi rabbi marked the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht with a visit to a Jewish kindergarten in Berlin.
"Connecting Jews in Germany to their roots is the worthiest retort to the darkness that prevailed here 75 years ago," Rabbi David Lau said during his first official visit to Berlin, where he went to the Chabad-run Judische Traditionsschule Talmud-Thora kindergarten.
Christianity is based on love; but sometimes hate prevails
It has always been puzzling why the WCC, and similar mainstream organizations purporting to pursue peace continue to use extravagant, biased rhetoric and misleading historical statements in their approach to the controversial issues of the Arab-Israeli conflict. That rhetoric degrades rather than attempts to repair relations between the competing parties.
It also refuses to acknowledge the historical consequences, in territory and refugees, of the Arab invasion of the State of Israel after its establishment on May 14, 1948.
The PIEF claims to be a forum intended to rally churches and groups to "end the illegal occupation of Palestine in accordance with UN resolutions" and to press for a "just peace in Palestine-Israel." However, the real nature of its objective is clear from its approval of the Kairos Palestine Document.
NGO Monitor Awarded the 2013 Begin Prize
The prestigious Begin Prize, in recognition of "their strong stance in the defense of Israel and the Jewish people," will be awarded to NGO Monitor on December 4, 2013. Founded in 2002 by Professor Gerald Steinberg and the Wechsler Family Foundation, NGO Monitor is an independent research institute based in Jerusalem and the primary source of expertise on activities and funding of political non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict. NGO Monitor was nominated by 2010 Begin Prize recipient Prof. Alan Dershowitz and Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky, among others.
Lessons on hypocrisy from Syria
The fighting in Syria once again proves the sad old adage that human rights organizations and their advocates in the mainstream Western media are essentially anti-Israel. There is no other way to explain the fact that all these high-and-mighty moralizers are ignoring the frightening plight of Palestinians and Christians in the Syrian civil war.
You see, there is no anti-Israel angle to the story of Palestinian or Christian suffering in Syria. That suffering can't really be blamed on the Jews. So nobody cares.
First robbed of their books, now robbed of their history
Pleading in the New York Times for the archive not to be sent back to Iraq, Cynthia Kaplan Shamash begins by describing the 1941 Farhud, 'the forgotten pogrom of the Holocaust'. The murder of over a hundred Jews, seven years before the establishment of Israel, caused Iraqi Jews to conclude that they had no future in the country.
Cynthia's family, however, stayed in Iraq on until the 1970s. She was eight years old when an officer accused her of being a spy. Her doll was taken apart to see if it contained a bugging device. She still has the doll. In their desperation to escape Iraq's anti-Jewish human rights abuses, the family had to leave behind almost all their other possessions. The archive represents essential 'lost luggage': it reconnects them with the life they left behind.
Controversy surrounding Iraqi Jewish Archive ignored in BBC feature
Jane O'Brien's article is both interesting and informative – in so far as it goes. Curiously, it avoids any mention of vital aspects of the story including the controversy surrounding the subject of the proposed hand-over of the restored archive to Iraq, making do with one short sentence on that subject.
Readers remain entirely unaware that Iraqi Jewish organisations are opposed to the documents being sent to a country where almost no Jews remain or of the fact that such a move would mean that Jewish scholars and the descendants of Iraqi Jewry would have no further access to the archive.
Terrorist's Facebook Profile Exposes Recent Stabbing Attempt as Suicide Attack
A terrorist's Facebook profile reveals the truth behind his attack against Israeli soldiers last Thursday. His suicidal Facebook messages suggest that he acted like many terrorists before him – attempting to end his own life and murder IDF soldiers in the process.
PA Digging for Oil in Judea and Samaria
On Saturday Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Mohammed Mustafa, said that the PA is in the final stages of preparation before advertising bids internationally to drill for oil in Judea and Samaria.
The drilling is planned for the area around Rantis, according to an interview for Palestinian TV by the Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. He claims Israel produces 800 barrels of oil per day from the region.
The Palestinian Tamarrud Protest Movement Aims To Bring Down The Hamas Government In Gaza
Recently, the Gaza-based Palestinian Tamarrud movement has been waging a campaign on social networks to bring down the Hamas government in Gaza. The movement's activity is mainly in Gaza, but it also has members in the West bank and among the Palestinian diaspora. The spokesmen of the 90,000-strong movement say that it is apolitical and that its members do not belong to any Palestinian faction. However, several characteristics of the movement clearly show a connection to Fatah – including the involvement of Fatah members in its activity; its setting of its official founding date and the date its activity begins as November 11, 2013, which is the ninth anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death; and the similarity of its messages to those of Fatah.
Egypt 'skeptical' about Israeli-Palestinian peace deal
In an interview with AFP Saturday, Fahmy said that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas "essentially accepted a historic compromise between the Palestinians and the Israelis and is simply asking for a contiguous state with East Jerusalem as its capital."
"We are worried, I would even add to it, to a degree skeptical, but committed to trying to help as much as we can," Fahmy said, adding "settlement activity … is expanding and also going to the heart of the West Bank."
Netanyahu lauds delay in Iran nuclear talks
"Over the weekend I spoke with President Barack Obama, with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with French President Francois Hollande, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron," Netanyahu related.
"I told them that, based on information Israel has received, the deal taking shape is bad and dangerous. Not just for us, but for them as well. I suggested they wait and think carefully, and it's good that they decided to do so. We will do everything in our power to convince these powers and these leaders to avoid a bad deal."
The devil is in the nuclear details
There are four possible deals that may be reached during the next round of talks in Geneva, following the narrow failure of the attempt to reach an agreement on Sunday morning. Amos Yadlin, a former IDF military intelligence chief who heads the INSS think tank, labeled them in an October article in the Wall Street Journal as such: Ideal, reasonable, bad and in phases.
US has 'folded' on Iran, Israeli political sources charge
Senior political sources said that the deal that has been sitting on the negotiations table since the weekend is "very bad." It calls on Iran to stop enriching uranium to the 20 percent level, but allows them to continue enriching uranium to 3.5% at all of its enrichment sites. In addition it fails to place a limitation on the number of centrifuges in Tehran's possession, estimated to number 19,000.
Rouhani: Enrichment is our Red Line
Iran's president described the right to enrich uranium as the country's "red line" Sunday, as Tehran and the groups of six major world powers concluded negotiations in Geneva, reported the official Press TV.
Addressing Iranian lawmakers in Majlis, Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic Republic "will not bow to threats by any power."
Iran state TV calls France 'Israel's representatives at the talks'
"While the French people want an improvement in the relations between Paris and Tehran, unfortunately the French government has preferred the Zionist regime's views to its people's demand," he added.
"We hope that the French foreign minister casts a logical look at the negotiations," Hosseini said.
Norway Coalition Government Weighs Ending Arms Ban to Israel to Increase Exports
Norway's new coalition government is weighing a decision to lift a 2002 ban on selling arms to Israel, Israel's Globes business daily reported on Friday, citing an interview with Norwegian MP Jorund Rytmanin in Defense News.
The ban was supported by the previous Socialist regime of Jens Stoltenberg that governed from 2005 until last month.
Cloud gives Google another reason to like Israel
There are a lot of reasons for Google to like Israel. With two major R&D facilities, Google Israel has been behind many important innovations for the company – including the technology behind Google products like Search Live Results, Person Finder, Google Suggest, Youtube Annotations, and more. It's fair to say that Google just wouldn't be the same without its two major Israeli research centers.
There's another reason for the company to like Israel, said Dan Powers, Director of the Google Cloud Platform. "Israel is one of the fastest growing markets for cloud technology," Powers said. Unlike the situation in other countries, "Israeli companies are not afraid of the cloud, and they realize that this is the best way to go globally quickly."

Amb. Alan Baker's letter to John Kerry about the settlements

Posted: 10 Nov 2013 08:42 AM PST

Alan Baker, Attorney, Ambassador (ret')
P.O.B. 182, Har Adar, Israel 90836
Tel: +972-54-3322643
E-mail: ambassador.alan@gmail.com


The Hon. James Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State,
The State Department,
Washington D.C.

November 8, 2013


Dear Secretary Kerry,

After listening to you declare repeatedly over the past weeks that "Israel's settlements are illegitimate", I respectfully wish to state, unequivocally, that you are mistaken and ill advised, both in law and in fact. 

Pursuant to the "Oslo Accords", and specifically the Israel-Palestinian Interim Agreement (1995), the "issue of settlements" is one of subjects to be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations. President Bill Clinton on behalf of the US, is signatory as witness to that agreement, together with the leaders of the EU, Russia, Egypt, Jordan and Norway. 

Your statements serve to not only to prejudge this negotiating issue, but also to undermine the integrity of that agreement, as well as the very negotiations that you so enthusiastically advocate.

Your determination that Israel's settlements are illegitimate cannot be legally substantiated. The oft-quoted prohibition on transferring population into occupied territory (Art. 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention) was, according to the International Committee Red Cross's own official commentary of that convention, drafted in 1949 to prevent the forced, mass transfer of populations carried out by the Nazis in the Second World War. It was never intended to apply to Israel's settlement activity. Attempts by the international community to attribute this article to Israel emanate from clear partisan motives, with which you, and the US are now identifying.

The formal applicability of that convention to the disputed territories cannot be claimed since they were not occupied from a prior, legitimate sovereign power. 

The territories cannot be defined as "Palestinian territories" or, as you yourself frequently state, as "Palestine". No such entity exists, and the whole purpose of the permanent status negotiation is to determine, by agreement, the status of the territory, to which Israel has a legitimate claim, backed by international legal and historic rights. How can you presume to undermine this negotiation?

There is no requirement in any of the signed agreements between Israel and the Palestinians that Israel cease, or freeze settlement activity. The opposite is in fact the case. The above-noted 1995 interim agreement enables each party to plan, zone and build in the areas under its respective control. 

Israel's settlement policy neither prejudices the outcome of the negotiations nor does it involve displacement of local Palestinian residents from their private property.  Israel is indeed duly committed to negotiate the issue of settlements, and thus there is no room for any predetermination by you intended to prejudge the outcome of that negotiation.

By your repeating this ill-advised determination that Israel's settlements are illegitimate, and by your threatening Israel with a "third Palestinian intifada" and international isolation and delegitimization, you are in fact buying into, and even fueling the Palestinian propaganda narrative, and exerting unfair pressure on Israel. This is equally the case with your insistence on a false and unrealistic time limit to the negotiation. 

As such you are taking sides, thereby prejudicing your own personal credibility, as well as that of the US.

With a view to restoring your own and the US's credibility, and to come with clean hands to the negotiation, you are respectfully requested to publicly and formally retract your determination as to the illegitimate nature of Israel's settlements and to cease your pressure on Israel.

Respectfully,






Alan Baker, Attorney, Ambassador (ret'),
Former legal counsel of Israel's Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
Former ambassador of Israel to Canada,
Director, Institute for Contemporary Affairs, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 
Director, International Action Division, The Legal Forum for Israel 

Copy:
H.E. Daniel B. Shapiro, US Ambassador to Israel,

71 Hayarkon Street, Tel Aviv, Israel 63903

(h/t Jan)

Why is Gaza in the dark? Because Hamas refuses to pay!

Posted: 10 Nov 2013 07:30 AM PST

Palestine Press Agency discusses the now week-old Gaza blackout.

It quotes Popular Struggle Front member Mahmoud Azzak as saying "The Hamas movement rejects up to now the obligation to pay what is needed for the price of industrial diesel needed to run the power plant, saying that Hamas does not pay one shekel for the electricity that feeds the Gaza Strip from Israel and Egypt."

Israel provides the bulk of Gaza's electricity, 120 MW. Egypt provides about 22 MW and the Gaza power plant, when operational, provides 60 MW. The PA pays Israel for the electricity, effectively indirectly funding the Hamas terror group with Western funds.

Hamas wants that same deal for fuel imported from Israel - it wants the PA to pay for the entire amount (or at least to not charge tax) so Hamas can stay in power for a while longer.

Meanwhile, Hamas is holding Gazans hostage, preferring to keep them cold and dark rather than pay whatever it takes to give them power. It would rather use them to pressure the PA to provide fuel at a discount.

When Hamas was smuggling fuel from Egypt, it taxed Gazans heavily to use it.

Tomorrow are the planned anti-Hamas protests in Gaza. It will be worth following.





Kuwaiti forfeits karate medal because competitor is Israeli

Posted: 10 Nov 2013 05:30 AM PST

Al Masry al Youm reports that a Kuwaiti karate competitor has forfeited his match, and a chance for a bronze medal, rather than compete against an Israeli today.

The World Junior Karate and Cadet Championships are being held in Guadalajara, Spain, this year.

The Secretary General of the Karate Union in Kuwait said that players were explicitly told not to play any Israeli competitors.

It remains to be seen if the World Karate Federation will punish the Kuwaiti team for violating the spirit of competition the way the International Tennis Federation recently punished Tunisia.

Even when Israel builds the separation barrier along the Green Line, Israel-haters complain

Posted: 10 Nov 2013 03:20 AM PST

You know how Israel haters say that Israel building a fence to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks is a "land-grab"?

They usually say that Israel would be perfectly allowed to build such a fence on the Green Line itself, but not to protect Israelis in who live across it even in areas that would never be part of "Palestine."

Well, it turns out that the Green Line is not so sacred to them when they don't like it.

Ma'an reports:

Battir is a Palestinian village southwest of Jerusalem famous for maintaining a Roman-era terraced irrigation system in continuous use for nearly 2000 years. The Hejaz Railway, an Ottoman-built track originally running from Damascus to Medina, winds through the valley intersecting the village.

Israeli authorities subsequently drew the Green Line along the tracks of the Hejaz Railway, tearing apart the village and leaving 30 percent of Battir's land on the Israeli side of the Green Line. [Jordan and the UN had a bit to do with drawing the Green Line. - EoZ]

However, after 1948 Battir residents struck a deal with Israeli authorities, allowing them to cultivate their lands over the Green Line in exchange for protecting the railway. This deal held even after Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967.

Israeli authorities are currently planning to build the separation wall through the village, effectively confiscating 30 percent of the lands and cutting across the village's ancient terraces.
This means that Israel is planning to build the barrier on the Green Line itself, exactly what its critics say they want - when it suits them. If a State of Palestine is created along the Green Line as the Arabs insist it must be according to international law, this is what would happen to Bittar anyway - which, incidentally, is the ancient Jewish village of Betar. 

The fact is that the Green Line split a number of Arab villages. During the 2008 negotiations, the Israeli side suggested that splitting Arab towns along the Green Line - Beit Safafa, Barta'a, Baqa al-Sharqiyeh, Baqa al-Gharbiyyeh - is unacceptable and suggested that they get incorporated into the Palestinian Arab side as part of a land swap. Al Jazeera slammed the suggestion because Arab Israelis would become citizens of the PA! To them, the Green Line must split the villages when Israel suggests otherwise.

And then Israel would be blamed for that, just as this Ma'an article blames Israel and Israel only for drawing the Green Line to begin with!

To the Israel haters, the  Green Line a sacred boundary only when it can be used to hurt Israel, even at the expense of "Palestine."

Israel returns stolen Egyptian artifacts

Posted: 09 Nov 2013 11:00 PM PST

From Al Ahram:
Israel has returned a collection of stolen antiquities to Egypt after they were found on sale at an auction hall in Jerusalem.

The antiquities ministry said the collection contains 90 ancient Egyptian artefacts, including clay vessels, vases, ushabti figurines and stelae.

Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim told Ahram Online on Saturday the auction hall was exhibiting 110 artefacts but only 90 were recovered by the Israeli authorities. The remaining 20 were sold.

The minister said Egypt had asked the Israeli authorities to take legal procedures against the auctioneers and to trace the sold objects. They are willing to do this, he added.

Ali Ahmed, director-general of the Repatriation of Antiquities Department at the ministry, said the objects were first noticed during a routine internet search of international auction halls.

The recovery process began in September when Ibrahim sent an urgent letter to the foreign ministry asking them to act in collaboration with the Egyptian embassy in Jerusalem to stop the sale of 110 artefacts at the Eweda auction hall in Jerusalem.

Israeli authorities discovered the objects were stolen and had been illegally smuggled out of Egypt when the owner of the auction hall was unable to prove his ownership of the objects.
Can you imagine what would happen if the roles were reversed?
פורסם על ידי zoom ב- 0:04

אין תגובות:

הוסף רשומת תגובה

הירשם ל- תגובות לפרסום (Atom)