יום שני, 16 בדצמבר 2013

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Link to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Iran's Khamenei accuses West of attacking the Farsi language

Posted: 15 Dec 2013 10:00 PM PST

From Ayatollah Khamenei's Twitter account:
#Farsi was once the language of #science frm Constantinople to India;It was the official #language in Ottoman capital for a long time. When #British 1st came to #India,1 of their 1st measures was to impede #Farsi; they stopped Farsi w/their own particular tricks and deceits. Some ppl use #foreign expressions & feel disgraced to use terms in their mother tongue; they feel mortified! They write their mother tongue in English letters! Why? Why should we perish our mother tongue with our own hands?
Poor Khamenei. If he would venture out to a Tehran shopping mall he would have an aneurysm.

What are all the Prawer protesters doing about this?

Posted: 15 Dec 2013 07:00 PM PST

From the Council on Foreign Relations in a backgrounder:
The peninsula's native Bedouins bear longstanding grievances stemming from economic deprivation and political alienation. Since 1979, tribal chiefs have been appointed by the region's governors, military officers chosen by the central government. But the capital's drive to centralize control was never fully realized.

Bedouins were excluded from tourism and energy development projects championed by Hosni Mubarak, experts say. The North was starved of investment while Mubarak sought to establish a Red Sea Riviera in the more sparsely populated South, particularly Sharm el-Sheikh, where he had his summer villa. Cairo encouraged labor migration to the Sinai from the Nile Valley, Pelham writes, offering these internal migrants preferential access to land, irrigation, and jobs, while denying native Bedouins such basic services and rights as running water and property registration. They were blocked from jobs with the police, army, and the peninsular peacekeeping force, the Multinational Force & Observers (MFO), which is one of the region's largest employers. In North Sinai, schools and hospitals were left unstaffed.

"The U.S. and Israel were telling Mubarak for years that neglect of the Sinai was going to come back to haunt them," says CFR Senior Fellow Steven Cook. High-profile bombings of resorts between 2004 and 2006, which had a combined death toll of about 130, as well as a spate of clashes between Bedouins and police, tourist kidnappings, and other smaller attacks occurred after two decades of what were seen as malign policies.

Under the three-decade–long emergency law that was in place until 2012, security forces under the Ministry of the Interior responded to the emerging terrorist threat with dragnet arrests, detaining and torturing thousands, human rights observers say. The indiscriminate state response fed a cycle of political violence and further alienated Sinai's Bedouins from Cairo.
The article goes on to say that because of their mistreatment, some Bedouin are turning to crime and how they partnered with Hamas in smuggling.

But for some reason, no one is protesting or writing articles about the Sinai Bedouin.

No, the only Bedouin the world pretends to care about are the ones who are a few kilometers away, over a border that the Bedouin themselves don't recognize.

Funny, that.

(h/t PMB)

Going to Israel

Posted: 15 Dec 2013 03:00 PM PST

I'm on my way to the Holy Land.

(Are we still allowed to call it that? It's not a violation of any British advertising laws or anything, is it?)

I think most of the snow will be melted by the time I get there, though...



A have a couple of posts queued for the trip , but even after I land, there will not be much time for blogging.  Maybe Ian can break up his excellent linkdumps into smaller chunks...

Unraveling the story behind a 5th century Jewish tombstone

Posted: 15 Dec 2013 12:00 PM PST

From NYT:
They figured out her first name, but not her father's. They know where and when she died, but not her age or the cause of death. They could not tell whether she was married.

This is a detective story, but not the ripped-from-the-headlines kind. The woman died more than 1,600 years ago, in what is now Jordan. The detectives are a few students at Yeshiva University in Upper Manhattan and a professor who is sometimes called the Jewish Robert Langdon, referring to the fictional Harvard professor of iconology in the Dan Brown books and the movie "The Da Vinci Code."

All they had to go on was the woman's tombstone. And at first, they did not even have that, just photographs of it.

Here are the facts of the case:

In March 2012, the professor, Steven Fine, who is also the director of Yeshiva's Center for Israel Studies, wrote an article for the magazine Biblical Archaeology Review about Jewish tombstones in the ancient city of Zoar, which most scholars say was on the Dead Sea. It was such an oasis, according to one account, that a sixth-century mapmaker drew a grove of palm trees as a symbol for it.

Dr. Fine soon heard from one of the magazine's readers, the Rev. Carl Morgan of Woodland United Fellowship, a church in Woodland, Calif.

Pastor Morgan, who also has a doctorate in archaeology, emailed a tantalizing photograph: an image of a tombstone like the ones Dr. Fine had discussed in his article. Pastor Morgan said it was in the collection of the Woodland Museum of Biblical Archaeology, which occupies part of the church's campus, about 20 miles from Sacramento. A private collector had given it to the museum, Pastor Morgan said.

"It had not been translated," he recalled in a recent telephone interview. "I knew Dr. Fine could translate it."

...From the beginning, the Yeshiva students were confident they could make sense of the Aramaic inscriptions; Talmudic Aramaic is virtually the same as the Aramaic on the tombstone. They also know Hebrew. Mr. Friedman said the first few words were straightforward, and Ellie Schwartz, a senior, recited them: " 'Here rests the soul of Sa'adah, daughter of something.' We don't know the 'something.' "

Going by the format of other ancient tombstones, they felt certain the missing word was the name of the woman's father and wondered if it was Phineas, but they said they could not be sure. "We have the P," Dr. Fine said. "We thought there was an N, but we're stuck because whatever it is, it's been scratched away. You get to the point where 'I can't know' may be the most learned answer you can give."

If the father's name was elusive, so was another basic fact about the woman, whose name means "divine help."

"They don't mention her age," Mr. Friedman said. Dr. Fine said Christian tombstones from that area carried ages, but Jewish tombstones did not. That was simply the custom of the day, he said.

But the students could date the stone, based on the parallel dating systems inscribed on it. One referred to the Temple in Jerusalem, destroyed by the Romans in the year 70. (That system was used by Jews in Greece until World War II, Dr. Fine said; the last place the system was used, he said, was Corfu, before the Nazis rounded up the Jews who lived there and sent them to Auschwitz.) The other system was based on the number seven. By comparing the two systems, they could say with certainty that she died 362 years after the destruction of the temple.

And then there were the symbols painted on the tombstone. Mr. Schwartz said the group assumed one was the Ten Commandments, because in the photographs from the museum, it looked like a tablet with writing on it. Dr. Fine knew better. "It's an incense shovel," he said — a symbol of ceremonies in a temple.
Yes, there were once Jews in Jordan. Not a single one today, though.

(h/t Ronald)

12/15 Links: Why “Palestine” will not be an ‘Rainbow Nation’, Israeli/Chinese Car on Sale in EU

Posted: 15 Dec 2013 10:00 AM PST

From Ian:
Linkage, Ltd.
Obama believes that if the U.S. were to create a stable Middle East and forge a wide cross-Arab partnership of moderates -- which would supplant the dwindling U.S. presence -- the Palestinian issue must be addressed. Only by removing this stumbling block from the Arab world's agenda will key players such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt be able to increase their political and defense-related cooperation with Washington without undermining their stability.
But the linkage policy in this region has been a bitter disappointment. The American cold shoulder during the early Eisenhower years did not stop the USSR from setting foot in the region. The Baghdad Pact did not meet its objective and was never as big as it was supposed to be (see what happened to Egypt and Iraq). The economic incentives aimed at seducing the Soviets were an utter failure when it came to the East's activities in the Middle East and in Angola's civil war.
As for the Obama administration, even though Israel agreed to halt settlement construction in 2009 for a 10-month period, this did not help create the much-anticipated Sunni coalition. The legitimacy of the Sunni regimes in the area (and chiefly among them is Egypt) was eroded and ultimately imploded, but this was not a result of the impasse in the peace talks with the Palestinians. It was a consequence of the Arab Spring that reshuffled the deck.
The Spirit of Apartheid: Why "Palestine" will not be an 'Rainbow Nation'
In contrast with South Africa, which – consistent with Mandela's vision – largely embraces its mix of whites, blacks, coloured, Asian and Indian populations (as well as Jews, Christians, Muslims and African ethnic groups such as Xhosa and Zulu), the new state of Palestine will almost certainly be entirely Arab Muslim. There will of course be no Jews and (if trends throughout 'Palestine' and the Arab Middle East continue) almost no Christians.
All of this leads us to conclude that while Palestine will likely not become an apartheid state – as such state codified racism first requires the critical mass of racial diversity which they will not possess – it will become the kind of racial exclusivist state which Mandela and South Africa's liberals found so abhorrent.
Temple Mount high
The real negligence on the Temple Mount is the unwillingness of the State of Israel to assert its full sovereignty there. Ever since Moshe Dayan squatted down with the Wakf on June 17, 1967, together with David Farhi, and symbolically returned the keys to the gates, the state has sensessly kowtowed to the most fanatical behavior.
Only in August 1967 did Dayan take the key to the Muhgrabi Gate back from Wakf head Hassan Tahboub, and military police were stationed at the entrance to the gate. Later, regular police assumed supervision.
Palestine – European Union Embroiled In Financial Scandal…writes David Singer
Spending hundreds of millions of dollars supposedly supporting the salaries of public servants that no longer occupy those positions and doing nothing to arrest this expenditure – although knowing it was happening – indicates an appalling standard of financial irresponsibility for which the EU has become famous.
This financial gravy train seems set to continue whilst:
1 Hamas and the PLO refuse to reconcile their differences
2 The PLO rejects any kind of settlement with Israel that entails Israel obtaining sovereignty in any part of the West Bank.
The European Union is on a treadmill from which it must now extricate itself.
The obvious solution is to make sure EU money gets to the most needy – not phantom employees who have been having a financial feast at European taxpayers expense.
In Sydney, A Motion Most Foul
This picture shows a grinning trio making a salute outside the Sydney Jewish Museum that is definitely not the Aussie Salute.
While the arm motion made by this trio is undoubtedly inexplicable to most onlookers it appears that it is, as the Times of Israel explains here, an abominable racist gesture that has recently caught on bigtime among Jew-haters in Europe. It is the "quenelle signal," we're told,
The photo that I've reproduced above is one of the truly shocking collection shown here which demonstrate the depths of depravity to which some people will sink in order to mock and vilify the Jews.
A cynical disqualification
The University of Haifa decided not to give an honorary doctorate to Nobel Prize winner Professor Robert Aumann. The reason: His right-wing views, which contradict the left-wing, pro-Palestinian spirit of the university. We recently learned that the Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee will reportedly discuss the university's law clinics' practices of late, a third of which have focused on Palestinian rights, including the rights of Hamas terrorists serving prison sentences in Israel.
Aumann, a leading scholar of mathematics and game theory, does not need the University of Haifa's respect. His academic excellence does not require the university's affirmation, which is rather small by comparison. Every important international institution has opened its doors to him. Students the world over have flocked to Jerusalem to study under Aumann, learning the basic tenets of human logic.
USF professor Stephen Zunes Duped
Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he chairs the program in Middle Eastern Studies. He is well known for his anti-Israel rhetoric.
You'd think the Chair of Middle East Studies in a large urban institution might have a working knowledge of the history, and geography of the region. After all, Prof. Zunes has traveled extensively in the area.
Yet Prof. Zunes recently posted this on his Facebook Page. Fail.
Umm, Stephen. One problem. Thats from Japan.
So there we have it - an " expert" in the Middle East mistakenly claimed photos from the Tobu World Square theme park in Japan (1/25 scale, incidentally!) were taken in Egypt
Fail: Palestine Online store celebrates British Colonialism
In their desperation to claim a cultural heritage, where none existed before, the Palestinian Online store is marketing jewelry created from "authentic" and "historic" British Mandate coins.
By selling the jewelry made with this coinage, the Palestine Online store is celebrating the British Mandate and the colonial history of the region, as well as the historical Jewish ties to this land. Nice.
British Pro-Jihad Islamist Anjem Choudary – Whose Network Is Regarded As 'Single Biggest Gateway To Terrorism'
In November 2013, the U.K. nonprofit group Hope Not Hate published extensive research revealing that British Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary – head and co-founder of the banned extremist U.K. group Al-Muhajiroun, spokesman for the banned Islam4UK organization, and spiritual advisor to the banned U.K. Islamist group Muslims Against Crusades (MAC – has been encouraging young British Muslims to go to Syria to fight for Al-Qaeda. The report stated that the network of Al-Muhajiroun and its European partners has become the "single biggest gateway to terrorism in recent British history" and the largest in Europe that is recruiting foreign fighters to go to Syria. It also estimated that the network has sent 200-300 people to Syria.
'Tis the season for the BBC to avoid adopting other people's anti-Israel memes
One of the less attractive features of the Christmas season in recent years has been its exploitation by politically motivated NGOs as a spring-board for augmented delegitimisation of Israel, with a dominant feature of those opportunistic campaigns being the deliberate conflation of present day Palestinians with the characters depicted in the Christmas story. For example, in recent years some charities have been selling blatantly political Christmas cards which portray Joseph and Mary as Palestinians and one-sided inaccurate representations of the anti-terrorist fence feature widely in seasonal merchandise.
Knesset Weighs Bill that would Tax Anti-Zionism
An anti-leftist, anti-boycott bill which was discussed under the previous Knesset will come to the fore again Sunday, according to Maariv. The Knesset hearing will be headed by MK Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi/Jewish Home) and Robert Ilatov (Yisrael Beytenu).
The bill has sparked controversy for imposing a 45% tax on foreign donations to leftist groups. The goal of the bill is to "reduce the involvement of foreign entities within the affairs of the state of Israel."
After storm and heavy flooding, Gaza receives fuel
While the rival Palestinian government in the West Bank can ship fuel to Gaza through Israel, Gaza's Hamas rulers have refused to accept the shipments, saying they cannot afford a new tax.
Palestinian border official Raed Fattouh said Sunday's fuel shipment was paid for by Qatar.
Appeasing Nuclear Tyrannies Doesn't Work
But just as the megalomania of the North Korean leadership always trumped any idea of their nation's economic interests, the Iranian theocrats will always prioritize their vision of regional hegemony in which nukes will be complimented by their thriving side business funding international terrorism and their alliances with the Assad clan in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and perhaps a renewed friendship with Hamas in Gaza. And at the pinnacle of the Iranian system remains an autocratic cleric who dreams of destroying Israel and has no interest in détente with the West. Appeasing him and his minions is just as futile a task as Sherman's previous efforts in North Korea.
Laugh all you want about the craziness in North Korea and pretend, if you can manage it, that their nuclear arsenal doesn't pose a threat to the U.S. But the cost of playing the same game in Iran will be even higher. Appeasing or containing a nuclear tyranny run by hate-filled theocrats is as hopeless as was the attempt to do the same thing with one run by a Stalinist family gang. Though Obama, Kerry, and Sherman want the nuclear deals signed with North Korea to be thrown down the memory hole, they stand as an indictment against the administration's current Iran policy.
Start-Up GreenSpense Wins Prestigious International Cleantech Awards
12 billion aerosol sprays, gels and foams are manufactured annually; over 500,000 tons of gas (used as a propellant in aerosols) contribute to the expensive packaging and environmental danger of today's aerosol canisters. An Israeli company, GreenSpense, has developed an eco-friendly solution to the challenges and dangers presented by aerosol containers.
GreenSpense's Eco-Sleeve does away with the need for gas and pressurized-metal-canisters, used for sprays, gels and foam products, which make aerosols polluting, dangerous and expensive to pack. Made from innovative material using nanotechnology, GreenSpense's Eco-Sleeve unleashes design creativity in packaging shapes and materials, providing a huge marketing and ecological advantage to producers, while reducing packaging and product costs and eliminating the use of harmful gas.
Hadassah develops new test for 'Breast Cancer Gene'
Israeli researchers, led by Dr. Asher Salmon, then Senior Oncologist at the Hadassah Medical Center, developed a blood test that reveals it is possible to predict the presence of harmful BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations in otherwise healthy women using a novel technology called gene expression profiling. Women with a mutation in their BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene have a significantly increased risk for developing breast or ovarian cancer. For many of those at risk, the disease may develop at an early age.
Israel Corp.'s Qoros opens first European car showroom
Car manufacturer Qoros Auto Co. Ltd., a joint venture controlled by Israel Corporation (TASE: ILCO) and China's Chery Automobile Co. Ltd. has officially opened its first showroom in Europe in the Slovakian capital Bratislava.
In the first stage Qoros will sell just one model - a sedan with a 1.6 turbo engine and the highest level of accessories. The price of the Qoros will be €20,960 but at a later stage a more basic model will sell for just €20,000.
Israel's folding car of the future
If you're looking for the future of urban transportation, take a peek inside a workshop near Rosh HaAyin, where a trio of engineers is readying Israel's entry into the folding-car arena.
The City Transformer (www.citytransformer.com) quadricycle is designed as an electric two-seater that folds down with the press of a button from 1.6 meters to just one meter (3.2 feet) in width. Its 2.2-meter (7.2 feet) length matches the size of a motorcycle parking spot.
The entire vehicle will weigh about 400 kilograms (880 pounds), quite a difference from the 1,543-kilo Renault Fluence electric sedan that was sold in Israel through the now-defunct Better Place recharging network.

Amnesty International proven to lie again

Posted: 15 Dec 2013 07:30 AM PST

In November, I noted that Amnesty International claimed that Israel was restricting fuel into Gaza, and their spokesperson insisted that this was true - that Israel does not allow industrial diesel for the Gaza power plant to be exported.

I showed then that the claims were completely false.

But today Arab media proves it as well.

From Ma'an:
Israeli authorities started to pump industrial diesel donated by Qatar into the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning, a Gaza official told Ma'an.

The move is part of a temporary agreement to ease the blockade following days of record flooding that has devastated large swathes of the besieged coastal enclave.

Raed Fattouh, president of a committee that coordinates the entry of goods into the Gaza Strip, told Ma'an that 450,000 liters of diesel donated by Qatar was being shipped to the coastal enclave via Kerem Shalom crossing on Sunday.

On Friday, Qatari authorities announced that they would donate $10 million to Hamas authorities in Gaza in the wake of the humanitarian crisis caused by severe weather since Thursday.

The donation was given to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to purchase diesel fuel from Israel, and on Sunday the first shipment of diesel fuel began arriving to fuel Gaza's sole power plant.
Oh, and also:

Eight truckloads of strawberries, flowers and spices are expected to leave the Gaza Strip to European countries through the same crossing on Sunday, added Fattouh, as Gazans take advantage of the temporary ease on the Israeli blockade to ship exports.

In addition, 100 truckloads of goods for commercial use and for agriculture will be allowed into the Gaza Strip as well as limited sums of cement and gravel for internationally-funded projects.
Again, there have been no restrictions on strawberries, flowers or spices from Gaza; indeed Israel helps Gaza farmers with those exports.

But when you hate Israel, facts just get in the way.

Gulf study warns of Israel's economic power

Posted: 15 Dec 2013 05:00 AM PST

A new report from the University of Kuwait is warning that Israel intends to grow its economic power. The study is called "Israel seeks to dwarf its neighbors and the Gulf states."

The report says that Israel seeks to accumulate its wealth to compete with the Arabs and especially the Gulf oil states. Allegedly, this is meant to increase the immigration of Jews to enlarge the settlements.

The study also says that Israel desires to compete with the Gulf countries on energy production "to play a more important role in the region in the future desire to stay forever as the biggest military and economic power in the Middle East. "

The report seems most alarmed at Israel's foreign currency reserves which hit a record high of about $81 billion at the end of November, compared to only $25 billion in 2004. These reserves can accelerate the production of natural gas in the Mediterranean which will in turn add more to Israels currency reserves and economic might.

The $81 billion is higher than the foreign reserves of oil-rich Kuwait and the UAE combined.

Israel is working on activating an economic stimulus plan to attract larger foreign investments and is actively pursuing them.

The report is clearly concerned with the potential of Israel becoming an energy exporter with its massive natural gas reserves that are comparable to the oil reserves in the Gulf. By 2018, Israel is planning to transfer the government's share of the profits from the sale of gas to a sovereign wealth fund, to ensure that the new cash is available for generations to come.

Israel's growth is supported by its very high investments in the area of research and development by Development Program Israel. 4.5% of its GDP goes to research and development, which is the highest rate in the world, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Israel's investments are focused on high-tech and high value-added jobs. For example, Israel dwarfs the Arab Middle East and the Gulf by its number of inventors. Israeli Arabs are also far more creative and inventive than their counterparts in the Middle East and are increasingly coming to the global marketplace of ideas and creativity. Israel itself compares with European countries on the level of production and export of inventions. The Arab states aren't even in the same league.

The report says that with increased wealth, Israel will attract more Jewish immigrants especially from Europe.

The natural gas will cause friction with Israel's neighbors as Israel will use its defense forces to protect the Mediterranean drilling operations and Jordan and Egypt will be torn between accepting Israeli gas and continuing their strategic security partnership with the Gulf Cooperation Council.

It is interesting that even this relatively sober study still assumes the zero-sum mentality of Arabs. It would ever occur to any Arab that Israel wants to grow its eeconomy because it would be good for Israel; they must position it as if Israel wants to destroy or marginalize the Arab economies. While this would not be a bad thing - oil fuels Arab terror, directly or indirectly - Israel never looks at the region as zero-sum but as a win-win. That's why it wants real peace with normalization - and the zero-sum mentality is a lot of the reason that Arabs resist peace with Israel in any significant way.


Dam!

Posted: 15 Dec 2013 02:00 AM PST

Ma'an "reported" on Friday:
The Gaza government's Disaster Response Committee announced late Friday that Israeli authorities had opened up dams just east of the Gaza Strip, flooding numerous residential areas in nearby villages within the coastal territory.

Committee chairman Yasser Shanti said in a press conference that Israeli authorities had opened up dams just to the east of the border with the Gaza Strip earlier in the day.

He warned that residential areas within the Gaza Valley would be flooding within the coming hours.
And look at that - they did get flooded, just as he predicted! The torrential rains had little to do with the Gazans being under up to 2 meters of water - it was all from Israel keeping huge amounts of water in storage in the Negev, just waiting for the right time to flood Gaza! (Which, coincidentally, happens during rainstorms.)

Iran's PressTV reported the dam story as well, as multiple Gazans told the tall tale:



Followers of this blog may remember that there was flooding in Gaza during a huge rainstorm in 2010, and they blamed Israel opening up a dam then as well.

I looked hard to find any dam between southern Israel (which is, of course, desert) and Gaza. Finally, I found it.

In 2001, a reservoir in Nahal Oz burst, and it did cause some flooding in Gaza. NGO Al Mezan said that the 2010 flooding was caused by the same "dam" that was opened by Israel in 2001, just to make Gazans' lives miserable.

And the "dam" story seemed to grow from there from a simple lie to a complex web of lies.

(h/t Asher)
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