יום שני, 23 בדצמבר 2013

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Link to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

"Damming" evidence of Hamas and Iranian lies

Posted: 22 Dec 2013 05:00 PM PST

Both Iran's FARS News and Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades website report:

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has issued a report detailing the winter storm's impacts on the occupied Palestinian territories during the past few days.

The report pointed to the deliberate opening of Israeli dams toward Gaza borders which led to the flooding of several houses and large agricultural areas, deepening the economic losses and crises in the besieged Strip.

"Heavy flooding across the Gaza Strip resulted in the displacement of approximately 6,000 people to temporary shelters and relatives' homes at the height of the storm. Most of the displaced families have left schools and community centers; however, approximately, 1,000 were still taking shelter in three schools as of 15 December," OCHA's report said, pointing out that the situation in most flooded areas has improved except for Gaza city.

I debunked the dam story a week ago, but I was surprised that OCHA would have reported it. They are usually more subtle in their lies.

Turns out - they didn't.

The Iranian FARS' version quotes Palestine Info Center for that blurb. PIC is a Hamas-linked British organization but I couldn't find it mentioned there.

The UN OCHA story they quoted is here, and says nothing about any illusory Israeli dam.

Either PIC did report this story and I couldn't find it (or they removed it,) or Iran made up the story, or maybe Hamas made up the story.

Either way, you cannot trust a word from Iran or Hamas.

Arab League announces commission to investigate Arafat's "assassination"

Posted: 22 Dec 2013 01:30 PM PST

Palestine  Press Agency reports that the Arab League, in a special session Saturday night decided to form an "international investigation committee to uncover the truth of the facts relating to the assassination of the late President Yasser Arafat.

This was at the recommendation of Mahmoud Abbas, as a followup to his similar requests to form a UN investigation in 2012. Abbas called for the UN to investigate last month as well and the internal PA investigation committee already employs 100 people who are apparently being paid by Western funds to push papers around in giant circles.

Saeb Erekat, member of the Executive Committee of the PLO, said "At the request of President Abbas, the Council of Arab foreign ministers decided to assign permanent representatives of the Arab countries in the United Nations to work for the formation of an international investigation committee the martyrdom of President Yasser Arafat."

Given all the time and effort that numerous "investigations" have expended so far without any findings, Erekat might as well have said, "We will not stop forming commissions, committees and inquiries until we can definitively blame Arafat's death on Israel."

Keep in mind that Abbas' government has been on record as blaming Israel for Arafat's death since at least 2006.

BDS darlings The Pixies wil play in Tel Aviv

Posted: 22 Dec 2013 11:00 AM PST

One of the rock bands that Israel boycotters love to pretend supports their cause is The Pixies.

For example, this recent Mondoweiss article was critical of a Variety article on BDS because it only mentioned pressure from Israel-haters on that group but nothing about their supposedly making an active decision to support the boycott:
Kamin also references The Pixies' cancelled performance in Tel Aviv, again citing intimidation as the reason. However, she fails to mention that their cancellation happened in June, 2010—just days after Israel's horrendously violent response to the peaceful Gaza Flotilla. At that time, The Pixies cancelled their performance, stating that, "events beyond our control have conspired against us." Nor does she recognize the Israeli fans that support the BDS movement, writing to The Pixies urging them 'not to cross the international picket line'. Kamin's omission of these key facts does not give her readers the full picture of events contributing to The Pixies' cancelation and calls into question her journalistic objectivity.
Now we have a much better idea of whether the Pixies canceled because they support BDS  - or because of the pressure given to them by the haters:

Iconic rock bands Soundgarden and Pixies will perform in Israel for the first time in their careers this summer.

The Pixies were supposed to perform in Israel in 2010, but were forced to cancel in the political fallout from the Mavi Marmara raid, in which nine Turkish nationals were killed when the IDF boarded a flotilla heading from Turkey to Gaza.

The Pixies were apologetic but resolute when they called off their 2010 Tel Aviv concert.

At the time, the concert's producers received the following message from the band's management: "The decision (to cancel) was not reached easily, and we all know well the Israeli fans have been waiting for this visit for far too long.

"We'd like to extend our deepest apologies to the fans, but events beyond all our control have conspired against us. We can only hope for better days, in which we will finally present the long awaited visit of the Pixies in Israel."
The Pixies and Soundgarden is a pretty impressive double act.

(h/t Kramerica, Ian)

12/22 Links: ASA threaten legal action against Critics, Arab League rejects Kerry's plan

Posted: 22 Dec 2013 09:00 AM PST

From Ian:
Anti-Israel academic boycotters threaten legal action against opponents
In seeking to make Israel a pariah, the ASA anti-Israel boycotters have made themselves pariahs in American civil society and severely damaged the reputation of the ASA.
The pressure apparently is getting to those at the ASA who were behind the boycott resolution. The ASA Activism Caucus has issued a statement claiming that its members are the subject of harassment and threats.
More important, the ASA Activism Caucus has threatened legal action against critics in academia and university administrators:
We will try to address any academics and administrators who participate in undemocratic, unethical, and illegal behavior, and if necessary we will take legal action with the support of our legal team.
The statement is curious because it is not issued in the name of ASA, but in the name of the ASA Activism Caucus, as if the ASA Activism Caucus considered itself able to take legal and other actions in the name of the entire organization. That tells you something right there.
Native Canadian Stands Up For Israel (Again) (VIDEO)
Native Canadian Ryan Bellerose condemns NAISA's call for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
Pro-Israel campaigning causes anti-Semitism, claims loony Left student
The Union of Jewish Students (UJS) is a decent organisation which helps to ensure the rights of Jewish students to freely express their cultural and religious identity on campuses across the United Kingdom.
Perhaps illustrating the intimidating environment faced by Jewish students, this year's conference featured a most bizarre motion which in many ways contradicted the UJS' mandate.
Saul Gaunt, President of the Brighton and Sussex Jewish Society, was met with ridicule at his insistence that "having JSocs in charge of Israel campaigns creates anti-Semitism."
Arab League rejects Kerry security plan for West Bank
The Arab League on Saturday rejected a security plan put forth by US Secretary of State John Kerry which would have allowed a limited presence of IDF troops within the borders of a future Palestinian state under a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
At an emergency meeting on Saturday, called by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the league's secretary-general, Nabil al-Araby said that not one Israeli soldier could remain in the West Bank.
PA: Strip Judea, Samaria Residents of Their Israeli Citizenship
The alternative, according to the PLO official, is not through fighting - but through PA citizens garnering international support. Shtayyeh threatened Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria that they would be stripped of their Israeli citizenship and pursued by the governments of the US, Britain, Russia, and the European Union, claiming that they were violating PA territory after the UN allegedly legitimized the body last year.
PA officials have claimed since 2012 that the UN granting the PA non-member status has effectively made them a full-fledged country according to international law.
The remarks also confirm similar statements by Abbas, who has openly declared that a future Palestinian state will have no Jewish presence, military or civilian.
Report: Kerry Seeks Deal Within a Month
Despite ongoing disagreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority over significant issues, the United States plans to keep Israel-PA talks moving rapidly forward, and even hopes for a basic deal to be hammered out within the month, Reshet Bet reports.
The report was based on a report in the London-based Arabic paper A-Sharq Al-Awsat, which spoke to senior Arab League officials at the Arab League meeting in Cairo.
Former IDF general: Israel must control Jordan Valley
According to Maj. Gen. (res.) Avi Mizrahi, Israeli forces in the Jordan Valley would have two missions: to prevent a missile threat from the West Bank akin to the threat from Gaza, and to prevent the transfer across the Jordanian-West Bank border of explosives, people and equipment used in terror attacks.
"In order to do that you need to control the border and the border crossing-points," he said. "To make that happen, you need to be there."
Mizrahi rejected the possibility that these goals could be achieved by a third-party force.
What American Generals Knew About Peace
The minimum territory recommended for Israeli security included all of Judea and the western half of Samaria. The "non-annexed zone" was confined to eastern Samaria, running from the northern tip of the Dead Sea to Israel's pre-1967 border. And, as Langfan notes, that recommendation preceded the introduction of shoulder-fired anti-air missiles, chemical weapons, and laser guidance and radar detection that might be available to the next generation of Arab attackers.
To be sure, the Joint Chiefs' report preceded the Oslo Accords, the illusion designed to bring peace now between Israelis and Palestinians that Secretary Kerry works so tirelessly to create. Twenty years later, however, it seems that American military experts may have known something that still eludes their Israeli counterparts.
Bogus Bus Boycott
Even though the sale of the Israeli transportation company was part of the company's global strategy, supporters of BDS hailed it as a "one of the most significant, tangible victories" of the BDS movement.
Clearly, Veoila which for months has not owned a company running bus routes in Israel did not "just announce" that they will no longer operate busses on route 443. Nor did it do so, before the sale. Presspectiva, CAMERA's Hebrew site, contacted Veoila which emphatically denied the claims in the Ha'aretz report. The company's spokesman told Presspectiva: "The public transportation company Connex was sold in its entirety to Afikim. This was solely a business decision. Before the sale no bus line on Route 443 was cancelled."
MPAC Peddles Debunked Gaza Dam Story
MPAC posted the article Friday and also sent it on the group's email list.
The problem is that the dam doesn't seem to exist, and the story, originally pushed by Hamas, was debunked days ago by the Times of Israel.
A spokesman for Israel's Water Authority told the newspaper that the story is "baseless and false" and that Israel has no dams in that area. The flooding is real, but caused by overflowing reservoirs after 10 inches of rain fell in a three-day period. That's 60 percent of the normal annual rainfall in the area.
Officials demand Pollard release in light of US spying
"Now the secret is out: the United States spies systematically on the Israeli political and defense leadership," said Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud).
"This is how friends behave?" asked Katz in a Sunday morning statement. "Pollard was arrested for far less" than the alleged espionage acts revealed in recent days, Katz charged. "I intend to recommend that the government demand an American commitment to end the surveillance and immediately release Pollard," he said.
The linkage of the espionage revelations to the fate of Pollard crossed ideological and political lines.
The revelations of "the years-long active surveillance the US committed against Israel's leadership clarify at long last one painful point – that the punishment given to Jonathan Pollard crossed the line of reasonability long ago," opposition leader MK Isaac Herzog (Labor) said in a statement Sunday.
'US spied on Barak's home from apartment across the street'
In 2007, Israeli intelligence noted that the US government had rented an apartment across the street from Barak's high-rise apartment in Tel Aviv, and observed "sizable amounts of electronic equipment" being delivered to the address, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Sunday. Washington said at the time that the apartment was being used by a member of the US embassy's security team.
The US Embassy said it was "entirely coincidental" that the apartment in question faced directly into Barak's home in the Akirov Towers block, Sunday's report said. "All we did was rent an apartment for a member of the Marines," the embassy was quoted saying, "who was working as a security guard at the embassy."
Professor Responds with Sarcasm to Left-Wing Boycott
Speaking to Channel 1's program Roim Olam, Aumann joked : "I've prayed and aspired to getting an honorary doctorate from Haifa University for my whole life."
"I'm very disappointed," he added, sarcastically.
"The 'blow' to Professor Aumann does not actually exist," Eldad said. "The only party that could be hurt by this is the university. The idiots sitting there are so dumb that they forgot that universities give honorary degrees in order to honor themselves, not in order to honor the recipient."
Fiddling While Iran Enriches
According to a graphic in the New York Times – based on ISIS's research – at the time of the Geneva deal Iran had a stockpile of 196 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium. The terms of the agreement moved the breakout time from less than two months to more than two months. The breakout time is the time it would take Iran to produce enough highly enriched uranium – weapons grade – for a nuclear weapon. (Iran also had less enriched uranium, but that's not my concern here.)
If two months pass before the agreement is implemented and Iran stops enriching to 20%, then Iran will have 226 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium. According to ISIS's estimates, given the current centrifuges Iran has, a stockpile of 226 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium, could possibly lower the breakout time to less than a month.
US Senate Condemns Iran's Discrimination Against Bahais
The US Senate has urged Iran to free jailed members of the Bahai faith, raising human rights concerns as President Barack Obama pursues diplomacy to curtail Tehran's nuclear program.
In a resolution approved unanimously Friday amid a flurry of activity before a holiday break, the Senate called on Iran to free seven Bahai leaders among other detained members of the religion, including 12 educators.
Iran bans popular social networking service
The Thursday report by yjc.ir said a decision by a governmental monitoring body on communications led to the ban of VChat.
Many users complained on Twitter and in messages that they do not have access to the cell-phone based social networking service.
Erdogan blames 'international groups' for corruption scandal that rocks Turkey
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan denounced "international groups" and "dark alliances" on Saturday for entangling Turkey in a corruption scandal that has exposed deep rifts between him and a US-based Muslim cleric who helped him rise to power.
Sixteen people, including the sons of two ministers and the head of state-owned Halkbank, were formally arrested on Saturday, local media said, in a corruption inquiry that Erdogan has called a "dirty operation" to undermine his rule.
The Turkish leader raised the stakes by accusing unnamed foreign ambassadors of "provocative actions." Some pro-government newspapers had accused the US envoy of encouraging the move against Halkbank - a charge denied by the embassy.
10 Israeli startups you'll hear more about
Looking for the next new cool technologies? Look no further than the third graduating class of Tel Aviv's Microsoft Ventures Accelerator.
At the program's Demo Day, international and local media came to have a peek at the next new cool technologies.
"The accelerator opened the proverbial rolodex of contacts to us. We're so grateful for it," says Mandell.
The 10 companies to have concluded the Accelerator's program are likely to snag headlines in the near future, so in addition to Roojoom, remember these names: Appixia, CellMining, ConferPlace, KitLocate, Navin, MetalCompass, Kytera, Semperis and Vubooo.
Top 10 Israeli medical advances to watch in 2014
In our recent "Top 12 most amazing Israeli medical advances", we promised a top 10 list of the most exciting Israeli medical-device and pharmaceutical developments just around the corner.
Like the top 12, this list was also very difficult to narrow down, because Israeli breakthroughs in this field are a near-daily occurrence. Our top 10 is just the tip of the iceberg.
Israeli developers partner with African startup entrepreneurs
Among the many participants and startup founders who crowded the Google campus in Tel Aviv the week of Nov. 17, two guests stood out in the crowd. The event — a "hackathon" focused on the development of technologies for the Third World — was especially close to their hearts. At the event, groups of developers had to develop and present, within a specified period of time, a software product that directly dealt with the problems of Africa and the developing countries.
However, the two did not attend as competitors but rather as proven developers who had already done it, having set up their own company in Ghana, in the heart of West Africa.
Gregory Rockson and Emmanuel Foucault, his partner, attended the event, which was jointly organized by the global CleanWeb movement, the TerraLabs technology incubator and IsraelDev, to promote mPharma — a unique medical venture designed to bring progress to Africa. "Many seek to change Africa, but Africa is transforming itself. This is the only way it can happen," Rockson said, who, after being awarded a scholarship from Princeton University, chose to return to his native country with the aim of solving the numerous problems the African continent was coping with.

The West keeps pretending that Arabs will drop "right of return"

Posted: 22 Dec 2013 06:00 AM PST

Al Quds has an article that should be required reading for Western diplomats written by former senior PLO diplomat Ali Kazak.

The Kazak mentions how John Kerry has reportedly told Israel that "Israel is a Jewish state and that the U.S. position is that the Palestinian refugees should return to a future Palestinian state."

He also mentions how French President Francois Hollande asked Abbas to be "flexible" about the mythical "right of return" in negotiations.

Kazak mocks Hollande's statement about "France's commitment to the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people" while asking for concessions on the "right" of return, saying that the right to destroy Israel demographically via this imaginary right is "at the core of the basic rights of the Palestinian people."

For many paragraphs afterwards he writes about the importance of "return" and how children are taught that they come from Haifa and Acre and will one day go back.

Western diplomats simply don't get it. They think that the Palestinian Arabs want a state and that if they are given one then the other demands are negotiable. But they need to actually read the words of the Palestinian Arabs and not see them through Western eyes. They do not want a state, and they have never wanted a state - they only want to destroy the Jewish state. As this article does, they will couch this desire in terms of "human rights" and "core values" and "principles" but their demand is the denial of the Jewish right to self-determination.

A state is not the goal - it is a means to the end of a Jewish state.

This was the case in 1920 when they demanded that Palestine be a part of Syria forever. This was the case in 1947 when they rejected the UN partition resolution. This was the case in 1964 when the PLO's founding charter explicitly excluded the West Bank and Gaza from its demands for a Palestinian "homeland." This was the case in 1974 when Arafat created the "phased plan" to destroy Israel - a plan that is completely consistent with the Oslo process. It was the case in 1988 when Arafat declared "independence" and emphasized the "right of return" while fooling the West into believing that he implicitly accepts Israel's right to exist by mentioning - but not accepting - UNSC resolution 242. And it is the case today when Abbas brags about how he has not changed his position one iota from Arafat's 1988 position and when the PLO says that they would not offer citizenship to "refugees" in any state beyond the Green Line.

When will the West start actually believing what Arabs say to each other rather than the words they say to the West? Because over the decades, their words in Arabic have usually been the ones that have been proven true.

New meme: "Takfiri-Zionists"

Posted: 22 Dec 2013 02:00 AM PST

We've seen before that Hezbollah likes to pretend that the Islamist Sunni groups fighting it in Syria are allied with Israel, but this latest pronouncement from them looks like they are trying to start a meme.

Moussavi
The Lebanon's Hezbollah Resistance Movement vowed to curb what it called Takfiri-Zionist attacks against the resistance party and the Lebanese Army.

"We assure our people ... that we will continue to respond against these brutal (Takfiri) forces and their ongoing aggression will be destroyed through the pillar of the national strategy," Lebanese Parliamentarian from Hezbollah Hussein Moussavi said in a Thursday statement, Al-Alam reported.

Moussavi said both Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army are the target of Israeli-backed Takfiri groups.

"The 'Army, People, Resistance' (formula) is now the target of Takfiri-Zionists," he said.

"What happened in recent days, from the assassination of (Hezbollah) commander Hassan Lakkis to suicide bombings on Army checkpoints in Sidon all the way to the bloody bombing in Labweh in the Northern Bekaa, confirm that the Zionists and Takfiri groups are two sides of the same coin," he added.

Moussavi said Hezbollah deems those attacks an "aggressive decision and an extension of the war imposed on Syria and its environs."

"This war," he continued "has been approved by the Zionist and Takfiris together."
They repeat it over and over again, so it must be at least partly true, right? I mean, that's pretty much thought process that make so many idiots think Israel is an "apartheid" state, right?
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