Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Hamas unveils a statue of a rocket (video)
03/10 Links Pt2: Cleric Claims Einstein was a Shiite; Israeli Cruise Passengers Denied Entry to Tunisia
Now Jews are being blamed for triskaidekaphobia
The Economist reveals the extent of Jordanian apartheid against Palestinians
03/10 Links Pt1: Iran's Two-faced Regime Exposed; Arab League Against Recognizing Jewish State
Comparison of Amnesty coverage of Syria and Israel
160 kilometers, illustrated
Infographic: Goodwill Gestures (2014)

Hamas unveils a statue of a rocket (video)

Posted: 10 Mar 2014 05:00 PM PDT

Hamas unveiled a rocket-shaped statue Monday showcasing its capacity to strike arch-enemy Israel, as the Jewish state boasted its own haul of captured weapons it claims were bound for Gaza.

"Hamas managed to take the battle to the heart of the Zionist entity (Israel) after developing its rocket system, succeeding where many Arab armies had failed," said a leader of Hamas armed wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, flanked by masked fighters at the statue's unveiling.

The monument in Gaza City features a life-size model of a large M75 rocket, named in honour of Qassam Brigades founding member Ibrahim al-Maqadma -- who was assassinated by Israel in 2003 -- and alluding to its range of 75 kilometres.

03/10 Links Pt2: Cleric Claims Einstein was a Shiite; Israeli Cruise Passengers Denied Entry to Tunisia

Posted: 10 Mar 2014 03:00 PM PDT

From Ian:

If only there were more people who were really pro-Palestinian. . .

In a way, all of this anti-Israel focus in the "pro-Palestinian" movement is not surprising, because Palestinian leaders have, for years, employed the propaganda tactics of totalitarian regimes during and surrounding World War II. Mussolini blamed Italy's problems on worldwide communist plots, and Stalin blamed the Soviet Union's problems on Trotsky, his exiled political enemy. Thus the peoples of Italy and Eastern Europe were convinced that their poor domestic situations were less the fault of their governments than the fault of outside forces. They were given someone convenient to blame for their problems, an "other," so that they did not turn their criticism on their own governments. Likewise, Palestinian leaders have blamed Israel for the problems that the Palestinian Authority has perpetuated for decades. They have aimed to manufacture a single "Palestinian cause," one that always opposes Israel and almost never creates space for talk of a two-state solution that would actually end the occupation. The "cause" does not address the corruption of Palestinian politicians, the Palestinian government's failure to support democracy or freedom of the press, sharp divisions between Palestinian factions, issues of poverty, issues of oppression of Palestinian people throughout the Arab world, and numerous other pressing problems that huge segments of the Palestinian people are forced to face every day. The global community has picked up on this propaganda narrative and, attracted to the simplistic underdog story that it tells, lent enormous support to the "Palestinian cause."

Israelis Detained on Board Norwegian Jade as Cruise Ship Docked in Port of Tunis

Israeli tourists were denied the right to disembark from the Norwegian Jade, a vessel operated by the Norwegian Cruise Line, when it stopped in the Port of Tunis, Tunisia recently, Jewish human rights organization B'nai Brith Canada said on Sunday.
As passengers prepared to get off the ship to visit the North African republic, the Israelis were quietly told that they were not welcomed by the Tunisian Government, the group said in a statement.
The cruise line did not advise the passengers in advance that Israeli tourists would be confined to the ship for the stop. Other Jewish passengers were unaware that their coreligionists were being detained, since no public announcements were made. They were outraged when it became known, B'nai Brith Canada said.

One Week After Russia's Crimean Invasion, US Imposes Travel Sanctions...Against Israelis

At the same time the US State Department is relaxing entry requirements to visa applicants with Islamist terrorist connections, and reassuring President Putin of Russia that any sanctions against travel to the US placed upon those responsible for Russia's invasion Ukraine will be limited to no more than a "few dozen" named individuals, it is dramatically increasing its rejection rate of Israelis seeking visas to visit the US.
While the State Department denies it, Israeli officials now suspect their country is being deliberately sanctioned as part of an unannounced administration policy to punish the Jewish state. This week their fears were publicly shared by none other than administration ally NY Senator Charles Schumer, who, in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, demanded an end to the "State Department policy of categorically denying young Israelis tourist visas that makes it nearly impossible for any young Israeli to visit the U.S."

Iranian cleric: Albert Einstein was Shiite Muslim

An Iranian cleric claims that the Albert Einstein, the great 20th century scientist who developed the Theory of Relativity, was a Shiitie Muslim, Israel Radio reported on Saturday.
The report cites a video by Ayatolla Mahadavi Kani, described as the head of the Assembly of Experts in the Islamic Republic of Iran, who says that there are documents proving the Jewish scientist embraced Shiite Islam and was an avid follower of Ja'far Al-Sadiq, an eighth-century Shi'i imam.
In the video, Kani quotes Einstein as saying that when he heard about the ascension of the prophet Mohammed, "a process which was faster than the speed of light," he realized "this is the very same relativity movement that Einstein had understood." (h/t dabney_c)

JPost Editorial: Salah's sedition

He has again managed make a mockery of our legal system and law enforcement. Unfortunately, this is not just between him and the judiciary. It affects us all.
Much of this was facilitated by the fact that for years Israel has tolerated Salah's inflammatory speech and prodigious provocations, as if on the premise that if these were pooh-poohed, they would go away.
Instead, however, he gained stature and rose to prominence and popularity at levels that should alarm us, considering his nonstop incitement.
The longer Israel allows Salah to spread sedition with impunity, the greater his spiritual-mentor authority will grow and the more young Israeli Arabs will be swayed by his exhortations to join the procession of shahids to paradise. Making light of Salah's subversion will not make it disappear. It does not work that way.

Galway Univ: Shout down of pro-Israel speaker "unacceptable" and "will be investigated immediately"

This video of an anti-Israel Boycottt Divest and Sanction activist at National University of Ireland – Galway, shouting profanities at Professor Alan Johnson of the Fathom journal, is beginning to get attention after our post about it on Friday. Johnson supports a two-state solution and is against BDS.
The video, obtained by the Irish for Israel, features NUI Galway student Joseph Loughnane shouting as a row of students behind him banged on the tables in support and themselves shouted (off camera, as video panned towards speaker):
We reached out to the President of NUI Galway for comment, and received an email back from NUI Galway press and information officer Tomás Ó Síocháin, with the following statement on behalf of the university:

After BDS controversy, college issues guidelines

The president of Brooklyn College distributed public events guidelines formulated in the wake of the ejection of four pro-Israel students from a boycott Israel event last year.
Among the guidelines distributed to staff on Friday by Karen Gould was a requirement that event organizers must be affiliated with Brooklyn College.
"The students were removed from the event based upon allegations by Carlos Guzman, an event organizer not affiliated with Brooklyn College, that the students were being disruptive and passing out flyers," Gould said in a memo to staff describing the events at the Students for Justice in Palestine forum on Feb. 7, 2013 advocating the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

Students look to ban Sabra hummus at U. of Ottawa

Pro-Palestinian student groups at the University of Ottawa have launched a campaign to ban Sabra hummus from campus.
Sabra is partly owned by the Strauss Group, a foods manufacturer that the students allege financially supports the Golani Brigade of the Israeli Defense Forces, according to The New York Times. The students say the Golani Brigade has been accused of human rights violations by numerous organizations.

A biblical analysis of the "Christ at the Checkpoint" manifesto

Christ at the Checkpoint organizers including blatant anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic Stephen Sizer, published a manifesto that was agreed upon and signed by all organizers. While that manifesto contains some truth, it is ambiguous and misleading at best, but also rather libelous in some cases. A closer look at it in light of God's Word is necessary. Following in bold is the exact text of the manifesto along with Scripture to either validate its truth or rebuke its error.

Ha'aretz No Longer a Newspaper

There is nothing particularly remarkable about this anti-Israel petition. Such initiatives are commonplace. Noteworthy, however, was Ha'aretz's decision Thursday evening to post the Khalidi/Butler petition in full on its English Web site
Ha'aretz published the petition without any preface or explanation. It appeared as a full, bona fide article, with a headline, a subheadline and text (the petition), including the 150 names that signed on to the document. Had editors linked to the petition as part of an article about the document, the item would have carried some news value. The current item, however, which contains absolutely zero reporting, analysis or context, is not journalism. It is free publicity for prominent anti-Israel polemicists who support the boycott of the Jewish state. Ha'aretz is blatantly carrying out the work of anti-Israel organizations.

Christian Science Monitor Photo Caption Misleads

The March 10, 2014 edition of the Christian Science Monitor Weekly [CSM] carries an upbeat article "Go-getters in Gaza" which highlights the entrepreneurial ambitions and striving for normalcy of young Gazans. Eight photographs are shown. One of the photographs shows a young girl in a scout uniform.
The caption reads, "PROUD A Girl Guide shows off her uniform. Girl Guides of Palestine, established in 1919 under British rule, aims to promote positive behaviour among young women."
The problem is the history this caption conceals. The first troops of the Girl Guides of Palestine were established by Annie Landau and Helen Bentwich at the Evelina School for Girls in Jerusalem. Landau, a British Zionist, ran the school for many years. The school was named after Evelina Rothschild, who belonged to the Rothschild family that funded Jewish settlement projects in what was to become Israel. This is confirmed in a book published in 1922, The Handbook of Palestine edited by Sir Harry Luke, Edward Keith-Roach. The CSM caption implicitly expropriates for the Palestinian Arab legacy what was actually, initially, a British-Jewish legacy and then expanded to include Arabs.

Footballers ... or bombers? How a typical libel against Israel gets promoted and accepted

This ludicrous article by Dave Zirin in 'The Nation" (which claims Israeli police attacked two 'Palestinian footballers' in an unprovoked attack) with the dramatic headline "After latest incident, Israel's future in FIFA is uncertain" has been widely distributed around social media sites. The naive youngsters who distribute and read it are completely unaware that the Nation is a communist sympathising magazine (see its support for Putin's intervention in Ukraine here). But there is something extremely strange about this story. Although some of the usual anti-Israel sites are carrying the story, the source appears to be the antisemitic Palestinian news agency Maan which has a very long history of spreading complete lies.
In fact the only 'main stream' news organisation that I could find carrying the story was the leftist Israeli newspaper Haaretz - which always prints any story it can that can discredit Israel. But even Haaretz (despite the irrelevant anti-Israel picture) tells a very different story from the one by Zirin and includes the following rather relevant information about the incident that was curiously not mentioned by Zirin: "A Border Police spokesman said, "During operational activity, a group of individuals was seen just seconds before throwing bombs at security forces."

7 reasons why the Palestinian crisis & the Black struggle for freedom are absolutely nothing alike

The "parallels" between the Palestinian plight and that of African-Americans have been made for decades, and this has always been spurious. Sadly, the exercise continues and seems to be growing as anti-Israel sentiment including global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) inexplicably gain credibility.
So, here are seven reasons why the Palestinian analogy to the Black historical struggle for freedom is hopelessly flawed (and down right offensive).

Flood of Controversy: Arnofsky's 'Noah' Banned by Several Middle Eastern Countries

High budget biblical drama Noah, starring Academy Award winning actor Russell Crowe, will not be screened in several Middle Eastern countries, Israel's Channel 2 reported on Sunday.
Sources within Paramount Studios, which is producing the highly anticipated film, confirmed that the film boards of Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates will not authorize the screening of Noah in their respective countries.
Paramount insiders expect the film boards of Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait to make similar decisions, Channel 2 said.
A leading Sunni Muslim religious leader in Egypt said the movie is "contrary to the ways of the Prophet and must be banned."

Vatican says Pope's Israel visit still on, for now

For now, Pope Francis's trip to Israel in May is to take place as originally planned, senior Vatican officials insisted over the weekend. The Vatican officials' comments contradicted statements made by Israeli diplomatic sources, who claimed Thursday that the Holy See had been forced to cancel the visit due to an ongoing strike in Israel's Foreign Ministry. The Foreign Ministry's spokesman on Friday had publicly said the pope's trip was "perhaps impossible."
"The strike may create difficulties but for now there is nothing further as far as we are concerned," the Vatican's chief spokesman, Federico Lombardi, told reporters.

Battle over Iraqi Jewish archive heads to US House

A new House resolution urges the State Department to renegotiate the terms for the return to Iraq of an archive of Iraqi Jewish texts.
The nonbinding resolution in the US House of Representatives introduced Friday by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Steve Israel (D-NY) "recognizes that the Iraqi Jewish Archive should be housed in a location that is accessible to scholars and to Iraqi Jews and their descendants who have a personal interest in it."
It matches a similar resolution approved last month by the Senate.

Israeli water tech reaching America's biggest states

On his visit to California last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed an agreement with California Governor Jerry Brown to, among other things, export Israeli water technology to California to help the state better cope with drought. "Through this agreement, California and Israel will build on their respective strengths in research and technology to confront critical problems we both face, such as water scarcity, cybersecurity and climate change," said Brown. Of the seven areas the agreement specifies for cooperation, water conservation and management is listed first.
What does Israel know about water technology that could now help California? For one, it's not facing a water shortage, as a little-noticed news release by Israel's Water Authority revealed several weeks ago – despite the driest winter in decades. With winter almost over and no substantial precipitation falling since December's snowstorm, Israelis should by rights be facing a major water crisis. But thanks to good planning of the water economy – including use of desalinated and recycled water – the country's natural water stores, such as Lake Kinneret are, if not full, at least in good enough shape to last until next winter without falling to dangerously low levels.

Israeli selfie-app CamMe wins mobile award

Entertainer Ellen DeGeneres made sure that the selfie –a smartphone-driven self-portrait – will continue to trend in 2014. Israel's PointGrab, the makers of the CamMe app– which enables users to take selfies from afar – are also helping to keep the selfie hype alive with their recent win for Most Innovative Mobile App at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2014 in Barcelona.
The iOS app uses gesture controls to help users take selfies from up to 16 feet away — without having to touch their device. If Ellen had use CamMe, her famous selfie could have included even more famed faces.

The museum that honors a peacemaker and his nation

One tourist attraction in Israel worth exploring is the Israeli Museum at the Rabin Center. Located in Tel Aviv's Ramat Aviv neighborhood, the center is a work in progress, providing educational programs for the country's younger generation, not yet born when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995, and cultural events for the rest of the population. The state-of-the-art museum is its centerpiece.
Authorized by the Knesset in 1997 and built by renowned architect Moshe Safdie, the center opened its doors in 2005 and the museum in 2010.
"It was a very new concept," explains international relations director Annie Eisen to ISRAEL21c, during a tour of the premises. "Until then, Israel did not have the equivalent of a presidential library. But in light of the assassination, there was a sense of urgency to do something to preserve Rabin's legacy, and in the process to teach citizens and visitors to the country about contemporary Israeli history."

Israel Daily Picture: A Purim Treat from the Archives of the Library of Congress

The picture appeared in an American newspaper on April 1, 1865. The wood engraving is captioned, "The Hebrew Purim Ball at the Academy of Music, March 14." The picture contains a large sign, "Merry Purim," another sign listing the "Order of Dancing," and merrymakers wearing costumes and masks.
The picture was published in Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, printed in New York, NY. The Academy of Music was built in 1854 and was located in Manhattan at Irving Place and East 14th Street.

Now Jews are being blamed for triskaidekaphobia

Posted: 10 Mar 2014 01:00 PM PDT

An Egyptian secular newspaper tries to figure out why some people are afraid of the number 13.

It can't figure it out (apparently Egyptian reporters are even lazier than their American counterparts who at least rely on Wikipedia) , but it says anyway "It is certain that the Jews are behind the smear of the number 13 and they tied it to bad luck, especially when the 13th of a month is on a Friday.... The Jews believe that there are 12 tribes and their awaited 'Antichrist' will come out of the tribe No. 13 and they will consider that his appearance represents a victory that the Jews who are seeking to achieve and this is the reason for their obsession with the number 13, which symbolizes their power and cosmic dominance, and this is why the Jews were promote the number 13 to be unlucky to Muslims."

It would be wonderful if some social scientists would analyze why so many Arabs - the intelligent ones, who write for major newspapers - are so freaking crazy. But it would be career suicide to do something useful like that.

The Economist reveals the extent of Jordanian apartheid against Palestinians

Posted: 10 Mar 2014 11:00 AM PDT

From The Economist:

...Surely, Western officials say, for the right price, currently estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, the Jordanians will help John Kerry, America's secretary of state (pictured above with King Abdullah) to fix a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by absorbing the 4.5m Palestinians who live in the kingdom, including the 3.5m who are now Jordanian citizens.

Or will they? Indigenous Bedouin from Jordan's East Bank, who number about 3m, worry that America's plans to persuade Palestinian leaders to strip generations of refugees of their claimed "right of return" to what is now Israel would reduce Jordan's original inhabitants to a permanent minority. Tribal leaders fret that the refugees, barred from Israel, would campaign for full rights in Jordan, over time turning the kingdom into a second Palestinian state. The Bedouin would lose their preferential access to government jobs. They might also be deprived of the skewed electoral system that has hitherto ensured that they control Jordan's parliament. "Kerry is destroying our home," says a Jordanian analyst. "He is trying to solve one conflict by creating another."

Parliamentarians from Jordan's East Bank (ie, non-Palestinians) intent on scuppering Mr Kerry's plan say the Palestinians must uphold their right to return to Israel. Campaigners are denounced as American collaborators for calling for more rights for those 1m Palestinians resident in the kingdom who still do not have Jordanian nationality. When Mustafa Hamarneh, a Jordanian MP of Palestinian origin, suggested giving the children of Palestinian refugees access to Jordanian state education, health care and a driving licence, he was labelled a Zionist agent.

Here we see in plain English that the only reason Jordanians say they support the "right or return" is because they want to kick out their Palestinian citizens!

The Economist is wrong when it ways that some 1 million Palestinian Jordanians do not have citizenship - the number I have seen, which makes far more sense, is about 165,000, only comprising those who came from Gaza after the 1967 war. It is clear that the Bedouin want to discriminate not only against the relatively few non-citizens, who have next to no rights already, but against the Jordanians of Palestinian origin who have been full citizens for over six decades!

Notice also how even handed The Economist is in reporting on Jordanian apartheid against Palestinians - a discrimination that the Jordanian political leaders are quite open about and proud of. None of the rancor that accompanies stories about Israel shows up here, even though the alleged victims are the same.

It sure seems like The Economist is only "pro-Palestinian" when that position happens to also be anti-Israel.

03/10 Links Pt1: Iran's Two-faced Regime Exposed; Arab League Against Recognizing Jewish State

Posted: 10 Mar 2014 09:00 AM PDT

From Ian:

Iran's Two-faced Regime Exposed Again, but is Anyone Paying Attention?

The Quds Force, headed by a mastermind named Qassem Suleimani (who answers directly to Khamenei), uses banks and front companies to pay for and manufacture weapons, before attempting to transit them to proxies.
According to UN Security Council Resolution 1747, Iran is banned from trading in, or sending weapons across, international borders. Yet, as the latest arms shipment intercepted by Israel demonstrates, Iran systematically violates this resolution.
When the regime feels the need brutally to suppress internal dissent, it can call the Basij (a volunteer paramilitary force that receives orders from the IRCG) and its two million volunteers to the streets of Iranian cities.
But Ayatollah Khamenei is now trying a new way of keeping the streets free of protesters by allowing Rouhani to pursue talks with the West. This, Khamenei evidently hopes, will put a lid on growing disquiet over the country's economic troubles, many of them caused by international sanctions.
At the same time, he is permitting the IRGC and Quds Force to continue their global terrorism exportation program -- an effort combatted around the clock by Israel's intelligence agencies. The intercepted weapons ship is just one of many arms transfer attempts being blocked by Israel.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Abbas Cannot Make Concessions on Any Core Issue

Today it is clear that the Palestinian Authority is preparing to hold Israel responsible for the failure of the peace talks because of its refusal to comply with all of the Palestinians' demands.
The peace talks are scheduled to end in late April in accordance with Kerry's nine-month deadline. But the Palestinian Authority leadership has no plans to wait until then to declare the failure of the peace process.
Palestinian officials in Ramallah say that the talks with Israel have already failed, but Obama and Kerry continue to live in denial. There are no direct talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Rather, each side is conducting separate negotiations with Obama and Kerry.
The latest statements from Palestinian Authority officials show that the issue of Israel's Jewishness is only a secondary issue compared with the sensitive issues of Jerusalem, refugees, borders and settlements.
Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is not going to bring the two sides closer to reaching agreement on any of these core issues. This is what Obama needs to take into consideration when he meets with Abbas. He also needs to take into consideration what many Palestinians are saying – that Abbas is not authorized to make concessions on any of these issues.

Our Desire To Destroy Israel As A Jewish State Is Not A Core Issue (satire)

Then there's the question of refugees. What's wrong with insisting it's about justice for the deprived, instead of a flood of millions of Palestinians into the area that will quickly overwhelm the Jewish population? We shall ignore for the moment the fact that the refugees themselves have by and large accepted the fact that they have no hope of returning, at least not en masse, to the homes they left behind. And the fact that the State of Palestine that we're building right now will explicitly deny citizenship to those refugees and their descendants, for the specific purpose of foisting them on Israel. It's pretty jarring to shift the focus onto the effect of that scenario, i.e. the elimination of the world's only Jewish state. We have to focus on the other core issues.
Such as borders. Which, I need not remind you, will exclude Jews from the confines of the nascent Palestine. But it's not about the Jews. It's about denying the Jews a foothold in this land.
And Jerusalem: what happens if we concede any Jewish control of, or even presence in, our holy city? You know, the one so holy that the Koran never even mentions it. As long as the city is under Muslim control, we do not plan to make an issue of its being under Jewish rule.
Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is not a core issue. At least as long as we can fool Europe, Obama, and the Israeli Left into believing that.

David Singer: Floundering Obama needs to grab Bibi's 1984 lifeline with Both hands

President Obama's interview with Jeffrey Goldberg on 2 March exposed the President as a leader lacking in understanding and vision – bound to a 20-year-old negotiating process that has proved an abject failure and will continue to do so until Obama finally declares it dead and buried.
The President still clings to the vain hope that the framework agreement for peace being drafted by Secretary of State Kerry will be accepted by Israel and the PLO – allowing the long drawn out negotiating processes established under the Oslo Accords, Bush Roadmap and Annapolis to continue until a peace agreement is executed between Israel and the PLO – matching those signed by Israel with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
The interview exposed Obama's flawed knowledge concerning the following crucial issues that are critical to properly understanding the conflict and positing its possible resolution:

Isi Leibler: Obama-Netanyahu rift is unbridgeable

Israel will go through the ritual of approving the Kerry framework agreement with major reservations. If the Palestinians do likewise, negotiations will continue, although nobody will be holding their breath in expectation of a positive outcome in the short-term.
The best achievement would be an agreement to concentrate on interim solutions until such time as the Palestinian people and their leaders are genuinely willing to engage in peaceful coexistence.
But for the next two years while Obama is in office, there must be a concerted effort to retain American public and congressional support in order to deter the current administration from implementing Obama's threat to stop protecting Israel at the United Nations and other anti-Israeli dominated international forums.
In addition, we must not become complacent about the special military assistance and cooperation we receive which was even strengthened by the Obama administration and remains crucial for the IDF to retain a qualitative advantage against its adversaries.

MEMRI: Lebanese Media Report Shift In U.S. Attitudes Towards Hizbullah – Though It Is A Designated Terrorist Organization

The media reports focus on the relationship between the U.S. and the director of Lebanon's General Security Directorate, 'Abbas Ibrahim; although it is an official Lebanese body, this directorate, and Ibrahim himself, are close to Hizbullah. Before heading General Security, from 2005 to 2008, Ibrahim headed military intelligence in South Lebanon – and, according to many Lebanese Sunnis, this apparatus and those in charge of it in South Lebanon are pro-Hizbullah. At Qatar's request, Ibrahim also mediated between this country and Hizbullah in November 2013.
This paper will review the reports on the contacts and the relationship between the U.S. and Hizbullah, on the development of these contacts and this relationship, on their possible reasons and purposes, and on their possible connection with the shift in U.S. foreign policy towards Iran and towards the entire region.

Obama Advisers Warn Of Paint Shortage For More Red Lines (satire)

Officials in President Barack Obama's cabinet advised him today that the administration's inventory of red paint is nearly exhausted, having used it repeatedly and ineffectively with Syria, Iran, and Russia. More red lines, they warned, might demand more red paint than this presidency has at its disposal.
In a communique between departments, both the Department of the Interior and the Treasury noted the unexpectedly profligate use of red paint since President Obama's ultimatum to Syria two years ago in which he warned that the use of chemical weapons against insurgents fighting the Assad regime would constitute a red line, and that crossing such a line would mean a harsh America or international response.
After the first use of such weapons was confirmed, Obama backtracked on the automatic nature of a US response, if any, forcing a redrawing of the red lines at a point much more distant than the mere use of such arms against civilians and the war crimes that entails.

Netanyahu looks to Belgium-Holland border for settlement solution

The prime minister has tasked Cabinet Secretary Avichai Mandelblit with researching the arrangements that prevail in the Belgian "Baarle-Hertog" and Dutch "Baarle-Nassau" areas — complex border arrangements that originated in a mixture of medieval treaties, land swaps, land sales and other agreements — to see whether they constitute a viable legal precedent for similar arrangements under which Jewish settlers could stay put within a Palestinian state, Israel's Channel 2 news reported on Sunday night.
Taking a precedent from the Belgian-Dutch arrangements, which have been described as the "most complicated" in the world, was one of "many ideas" being contemplated by Netanyahu, the TV report said.
According to Channel 2 correspondent Udi Segal, after Netanyahu raised the idea in meetings, the National Security Council has compiled a comprehensive report addressing the practical aspects and legal precedents.

Abbas: 5 Million 'Refugees' Must be Allowed into Israel

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas clarified his positions regarding the issues of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and the so-called "right of return" of Palestinian "refugees" in an appearance broadcast by PA TV, translated by MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute).
It is worth watching, for anyone who harbors any doubts regarding what the "moderate" PA leader seeks, in the negotiations with Israel. Abbas states clearly: no Jewish communities will remain in the PA, and 5 million "refugees" worldwide, "from Canada to Japan" – including all of the descendants of Arabs who fled Israel in 1948 – will have the right to "return" to Israel.
In his address, broadcast three days ago, Abbas rejects categorically even the idea that settlement "blocs" will remain in the PA state ("not one stone") and says that any agreement with Israel will be brought before the Palestinian people worldwide, for a referendum that will accept or reject it.

Arab League Head Urges 'Firm Stand' Against Recognizing Israel as Jewish State

Nabil Elaraby, the head of the Arab League, has called on Arab countries to take a "firm stand" against recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.
Elaraby made his remarks Sunday as part of an Arab Foreign Ministers conference in Cairo, the Associated Press reported.
On Friday, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas made similar comments, saying there is "no way" he would recognize Israel as a Jewish state. PA-based Al-Quds newspaper on Saturday quoted U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki as saying, "The American position is clear, Israel is a Jewish state. However, we do not see a need that both sides recognize this position as part of the final [U.S.-brokered peace] agreement." (h/t MtTB)

Arab ministers: Lebanon has right to defend itself against Israel

Lebanon has the right to defend itself against Israeli aggression and to liberate its territories occupied by Israel, Arab League foreign ministers said in Cairo on Sunday.
"Lebanon and the Lebanese have the right to liberate or retrieve the Shebaa Farms, Kfar Shuba Hills and the Lebanese part of the Ghajar village, and to resist any Israeli aggression or occupation with all legitimate and available means," read a joint statement released by the ministers.

Shadow War

The interception last week by the Israeli navy of a ship in the Red Sea carrying rockets apparently destined for Gaza was part of an ongoing battle to block Iranian arms shipments that is usually waged out of the public eye, security officials in Tel Aviv said over the weekend.
"Not a week passes without Israel thwarting an Iranian attempt to transmit arms to terrorist entities threatening Israel's security," a defense official told the Jerusalem Post.
These efforts usually involve non-military means, he said, such as uncovering the name of a company that provides components for Iranian missiles or the name of a bank financing the movement of arms.
However, there are sometimes air or sea strikes hundreds of miles from Israel's borders to stop actual movements.

Israel puts cache from seized arms ship on show

Dozens of rockets, boxes of hundreds thousands of bullets and nearly 200 mortar rounds will be opened for the world to see Monday as Israel puts weapons on show from a recently intercepted ship smuggling arms that it says exposes the "true face of Iran" which allegedly dispatched it.
The IDF says it found 40 long-range M-302 rockets aboard the Panamanian-flagged Klos-C it intercepted in the Red Sea last week, as well as 181 122mm[should be 120mm] mortar shells and approximately 400,000 7.62-caliber rounds.
IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said the mortar rounds had been made in Iran. (h/t Bob Knot)

Iran's Intercepted Weapons Shipment Unloaded in Israel

Congress expected to approve $160 million for Iron Dome

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was informed last week during his visit to Washington that the U.S. Congress is expected to approve an additional $160 million of funding for the Iron Dome missile defense system, Israel Hayom has learned.
Currently, there are seven Iron Dome batteries in operation, and the Israel defense establishment's goal is to have 14 batteries in operation by the end of 2015. The increase would provide Israel's skies with full coverage against rocket threats.

Man killed on border identified as Jordanian judge

A Palestinian man was shot and killed at an Israeli-Jordanian border crossing Monday morning, after reportedly attacking a soldier there.
The incident occurred at the Allenby Bridge border crossing in the Jordan Valley, connecting the West Bank to Jordan.
The shot man was identified by the Palestinian Ma'an news agency as Nablus resident Raed Zeiter, 38.
According to a Facebook page associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's office, Zeiter was a Jordanian passport holder and served as a civil court judge in the Hashemite Kingdom.

Tel Aviv bus bomber sentenced to 25 years in prison

The man who bombed a Tel Aviv bus, wounding 26 people during Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Monday.
Muhammad Abed al-Jaffer Nasser Mafarja was convicted as part of a plea bargain deal he signed in December 2013, which dropped the harshest charges against him and allowed him to avoid a life sentence.

Jewish Home MK's car stoned in West Bank

Palestinians hurled rocks at Jewish Home MK Ayelet Shaked's car late Sunday night. No injuries were reported.
Shaked and her aides were riding in the car when it was pelted with stones near the West Bank settlement of Tapuah, Israel Radio reported.
Damage was caused to the vehicle.

DHS tells American border guards to run away from illegal immigrants hurling rocks at them, fleeing in vehicles

Top administration officials have directed 21,000 border patrol officers to retreat whenever illegal immigrants throw rocks at them, and to avoid getting in front of foreign drug-smugglers' vehicles as they head north with their drug shipments.
"Agents shall not discharge firearms in response to thrown or hurled projectiles… agents should obtain a tactical advantage in these situations, such as seeking cover or distancing themselves," said the instructions, issued Mar. 7, under the signature of Michael Fisher, chief of U.S. Border Patrol.
Agents were also directed to keep their weapons holstered when drug smugglers drive by.
Agents can't use guns against "a moving vehicle merely fleeing from agents," say the instructions. (h/t MtTB)

Bulgarian police recover DNA evidence of one of Burgas bombers

DNA belonging to Lebanese-born Canadian Hassan El Hajj Hassan, the man in charge of the logistics of the attack, was found at a hotel in Nesebar, a nearby resort town.
Hassan, who Bulgarian authorities say remotely detonated the bomb in the suicide bomber's backpack, arrived in the country some three weeks before the attack on June 28, 2012.
He stayed at the hotel in Nesebar for a week. He left two baseball caps and a towel in the hotel room, from which investigators extracted the DNA, according to the report.

Car Bomber Thwarted By Manual Transmission (satire)

A Palestinian man was killed this morning while attempting to attack Israelis with a car bomb, but was unable to drive the vehicle to his selected location. The vehicle he had been provided was a stick-shift transmission and he had only learned to drive automatic. The bomb exploded short of his destination and otherwise caused no damage.
Abdallah El-Fatuh, 22, was on his way out of Jenin toward the nearest IDF roadblock. His handlers in Islamic Jihad had given him a standard transmission 1999 Hyundai Accent, but the Nablus native was apparently too ashamed to admit he was unable to complete his mission for so seemingly silly a reason.

PA minister: Shahid's "sins are forgiven with the first gush of his blood"

Al-Qaeda group's ranks in Gaza growing, leader says

In an interview with The Associated Press, Abu Bakir al-Ansari described a movement that is larger and better organized than is generally believed, with dozens of fighters now in Syria, and claimed his group killed an Italian activist three years ago. He said Gaza's Salafis have agreed with Hamas to observe a truce with Israel for the time being, but that they are ready to fight at any time.
"We have a deal with Hamas to abide by the truce as long as Israel abides," Abu Bakir said. "But once it violates the truce, we fire our rockets without any consultation with Hamas."

EU's Ashton in Tehran: No guarantee of final nuke deal

"This interim agreement is really important but not as important as a comprehensive agreement (which is)… difficult, challenging, and there is no guarantee that we will succeed," Ashton told a joint news conference in Tehran with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Ashton was in Iran Sunday for top-level meetings with officials who are pursuing a track of talks they hope will eventually end international pressure and suspicions over Tehran's nuclear program.
"It is very important that with the support of the people of Iran for the work to going on by the minister and his team and with the support of international community for my work that we should aim to try to succeed," Ashton said.

Kerry calls for return of Jewish-American missing in Iran for 7 years

US Secretary of State John Kerry marked the seventh year since the disappearance of an American Jewish man in Iran with a plea for his safe return.
Robert Levinson, 66, disappeared seven years ago from Kish Island, Iran. He is one of the longest-held American citizens in history, Kerry said in a statement on Sunday.

Saudi princesses plead for freedom

A group of Saudi princesses has reportedly been held in captivity for the past 13 years in villas at the royal compound in Jeddah.
Two of the princesses, daughters of King Abdullah, have appealed for help from the The Sunday Times in emails and phone calls from their guarded home, the British newspaper reported.
Princesses Sahar, 42, and Jawaher, 38, are being held together in one villa, while their sisters Hala, 39, and Maha, 41, are being held in solitary confinement in separate villas on the compound. All four sisters were reportedly placed under the control of three of their half-brothers, at the order of the king.

Comparison of Amnesty coverage of Syria and Israel

Posted: 10 Mar 2014 07:00 AM PDT

Amnesty just released a report about the Palestinian Arabs who have died since last July in the Yarmouk camp in Syria.

A comparison between that report and its most recent report slamming Israel shows in stark terms how biased Amnesty is against Israel.

For Yarmouk, as with Amnesty reports from Egypt and other Arab countries, victims are just statistics. An appendix lists their names here but the report itself gives no detail as to the heartbreaking circumstances of their deaths.

Only when Israel is being blamed are the victims humanized- sometimes three pages dedicated to the circumstances of the death of a single person, plus photos and interviews with their distraught family members.

Here, in black and white, one can see how hard Amnesty works to demonize Israel while letting real crimes against Palestinian Arabs go relatively lightly.

Amnesty reports	Israel/WB	Syria/Yarmouk
Title of report	Trigger-happy	Squeezing the life out of Yarmouk
Number of pages in the report	87	39
Number of civilians killed according to Amnesty	22	194
Time period covered	12 months	8 months
Circumstances of their deaths	Mostly while participating in or near violent acts	Starvation, sniper fire, bombings
Number of extensive personal stories given for victims	At least 18, some three pages long	Zero
Number of photos of victims (dead and injured)	At least 14	Zero
Number of times it uses the word "impunity"	14	1
Number of times it uses the phrase "International law"	24	9
Video produced to support report?	Yes, 4 minutes	No
Placement on Amnesty webpage	Linked from front page, 2 weeks after report issued	On front page the day it was released

160 kilometers, illustrated

Posted: 10 Mar 2014 05:00 AM PDT

The Iranian arms ship is now confirmed to have held some 40 rockets with a range of up to 160 kilometers.

Here is an illustration of 160 km radii, from the northern tip of Gaza and from the northern part of the Sinai, in case the weapons would have ended up in the hands of Sinai jihadists.

Virtually all of Israel, except for Eilat and the far northern parts, would be in range of terror groups in Gaza. Most of Israel, including Eilat and almost all of Judea and Samaria, would be in range of terror groups in the Sinai.

If you assume a very conservative range of 100 km from Hezbollah rockets, then Israel would be entirely within rocket range of Iran-backed terrorists.

Interestingly, the capitals of Jordan and Egypt would also have been in range of Islamist groups in Gaza and the Sinai had these rockets been smuggled in successfully.

Iran would have had all of Israel and critical parts of Jordan and Egypt under direct rocket threat.